ALBUQUERQUE — In an exclusive interview with the New Mexico Sentinel, America First Policy Institute Director of Hispanic Engagement Alfonso Aguilar said Hispanic voters in New Mexico remain open to supporting President Trump’s agenda, even as he pressed state Republicans and Hispanic leaders to rally support for the SAVE Act — the federal voter ID and citizenship-verification bill that has stalled in Congress despite Trump’s repeated public appeals.

Aguilar was the first Chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship, appointed by President George W. Bush to lead the federal office responsible for promoting immigrant integration and civic education, including development of the current U.S. naturalization test. He went on to hold senior posts in the Bush administration and the government of Puerto Rico, including deputy director of public affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy and press secretary to former Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rosselló.

Before joining AFPI, he led Hispanic engagement efforts at the American Principles Project and served as president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles — giving him three decades of standing in national conservative Hispanic politics.

Aguilar now directs AFPI’s Hispanic Leadership Coalition, a national initiative that says its mission is to unite Hispanics around faith, family, freedom and work, and to build what it calls “an unprecedented conservative Hispanic movement.” The coalition has actively lobbied for the SAVE Act, sending a letter signed by 15 of its members to the U.S. Senate this year urging its passage. AFPI itself, a Washington-based nonprofit policy shop stocked with former Trump administration officials, describes its guiding principles as liberty, free enterprise, national greatness and “the primacy of American workers, families and communities.”

Aguilar’s New Mexico visit came five days after Trump delivered a prime-time address to the nation on July 16 urging Americans to press Congress to pass the SAVE Act, which he says would “guarantee” fair elections. Election security and the SAVE Act were the dominant themes to emerge from a closed-door roundtable Aguilar held Monday in Albuquerque with faith leaders, elected officials and social media influencers, he told the Sentinel.

“Guaranteed election integrity” is central to how Hispanics will vote in New Mexico this cycle, Aguilar said.

“I’m pretty sure that if you ensure that elections are secure and not [subject] to fraud in the state of New Mexico, I think America First candidates and Republicans are going to do much better,” he said. “We’ve seen that our electoral system, throughout the country, [is] vulnerable.”

Aguilar pointed to Trump’s address, in which the president announced the declassification of intelligence he said showed foreign adversaries — including China and North Korea — have the capability to access voter databases and vote-counting systems.

“We have external actors, geopolitical adversaries, from China to North Korea, that have the capability of accessing electoral databases, websites, that have the capacity to access systems that transmit votes, that count votes,” Aguilar said. “The system is vulnerable.”

He cited a Department of Homeland Security study he said found more than 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote across four states — Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Nevada and California.

“It would be very naive to think that there’s no fraud, that those foreign individuals are not voting,” Aguilar said. “That’s why we need the SAVE Act.”

Three provisions

Aguilar laid out what he described as the SAVE Act’s three core components: a photo ID requirement to vote, proof of citizenship to register, and tighter restrictions on mail ballots.

“First, ensuring that to vote, you have to show an ID,” he said. “Secondly, to register, you have to show that you’re a citizen. And third, that ballots [are] only mailed to people who have a legitimate reason” — such as illness, travel or military service — “[to] stop the practice of sending ballots to everyone without any excuse.”

Aguilar rejected arguments from Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., who has repeatedly called the SAVE Act a voter-suppression measure targeting rural, elderly, Native American and Hispanic voters.

“It’s insulting to say that Hispanics cannot get an ID,” Aguilar said. “You cannot live in America [without an ID] — to open a bank account, you need an ID, to get certain medication, you need an ID. It’s impossible to live in America without an ID. So it’s absolutely ridiculous to say that it would suppress the vote.”

Aguilar cited a Pew Research study he said found 82% of Hispanics believe voters should be required to show ID at the polls.

“This is not controversial,” he said. “The vast majority of Americans, the vast majority of African Americans, the vast majority of Democrats support the principles of the SAVE Act. So why are Democrats opposing [it]? I think it’s because they want to leave the system open to fraud.”

Local context

Aguilar also pointed to the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent legal fight with New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver over access to the state’s unredacted voter rolls as evidence of what he sees as resistance to election security measures at the state level.

“We got a current secretary of state that is fighting the Department of Justice on their audit of the voter rolls,” Aguilar said, describing her as “very antagonistic towards any efforts to clean voter rolls and tighten the reins.”

A federal judge dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit against Toulouse Oliver on July 14, ruling the department’s demand for the data lacked a legal basis — one of at least 15 similar rulings against the DOJ nationally. Aguilar characterized the matter as ongoing and under appeal; no appeal had been filed as of publication, though the case remains within the window for DOJ to do so.

A broader pitch

Aguilar framed the SAVE Act push as part of a wider argument that the America First economic and public-safety agenda is built to keep, not just win, Hispanic support — pointing to falling core inflation, declining violent crime and border enforcement numbers, alongside the administration’s rollback of transgender athletic participation policies under Title IX.

Asked how the movement maintains Hispanic support as some national polling shows erosion since 2024, Aguilar said the answer is sustained, year-round engagement rather than election-season outreach.

“What the America First movement needs to do is continue to engage the Hispanic community,” he said. “We are making a commitment to create a permanent presence in the Hispanic community … If we continuously communicate the America First policies, and the achievements of America First governments, Hispanics will respond favorably and will support America First candidates in elections.”

Asked for a closing message to New Mexicans, Aguilar said: “This is the time to start organizing … We have to win the battle of ideas. We believe we have a winning message, and if we share it with the Hispanic community, they will support that message.”