November 16 – October August 30, 2016: Just nine days before the presidential election, Donald Trump, then the Republican candidate, calls on a diverse crowd at a rally in Albuquerque. He gets some of his biggest cheers of the night when he reiterates his promise to build a wall on the state’s southern border.
November 8, 2016: Trump is elected the 45th President of the United States, although New Mexico turns blue.
November 9, 2016: Republican Governor Susana Martinez, whose relationship with Trump has been rocky in the run-up to the election, extends an olive branch. “I may have taken issue with some of the rhetoric during the campaign, but I believe President-elect Trump was a better choice than Hillary Clinton, and I congratulate him on his hard-fought victory,” she said in a statement.
November 17, 2016: The late Javier Gonzales, then mayor of Santa Fe, appears on the national media circuit as the face and voice of sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities like Santa Fe had drawn the ire of Trump, who had vowed to “cancel all federal funding for such cities” the day he took office.
January 18, 2017: The Santa Fe City Council considers a resolution that would denounce many of Trump’s policies, from his proposal to build a wall along the border with Mexico to his plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act purchase. The divisive resolution dies in a tied vote.
January 23, 2017: State Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, D-Albuquerque, introduces a bill that would prohibit state and local police from arresting people based solely on their immigration status.
January 29, 2017: A trio of Democratic lawmakers invite then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to visit the United States after he cancels a trip to Washington in response to Trump’s plans to build a border wall.
February 6, 2017: Hundreds of people gather in the Capitol Rotunda to protest Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and his promise to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.
March 2017: A federal judge in Albuquerque approves a settlement that bars the San Juan County Jail from holding inmates beyond their release dates at the request of federal agents based solely on their immigration status — an order that advocates say is a direct rebuke of the Trump administration.
May 1, 2017: More than 100 people gather in the parking lot of the Somos Un Pueblo Unido office, an immigrant advocacy group, off St. Michael’s Drive to march for labor and immigrant rights.
January 9, 2018: Former state Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Mesilla Park, announces plans to introduce legislation that would ban the use of state land in construction of a new wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
April 4, 2018: Martinez signals she will work with Trump as he tries to enlist Southwestern governors in his stepped-up crackdown on border crossings. Albuquerque police officials quickly ask Martinez to prevent the city’s police officers, who serve in the National Guard, from being deployed at the border.
April 9, 2018: Martinez orders 80 New Mexico National Guard troops to the border to serve in a support role for the U.S. Border Patrol. About 100 more will be shipped later.
May 21, 2018: Martinez is one of several governors and Cabinet officials to join Trump at the White House for a meeting on border security.
June 2018: Martinez says she supports the federal government’s decision to separate children from parents who cross the border illegally, under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance efforts.
June 20, 2018: Michelle Lujan Grisham, then a congresswoman and Democratic gubernatorial candidate, calls on Martinez to cancel the deployment of New Mexico National Guard troops to the border.
June 28, 2018: New Mexico State Police arrest about a dozen people who participated in a protest over immigration issues at the Capitol, ending an hours-long peaceful standoff.
August 14, 2018: Lujan Grisham tours a section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Sunland Park as part of a listening session with the police chief and mayor on issues affecting the city.
November 6, 2018: Lujan Grisham is elected governor of New Mexico in a race against Republican Congressman Steve Pearce.
January 10, 2019: Martinez, now the former governor, defends Trump’s call for a border wall as part of a deal to end the federal government shutdown, saying “it’s disgusting” to blame the situation American border with Mexico cannot be called a crisis.
January 11, 2019: After another visit to Sunland Park, Lujan Grisham says she sees no direct evidence of the security crisis described by Trump and presses US officials there for more information about conditions at a short-term immigrant detention center.
February 2019: Lujan Grisham withdraws New Mexico National Guard personnel from the state’s southern border.
November 18, 2019: U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich ask federal authorities to investigate the conditions and supervision of immigrant detainees held at facilities such as the Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico.
May 4, 2022: The Republican Governors Association launches a television ad criticizing Lujan Grisham over border security — an issue she has been continually criticized for as she seeks a second term.
November 8, 2022: Lujan Grisham is elected to a second term in a race against Republican TV meteorologist Mark Ronchetti.
October 13, 2023: Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez calls for better cooperation between Texas and New Mexico after Texas Governor Greg Abbott orders members of the Texas National Guard to install razor wire along the state’s border with New Mexico.
January 16, 2024: Republicans criticize the governor for her proposals on border security and other issues following her State of the State address.
May 4, 2024: In an op-ed published in The New Mexican, Republican state Reps. Jim Townsend and Randall Pettigrew take aim at the governor over border security, writing that she is “failing to fulfill her duties to protect her constituents.”
May 21, 2024: During a CNN interview, Lujan Grisham calls Republican presidential candidate Trump “the candidate of chaos” at the border as he pushes to block a border security bill that has stalled in Congress due to Republican opposition .
October 31, 2024: Trump, the Republican nominee, attacks Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, on border security during a boisterous rally in Albuquerque, accusing Democrats of lax border enforcement that allows “criminals and terrorists [to] flood your cities with deadly drugs and death [and] giving your jobs to illegal immigrants.”
November 5, 2024: Trump wins the presidential race.
Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.
