'Dignity Not Detention' bill fails again in NM Senate

SANTA FE — The effort to stop New Mexico governments from entering detention contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has failed to pass the Legislature once again.

Senate Bill 145, known as the Dignity Not Detention Bill, would have prohibited public bodies from entering or renewing agreements to detain people for federal civil immigration violations.

Tuesday afternoon, the Senate voted 18-21 on the bill’s passage, failing to get it through. Lawmakers talked for less than an hour before voting.

Bill sponsor Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, D-Albuquerque, said in a statement to the Journal it’s sad that private operators of facilities with documented human rights abuses will keep making money from detaining asylum-seekers.

“This is not over,” she said. “We will continue to seek justice and just treatment for migrants seeking refuge.”

The bill also died in the Senate last year.

On the floor Tuesday, Republicans argued that housing immigrants in detention centers is better than them staying on the streets. Democrats argued immigrants would end up in worse living conditions in other states, such as Texas.

“Be careful what you wish for,” said Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces. He voted against the bill’s passage, joining five other Democrats.

Sens. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque, Siah Correa Hemphill, D-Silver City, and Liz Stefanics, D-Cerrillos, did not vote on the measure.

Sedillo Lopez said New Mexico has some of the most notorious ICE facilities in the country, noting the Office of the Inspector General has twice called for the shutdown of the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia.

“Advocates in other states actually fear their clients being transferred here to New Mexico,” she said.

Bill advocates say the measure would result in less immigration detention.

Sedillo Lopez referenced a study done by the Immigrant Law Resource Center, Detention Watch Network and CERES Policy Research that immigrants in counties with more detention space are more likely to be arrested and detained by ICE. Also, she said, taking away bed spaces reduces the detention of immigrants.

“So that means when asylum-seekers enter at the southern border, they are that much less likely to be contained in these horrific conditions,” she said.

Cervantes said he needed more information from ICE or Homeland Security officials to truly know the bill would result in less immigrant detention.

He also said the lack of a federal immigration policy creates challenges for a state like New Mexico, and he challenged the federal delegation to act on this.

“I hear very little, very frankly, from our federal delegation with solutions,” he said.

Sophia Genovese, an immigration attorney and bill expert, told the Journal there are more people than just advocates pointing out the inhumane conditions in detention centers, and the state’s federal representatives and senators have worked to convince President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to close the detention facilities.

The power is out of their hands, she said, and it’s erroneous blame.

“This is one of the issues where the New Mexico Legislature has far more power and authority to fix the problem than our congressional delegation,” she said.

Republicans, unsurprisingly, were also not in favor of the bill. They all voted against it.

Sen. Ron Griggs, R-Alamogordo, said on the floor the bill would result in a loss of jobs for the communities he represents in Otero County.

In response to a question from Griggs, Sedillo Lopez said, no facility would close as a result of the bill. She said the three detention facilities in the state would altogether lose about 1,200 people out of thousands held.

Sen. William Sharer, R-Farmington, spoke about how not everyone coming into the U.S. has good intentions. He also said a detention center is better than the cold of snow, rain or wind.

“Maybe it’s actually kinder to have them living inside with blankets and heat and light and food,” he said.

Sedillo Lopez said the bill seeks dignity, not detention.

“It breaks my heart that someone leaving the country because of persecution comes to this country and finds themselves detained,” she said. “We should not be complicit in this detention and in treating people inhumanely.”