Gina Auz Granillo marches with an American flag with thousands of other protesters during the Immigrant and Workers Day of Action rally at the state Capitol in Santa Fe Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. Photo by Michael G. Seamans/The New Mexican

By DANIEL J. CHACÓN
The Santa Fe New Mexican

Nearly four decades ago, Octavio Burrola swam across the Rio Grande with nothing more than a dream and a plastic bag with a change of clothes.

Now a legalized citizen and retired, Burrola — who said he served 24 years in the National Guard — joined a throng of some 1,300 demonstrators from across the state Monday at the state Capitol to celebrate immigrants’ contributions to society and demand stronger protections for workers and their families.

Burrola said he figured turnout for the Immigrant and Workers Day of Action rally would be much smaller. But he said people, whether undocumented or not, are pushing back against the policies of Republican President Donald Trump, who has promised mass deportations and a crackdown on border security.

“Some people are afraid but not to the point that they’re not going to come to this,” said Burrola, who was wearing a blue T-shirt with an image of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa akin to Uncle Sam with the words, “I want you gringo.”

“They’re pissed,” he added. “That’s the reason there’s such a big crowd here — and not only immigrants but a lot of white people.”

The demonstration started with a march that began at Railyard Park and ended with a boisterous rally outside the Roundhouse. The crowd was so big and so loud lawmakers said they could hear the demonstrators from inside the building.

“No somos uno, no somos cien. Somos millones, cuéntanos bien,” the crowd chanted several times in Spanish: “We are not one. We are not a hundred. We are millions. Count us right.”

Several lawmakers, including House Speaker Javier Martínez, who was born in El Paso and raised in Ciudad Juárez until he was 8, took turns addressing the crowd, either in English or Spanish, or a combination of the two.

“I have the honor of having grown up in this movement like you, like a person who grew up in a home of immigrants, a person who lived that fear,” Martínez said in Spanish.

Later, he said he had a surprise for the federal government and Trump: “¡Aquí estamos, y no nos vamos!” — “We are here, and we are not leaving.”

Some lawmakers said they were sponsoring bills to protect undocumented immigrants.

“I’m very proud to be sponsoring two of the bills that will impact our immigrant community,” Rep. Eleanor Chávez, D-Albuquerque said. “One is on education. The other one has to deal with [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] detention facilities in New Mexico and banning the fact that we have contracts with ICE in New Mexico. We don’t want that anymore.”

Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber and City Councilors Alma Castro and Pilar Faulkner also spoke at the event.

“I want to welcome you all here because we are a safe, open, welcoming, immigrant-friendly city — the city of Santa Fe,” Webber said to cheers and applause.

“We always have been. We always will be. It’s right here in our city charter,” he said. “It says we will be a city that practices tolerance, and we accept all people without regard to citizenship status. That means we treat everyone with dignity and with respect, and we honor their contributions to our city and to our state regardless of their immigration status. In fact, here in New Mexico and in Santa Fe, we welcome immigrants.”

Webber said “there may be some ICE agents here today,” drawing boos from the audience.

“If they’re here, I have two messages,” he said. “One, we’re not afraid. Let me say it again. We are not afraid. We’re not afraid because we stand in the light, and we stand against the darkness, and to the ICE agents, I say, ‘Here’s our message of hope to you: Quit today. Quit your jobs. Come join us, and that way 10 or 20 years from now, you won’t have to explain to your grandchildren why you helped to write one of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history.’ “

Marcela Diaz, executive director of the nonprofit worker and immigrant rights group Somos Un Pueblo Unido, said immigrants are being vilified by the Trump administration.

“I think people are ready to stand up for our communities and the dignity of immigrant workers and immigrant families,” she said.

“We are so tired of being scapegoated by politicians and certainly this president, so people are not afraid, and they are standing up for themselves,” she said.

“They’re demanding that their contributions to this state and their essentialness to this state be recognized, and they’re demanding that the state do everything in its power not to use our resources that we generate for the state against us but to use our resources to support our families and our communities.”