I went on a road trip through Southern NM a couple years ago. Highly recommend stopping at Gila National Forest - it's a certified "dark park", remote enough from sources of light to see the Milky Way with the naked eye.

One thing that struck me - towns down there had a template. 90% of towns we drove through were just a blood plasma "donation" center, a dollar store, a gas station, and a cemetery. Very bleak existence out there, oil and gas boom notwithstanding.

That is a very common pattern. Probably 90% of poor rural America is like that. And the lucky towns have those stores, others not even.

That sounds amazing. It is now on the travel list!

What I was told, was it was anti-undocumented stuff.

People don’t want immigrants getting help that residents pay for, so they turn the spigots off for everyone.

I haven't seen anything like that. The biggest factor you can clearly point to is that NM has some of the lowest salaries for doctors combined with some of the highest medical insurance premiums.

If you live there, and don't agree, then I stand corrected. I was told this by someone that lives there, but that's a sample size of 1 (from Albuquerque).

The icing on the cake there was that they just gerrymandered NM recently in a way that took all representation away from southern NM.

I know other states have as well, so nothing new there, but seeing as they basically fund all the state's social projects, felt a bit done wrong.