Visiting Scholar seeks answers in UNM archives
June 24, 2021
Visiting Scholar seeks answers in UNM archives
“One of the most interesting discoveries I made in the Southwest Research Center archives at UNM involving sanctuary movements and immigrant rights organizing in New Mexico was that in 1983 the Roswell City Council unanimously approved to repurpose the Roswell International Air Center as one of the first private immigrant detention centers in the nation. A coalition of faith-based and Latino groups organized to block the detention center and they were successful.
"The grassroots campaign sparked the immigrant rights movement in the region. As the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s was emerging, so were privatized immigration detention centers, which were new at the time. New Mexico was at the center of these developments, which continue to be relevant today concerning refugees from Central America.”
