Walt Rubel Commentary: High risk to state in taking a stand

The Legislature’s Finance Committee does a thorough analysis of every bill, including their best estimate as to how much money it will cost or save the state. But some bills are hard to put a price tag on.

House Bill 9, the Immigrant Safety Act co-sponsored by Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces, won’t have a direct cost to the state. But the indirect costs could be enormous.

The bill would prohibit all government entities in the state from entering into agreements with the federal government for facilities to detain immigrants, and would require those with existing agreements to terminate them as soon as possible.

The bill passed the House on a 35-25 vote and now moves to the Senate, where similar legislation has passed its first committee and is now awaiting consideration in the Judiciary Committee.

THe LFC report notes that the bill would likely spark lawsuits from conservative communities as one potential indirect expense. But, the greater danger is the risk of retaliation from the federal government. Our state has received approximately $6.5 billion in federal funding since 2021, and it is unknown how much of that is tied to compliance with federal immigration law, the report said.

This isn’t the first time the state has tried to thwart the ambitions of President Donald Trump. The Legislature worked for four years during Trump’s first presidency to block construction of a border wall, with some success and little apparent retaliation. But this time feels different. During a recent House committee hearing, Chairman James Comer said local governments that refuse to cooperate on immigration, “should not receive a penny of federal funding.”

Maybe that shouldn’t matter. With a proposed $33.1 billion budget under consideration, the state has never been in a better position financially to take a stand like this one. All residents of New Mexico have rights. If those rights are being violated, the state should do what it can to protect them.

There will be a mass deportation carried out in the coming weeks and months. That’s what the voters have demanded. The initial focus may be on immigrants with criminal records, but once the sweeps begin many others will also be rounded up and forced to leave the country.

We can’t stop that. But we should try to ensure that arrests and detentions in the state are lawful and humane.  

ACLU attorney Max Brooks notes that there have been three deaths in our state’s ICE facilities since 2022. A 2021 inspection of the ICE facility in Torrance County found chronic understaffing, leading to unsafe and unsanitary living conditions that included clogged toilets filled with human waste.  

The bill specifically states that it would not prevent law enforcement from detaining individuals for investigation of other crimes. But it would undoubtedly increase conflicts between local and federal law enforcement agencies, not to mention in-state conflicts between conservative and progressive sheriff’s departments.

It will be a four-year struggle. When it’s over, there may be fewer undocumented immigrants living in the United States, but the problem won’t be solved. That would require a plan that is consistently carried out from one administration to the next through an act of Congress. And, they would rather fight over the problem than fix it. 

If it must be a fight, we should be on the right side.


Walter Rubel can be reached at [email protected].

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