New Mexico Democrat Candidate Doesn’t Want a ‘Single Dollar’ Spent on Completing Border Wall

The Democrat seeking to fill New Mexico’s First Congressional District seat vacated by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is opposed to finishing the southern border wall, she said during a debate just a few weeks ahead of the June 1 special election.

A KOB 4 moderator questioned State Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-Albuquerque) during Tuesday’s debate about the incomplete wall and reports from ranchers of drug smuggling occurring at its gaps. “What are your ideas to secure the nation’s borders?” the moderator asked.

“Not a single dollar should be spent on that border wall. It is critical that we address our immigration challenges head on by ensuring that we have a fair, just, and equitable asylum and immigration system,” Stansbury answered.

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She continued, “We have border security. We have significant technology and resources that are manning the border and we can address our challenges by leveraging those resources, addressing comprehensive immigration reform, supporting our asylum system,” adding again the need to ensure “we have a just, fair, and equitable immigration and asylum system.”

An update this year from U.S. Customs and Border Protection reveals the 2,000-mile-long southern border has 771 miles of barriers, 450 of which represents new or updated barriers from when former President Donald Trump was in office. An interactive map from the agency displays gaps in all four U.S.-Mexico border states, including New Mexico.

State Sen. Mark Moores (R), the Republican candidate challenging Stansbury, said he has visited the wall and finds the gaps invite “dangerous” conditions for New Mexicans when human traffickers and drug smugglers illegally funnel into his state through those gaps.

Moores said during the debate, “My opponent doesn’t want to finish it and actually address the issue, and we need to finish it. It’s a stark difference between the two of us.”

The debate question comes amid a crisis at the southern border where numbers of migrants crossing the border illegally — many of whom are not able to be apprehended by Border Patrol agents and therefore enter the interior of the country entirely unvetted — have surged in recent months.

President Joe Biden immediately halted construction of the border wall when he took office and, despite the surging illegal crossings, has since terminated its construction, a move some experts have speculated may have been unlawful because federal funds had already been allocated toward wall construction.

Democrats’ have frequently adopted a position against the wall while its construction was a signature project of former President Donald Trump, but the Biden administration is facing pressure to address the reports of the surging illegal crossings, especially from some local officials, who “have repeatedly asked for federal help and rebuked the administration’s lack of controls on illegal immigration that are inundating their towns and neighborhoods,” Breitbart News’s John Binder reported.

A Never Trump New York Times columnist recently wrote an op-ed titled “Biden should finish the wall,” contending Biden’s attempt at “compassion” for illegal migrants is also an “inducement to recklessness” and called the wall a “functional deterrent against the most reckless forms of border crossing.”

Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com.