NM DOJ says it is looking into Torrance County ICE detention contract extension
—Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico Department of Justice is reviewing whether the Torrance County Commission violated the state Open Meetings Act last week when it quickly approved a contract extension enabling a federal agency to continue housing immigrant detainees at a local jail, an NMDOJ spokesperson told Source New Mexico.
The commission met for only a few minutes Dec. 30 and voted without debate or public comment to extend the contract between the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and CoreCivic, which owns and operates the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia. Before commissioners met last week, the contract had been defunct for two months.
The contract extension to March 31 of this year increased the monthly payment ICE makes to the county to roughly $2.4 million, funding the county then passes on to CoreCivic. The parties also backdated the contract to Nov. 1, 2025, the date the original contract expired.
The meeting between Christmas and New Year’s Day to extend a backdated contract has piqued the interest of the New Mexico Department of Justice, according to spokesperson Chelsea Pitvorec.
“The information surrounding the December 30 meeting raises real concern regarding backdating a contract, compliance with the New Mexico procurement code, and whether the Open Meetings Act was complied with,” Pitvorec told Source in an email Monday evening. “NMDOJ has authority over local government compliance with the Open Meetings Act, and we intend to gather more facts and review what transpired in accordance with State law.”
Ian Philabaum, a program director for Innovation Law Lab, an Oregon-based immigrant legal advocacy group that does weekly jail visits, told Source New Mexico last week that he was concerned county officials did not provide adequate notice about the meeting.
The county’s 2025 Open Meetings Act resolution requires county commissions holding “special meetings” like the one last week to provide public notice at least 72 hours in advance to an area newspaper and a television or radio station.
In response to questions from Source NM, Torrance County Manager Jordan Barela did not directly address whether the county had provided that notice, though he said in an email county officials published notice on its website about the meeting on Dec. 26.
“This means that the notice was posted in excess of 96 hours before the date of the meeting. In addition, this meet[ing] was posted in the same form and manner as all other special meetings conducted by the County Commission,” he said via email Monday.
He also said it’s common practice for the commission not to allow public comment in special meetings where there is only one agenda item.
Barela, in a statement to Source Tuesday afternoon, said the county will answer any questions the NMDOJ has about the legality of the meeting last week.
“All of the areas of concern listed in the comment below were discussed with legal counsel prior to the posting of the special meeting on December 30th,” Barela said in an email. “We appreciate the work of the NMDOJ and would be happy to provide information or respond to any questions the NMDOJ might have regarding the December 30th special meeting.”
Former PRC commissioner seeks Republican nomination for governor
—Santa Fe New Mexican
Another New Mexico Republican has joined the race to be the GOP’s nominee for governor.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports Jim Ellison announced his candidacy this morning. Ellison is a former member of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. He was one of three governor-appointed commissioners who took office in January 2023 as part of an overhaul of the Public Regulation Commission.
The New Mexican reports Ellison was registered as an independent at the time of his appointment. He served for two years and looked to remain on the PRC, but Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham instead chose former Republican Sen. Greg Nibert.
Ellison joins three fellow Republicans who’ve already announced their candidacy for governor. Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull, state Sen. Steve Lanier and cannabis entrepreneur Duke Rodriguez are all seeking the GOP nomination.
The 2026 party primary elections will be held on Tuesday, June 2nd.
50 NM immigrant detainees say mail issues at jail hurting their legal cases – Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Fifty immigrant detainees at a New Mexico jail say they’ve been largely unable to receive or send mail, including time-sensitive legal documents, for more than a month, according to letters provided to Source New Mexico.
Detainees at Torrance County Detention Facility from Mexico, Venezuela, Cameroon, Cuba, Portugal, Belarus, India, the United Kingdom and other countries signed two open letters dated mid-December that Source New Mexico received via email Friday.
“The postal service (USPS) is not working, or is working very poorly and intermittently,” the letters say in Spanish. “This is very damaging and detrimental to us (ICE detainees) because we cannot, for example, receive essential evidence for our defense within the proper timeframes, nor can we send important and vital documents such as appeals, habeas corpus petitions, and others. For example, this past week the mailperson came only once to deliver mail and never to pick it up.”
A CoreCivic spokesman denied the allegations regarding the mail interruption.
The uproar over mail at the facility in Estancia occurs as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency begins paying private prison operator CoreCivic about $300,000 more per month to provide services under a modified contract county officials approved without debate last week.
Until the contract abruptly expired Oct. 31, 2025, ICE paid CoreCivic about $2.1 million a month to house detainees. It did so via an agreement with Torrance County, which receives the payments from ICE and then passes them along to CoreCivic.
The contract’s abrupt expiration ended those payments and prompted renewed calls from advocates and U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, for ICE leaders to explain what authority the agency had to continue housing detainees at the jail without a contract in place. He never received a response, according to his office.
ICE and CoreCivic refused to say what prompted the expiration or why it took so long to negotiate an extension. Then on Dec. 30, the Torrance County Commission met to approve a new contract that pays CoreCivic $2.4 million a month, backdated to Nov. 1 through April of this year.
