Today Governor Susana Martinez spoke to Univision News of
New Mexico over the controversy of the origin of her immigrant grandparents who
arrived to this country from Mexico and they also did not have a driver’s
license. David Alire has the report:

Alire: A month ago the news came out that Governor Susana
Martinez is a granddaughter of undocumented immigrants. According to the
investigation by the principal daily newspaper of Santa Fe, Adolfo and
Francisca Martinez, paternal grandparents of the governor, arrived in the
United States from Mexico in 1930 without papers. Today for the first time
Martinez spoke to Univision News of New Mexico directly on this subject about
her family while she fiercely fights the law that grants drivers’ licenses to
the undocumented.

Martinez: I did not know my grandfather or my grandmother.
She died when my grandfather… when my father was about one year of age. After
that, my grandfather abandoned the family. I know they arrived here, I know
they arrived undocumented. Specially my father… my father’s father.

Alire: The first Latina governor in the state’s history
notes that many people at that time crossed the border frequently without
papers.

Martinez: When he arrived, we didn’t know how they arrived
to The United States. We now have a document that tells it. In those days it
was very different.

Alire: Though she did not say if her grandfather would have
been a threat to public safety, the same description she now has for the
undocumented with a driver’s license, she repeated her position.

Martinez: In those days, the law was very different. We have
had and have suffered many things since, simply September eleventh, what
happened ten years ago. That is why we have to make sure that when people
arrive to The United States, that they don’t come to New Mexico to obtain a
driver’s license with false documents.

Alire: Marcela Diaz, Director of the pro immigrant group
Somos Un Pueblo Unido (we are a united people) has her own theory.

Diaz: I think she is concerned for her own political career.
It is obvious that it is the most important thing to her and not her links to
our community nor her family history.

Alire: Meanwhile she describes the governor’s position as an
enormous irony. She will also not change her (audio skips) to the community.

Diaz: There are many reasons why politicians do what they
do. Our duty, our responsibility our obligation is to keep fighting for our
families and that is precisely what we are doing.

David Alire, Univision News, New Mexico

I am Hispanic and here is my translation: She is
gone!