'It was intimidating.' Friends of former Las Cruces judge react to neighborhood raids

LAS CRUCES — Kate Walsh was returning to her home from a doctor’s appointment when pandemonium erupted on the street where she has lived for 16 years.

Las Cruces police units blocked off two ends of N. Reymond Street as dozens of federal agents, many wearing ski masks, tactical vests and sidearms with no visible identification, streamed onto the block.

“I was trying to get out of my car in front of my house and they were yelling at me that I had to get back in the car,” Walsh recalled. “It was intimidating.”

On Feb. 28, Homeland Security Investigations officers executed search warrants at the home of Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano and his wife, Nancy; and next door at the home of their adult daughter, April. The agents arrested three Venezuelan migrants who had been living in a casita on the Canos’ property and seized weapons from April Cano’s home. Days later, Cano resigned from the bench, where he had served since 2011.

Six neighbors who live within a block of the Cano family and had interacted with their three guests told the Journal the scale of the raid focusing on longtime friends and neighbors came as a shock.

“It was obscene,” Greg Gendall said, recalling SUVs and armored personnel carriers staging close to his home. “It was a case of overreaction and overblown presence that you couldn’t imagine.”

Then it happened again: Federal agents returned on April 24, this time arresting Joel and Nancy Cano on evidence-tampering and conspiracy charges in front of television cameras.

The neighbors said they had known the Canos for periods ranging from six to 34 years. Joel Cano, 67, had been a Las Cruces police officer for over two decades before being elected to magistrate court in 2010. Nancy Cano, 68, managed residential properties, sold insurance and cared for rescue dogs.

Nearly a year had passed since they took in Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, Juan Manuel Acevedo-Leon and Efren Jose Montilla-Castillo.

The neighbors said “the boys” were a welcome presence on the block, embraced as close friends by a trusted family, regularly performing landscaping or repair jobs for local homeowners and often seen riding bikes to a nearby convenience store to buy candy.

Per court filings and an extended statement from Joel Cano to the New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission, Nancy Cano assisted them as they sought legal residency and work authorization. They also reportedly joined volunteer crews in Ruidoso following catastrophic wildfires there in 2024.

The men relied on Spanish to communicate. Despite the language barrier, Linda Gendall said she befriended Montilla-Castillo, who did yard work for her and shared stories of dire poverty and violence in Venezuela, including the murder of a sibling.

Joel Cano told the judicial standards commission he had inspected the men’s legal paperwork, which declared they were not subject to deportation as their cases were pending. He alleged that the paperwork was subsequently confiscated by federal agents and not returned.

“It was my understanding that they were seeking asylum and they were working through their paperwork,” Candace Beery, who has lived on the block since 2019, said in an interview.

Following the Feb. 28 raid, none of the men returned. Ortega-Lopez, 23, was charged with being an illegal alien in possession of firearms. He has remained in custody ever since. Neighbors reported that Montilla-Castillo voluntarily returned to Venezuela, while Acevedo-Leon is being held in another state.

Court filings allege that all three men are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang, citing tattoos, apparel and accessories, hand gestures and emojis presented in social media posts. A search of Ortega-Lopez’s mobile phone also produced text messages in which he discusses the gang and weaponry, and photographs of a mutilated human corpse by a roadside.

All six of the neighbors scoffed at the allegations. “I don’t believe in any way, shape or form that they have any gang affiliation,” Walsh said.

The neighborhood is a mix of single-family homes giving way to rental properties with an elementary school one block away from the Canos’ home. Residents who spoke with the Journal said it was a cohesive community united over concerns such as dilapidated properties, nuisance crimes and occasional burglaries.

“The concerns I think all of us have, of homeless people walking the streets and going through our trash and everything — that’s a bigger fear than these three young men,” said Jim Billings, a 34-year resident and acquaintance of the Canos. “So, you say gang members have been living in our neighborhood since a year ago? Thank you for that vigilance, government.”

While their impressions of the immigration process varied, the neighbors unanimously criticized the scope of the initial raid and the public spectacle of the Canos’ arrest.

“It’s a good neighborhood. There’s good people that live here,” Greg Gendall said, “but the thing that I can’t get past is what’s happening in our country. That, I really do worry about.”

The Canos’ arrests fell within a day of the highly publicized arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan in Wisconsin on accusations of helping an immigrant appearing in her court evade federal authorities. On Fox News, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi linked the Canos’ cases with Dugan’s, commenting, “If you are harboring a fugitive, we don’t care who you are. If you are helping hide one, if you are giving a TdA member guns … we will come after you and we will prosecute you.”

The neighbors also pointed to the Trump administration’s transportation of hundreds of Venezuelan people from around the country to a prison for terrorists in El Salvador, without regular legal process.

“This case just highlights, in a little microcosm, what’s happening all over our country,” Walsh said, complaining of “a rush to judgment on these brown boys and this abuse of federal power in ways that are not necessary.”