HB 9 IMMIGRANT SAFETY ACT (CHÁVEZ/RUBIO/ROMERO/ANAYA/CERVANTES)
The Immigrant Safety Act would prevent state and local governments from helping the federal government detain people for civil immigration violations. It accomplishes this by:
- Stopping New Mexico public bodies from entering into agreements or use publicly owned land to detain people for civil immigration violations
- Requiring existing agreements with ICE or other federal entities for civil immigration detention to be terminated at the earliest legally allowed date
- Stops ICE from using New Mexico counties as pass-throughs for no-bid contracts with private detention operators.
CVNM strongly supports this legislation because we know that global heating and climate change impacts everyone, and is a predominant contributing factor to driving human migration. Equity and climate justice require that all climate migrants–whether U.S. residents moving internally or international climate migrants crossing the border into the U.S.–be treated with respect and dignity.
Many analysts consider climate change a “threat multiplier” driving migration, amplifying a complex blend of political instability, social inequality, economic difficulty, and environmental changes that displace people. In Central America, for example, climate change extremes such as droughts may hinder crop production. Without a consistent source of food or income, a farmer may seek other livelihood opportunities in a nearby city. Combined with poverty or violence, a drought may make the dangerous journey north to the United States a more promising adaptation or survival strategy.
Climate mobility is not something that just happens “out there.” According to U.S. Census Bureau data, 3.2 million U.S. adults were displaced or evacuated due to natural disasters just in 2022; more than 500,000 had not returned by the beginning of 2023. In a 2022 survey, nearly half of the respondents that planned to relocate in the next year already cited extreme heat and increasingly frequent and severe disasters as a factor in moving. Directly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, New Orleans lost about half its residents and the city still had less than 80 percent of its pre-Katrina population in 2022. The U.S. government has already begun to assist relocation of entire communities highly vulnerable to sea-level rise, including Alaska Native villages and people on the Louisiana Gulf coast.
It is well documented that ICE is sweeping up people who “look like” criminal immigrants and warehousing them in facilities far from where most of them live and with poor communication with legal assistance and family members. Most have only violated federal civil law, not criminal law. Regardless of their legal status, aging infrastructure and lack of functioning HVAC systems and appliances in these detention centers leave people in ICE custody more vulnerable to the disastrous effects of climate change, including heat waves, cold snaps and dust storms. In addition, detention centers and the private companies who often run them have a history of environmental abuse. They often create unsafe and unsanitary conditions inside, such as contaminated water and rampant mold. Some have contaminated soils and groundwater with toxic chemicals, including asbestos, benzene, lead, mercury, and volatile organic compounds that in some cases have also contaminated watersheds and rivers.
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Conservation Voters New Mexico is a statewide, nonpartisan nonprofit committed to connecting the people of New Mexico to their political power to protect our air, land and water for a healthy Land of Enchantment. We do this by mobilizing voters, winning elections, holding elected officials accountable and advancing responsible public policies.