New Mexico immigrant advocates launch platform for training, job opportunities amid federal threats

Somos Un Pueblo Unido, a New Mexico immigrant advocacy organization, on Thursday launched an online platform seeking to connect foreign-born residents with a variety of state workforce development programs aimed at connecting workers with industries that need them.

Marcela Diaz, the organization’s executive director, said the platform, Somos Futuro, represents the culmination of several years of advocacy, but also launches at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to exclude immigrants from the workforce. She referenced the Trump administration’s crackdown on non-English-speaking long-haul truck drivers and a recent lawsuit against states including New Mexico that allow some immigrants to receive tuition assistance.

According to the state Department of Workforce Solutions, 21% of the state’s agricultural workers and 24% of construction workers are immigrants. A 2024 study that Somos Un Pueblo Unido commissioned from the University of New Mexico also found Latinos make up 46% of workers in the state’s oil and gas industry, which the state increasingly relies on to fund education and other vital services.

Given the role immigrant workers play in buttressing the state’s economy, Diaz said she and other immigrant advocacy organizations have, over the last three years at the Roundhouse, convinced state lawmakers to provide roughly $40 million in funding through different pieces of legislation for English as a Second Language courses, job training and financial assistance to help immigrant families achieve career objectives or higher wages.

“It’s pretty terrible when you’re giving so much to the education system through your essential work and not have commensurate investments in your families and your communities,” she said. 

The platform, in English and Spanish, connects immigrant workers to as many of those new and existing programs as possible, including to adult education opportunities, English classes, high school equivalency programs, career training and professional certification courses. 

One such program, the Economic Transition Program, is geared at oil and gas workers who are seeking to find new careers. Somos’ 2024 UNM report found that roughly three-quarters of the 100 immigrant oilfield workers they surveyed wanted their children to work in another industry, citing the sometimes dangerous work environment and long hours. 

Many workers do not know about that program or others Somos Futuro seeks to highlight, Diaz said.  

“Even when the programs exist in Spanish or regardless of immigration status or with wraparound supports, a lot of our members and people in the community don’t have a one-stop shop for it. They don’t have information about it,” she said. “And so that’s why we decided to just share what we know.”