New Mexico and Albuquerque seek to dismiss federal immigration lawsuit

The New Mexico Department of Justice and the City of Albuquerque on Tuesday each filed motions to dismiss a federal Justice Department lawsuit that seeks to nullify a state law and city ordinance that limit coordination with President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

The U.S. Department of Justice in May filed a lawsuit against the state and its largest city, as well as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Attorney General Raúl Torrez and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller. The lawsuit alleges the state and city unconstitutionally impeded the federal government’s ability to arrest and detain immigrants when the local entities passed laws prohibiting public resources — including county-owned jails or city parks — from aiding the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

Earlier this year, the Legislature passed House Bill 9, which prohibits public entities like counties from contracting with ICE for immigrant detention. The Otero County Commission, which oversees the Otero County Processing Center detention facility in Chaparral, has sought to defy the law, including repeatedly extending its contract with ICE. Commissioners say HB9 will result in several hundred jobs lost and other economic damage.

The DOJ filed the lawsuit just days before House Bill 9 would have gone into effect May 20. Torrez later agreed not to enforce the law while the lawsuit played out in court. 

In Torrez’s office’s filings Tuesday, he argued that the federal government does not have the power to require states to coordinate with federal immigration enforcement and that HB9 does not interfere with the federal government’s ability to arrest or detain immigrants. 

The law “does not impose any obligations on the federal government, which remains free to contract with private entities for immigration detention or purchase or build its own facilities in New Mexico,” wrote Jonathan Backer, a senior attorney with the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law School, on the state’s behalf.

In New Mexico’s two other immigrant detention facilities, ICE has contracted directly with private owner CoreCivic to continue holding immigrant detainees in Milan and Estancia. 

The state’s motion further argues that the Otero County’s contract with ICE and private operator MTC is void because the parties entered into it after the Legislature had passed House Bill 9, in a “transparent attempt” to circumvent the law. 

“This Court should not sanction this brazen effort to thwart New Mexico’s sovereign authority,” Backer wrote. 

The City of Albuquerque made similar arguments regarding its Safer Community Places Ordinance, enacted in March. The city has the authority to manage municipal property, ensure public safety and protect workers, wrote Deputy City Attorney Devon King in the city’s 26-page filing. 

“Federal law does not require the City to dedicate its property, personnel, or resources to federal immigration enforcement, and nothing in the ordinance prohibits federal immigration enforcement, regulates federal officers, or interferes with the execution of federal law,” King wrote. 

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Both the city and state filings seek oral arguments before U.S. District Judge Kenneth Gonzales. 

Lujan Grisham’s chief lawyer also filed a brief motion to dismiss Tuesday, arguing that the governor should be removed as a defendant because she was acting within the scope of her duties as governor in signing HB9 and enjoys immunity from a lawsuit challenging a law the Legislature passed and tasked Torrez with enforcing. 

Torrez, in a news release announcing the motion to dismiss, said the Legislature’s decision to enact HB9 was, in part, due to a record of inhumane treatment at the Otero County Processing Center, including unsanitary conditions, overcrowding and alleged retaliatory use of solitary confinement. 

“The New Mexico Legislature looked at what was happening inside that facility, looked at the role it was asking our public institutions to play, and said no,” Torrez said in a statement. “That is not obstruction. That is self-governance. And it is fully within the Legislature’s power to make that call.”