19-02-2025
Bill would bar N.M. counties from entering agreements with immigrant detention centers
About 1,500 people facing deportation are being held in three New Mexico detention centers that have long been accused of inhumane conditions, according to New Mexico Immigrant Law Center managing attorney Sophia Genovese.
Immigration detention at those facilities is based on intergovernmental agreements between the federal government and Torrance, Cibola and Otero counties. The counties in turn hire private contractors to actually manage the detention centers. It's an arrangement that lets the federal government sidestep normal procurement processes with the private contractors — and, Genovese said, allows those facilities to operate with less transparency.
'Essentially, we have counties acting as the middlemen here,' Genovese said in an interview.
As newly inducted President Donald Trump pushes policies to broaden the detention and deportation of those not in the U.S. legally, a number of state House Democrats are looking to close that contracting loophole. House Bill 9, dubbed the Immigrant Safety Act, would bar state and local governments from entering agreements with other agencies for the purpose of detaining people for federal civil immigration violations and require them to cancel any existing ones.
'This is not a private prison ban, it only regulates New Mexico state and local government,' one of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Eleanor Chávez, D-Albuquerque, told lawmakers of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee on Tuesday. 'It gets New Mexico's public bodies out of the business of immigration detention.'
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been looking in recent months for more space to hold immigrant detainees in the region, according to earlier reporting, with a possible deal with Lea County on the horizon. Genovese and other advocates said they believe HB 9 would stymie that deal as well.
Similar iterations of HB 9 have failed in recent legislative sessions, often on the Senate floor. On Tuesday, the measure cleared its first committee, passing the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee on a 4-2 party-line vote, with Democrats voting in favor.
Genovese said the bill would target three facilities in New Mexico: the Torrance County Detention Facility, the Cibola County Correctional Center and the Otero County Processing Center.
Each has faced allegations of inhumane conditions over the years. For example, in December, the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center argued asylum seekers at the Cibola County Correctional Center faced widespread medical neglect, contributing to 'systemic, needless suffering' of detainees.'
In 2022, detainees said they faced retaliation from staff at the Torrance County Detention Facility for engaging in hunger strikes to protest conditions. That echoed interviews published in 2019 by The New Mexican of asylum-seekers who said authorities had used solitary confinement as punishment for their hunger strikes at Otero and Cibola counties detention centers.
Spokespeople for Torrance, Cibola and Otero counties could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Republicans on the committee — whose districts encompass or are near to the Torrance County and Otero County facilities — expressed concerns with the bill, arguing the measure could mean lost jobs in areas with few to go around.
'You're going to take away jobs, and there's really no other jobs out there,' said Rep. Stefani Lord, R-Sandia Park, whose district encompasses the Torrance County facility.
Rep. John Block, R-Alamogordo, questioned if sending detainees along was the best practice, arguing that if 'we are looking for the betterment of these folks' lives, I don't think pushing them just to another facility in another state … would be the most efficient way to do this.'
