Survivor advocates concerned ICE fears deter reporting

LAS CRUCES — Advocates for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse told U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez on Friday they were worried that high-profile sweeps by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, were discouraging victims from reporting their abuse to authorities.

The congressman, a Democrat from Las Cruces running for a third term in November, toured the offices and examination rooms at La Piñon Sexual Assault Recovery Services and met with service providers who spoke of funding and logistical challenges. The nonprofit provides an array of services in crisis intervention, counseling, medical examinations and care for assault and abuse survivors and educational programs aimed at preventing sexual violence, all free of cost.

In a 12,000-square-mile service area spanning rural and urban communities, the organization serves an average of 1,200 survivors annually with offices in Las Cruces, Deming and Truth or Consequences.

Worries about encounters with border enforcement are not a new phenomenon, as was pointed out in the discussion by Vasquez and La Piñon Executive Director Angelica Calderon. Border Patrol checkpoints between Las Cruces and Deming, Alamogordo and Hatch, and Columbus and Deming have been longtime fixtures on the highways. Vasquez said they are also potential barriers between victims and services, advocates and courts.

Calderon said an advocate who uses borrowed office spaces at the Sunland Park and Anthony police departments has reported diminished caseloads over the past year, possibly indicating reduced willingness to report abuse at those locations over fears of law enforcement encounters.

“We feel that because of what’s going on politically, that might bring fear to the community,” Calderon said.

“That fear of going to a local police station also is a driver now of folks not wanting to … be part of a police investigation in which they feel they will have to share their information,” Vasquez said.

Over 2025, at the behest of President Donald Trump and a mammoth $170 billion appropriation to boost immigration enforcement, detention and removal from the United States, ICE has dramatically expanded and escalated its operations in coordination with other federal agencies such as the U.S. Border Patrol. The operations have also led to unprecedented numbers of arrests and detentions across the country.

A deployment of thousands of federal agents to Minnesota in December, with heavily armed and masked personnel conducting sweeps, traffic stops and detentions, was followed by mass protests in Minneapolis and St. Paul. During January, two Minneapolis residents, U.S. citizens Renée Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, were shot to death by ICE and Border Patrol, respectively. At least two immigrants were also shot to death by authorities in 2025, with 31 people reportedly dying in ICE custody during 2025 — making it the most lethal year for ICE immigration facilities in the agency’s history.

Vasquez said those events likely exacerbate well-understood pressures against reporting sexual and domestic violence in the border community, where many households are “mixed status,” meaning some possess required documentation while some may not.

“Due to the nature of abusers using, perhaps, their partners’ immigration status as leverage, I think we’re seeing that those are increasing and those cases are going underreported,” Vasquez said. “Those case numbers are going down, and that is concerning because that means potentially some abusers are getting away with very bad things in our communities.”

Prosecutors, police and victim advocates nationwide have reported numerous examples of clients who stayed in abusive relationships rather than risk law enforcement encounters, where victims are often arrested alongside abusers or accused by their abusers.

Calderon cited those concerns as a reason that personal data directly connecting the drop in reporting to fears of deportation, based on immigration or LGBTQ status, are not available.

“Because we want to ensure that people who walk through our doors are safe, that is not something that we are keeping track of, and it’s for their safety,” Calderon told the Journal. “For their protection, there’s certain information we aren’t reporting or keeping track of.”

She added, “We do work very well with our local law enforcement agencies. We’re a huge partner with them. We’re here to provide services and we work collaboratively with them.”

Vasquez welcomed a bill Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a fellow Democrat, signed into law Thursday barring local contracts to run immigration detention facilities in New Mexico, saying he hoped it would reduce local police agencies’ involvement with immigration enforcement and free up time and resources for community safety.

Algernon D’Ammassa is the Journal’s southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.