Santa Fe, NM (KKOB) – Santa Fe city leaders are voicing concerns after a series of immigration enforcement operations led to multiple arrests across the city this week.
City and federal officials including Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez, discussed the issue Thursday following reports that more than a dozen people had been taken into custody by ICE agents, including a man arrested outside La Familia Medical Center while taking his 11-year old daughter to a doctor’s appointment. The man, identified as Edgar Chacon Miranda, was detained in the clinic parking lot. A relative of the little girl spoke during a news conference that her cousin was also interrogated by ICE agents while she was inside the car as her farther was being arrested and that agents threatened to break the windows of the vehicle if he did not get out of the car. A spokes person with the Department of Homeland Security says he was arrested for being in the country illegally and cited a long criminal record as well.
However, our news partners at KOAT report court records show the charges referenced by federal authorities were dismissed in 2018 and never refiled.
Santa Fe city leaders are now considering measures that would limit immigration enforcement activity on city owned property. Rep. Leger Fernandez wants to prevent those arrested from being moved out of New Mexico to other state detention centers. In another incident mentioned during the news conference a woman spoke how her mother-in-law was taken away by agents after being stopped while they were also on a medical visit along with a 2-month old baby.
