New Mexico’s 2022 legislative session revealed a troubling absence of the political will to pass meaningful public safety legislation in the Roundhouse. 

Some elected officials relied on false and harmful rhetoric when it came to addressing public safety. Legislative efforts to address crime in New Mexico this year fell far short of measures that decades of research show actually confront the root causes of crime in our state. 

New Mexico could be investing in programs to address substance abuse, provide job opportunities in historically underserved communities and make it easier for people trying to rebuild their lives after a criminal conviction to successfully re-enter society.

Legislators had a chance to do just that through measures that would match court fines and fees with an individual’s ability to pay to break the vicious cycle of poverty, debt and desperation that can lead to crime. Other legislation would’ve given people released from prison a chance to successfully and fully re-enter society, including by automatically restoring their right to vote.

Those bills, however, died from a lack of time and political will in the Roundhouse. 

Instead, our legislators reached for costly, antiquated and failed policies focused on throwing as many people as possible in jail for as long as possible. For example, an effort to roll back bail reform and impose pretrial detention would have risked holding innocent people in jail and have very little impact on public safety. That bill thankfully failed when it was confronted with facts and evidence. 

But not all harmful bills were stopped.

Legislators created new additions to the criminal code for actions largely already covered by existing laws, inflating our bloated criminal legal system. Likewise, harsher penalties won’t deter crime or help victims, and will instead only make rehabilitation and re-entry harder — at taxpayers’ expense. 

Evidence has shown that the harsh consequences of the criminal legal system drive economic insecurity and substance abuse, leading only to more crime and more destabilizing criminal legal consequences. If we are going to build truly safe communities, we cannot continue in this way. 

We deserve legislation that actually addresses the root causes of crime and works to make us and our families safer in the long term through creative and compassionate interventions.

With the nationwide increase in crime, New Mexicans deserve better than outdated ideas that we know won’t make us safer. And with the reality of limited resources, we cannot afford to keep throwing money at policies that will not solve the problem. 

We demand better from our legislators and our candidates. With the 2022 elections upon us, they must all resist the urge to play on fear and parrot lines supporting wasteful and harmful policies. 

New Mexicans need real, evidence-based solutions that build a safer, more equitable New Mexico for us all, and elected officials who have the courage to get us there. 

Our lives and futures depend on it. We cannot accept anything less.

This op-ed was originally published at SourceNM.

This op-ed was originally published in the El Paso Times.

New Mexico’s legalization of cannabis for recreational adult use has reminded all borderland residents of a fact our Latinx, Indigenous and Black neighbors have known for decades: Border Patrol checkpoints are cruel, pointless and serve to harass residents going about their lives. 

Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Border Patrol’s parent agency, doubled down on their misuse of checkpoints this week with their statement reiterating the agency’s commitment to enforcing federal drug laws, ignoring the will of New Mexicans who supported the legalization of cannabis in the state. Borderland residents hoping to legally purchase or produce cannabis and drive through a checkpoint risk, at best, deeply traumatizing and humiliating searches and the confiscation of their cannabis. 

At worst, they risk arrest, even prosecution, for possession of a product that is perfectly legal under state law.  

But none of this is new – at least not to our residents of color or medical cannabis users. 

For decades, some 40 permanent Border Patrol checkpoints along our border have unnecessarily divided border communities, trapping undocumented people and blocking many residents from accessing vital services, like health care.  

The Supreme Court in 1976 ruled U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte that checkpoints should be limited to asking, “Are you a U.S. citizen?” Any further questioning or search requires reasonable suspicion from the Border Patrol agents operating the checkpoints. 

But an ACLU lawsuit uncovered Border Patrol training documents that show agents are trained to sidestep Constitutional protections. 

Is your car dirty from driving through our dusty desert? Border Patrol says that’s suspicious. Are you having trouble hearing the Border Patrol agent and trying to listen closely? The agency says that’s suspicious. Are you minding your own business and trying to get through the checkpoint as quickly as possible? Their training documents say that’s definitely suspicious.  

This has been and will continue to be a challenge to medical cannabis users, particularly those who need to travel throughout our state – a right protected by law – to see doctors and specialists. A medical cannabis user in Las Cruces risks being detained and losing their critical medicine just for trying to drive to Albuquerque to see a specialist.  

That has devastating physical and financial consequences and has absolutely zero public benefits. In fact, it’s a waste of time and resources for everyone involved. 

Even before President Joe Biden entered office, the ACLU urged him to eliminate all permanent interior Border Patrol checkpoints or at a minimum direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), under which CBP operates, to keep Border Patrol from setting up checkpoints more than 10 air miles from the border and ensure agents strictly limit questioning and stops at checkpoints to the narrow immigration purpose permitted by the Supreme Court in the Martinez-Fuerte case.  

The Biden administration has thus far failed to take any steps to address the long-standing concerns surrounding Border Patrol’s operation of internal checkpoints or rampant violations of Constitutional protections.  

The agency’s decision to continue enforcing federal marijuana prohibitions over the will of the people of New Mexico is cruel and creates a burden not shared by many other states, like Colorado and Oklahoma, that have similarly legalized cannabis. 

For far too long, Border Patrol agents at checkpoints have harassed borderland residents traveling through our state for work, to visit friends and family, or simply to explore the many communities and natural wonders of our region.  

It’s high time the Biden administration put an end to these cruel barriers and shuts down Border Patrol interior checkpoints.