New Mexico organizations once again aim to end immigration detention
If you and your family suffered from abuse, violence, human trafficking, political corruption, inadequate health care or famine, you would likely seek asylum in a place like the U.S., where better job opportunities, less violence and abuse, better healthcare and access to food and education are widely available.
Imagine making that choice and packing minimal necessities to arrive in this new country full of hope, only to be immediately detained and separated from your children. Try to place yourself in those shoes. What would you do? Who would you call?
Imagine that your captors also abused you — verbally, psychologically, even physically. Imagine them not letting you eat enough food. Imagine toilets backing up and not being cleaned properly for hours. Imagine not being allowed to maintain proper hygiene.
All this because you simply sought a better life for your family. You want to work. You want to achieve goals that couldn’t be met back home. You want your kids to get an education and know that anything is possible. You want to be prosperous and happy. You want to contribute to society, but you can’t because you are locked up in a private prison that profits off of your confinement, as paid by American taxpayers.
This is what is happening in numerous states across the country, as asylum seekers and immigrants are unnecessarily detained to await their claims to go through the courts, or more likely, be rejected. By law, detention is not mandatory.
““In New Mexico, we have witnessed deaths caused by medical neglect, impermissible use of solitary confinement, as well as egregious conditions such as rat and bug infestations, crumbling infrastructure, sewage spills, and inedible food.””
Dignity Not Detention
The Dignity Not Detention Coalition is currently trying to push a bill through legislation in New Mexico, in hopes of joining other states like California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Colorado and Washington in ending immigration detention. Lawmakers blocked a similar bill in the 2023 legislative session.
If passed, the DND act will prohibit public entities like the three detention facilities in the state, from entering into contracts to detain people for civil immigration violations. It will also require any New Mexico public entities with existing Intergovernmental Services Agreements (IGSAs) to exercise the termination provision in those contracts.
“State advocacy to stop complicity in the caging and torture of immigrants is critical now more than ever,” says NMILC’s Sophia Genovese. “In New Mexico, we have witnessed deaths caused by medical neglect, impermissible use of solitary confinement, as well as egregious conditions such as rat and bug infestations, crumbling infrastructure, sewage spills, and inedible food.”
Humanity Not Profit
If the DND Act is passed in 2024, it would require that contract termination provisions in existing IGSAs be exercised by May 15 of this year — a huge win! The Act would also prevent New Mexico public entities from entering into any other arrangements or agreements to establish and operate facilities to detain people for civil immigration violations.
The ultimate goal in passing this bill is for New Mexico legislators to attempt to build a more humane immigration system, one that doesn’t turn rural communities into so-called “prison towns” (though this bill would not close those facilities outright). These communities end up having to rely on a detention facility to define its economic prosperity, rather than invest in industries like new energy and healthcare.
For immigrants, it allows them to keep their families together, seek work and start to build that better life in a land full of hope.
