Sunland Park

History

Sunland Park was formed when the unincorporated communities of Anapra, Sunland Park, and Meadow Vista voted to incorporate as Sunland Park on July 13, 1983. In February 2012, then-Mayor Pro Tem Daniel Salinas and City Manager Jaime Aguilera were arrested and charged with extortion of mayoral candidate Gerardo Hernandez. Salinas and Aguilera allegedly tried to blackmail Hernandez into withdrawing from the race with a videotape of Hernandez receiving a lap dance in his campaign office. An election for mayor was held in March 2012, with Daniel Salinas winning the mayor's office, but he was denied taking office due to extortion, bribery, and election fraud charges filed against him, which disqualified him from taking an oath of office. A private organization, named We Build the Wall built a 0.5-mile wall on at the border of Sunland Park and Mexico in 2019. Privately financed using a GoFundMe campaign, the wall was built on private property but the gate they constructed blocked access needed to maintain a federal dam. The barrier in Sunland Park also blocked access to Monument One, an official marker of the International Boundary and Water Commission that was set where New Mexico, Texas and the Mexican state of Chihuahua converge. Lighting along the stretch was shut off in 2021 after the group failed to pay electricity bills, and the owner of the land upon which the wall stood owed property taxes and penalties. The group's leaders built only two small stretches of wall/fencing, while defrauding donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which were diverted to personal expenses. Among the group's organizers, Brian Kolfage pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and a tax offense; Steve Bannon was also criminally charged, but accepted a pardon from Donald Trump during his…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, Sunland Park has a total area of , of which is land and , or 2.02%, is covered by water. Sunland Park is the only U.S. border town to the south of the Rio Grande. The city sits close to the unincorporated community of Santa Teresa, New Mexico, another border town.

Race & ethnicity