New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham supports a legislative push to ban local officials from sending inmates at local jails into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, a spokesperson for her office told Source New Mexico on Thursday.
That push comes in the form of an amendment to House Bill 9, the Immigrant Safety Act, which would prohibit public entities from contracting with ICE for immigrant detention.
The governor had already voiced support for HB9, but had not yet weighed in on sponsors’ Tuesday amendment that expands the scope of the bill to also prohibit contracts that allow local law enforcement to serve ICE warrants on arrestees held in local jails.
The agreements — often called “287(g) agreements” — facilitate the transfer of immigrant arrestees in local jails to ICE detention within 48 hours.
Advocates had pushed for the governor to include language about both a 287(g) agreement ban and an immigration detention facility ban in legislative messages that authorize lawmakers to consider issues beyond budgetary matters during the 30-day session.
Marcela Díaz, executive director of statewide, immigrant-led organization Somos un Pueblo Unido, told Source on Wednesday evening that she was part of that effort and that she and fellow advocates were unsure where the governor stood on the amendment HB9 sponsors introduced.
Her organization mobilized dozens of advocates to the Roundhouse on Wednesday to urge lawmakers to support both the amendment and the legislation overall.
Michael Coleman, the governor’s communications director, cleared up any uncertainty on Thursday in a statement to Source New Mexico. He said the governor supports the amendment because it prevents local law enforcement from being “diverted from their core mission of public safety.”
“This amendment will help ensure our state and local police officers focus on what they’re trained and funded to do: pursue criminals who threaten public safety, regardless of immigration status,” Coleman said in an email Thursday.
The amended version of HB9 received its first hearing Wednesday evening, drawing such a big crowd that the House Judiciary Committee held the meeting on the House floor to accommodate more than 100 supporters.
Majority Democrats on the committee voted over Republican opposition to amend HB9 to include the ban on 287(g) agreements and then, after more than two hours of public comment and debate, voted to advance the bill itself onto the House floor. Both votes fell along party lines.
Sponsors said Wednesday the amendment remains consistent with the rest of the legislation in seeking to keep local public entities and law enforcement from aiding ICE in its push to arrest and deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible.
According to recent data from the Deportation Data Project, three New Mexico ICE arrests occurred through the use of 287(g) agreements between August and October of last year and involved detainees who had not been convicted of a crime.
The data as of mid-December, which researchers obtain periodically via public records requests to ICE, notes that two of the detainees were still in ICE custody at that time. A third voluntarily left the country to Mexico.
