OPINION: Keep local police focused on crime, not immigration

As a former federal prosecutor, my life’s work in public service has been to advocate for and protect victims and communities. At the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico, I personally prosecuted nearly 200 federal felony cases and co‑led the Indian Country Crimes Section, where I supervised hundreds more. Every decision I made in those roles was guided by a simple mandate: keep people safe while upholding the Constitution for victims and accused alike.

That experience also taught me something else: When federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement collaborate the right way, the public benefits. The Task Force Officer model, where local officers work with federal agents to take on violent crime, can be a force multiplier. It is focused on criminal conduct, bounded by clear rules and built to strengthen investigations.

But not every federal local partnership follows those principles. I support House Bill 9, the New Mexico Immigrant Safety Act, and especially its provision to prohibit 287(g) agreements — which deputize local police to perform federal immigration duties — because those agreements are governed by weaker safeguards. They raise the risk of constitutional violations, undermine community trust and expose local officers to unnecessary risk.

A 287(g) agreement asks local police officers to interview people about their immigration status, check federal databases and help initiate deportation proceedings. That may sound administrative on paper, but it creates a serious mismatch with what local policing actually requires. Effective law enforcement depends on victims and witnesses who trust that calling the police won’t put their families at risk.

That risk is especially acute right now. Across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection have crossed basic lines of constitutional policing by detaining U.S. citizens, sweeping up residents with legal status, and escalating encounters with tactics that erode legitimacy and end in tragedy. In cities like Minneapolis, Chicago and Los Angeles, masked federal agents have targeted people based on appearance, language or neighborhood, they have zip‑tied children and families, smashed car windows and in multiple cases, shot and killed people. When federal agencies behave this way, any program that formally links local police to immigration enforcement imports mistrust, fear and danger into everyday policing. That fear hits hardest in mixed-status households and communities where people already hesitate to seek help.

In this moment, when ICE and CBP are not operating within the normal bounds of law and decorum, it is crucial that we keep New Mexico law enforcement out of the fray and preserve community trust.

Local officers should not have to worry that responding to a domestic violence call or a traffic accident could turn into an immigration enforcement action. They should not have to compromise building trust with the community in service of a federal agenda that erodes trust. And they should not be put in situations where they are expected to question someone’s immigration status based on nothing more than appearance or accent. Local policing works best when it is focused on local crime and guided by constitutional, community-based principles that protect officers as much as they protect the public.

When communities come to believe that a call for help can become a pipeline to immigration consequences, people fall silent; they stop reporting crimes and cooperating in investigations. And when that happens, cases fall apart and dangerous offenders — domestic abusers, repeat drunk drivers, traffickers, violent offenders — are the ones who benefit. Every experienced prosecutor has seen the damage that fear and silence can do to an investigation.

New Mexicans deserve a system where every resident can call for help, report a crime or cooperate with an investigation knowing their local police are there to protect them. That is how you keep communities safe, how you protect officers and how you preserve the legitimacy of law enforcement.

Now that HB 9 has passed the Legislature, the governor should sign it, with the 287(g) provision intact, without delay.

Alex Flores is a former federal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico.