On Feb. 5, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the Immigrant Safety Act into law after passing both the Senate and the House, largely along party lines. With the passing of the bill, New Mexico joins eight other states that have recently passed legislation limiting state involvement in federal immigration proceedings, according to ACLU New Mexico.
The new law will go into effect in May, and prohibits public bodies, such as state or county entities, from entering into or continuing agreements with federal immigration officials in detaining individuals for civil immigration violations and prohibits the use of public land for immigration detention centers, like those existing in Torrance, Cibola and Otero Counties. Also prohibited is the deputizing of local law enforcement as immigration officers.
The act was sponsored by state Reps. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe), Eleanor Chávez (D-Albuquerque), Angelica Rubio (D-Las Cruces), Marianna Anaya (D-Albuquerque) and Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-31).
Romero said she had been in support of similar legislation for a few years before the recent actions of immigration officials under the Trump administration, saying it originally came from her opposition to the private prison complex that allows private companies to operate detention centers in partnership with the government.
All three of the immigration detention centers in New Mexico are operated by the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement and private prison operators, with the county serving as a passthrough, according to Innovation Law Lab.
“I think it’s our responsibility as communities to deal with detainees in our own community,” Romero said. “We have been looking to try and fix these problems as a value for many years. Now we know what ICE was doing and the public knows how completely egregious their behaviors and activities have been and the way they’ve been violating our constitutional rights. It’s clear they’re just trying to fill beds. The for-profit contractors in our communities were able to operate with impunity and no one held them accountable for the rights violations across the board. It’s important to take this out of our community.”
In September 2025, the New Mexico Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reported unsanitary conditions and inadequate medical care within the New Mexico facilities and recommended their closure to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
In May 2025, immigration officials were told in a meeting with White House advisor Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that the daily goal for individuals deported or detained in deportation arrests would be 3,000, a claim later denied by the Trump administration, according to
Romero said though the bill was passed along partisan lines, a few Democrats voted against it due to economic development and employment issues.
A bill to reimburse local and county governments for one year of lost revenue caused by the Immigrant Safety Act was passed by both chambers and awaits the governor’s signature at the time of publication.
Because the facility in Otero County is the only of the three actually owned by the county and not a private company, it is in graver danger than those in Torrance and Cibola countries. Otero County Manager Pamela Heltner told the Santa Fe New Mexican that she expected their facility to close as a result.
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Rayellen Smith, the president of progressive activist group Indivisible Albuquerque, said under the existing agreements between county officials, the federal government and the private operators, there was a clause in these contracts that allowed the county to make sure those people were being held humanely.
“The county commission had oversight rights into how the prisons were treating people and there were so many protests and open comment periods at county commission meetings,” Smith said. “I watched immigrant rights groups come to the meeting and people would give testimony as to how their family members were being mistreated in the prisons, that was the oversight we had and now that it’s against the law in New Mexico to contract with private prisons, they don’t have any obligation to report to the county. We’ve just taken ourselves out as the middlemen.”
Romero said the state could take pride in the fact the state would no longer be complicit in any ill actions in the facilities or at the hands of immigration officials.
“We are not violating laws or human rights, we are not the purveyor of these prisons, so the accountability, thankfully, is to the federal government if they want to do this. We are no longer in this business practice and it’s important that the states be done with this type of detention. It’s up to the feds to get it right and the scrutiny is up to them,” Romero said.
Romero said New Mexico law enforcement authorities will continue to target criminals and detain them in New Mexico, but not law abiding citizens and people who cause no harm to the community.
“It was a priority for so many of us right in the heart of what we’ve been seeing nationally and it was really critical that we got it done. When it was passed, there was a huge sense of community and unity in what our values are and a celebration of who we are as a state. There’s just a lot of great things that have come out of that type of reunion with our own values that this bill really allowed to shine through,” Romero said.
Penelope Loyd Sment is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on X @DailyLobo
