News & Commentary

A year ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, asylum seekers held at the privately-run immigrant detention center in Estancia, New Mexico were brutally attacked with pepper spray by guards.

We will hold a Biden administration accountable just like we have held accountable every other presidential administration going back 100 years.

Our immigration detention system is complex and opaque by design. If you don't understand how it works, you're not alone.

Just when we thought U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s record of abuse couldn’t get much worse, a nurse at Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia provided testimony showing the agency is capable of more cruelty than we knew.

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 dark handheld camera footage shows a large group of people, mostly families clutching small children, blinded by the flashlights trained on their faces. Heavily armed men wearing fake law enforcement badges, ski masks, and camouflage uniforms bark orders to the frightened families.

 

The past few months have been a testament to the dangerous levels of anti-immigrant sentiment the current administration has inflamed within certain segments of our society.

One of the axiomatic truths of the legislative session is that it’s really hard to pass a good law. Believe us, we know. The ACLU of New Mexico has worked tirelessly year after year to advance legislation that makes our state a more just, free, and safe place to live and raise families, but year after year we see most of our priority bills fall victim to a torturous legislative process filled with a myriad of pitfalls, minefields, and political quagmire.