New Mexico family alleges racial verbal assault motivated by immigration policies
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KOAT) — A New Mexico family alleges they experienced racially motivated assault while out of town. According to Mario Garcia, he and his family were in Murray, Utah, for a soccer tournament when they experienced racial assault from a stranger while heading into a nearby restaurant on Saturday, March 1, 2025.
Garcia believes the alleged discrimination was driven by the latest immigration policies in the United States. Garcia told KOAT that he and his children are U.S. citizens.
“We’re walking out and going into Cheesecake Factory, a Caucasian male between the age of 30 to 35 years old, caught up to us and started saying racial slurs to us. He started telling us, ‘Go back to Mexico, you are rapists. You are raping our daughters. This made me feel angry and insecure. I was upset this happened in front of my kids,'” Garcia told KOAT.
“We are with four teenagers, and one of our kids heard him say, ‘Yes, you’re going back to Mexico. You’re going back to Mexico. I’m going to call the police. He’s coming for you right now. We engage the guy and start asking him to walk away as he tried to provoke us and get into a fight,” Garcia added. “He continued to say all sorts of racial slurs toward me and my family, which was me and my brother and his wife and his kids, my daughter and a niece and a friend, all because we look different.”
“This is the political environment that we are in today, and this is the tone at the top. This is the language that is being used at the tone at the top. My purpose is to create awareness as we travel outside the state of New Mexico, that these things are happening, and these things are real,” Garcia said.
“We should be alert and think about what are we going to do? Are we going to be bystanders? Unfortunately, in this event, within a mall, we were surrounded by 15 to 20 people or more, and no one said anything. No one offered a word of kindness, a word of support, or a word defuse the situation,” Garcia told KOAT.
Under New Mexico law, if one experiences verbal threats, perpetrators could face a $500 fine and up to six months in jail. KOAT’s legal expert John Day weighed in on the implications that could enhance the penalties of the crime.
“If words are being used to make you fear that you’re about to be hurt, puts you in a fear of danger, fear of imminent attack if those words are being used that way. That could be a crime,” Day told KOAT.
“In New Mexico, you’re allowed to defend yourself against physical harm, and you’re allowed to defend somebody else, but if somebody observes a situation like that where there’s racist attack words being used in a way that puts someone in fear, puts them in fear of an imminent attack, then that’s certainly something you need to call the police on right away,” Day added.
“Assault itself is a petty misdemeanor. In New Mexico, we also have hate crime legislation, which means that if a prosecutor can prove that someone’s motivated by hatred of a person’s race, religion, gender, that can enhance the penalties for a crime. So, if somebody is being attacked verbally for their origin, their race, their religion, their gender, that could elevate that to a hate crime enhancement,” Day said.
Garcia states he filed a police report shortly after the incident and was informed by police they plan to open an investigation into the alleged assault. KOAT requested video of the alleged incident, but Garcia stated he did not have footage.
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