I’m going to say this as plainly as I can: House Bill 9 scares people in Cibola County, and for good reason.
Not because everyone here suddenly wants to debate immigration policy at the dinner table. Not because our community is itching for a partisan brawl. But because HB 9 – the Immigrant Safety Act – is moving fast, and the potential fallout lands squarely on a county that is already struggling to keep its financial footing.
As introduced, HB 9 would prohibit state and local governments, sheriff’s departments, government agencies and political subdivisions from entering into, renewing, or otherwise being party to agreements used to detain individuals for federal civil immigration violations. It also directs public bodies already in such agreements, like Cibola County, to terminate them at the earliest date allowed under their terms.
The bill passed its first committee on a 4–2 vote and is headed next to House Judiciary.
What Santa Fe isn’t being told is, if the state pulls a major revenue pillar out from under a small rural village and a county with limited alternatives, you might get a tidy moral victory, but you will also get layoffs, service cuts, and families sliding further into poverty. And once that slide starts, it is hard to stop.
Local governments are not imagining the stakes.
Cibola County commissioners voted unanimously to oppose HB 9 and have pointed to modeled impacts shared in county materials. In one closure scenario tied to major changes in detention contracting, the projected loss totals $20.4 million, including $16 million in direct annual payroll and $4.42 million in multiplier effects. Those are paychecks that get spent here, at our stores, in our restaurants, our service stations.
But the clearest red flag is Milan.
According to local materials, Milan Manager Candice Williams warned that one potential property tax loss - $155,577.09 – represents about 53% of the village’s total annual property tax collections. Read that again: more than half. The same local estimates include a projected reduction of about $20,000 per month in water and sewer revenue $240,000 annually – and gross receipts tax losses estimated between $720,000 and $1.08 million annually.
If you want to understand why this feels like panic at the local level, start there. You cannot lose that kind of share in a small community and pretend it won’t touch everything: water systems, staffing, maintenance, public safety coordination, long-term planning. It is not fearmongering to say that a village cannot absorb a hole like that without bleeding.
And let’s talk about the moral reality, not just the talking points.
Cibola County is not a wealthy county. We have poverty that shows up as kids who need a nonprofit backpack program so they don’t go hungry when school is out. It shows up as parents stretching a paycheck across gas, rent, utilities, and groceries and still coming up short.
So when state lawmakers debate HB 9 as though this is simply a question of symbolism “what message do we send?” – I want them to answer a much more serious question: Who pays? Because if the answer is “Milan pays” and “Cibola pays” and “kids pay,” then that is not a clean moral stand. That is a policy choice to concentrate damage on a county that already has too much weight on its back.
And here is the part that makes this even harder to swallow: HB 9 does not neatly “target ICE” in the way some people seem to imagine. None of the officers at the Cibola County Correctional Center are ICE agents. These are private employees. The economic harm – if it happens – does not land on a federal agency. It lands on local workers, local budgets, and local services.
There is also a local concern that deserves immediate, serious answers: what happens to Milan’s long-term eligibility for certain federal opportunities if facility-related population and related metrics shift? If there is even a possibility that changes around the facility could affect federal grant thresholds or qualifying status… A community already dealing with poverty does not need its ladder kicked out from under it.
Now, I understand why immigration enforcement has become a source of anger and fear. People want order, but they also want dignity. They want law enforced, but they do not want communities living under a cloud of anxiety. Enforcement should be lawful, accountable, and carried out with restraint and professionalism.
But HB 9 is not a plan for making communities calmer or safer or stronger. As written, it is a plan that risks collapsing a rural revenue base and send even more New Mexican children into poverty.
If Santa Fe wants to make a change this big, then Santa Fe has a duty to do it responsibly. That means a “hold harmless” strategy for rural governments facing immediate losses in payroll, tax revenue, and utility revenue.
If lawmakers want to vote for HB 9, they should also be willing to vote for the full cost of HB 9. Not pass the damages along to a village and county that is already struggling.
I am not asking New Mexico to ignore hard questions.
I am asking New Mexico not to solve one set of problems by creating another crisis. ICE may be a problem for American streets, but starving is worse.
Cibola County is not a prop. Milan is not expendable. Our kids are not collateral.
Passing House Bill 9 will smother Cibola County.