Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill today designed to end New Mexico’s involvement in federal civil immigration detention.
House Bill 9, the Immigrant Safety Act, prohibits public bodies from entering into, renewing or extending agreements to detain individuals for federal civil immigration violations. The bill also bars public bodies from selling or leasing public land for immigration detention purposes and ends 287(g) agreements, which allow local law enforcement officers to perform certain federal immigration functions.
Also present for the bill signing were House Speaker Javier Martinez (D-Albuquerque), Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), and other legislators from the House and Senate.
Representative Eleanor Chávez (D-Albuquerque), who sponsored the bill, said that the act “this legislation reinforces protections for New Mexico’s immigrant communities amid a tremendous amount of fear and uncertainty at the federal level.”