Santa Fe County is joining the city of Santa Fe in proposing further limits on immigration enforcement.
Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved the introduction of the “County Facilities and Community Trust Ordinance,” which would create a slate of protections against the use of county land, resources and records for civil immigration enforcement.
“This ordinance uses our authority as Santa Fe County over our own property, our personnel, our records and our resources,” said District 2 Commissioner Lisa Cacari Stone, who introduced the measure.
Cacari Stone said it “limits voluntary assistance” with federal immigration requests to the county and aims to restore trust in local institutions for immigrants who might be wary of seeking help or reporting crimes against a national backdrop of President Donald Trump’s promised mass deportations.
The proposal comes after a surge in immigration arrests last month, including at least a dozen people in a single week, which galvanized local advocates and leaders to seek more limits on federal agents’ operations.
“Families are afraid every single day to go to school, work, church, the grocery store — or seek medical care,” Cacari Stone said.
She cited the example of Edgar Chacon-Miranda, arrested by immigration agents with his young daughter at La Familia Medical Center during the August wave.
“And may we be reminded that Santa Fe County owns the south-side land of La Familia,” she said.
The county proposal will return to the commission for a final vote Sept. 29. The city’s “anti-staging” measure, introduced Wednesday, is set for a final vote Sept. 30.
The county proposal reinforces state law, notably House Bill 9, dubbed the Immigrant Safety Act, which prohibits state and local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and detention.
Beyond state law, however, the county proposal would provide guidance to county employees on responding to requests from federal immigration agencies.
It would prohibit county workers from “consenting to law enforcement entry into non-public areas of county property for purposes of civil immigration enforcement.”
It would also prohibit them from disclosing “confidential County records to agencies engaged in civil immigration enforcement unless expressly required by law.”
The proposal mirrors a city measure that would outlaw the use of municipal property for staging civil immigration enforcement — the same kind of policy that drew Albuquerque, Doña Ana County and Bernalillo County into a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against the state.
The Justice Department sued the state and Albuquerque in May over House Bill 9. U.S. attorneys amended the suit in June to add Doña Ana and Bernalillo counties, arguing local policies limiting cooperation with immigration authorities were also unlawful.
Albuquerque’s ordinance, passed in March, defines a staging area as one used to “assemble, mobilize and deploy vehicles, equipment, or materials, and related personnel, for the purpose of carrying out immigration enforcement.”
Cacari Stone acknowledged the lawsuit during the meeting, noting Albuquerque and Bernalillo and Doña Ana counties were “confronted by the Trump administration for declaring safe spaces of their own jurisdictional facilities,” and asked County Attorney Walker Boyd whether the ordinance might open the county to the same fate.
“I’m confident it’s consistent with state and federal law,” he responded.
Fellow commissioners backed the measure.
“I think this is very important that people feel comfortable with the county services and the sheriff and not feel threatened by us,” said District 5 Commissioner Hank Hughes.
“I think Trump is the actual criminal,” he added, remarking “a lot of this messiness is to cover up all of his crimes, including those that may have occurred here with Jeffrey Epstein.”
The vote was paired with a proclamation, also unanimously approved, affirming the county’s commitment to supporting citizenship pathways for the county’s estimated 3,000 to 3,500 lawful permanent residents.
Members of immigrant and workers rights group Somos un Pueblo Unido and of the city’s Immigration Committee attended the meeting in support of the proposals.
Jessica Aguirre, a member of the Immigration Committee and an attorney with Contigo Immigrant Justice, said the ordinance would encourage victims of crime who might otherwise distrust law enforcement out of immigration-related fears to speak up.
“Involvement of local government in the enforcement of federal civil immigration laws deteriorates community trust,” she said.
Gina Auz, another committee member who has been at the forefront of verifying reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in the city throughout the Trump administration, said the county would be standing up in the face of “unjust” federal law.
“Too many times, society normalizes behaviors that hurt entire communities,” she said. “If we can’t learn from the past, we can’t advance toward a more just future.”
