Immigrant Safety Act Would End County's Relationship with CoreCivic
The Immigrant Safety Act, House Bill 9 (HB-9,) was introduced to the New Mexico House of Representatives on February 12, 2025. Representatives Eleanor Chávez, Angelica Rubio, Andrea Romero, Marianna Anaya, and Christine Chandler sponsored the bill, which passed through the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee that day with a "do pass" recommendation on February 19, 2025. Similarly, the House Judiciary Committee made a "do pass" recommendation on the bill on March 1, 2025. The House of Representatives passed the bill with a vote of 35 in favor and 25 against, with 10 representatives not voting (out of 70), on March 7, 2025. The next day, March 8, 2025, the bill was referred to the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee, where it awaits recommendation.
The Immigrant Safety Act (link to HTML version of the bill) would create a ban against working with the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, with its first provision stating that "No public body may enter into, renew or otherwise agree to be a party to any agreement to detain individuals for federal civil immigration violations, including any intergovernmental services agreement to detain individuals for federal civil immigration violations." The second provision of the act would require public bodies that have already entered into such agreements to terminate those agreements. The third provision, targeting the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia and the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, bars public bodies - including county and local governments - from actions intended to "sell, trade, lease or otherwise dispose of any real property for the detention of individuals for federal civil immigration violations." In the next provision, HB-9 Section 3(D) bars public bodies from continuing any agreement entered into before the bill is passed (if it ends up being passed) regarding the use of land for ICE detention of immigration detainees. This would, in effect, void the contract entered into by Torrance County with ICE and CoreCivic regarding ICE's use of the TCDF facility.
In Estancia, Mayor Nathan Dial was critical of the proposed legislation.
"In my opinion, the Democrat party in control of the State has wanted to shut down private prisons for some time while at the same time opposing Federal Immigration laws. This legislation accomplishes both by circumventing Local Sovereign Governmental agencies from doing what is best for their community and essentially shutting down private prisons."
Nathan Dial, via an email dated February 19, 2025
The five sponsors of the bill - and local representative Stefani Lord (R-22) - were asked if the bill was, as Dial wrote, an attempt to oppose the Trump Administration's immigration policies and whether the bill or subsequent legislation would include provisions to support local economies if the detention facilities were eliminated. They declined to respond.
Mayor Dial expressed concern regarding the legislative attempt to retroactively regulate contracts entered into by sovereign municipal bodies.
"Legislation that would retroactively dissolve legal contractual agreements is going to set a precedence that goes against current statutes. This precedence will lead to them picking and choosing which legislation is retroactive based on their agendas."