News & Commentary

“I was in fear for my life.”

Across the country, extremist lawmakers are passing unconstitutional abortion bans and restrictions that strip tens of millions of women of control over their own lives. As an avalanche of bans rips through the nation, New Mexico can’t afford to look the other way and pretend we aren’t on shaky ground.

We all want to live in safe communities. But recycling the same failed policies from years past this legislative session is not the solution. Here’s our vision for achieving public safety in New Mexico.

It was a parent’s worst nightmare.

Lisa Jaramillo was excited to take up a job in maintenance at the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility in January of 2017. Whatever joy her job provided her quickly vanished.

After security forces viciously beat him and threw him in jail for expressing opinions critical of the government, Raul Villegran* fled his native Cuba and made a harrowing journey through Central America and Mexico to seek asylum in the United States in early spring 2019.

The ACLU will keep fighting in New Mexico and beyond so that people like Diane don’t have to decide between two impossible choices—being oneself while enduring humiliating and degrading treatment or hiding in abject suffering to appease others. The cost of both is too high.

The New Mexico prison population stands near 7,500 inmates. Nearly all these individuals will be released and will face many challenges as they rejoin their communities, one of which will be finding a job. Unfortunately, this task is made much more difficult by nonsensical state laws.

We, together with cooperating attorney Mark Chaiken of Virtue & Najjar, PC filed a lawsuit in the First Judicial District Court on behalf of Diane Roberts, a transgender woman who was discriminated against, harassed, and ultimately fired by ABF Freight Inc. after coming out as transgender.