New Mexico probation officers referred probationers to ICE in violation of state privacy law, ethics commission alleged

On July 10, 2026, the New Mexico State Ethics Commission filed suit against the state Corrections Department and Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero, who oversees the department's Adult Probation and Parole Division, alleging that probation officers intentionally disclosed probationers' immigration status and national origin to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to the complaint, officers lured at least three New Mexico residents to probation offices under the pretext of routine paperwork, where ICE agents arrested them; the Commission said newly unearthed emails showed the practice was more widespread than previously known and continued after the relevant privacy law took effect.

The disclosures violated the Nondisclosure of Sensitive Personal Information Act, signed in 2025, which bars state employees from intentionally sharing residents' sensitive personal information with anyone outside the employee's agency. The Commission is empowered under the Act to bring civil actions when state employees disclose such information, and its suit seeks to force the department to stop the coordination. The complaint traces communications between probation officers and ICE beginning in late 2024 and documents detentions of named residents, at least one of whom was deported.

The July 2026 filing followed a procedural fight over venue: the Commission had first raised the allegations in September 2025, and in March 2026 a federal judge sent the case back to state court after it was removed to federal jurisdiction. The Commission said it had deferred a more direct suit while a district court weighed whether federal immigration law preempts the state privacy statute.