ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Now more than ever, New Mexicans must pledge to live unafraid and demand that our state officials invest in education, not deportation,

Our state must make our children’s education a top priority once again by divesting from the immigrant detention industry and investing those resources into education, the future of our state depends on it.

Currently New Mexico is dead last in education nationwide.

It seems our state politicians – those we chose to make the best decisions possible for the better of all New Mexicans – have forgotten that our children are the future of the Land of Enchantment. If we continue to divest from the importance of our children’s education then it will be impossible to make New Mexico a leader in education once again,

In the last 20 years, our rural localities have been flooded by private detention greed which only seeks to profit off of the suffering of people of color and immigrants. These rural New Mexican communities have welcomed these private detention facility contracts under the false pretense that they will help their suffering local economies thrive.

The reality is that communities are being inhibited economically by creating a dependency on a volatile and unsustainable model that is inhumane and immoral and pinpoints our undocumented New Mexicans as primary targets for for-profit incarceration.

The New Mexico Dream Team understands that if this patterns continues, then our state’s future is in jeopardy. For this reason, this year we launched our “Live Unafraid” civic engagement campaign.

The campaign’s education, not deportation platform focuses on informing New Mexicans of the importance of getting those greedy private detention center companies out of our state while reinvesting and allocating state resources to our children’s education.

There are many ways that New Mexicans can join the campaign and fight our state’s future.

The first and easiest way to participate is by signing our online pledge.

Every collected signature will  be presented to our state politicians and demonstrate the need for education reform and call for action by the New Mexican people.

Secondly, you can volunteer to join our door-to-door canvassing and phonebanking initiative by texting the word LIVEUNAFRAID to 877-877. The New Mexico Dream Team is taking this vital issue to the doors and phones  of our communities to ensure that we can reach as many people of our community as possible.  

Lastly, you can make your voice heard this coming November!

Our NM children, undocumented or not, deserves the chance to get the best education possible. Only then will our communities thrive economically and bring that prosperity to the Land of Enchantment.

No state should depend on the inhumane fear, mistreatment, targeting, incarceration, and deportation of undocumented people to be able to prosper. At the end of the day it is our children, our future, who will pay the price.

Join us in declaring your choice to live unafraid. Sign your pledge TODAY.