SUNLAND PARK, New Mexico (KTSM) — A community of horse trainers and groomers who live and work at the Frontera Training Center in Sunland Park, New Mexico, report having been approached and questioned by federal immigration officials at the private property Tuesday morning.
“They asked if we lived here, we said ‘yes.’ They asked for documentation and if we were U.S. citizens, and we said ‘yes.’ And then they wanted us to let them go into our house, that’s when we refused,” said Efren Aguilar Jr., a resident at the property and a U.S. citizen.
Aguilar said he and his roommates stepped outside of their house when a neighbor from one of the next-door barns told them there were “ICE” agents outside going from barn to barn questioning their neighbors and searching the property.
Aguilar captured on camera the moment when ICE and U.S. Border Patrol agents approached and questioned him and his two other roommates at the front porch of their home about their immigration status.
Aguilar said the federal officers tried pressuring them into allowing them to search their home.
“Once we refused that, we were surrounded by them. There was a man with firearms walking around the house and stuff, which I think was very unnecessary,” Aguilar said.
Pedro Zuviate Rivas Jr., a horse groomer at the property, Aguilar’s roommate, and a U.S. citizen, said he had just arrived home from work looking to rest from a long day. The last thing he expected was the intense and troubling experience of being interrogated outside his own home.
“I think it’s logical to think it was racism. They looked at us and approached us. It’s not like we gave them a reason to approach us. In the house we live in, we are all workers. At that moment I was not wearing a hat, I looked bald. I was dirty from work. I’m brown. They approached us just based on those traits,” Zuviate said.
Aguilar and Zuviate said the federal officers remained at the property for about an hour before leaving. They said they heard that a couple of colleagues were arrested at the property that day.
The ramped-up immigration enforcement efforts in the Borderland and across the country, like the one Aguilar and Zuviate experienced, have been making the rounds on social media.
Dr. Damir Utrzan, a licensed marriage and family therapist, who has dedicated his career to understanding the trauma tied to immigration, said that President Donald Trump’s strong approach to immigration enforcement is aggravating fear and uncertainty among immigrant and refugee communities that they have experienced throughout their lives.
“Immigrant and refugee communities (are) afraid of speaking with anyone that has a perceived affiliation with a government entity, because in other parts of the world, because in other parts of the world, those government entities are used as an arm for enforcement and punishment. It causes social isolation, and intergenerational trauma,” said Utrzan.
Utrzan said while strong immigration policies are not novel, nor is the concept of anxiety, depression, and PTSD affecting immigrant families, he said Trump has taken things a step further.
“The current administration is taking a much more, punitive approach and not only politicizing enforcement actions, but also empowering different federal agencies to utilize powers that they historically haven’t used. And so, with that comes a lot of uncertainty,” Utrzan said.
Samantha Singleton, a policy director for the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR), said that the best way for people to combat that fear and uncertainty is to become educated in their constitutional rights, which protect people regardless of their immigration status.
“What people should know, what community members should know, regardless of their status, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their race, is that the Fourth Amendment does protect them from unlawful search and seizure. There has to be a probable cause and that the officer does have to show a warrant. They can’t just bust through your door,” Singleton said.
The BNHR launched a “Know Your Rights” campaign earlier this year to inform the immigrant community about their constitutional rights.
KTSM reached out to ICE and U.S. Border Patrol to inquire about the incident, but we haven’t heard back yet.
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