Community Defense Fund
This year, we set a goal to raise $1.5 million for our Community Defense Fund, which funds legal defense, advocacy, and emergency support for immigrant families in New Mexico. Your support makes sure we can continue to offer our services for free. NMILC donors have generously contributed throughout the year, and now we’re less than $150,000 away from our goal! You can help us close the gap by making a donation by December 31, 2025.
Your contributions support:
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NMILC supporters are a lifeline to unaccompanied children. NMILC is the only legal service provider in New Mexico providing comprehensive legal services to unaccompanied minors for free. These young people are especially vulnerable, often navigating the complex immigration system without a lawyer and with limited understanding of their rights. NMILC ensures that these children receive the comprehensive legal services they need to protect their rights. But 1.5 million dollars in federal funding for the services we provide to children has been threatened, and the future is uncertain.
Without continued support, these children could lose access to critical legal representation leaving them to face the immigration system alone, a system which does not recognize the inherent harm of institutional settings and separation from family and community.
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Over the past year, we have significantly expanded our ability to serve immigrant communities. We have grown our staff to meet rising needs and strengthened our expertise in deportation defense, policy advocacy, and community engagement. These investments allow us to provide more comprehensive legal representation and respond effectively to urgent cases. At the same time, we are reinforcing our organizational infrastructure to ensure long-term sustainability and resilience. Together, these efforts position NMILC to deliver stronger, more coordinated support for immigrants across New Mexico.
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New Mexico has three privately operated ICE detention facilities that have the capacity to detain upwards of 2,000 people. In addition, the facility at Ft. Bliss military base in southern NM and El Paso has become the largest detention center in the US.
Creative litigation strategies are more important than ever to ensuring the rights of people in detention. Detainees in these facilities are subjected to inhumane conditions, inadequate medical care, violations of their legal rights, and severe deprivation, including inadequate food, lack of hygiene supplies, and even sewage spills.
NMILC seeks to challenge the systemic abuses occurring in New Mexico’s ICE detention facilities by holding both the federal government and private prison companies accountable for their actions, ensuring that immigrant detainees are no longer subjected to inhumane conditions and violations of their legal rights.
