New Mexico Corrections head says settlement likely in suit over sending people on probation to ICE

New Mexico Corrections Department Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero said Tuesday that her department is moving toward settling a lawsuit over state officers’ practice of referring people on probation to federal immigration agents for arrest and deportation. 

Movement toward a settlement  – with terms that were not immediately clear – with the New Mexico State Ethics Commission marks the potential end of an unusual legal battle waged in state and federal court for more than a year involving a state agency using taxpayer funds to avoid complying with a law the Legislature passed in 2025. 

The Nondisclosure of Sensitive Personal Information Act prohibits state employees from disclosing New Mexico residents’ personal information – including immigration status – to federal agencies, except in limited circumstances. 

The State Ethics Commission last September sued Tafoya Lucero, saying the agency had repeatedly violated the privacy law, which went into effect in July 2025. 

The lawsuit said New Mexico probation officers lured at least three people with probation appointments to state offices, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were waiting to arrest them.

Subsequently released materials, including emails and other correspondence that Source NM reviewed, showed that the probation department referred at least 20 additional people on probation to ICE between October 2024 and May 2026, and regularly tipped off ICE agents when a probationer was scheduled for a probation appointment. At least five of those referrals came after the state privacy law went into effect. 

The Corrections Department, which hired an outside lawyer for this lawsuit, has previously argued that federal law trumps the state privacy act and that the case is more appropriate for federal court than state court.

Tafoya Lucero appeared before the interim legislative Courts and Criminal Justice Committee on Tuesday. She said the concerns her department’s lawyers initially had about the state privacy law were “remedied,” and the department is now “definitely working to come to settlement.” 

The secretary did not weigh in on the specific allegations in the lawsuit regarding probation officers she oversees, though she said all staff are now trained on how to comply with the law. She also defended the Corrections Department’s choice to fight back against the law in court as a result of confusion over how to implement it. 

New emails allege New Mexico probation officer ICE referrals more widespread than previously known

“We were never in disagreement with what the policy of the law was,” she said. “It was just a matter of, we needed clarification to make sure that how we implemented it was accurate.” 

Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez (D-Albuquerque), who sponsored the 2025 privacy law, told Tafoya Lucero she found it “shocking” that the Corrections Department did not immediately comply with the law. 

“I’m glad you’re going to settle it,” Sedillo Lopez said. “I lament the thousands and thousands of dollars that have been wasted in fighting this.”

Tafoya Lucero did not specify what the terms might be of a settlement, or how soon it might arrive. The State Ethics Commission’s lawsuit seeks court orders requiring the Corrections Department to implement department-wide training regarding the law, as well as technological changes to prevent probation officers from being able to access a database to learn a probationer’s citizenship status.