On Monday, state legislators introduced Senate Bill 172, which would prohibit local governments in New Mexico from renewing or entering into contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Jovanny Sebastian Hernández is a Field Organizer for New Mexico Dream Team, a nonprofit that advocates for undocumented individuals in New Mexico, and lobbied for Senate Bill 172. He said that the immigration detention centers in New Mexico bring more harm than good to communities.
“The big promise of these detention centers to local government is [that] your communities are going to grow in wealth at the expense of human suffering,” he said. “And even that bare minimum is not being met in one of the poorest communities in Southern New Mexico, in Chapparell, in surrounding areas.”
New Mexico Senator Antonio Maestas is the co-sponsor of Senate Bill 172. He said that he backed the bill due to the cruel conditions created by the detention facilities.
“It’s just not a value of our state to participate in these detention centers. There’s multiple human rights violations, multiple lawsuits arising from these facilities, and it’s just not a path that we need to participate in as New Mexicans. We need to set the tone nationally, and join all the other states that have outlawed these facilities in their states,” he said.
Maestas said that even though the detention facilities bring in federal funds, relying on them for economic stability is unethical.
“We’re cognizant of [the economic impacts]. But it’s not sustainable economic growth, it’s just not. Workers can be re-trained, they can be transferred to other state or local facilities and still play out their careers. There’s going to be a transition time. So it’s not going to happen overnight, but it’s the reasonable thing to do to not participate in this jail industrial complex that ICE has created,” he said.
Should the bill be signed into law, local governments in New Mexico would be barred from entering or renewing ICE detention center contracts starting in 2024.
