U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made an arrest Wednesday morning in a La Familia Health clinic parking lot after following a parent and child from their home, La Familia officials said.
The incident is one of the first — if not the first — immigration arrests at a healthcare facility in Santa Fe, an enforcement tactic that has grown increasingly common during the second administration of President Donald Trump. Federal officials abandoned a policy that for years prevented detentions at hospitals, schools and houses of worship.
The arrest at La Familia, captured in video circulating on social media, was one of several ICE arrests reported Wednesday in Santa Fe — a local escalation in immigration enforcement Mayor Michael Garcia called “frightening and deeply unsettling.”
“Santa Fe is a community that cares for its neighbors, and we will continue to stand together during this difficult time,” Garcia said in a statement.
La Familia arrest
ICE agents followed a parent and child to the La Familia Medical Center parking lot on Alto Street around 9:20 a.m. Wednesday, clinic spokesperson Jasmin Milz said in an interview.
The federal agents did not enter the clinic. Instead, they remained in the public parking lot to arrest the parent and wait for another family member to pick up the child, Milz said.
They left around 10:30 a.m., and clinic operations continued throughout the day with no disruption in care.
“We understand that events like this can create fear and uncertainty, particularly for members of our community who may already feel vulnerable,” La Familia CEO Brandy Van Pelt said in a statement. “Our commitment remains the same: to provide compassionate, high-quality care in a welcoming environment for every patient who comes through our doors.”
In an email to The New Mexican, representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the umbrella agency for ICE, declined to confirm the arrest without the name and date of birth or Alien Registration Number of the person detained.
Milz said she worries the arrest will have a “very chilling effect” for members of Santa Fe’s immigrant community, who might avoid seeking care out of fear of detention.
“People are going to be frightened to leave their homes and access healthcare,” she said.
‘Sensitive’ locations
On Jan. 21, 2025 — the second day of Trump’s second term — then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a directive allowing for immigration enforcement in “sensitive” locations.
“The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense,” Huffman said in a statement at the time.
The change reversed a long-standing Department of Homeland Security policy that had prevented immigration arrests in places such as healthcare facilities, schools, places of worship, colleges and universities, and social services organizations like food pantries and domestic violence shelters, according to the National Immigration Law Center.
As a result, healthcare providers across the country have reported an increased ICE presence in hospitals, doctor’s offices and clinics during Trump’s second term.
Amid the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis that led to the January killings of two U.S. citizens by ICE agents, Minnesota physicians described this practice as a danger to public health because people will avoid seeking medical care if they’re worried ICE may be at a clinic.
Data shows this is already happening. A poll conducted in fall 2025 by the health research and policy organization KFF and The New York Times found nearly half of undocumented adults reported avoiding medical care due to immigration-related concerns. Some naturalized citizens and lawfully present immigrants voiced the same anxieties.
Santa Fe immigration attorney Allegra Love said she worries the same thing will play out locally.
“If everyone in town sees that ICE arrested someone in the La Familia parking lot — which they just did — then they’re going to be scared to go to any of their providers,” she said.
‘They’re attacking us’
Love described the arrest at La Familia as part of a “huge escalation” in local immigration enforcement actions in recent days.
She said she’s been alerted to at least eight ICE arrests in Santa Fe and Española between Sunday and Wednesday morning — including one that resulted in the five-hour detention of a 1-year-old child who is a U.S. citizen.
“It’s like a time bomb until we see violence,” Love said. “When you have careless arrests like this, this is how violence happens. Confusion, chaos leads to violence.”
Gina Auz, president of the Latino Small Business Association and the organizer of a citywide system of gathering, confirming and distributing reports of immigration arrests to Santa Fe immigrants, was despondent at what she described as a string of arrests Wednesday.
“I never thought it would come to this,” she said in a phone call. “I don’t even want to check how many messages I have from people … ‘Gina, can you help find this person?’ ”
Auz said she heard immigration agents arrested at least five people Wednesday.
And “imagine all the ones I don’t know about,” she added.
“It’s not that I feel it’s escalating — it is escalating,” Auz said. “All the Latino neighborhoods have been targeted. They’re attacking us.”
Politicians’ concern
The incident inspired a storm of responses from New Mexico politicians.
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a New Mexico Democrat, posted a video on social media from the Torrance County Detention Facility, which is primarily used by the federal government to house detained immigrants. She visited to ask “tough questions” about the facility and Trump’s immigration policy — which she said is based on “corruption” and “cruelty.”
“They want to hide. They don’t want me to go in. They don’t want me to speak to immigrants,” Leger Fernández said in the video.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland called the ICE agents’ actions at La Familia “absolutely unacceptable.”
“I want you to know that I will do whatever I can to keep our community safe,” she said in a video posted on her social media accounts.
House Majority Leader Reena Szczepanski, D-Santa Fe, also expressed outrage at the news.
“This Administration’s cruel acts turn places of safety and care into places of fear,” she said in a statement. “No parent should have to worry that getting medical care for their child will put them at risk of detention.”
Santa Fe city and county officials released a joint statement Wednesday emphasizing unity following the arrests.
“When people become afraid to call police, seek health care, find housing, or ask government for help, our entire community becomes less safe. Community trust is public safety,” County Commissioner Lisa Cacari Stone said in the statement.
Neither city police nor Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies participated in the federal immigration enforcement actions Wednesday.
Garcia added his administration plans to take “concrete steps” to protect immigrants, including legislation to prohibit ICE from staging or conducting enforcement on local property.
“The City of Santa Fe stands with its residents and is committed to protecting the safety, dignity and rights of everyone who calls our city home,” Garcia said.
Staff writer André Salkin contributed to this report.
It’s vital that our police act to protect us from criminal gangs. Especially when those gangs cosplay as legitimate government officials and conduct warrantless arrests or search/seizures on us.