2 weeks Ago
On a quiet gravel road near the edge of the United States, Amanda Adame drives toward the border, passing a small emergency tower. It’s meant for migrants in distress — a button to summon Border Patrol. Less than a mile ahead, a steel wall rises.
But it doesn’t go on forever. "You can see where the partial wall has not been finished," she says, stopping where the barrier abruptly ends and desert begins. Adame has lived most of her life in Luna County, a few miles from Mexico.
Her family’s ranch spans 40 square miles, where she has crossed paths with drug runners, armed smugglers, and desperate migrants. "It was an everyday occurrence," she recalls. "They were trafficking drugs, people, and arms.
" She remembers the day she almost didn’t come home, spotting seven men armed with rifles at one of her water troughs. "I knew if I had gone down there without paying attention, something probably would have happened to us," she says. Now, she says things are better.
She sees fewer migrants and feels more protected. But she’s still frustrated. "The border's broken," she says.
"Everything's broken — the wall, the immigration system. If there was a way we could fix it all, that would be a blessing in disguise." Much of the southern border remains unfinished, marked not by steel walls but monuments like Monument 40, remnants of an 1848 treaty with Mexico.
"Each monument," Adame says, "if you stand at one, you can see the next." Construction on President Donald Trump’s border wall halted in 2021 after President Joe Biden took office. It hasn't resumed.
Despite the wall, crossings still happen — just less frequently on Adame’s ranch. In nearby Sunland Park, it's a different story. "This has been the busiest sector in the nation," Border Patrol Agent Orlando Marrero said.
"People think the wall is the actual border. It is not." Instead, the real boundary lies five feet beyond the steel fencing — a legal nuance, but one that complicates enforcement.
Arrests are down 64% compared to the same time last year. But Marrero says new policies are likely driving that drop. Under the Trump administration, a "catch and release" policy ended.
Now, those caught between ports of entry are detained, processed, and placed in deportation proceedings. Sunland Park firefighters see the aftermath of some crossing attempts. Chief Daniel Medrano says his crews respond to a dozen migrant-related calls every day.
"We see a lot of open fractures," he says. "Bones through skin, skull fractures. It runs the gamut.
" In 2024, four migrants drowned in the Rio Grande. Others were found dead in the desert, succumbing to heat, dehydration, or injury. Fire Capt.
Abraham Garcia says the paths migrants take are anything but simple. "It looks easy from the road," he says. "But you’re met with different obstacles.
" Rosa crossed the desert 20 years ago, pregnant, with a toddler on her shoulders. She was fleeing an abusive husband and paid a coyote — a human smuggler — to lead her across the border. "I didn’t think about myself," she says.
"I thought about my children." She settled in New Mexico, drawn by its sanctuary policies. She earned a degree in early childhood education, raised three children, and worked legally — all while undocumented.
One of her children is now a nurse, another studies mechanical engineering, and her son was his high school’s valedictorian. "I think I made the best for my children," Rosa says. But she lives in fear.
"We don’t let them leave at night," she says. "They don’t leave us because they are afraid." When her father died in 2005, she paid another coyote $10,000 to return to the U.
S. after the funeral. She hasn’t been back since.
Now, her mother is sick in Mexico — but she can’t risk leaving again. Oscar Garcia, now a U.S.
citizen and soccer referee, remembers his own journey from Mexico. "I never played on a grass field until I was 17," he says. He fell in love, got married, and spent years — and thousands of dollars — navigating the immigration system.
"It’s a blessing," he says, "but not everyone gets that opportunity." His wife, Erica, remembers being questioned during interviews with immigration agents. "They wanted to make sure I wasn’t being paid under the table to marry him," she says.
Even legal immigrants face challenges. U.S.
citizen Susana Cisneros crosses from Juárez daily. Wait times are long, and questioning has intensified. "It has been harder," she says.
"Especially Sundays — it’s horrible." There are currently an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.
According to data obtained by sister station KOAT, 1,300 immigrants in New Mexico have lived here for more than 20 years and still faced deportation hearings. Since 2002, 10 immigrants were deported after being accused or convicted of murder, and dozens more for robbery or sexual assault. Now, under Trump-era changes, the IRS shares data with ICE.
Activist Marcela Diaz says it’s a dangerous shift. "It will impact not just families,” she says, “but our tax base here in New Mexico." Rosa is trying to become a citizen through the Violence Against Women Act.
So far, it’s cost her $5,000 and 18 months of waiting. But she’s terrified. "They have all my information," she says.
In January, her friend Gregorio was deported. He’d lived in Albuquerque for 30 years, held a job, paid taxes, owned a home — and disappeared after an ICE warrant. Now Rosa watches, waits, and tries to stay invisible.
Amanda, the rancher from Luna County, believes immigration reform must benefit everyone — those risking everything to cross the desert, and those defending the land on the other side. "What we could do," she says, "is make it easier for them to come work." Until then, she’ll keep looking over her shoulder — and hoping for change.
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