The modified contract also appears to allow the company to reduce its staffing requirements to 85% of what is typical, though ICE, CoreCivic and county officials did not respond to Source’s questions about the provision.
Detainees and advocates at Innovation Law Lab, a Portland-based immigrant advocacy group that conducts weekly jail visits, told Source NM the mailroom issue has been ongoing for more than a month. They say it resulted after an employee who used to run the mailroom left without being replaced.
Ian Philabaum, a program director for Innovation Law Lab, told Source that CoreCivic should not be receiving more funding when it has not been adequately providing services.
“It is absolutely egregious that CoreCivic would be rewarded with a more-lucrative contract, while they’re simultaneously failing to meet their contractual obligations, including the most basic tenets of due process,” he said.
Brian Todd, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, told Source on Monday, in response to a list of questions submitted last week about the inmates’ complaints about the mail service, that their allegations are “false.” For other questions about the extended contract, he referred Source to an ICE spokesperson, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Private prison operators like CoreCivic that subcontract with ICE to house detainees are contractually obligated to provide adequate mail services, according to ICE’s Performance-Based National Detention Standards. The standards say detainees “shall be able to correspond with their families, the community, legal representatives, government offices and consular officials consistent with the safe and orderly operation of the facility,” and that incoming and outgoing letters shall be held for no more than 24 hours.
Alexie Taylor, the brother of Jamaican detainee Andre Taylor, told Source New Mexico on Monday that mail delays put his brother in jeopardy of being deported. Public records show a judge issued a final deportation order on Nov. 17, giving Andre Taylor 30 days to file an appeal.
According to his brother, Andre Taylor prepared all the necessary materials by Dec. 9, more than a week before the Dec. 17 deadline, and paid express postage to deliver his appeal to the federal Board of Immigration Appeals in Virginia. Alexie Taylor said that according to his brother, the jail staff did not send the document until Dec. 18.
Two weeks later, ICE transferred Andre Taylor from Estancia to a detention facility in El Paso, which is often the last stop before deportation. He’s being held there now and exploring what options remain, if any, to plead his case to the appeal board about missing a deadline through no fault of his own, Alexie Taylor said.
Todd at CoreCivic did not immediately respond to Source’s question about Andre Taylor’s case. But the alleged mail delay is just the latest violation his brother has faced in more than eight months of detention, Alexie told Source, “so honestly I’m not surprised,” he said.
NM Department of Health: Flu is on 'rapid' rise – Gregory R.C. Hasman, Albuquerque Journal
The holiday season may be over, but flu season is in full swing across New Mexico and the rest of the country.
In the state, "all the charts are showing a rapid increase in flu-related numbers," New Mexico Department of Health spokesperson David Barre said in an email. However, he added, "we do not have an exact number of cases as many people do not get tested or seek care."
Since the fall, there have been 5,000 deaths - including three reported in New Mexico by the DOH - and 120,000 hospitalizations due to the flu across the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the week ending Dec. 27, 33,301 patients were admitted to the hospital with the flu, DOH reported.
"Seasonal influenza activity is elevated and continues to increase across the country," according to the CDC.
At Presbyterian Healthcare Services, Dr. Denise Gonzales said the surge in cases began two weeks ago "and it hasn't peaked yet and it's already exceeding the peaks that we experienced in the last two years."
"We're currently well over capacity and it's typical in the Albuquerque metro area that all three systems: Loveless, the university and Presbyterian run over capacity due to the uptick in viral infections," she said. "... As hospitalizations increase in the more rural parts of New Mexico, then those hospitals start to divert toward Albuquerque, which is already at very high capacity. So it just worsens the problem."
Children have not been immune to the flu.
A week before Christmas, pediatrician Dr. Chelsea Sanchez said kids came in with symptoms like fever, coughing and congestion.
"... Because of the high fevers this year, I feel like we're seeing more of them in the clinic," she said.
To deal with the high volume of cases, Gonzales said "hospitals might make operational adjustments like expanding virtual visits, increasing nurse staffing and using double-occupancy rooms when medically appropriate to safely meet patient demand."
Gonzales said she partly attributes the spike in cases to fewer people getting their shots.
Since September, according to the state Department of Health, 22% of the state's estimated 2.1 million population have been vaccinated. In the meantime, she said she recommends vaccinations, especially for those with chronic illnesses.
"(Not getting a shot) is going to make you susceptible to having a bad case of the flu that might even require you going into the ICU, so it's even more important to be vaccinated to give you that opportunity to just get a mild case and not need to be hospitalized," Gonzales said.
Aside from getting vaccinations, Gonzales said she suggested people stay home if they are sick, wear masks, frequently wash hands, use hand sanitizer and avoid touching the face.
Along with Gonzales' suggestions, Sanchez said she recommends people keep hydrated, eat fruits and vegetables, "making sure the vitamins are high in their bodies," and take ibuprofen.
"And if you haven't been around someone who has been sick, it could still be good to get that flu shot," she said, "... because we don't anticipate it going away in the next month or two."
To get a flu shot, the Department of Health recommends people call (800) 232-4636 or contact a public health office.