New Mexico Attorney General Seeks to Block Otero County's ICE Detention Deal

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed an emergency petition with the New Mexico Supreme Court on April 1 seeking to void Otero County's five-year, $283 million contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house detainees at the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral. The legal instrument Torrez used, a writ of mandamus, is a court order commanding a government body to stop exercising authority it does not legally hold. The petition argues on two grounds: that New Mexico municipalities have no statutory power to detain people on civil immigration violations, since those individuals face no state criminal charges; and that Otero County never obtained mandatory prior approval from the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration, rendering the contract void under state law.

That second argument carries implications beyond southern New Mexico. If the Supreme Court agrees that DFA approval is a non-negotiable prerequisite, every county in the state, including those in northern New Mexico, could face legal exposure on any intergovernmental agreement executed without that sign-off.

The contract itself emerged from a chaotic spring. Otero County commissioners first approved the ICE agreement in a 12-minute emergency meeting on March 13, two days before the prior contract expired, without any discussion of terms, legal risks, or fiscal obligations. The state attorney general's office later ruled that meeting invalid under the Open Meetings Act, citing insufficient public notice and no genuine emergency justification. Commissioners approved the identical contract again, unanimously, on March 25, despite warnings from the New Mexico Department of Justice that they were violating state law.

The new agreement, Contract No. 70CDCR26DIG000010, contains an asymmetry the NMDOJ has called "direct defiance of public policy set by the New Mexico Legislature." Otero County cannot exit the five-year contract for any reason, while ICE may terminate with only 60 days' notice and no further payment obligations. The county's rush to lock in those terms came weeks before the Immigrant Safety Act, signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in February 2026, takes effect on May 20. That law bars all New Mexico public entities from entering or maintaining civil immigration detention agreements with ICE.

Otero County Attorney R.B. Nichols defended the deal in financial terms, saying the contract "secures $19.3 million in outstanding public revenue bonds and supports 284 jobs representing approximately $21 million in annual wages in this community." The county borrowed more than $62.3 million in 2007 to build the facility and relies on ICE revenue as the sole source of bond repayment. S&P Global Ratings moved the county's bond outlook to negative from stable on March 31, one day before Torrez filed his petition, citing a general fund deficit of $3.7 million in fiscal 2025 and placing the odds of a full downgrade within two years at one in three. Nichols separately maintained that the IGSA "is a valid, countersigned federal contract" and said the county has retained outside litigation counsel. Community member Marty McFarland captured the county's financial predicament at a March commission meeting: "people who are fiscally responsible for us have not been planning or looking ahead knowing that this is likely to happen."

The Otero County Processing Center, operated since 2008 by Utah-based Management and Training Corporation, currently holds approximately 900 detainees with a contractual ceiling of 1,089. The ACLU of New Mexico has documented medical neglect, sexual abuse, and retaliatory solitary confinement at the facility over the past decade. A 2017 Department of Homeland Security inspector general's report flagged moldy bathrooms, broken phones, and unjustified use of solitary confinement. In June 2024, detained kitchen worker Jhon Javier Benavides Quintana died there. In February 2026, Otero County separately paid more than $2 million to settle a wrongful death claim over Jacob Gutierrez, 26, who died by suicide in 2023 at a county detention center after multiple warning signs went unaddressed.

The New Mexico Supreme Court had not yet responded publicly to the petition as of April 2.