Last summer, Colorado College students working with Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the ACLU of New Mexico sat down with people detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody at the Otero County Processing Center to document the human cost of immigration detention in New Mexico. Their stories reveal a system rife with abuse, where basic human dignity is routinely denied and due process violations are commonplace.
With the Trump administration pursuing aggressive deportation policies, our state faces the prospect of thousands of people apprehended within the United States being transferred into New Mexico's three detention centers—facilities already marked by well-documented human rights violations, including excessive use of solitary confinement, inadequate medical care, and three deaths since 2022.
House Bill 9, the Immigrant Safety Act, would prevent our state from enabling these abuses. Seven other states have already passed similar laws, recognizing that no detention is safe. By prohibiting state and local government agreements with ICE for civil immigration detention, we can stop being complicit in this dangerous system.
Over the coming weeks, we'll share the stories of those trapped in ICE detention in New Mexico in a series called Behind Detention Walls. Their experiences make clear why New Mexico must join other states in refusing to facilitate a system that treats our immigrant neighbors—who are integral parts of our communities as family members, friends, and coworkers—with such profound disregard for their basic dignity and safety.
A huge thanks to all the students—Alex Reynolds, Sandra Torres, Karen Henriquez Fajardo, and Michelle Ortiz—for their invaluable work on this project.
