Rep. Gabe Vasquez unveils legislation focused on the border

Oct. 31—Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., unveiled a package of bills Monday that he believes would reduce human trafficking, make it easier to employ immigrant workers and create better accountability over Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

Vasquez is running for reelection next year in New Mexico's competitive District 2, which he won in 2022 by a narrow margin against Republican Yvette Harrell.

Vasquez will propose the package to Republican co-sponsors.

Two of the bills focus on immigrant labor. The Strengthening Our Workforce Act aims to make it easier for critical workers — like those in health care, education, energy production and emergency response — to acquire lawful permanent residency. The bill would create a new two-year provisional status that would allow workers to remain and work in the U.S. legally.

"What I'm hoping to strike a balance of with my bill is to meet the moment of our economic challenges to fill the jobs that some Americans don't want, and to better support our immigrant workforce, who have been here for many years already, either in the shadows or through temporary visa programs, with a pathway built to residency, but at the same time, to be able to provide those goods, those services, and those needs for our communities across the country," Vasquez said.

The Farm Workforce Support Act attempts to address the agricultural workforce shortage with data gathering. The act would ask the Government Accountability Office to study how the H-2A program, which is meant to give agricultural workers temporary working status, has impacted the agricultural workforce in the U.S.

Vasquez's bill package also focuses on border security. He is proposing a bill that would provide $300 million to the Secretary of Homeland Security to hire new personnel, $200 million for new screening technology, and $70 million for port of entry infrastructure improvements.

Vasquez said there are no privacy concerns with the new technology, which has already been deployed at the Santa Teresa port of entry to inspect over 70% of commercial cargo. The port of entry is working on adding detection technology for noncommercial traffic, Vasquez said.

"Think about it kind of like an X-ray," Vasquez said. "And so there's both low energy X-rays and high energy X-rays. In the case of commercial cargo, what we've been able to do is actually have a low energy X-ray for (any) person. And then for the rest of the shipment, we're able to have high energy X-ray inspections for that commercial cargo. So, it's actually a very effective way to be able to inspect cargo that speeds up both international trade and at the same time detects anomalies."

Vasquez said there have already been shipments of methamphetamine confiscated at the border due to the technology.

The COYOTES Act would mandate up to a 10-year sentence on people convicted of human trafficking-related crimes against a minor within a specific radius of areas frequented by children, and would require more communication between CBP, ICE and Congress. The Human Accountability Act attempts to introduce more oversight of immigrant detention centers by requiring CBP, ICE and the Office of Refugee Resettlement to report on migrant detention centers.

"We just want to have oversight and accountability of how federal tax taxpayer dollars are being spent at federal detention centers, whether they're run by ICE, the Customs and Border Protection Agency, or by private contractor," Vasquez said. "And so, this bill will allow us to have the data of what conditions have truly been like for migrants in places like Otero County and in Torrance County in New Mexico."

Cathy Cook is a news reporter for the Albuquerque Journal. Reach her via email at ccook@abqjournal.com