Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed lawsuits Wednesday against Torrance and Curry counties asking a court to force both counties to immediately end ongoing agreements with ICE deputizing local sheriff’s deputies to enforce federal immigration actions. Those actions, Torrez says, now violate HB9, the state’s new Immigrant Safety Act, which took effect last week.
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The complaints, filed by the New Mexico Department of Justice, demand the immediate termination of the counties’ 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The federal program deputizes local sheriff’s personnel to execute civil immigration arrest and removal warrants without neutral magistrate review, probable cause, or judicial oversight.
“Local officials take an oath to uphold the law, all of it, not just the parts they agree with,” Torrez said in a news release. “The Legislature enacted the Immigrant Safety Act after careful deliberation, the Governor signed it, and it is now the law of New Mexico. No county sheriff has the authority to nullify a statute simply because he disagrees with it. That is not how our constitutional system works, and this office will not allow it to stand”.
The lawsuits allege the immigration agreements deter immigrant residents from reporting crimes, divert resources from core local law enforcement missions, and expose the counties to significant civil rights liability due to well-documented risks of racial profiling. The Immigrant Safety Act took effect May 20, 2026 and explicitly bar local governments from entering or continuing any agreements to support federal immigration actions. Torrez had previously sued Torrance and Otero Counties to block extensions of their local ICE detention contracts, but the state Supreme Court declined to intervene.
Torrez is asking the court to prohibit the counties from exercising the agreements and to declare that local officials lack authority to arrest or detain individuals solely on the basis of civil immigration status. “These counties have decided their policy preferences override the democratic process,” Torrez said. “State law is not optional, least of all for the officials who took an oath to uphold it.” Officials from both counties did not immediately respond to requests for a response to the suit.