Who needs ICE? We’ve got CYFD.

Sent to newspapers 7/24/2026

Who needs ICE? We’ve got CYFD.

Immigration, especially the deportation of criminals, was one of the strongest platform positions for the GOP in the 2024 presidential election. By early 2026, many Americans lost their enthusiasm for President Trump’s campaign pledges as we saw law-abiding immigrants yanked from their workplaces, off the streets and out of their cars, interned in inhumane conditions awaiting deportation, and even sent to supermax prisons in third countries. 

Even American citizens have been caught up in the net as daily arrest quotas increase. And, horrifyingly, immigrants and Americans alike have been killed in ICE/CBP operations.

New Mexico has taken pains to firewall itself from what our state government and lawmakers perceive to be ICE’s injustices. While we do not operate anything close to the massive facilities like East Montana in El Paso or Alligator Alley in Florida, we do have contractor-operated detention facilities in the state. Legislation passed this year essentially bans the operation of these facilities, despite the jobs they bring to rural counties, and relative lack of controversy over their operations.

On July 17, the state Child, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD) essentially deported an American citizen child in its care to Mexico to live with his mother, against his will. The mother has substantiated charges of abuse and was deported in June after a drug arrest. 

On July 23, Algernon D’Ammassa, southern New Mexico correspondent for The Albuquerque Journal, broke the story that a 15-year-old boy was dropped at the Paseo Del Norte crossing in El Paso by CYFD and told to walk across the bridge by himself to rejoin his mother on July 6. He ran away and stayed at a Texas homeless shelter for ten days before finally returning to the border crossing and joining his mother on the 17th.

Wow. Just, wow.

CYFD continues to carry out its hazardous policy of reuniting birth families in any circumstance, despite thousands of pages of evidence proving the senselessness, cruelty, and endangerment to vulnerable children that accompanies the blanket application of this practice. 

This is against a backdrop of struggle and mismanagement that has plagued the agency for decades. Since 2019, CYFD has had five secretaries. In 2025 alone, nine children died in CYFD care – 14 died in the two-year period from 2024-2025.

The Legislature is taking this issue quite seriously. Of all the recent legislation, most significant is the establishment of the Office of the Child Advocate, which resides in the Attorney General’s office. This is an independent oversight agency to investigate complaints and concerns at CYFD.

Reform is slow in coming. 

D’Ammassa’s story went on to report that this placement was against the wishes of the child, an American citizen born to Mexican immigrant parents in New Mexico in 2010. Since the age of six, the boy and his two siblings have been raised by their godparents. According to a KOB-TV report, his father is absent; his mother was deported last month after a “substance-related” arrest.

Last year, the godparents filed for custody of the two siblings but not the 15-year-old; he was placed in foster care and CYFD began proceedings to reunite the boy with his birth motherdespite a substantiated report of abuse and neglect with CYFD. State law states that children over the age of 14 have a say in their placement.

Under state law, a 15-year-old contesting a placement, even with a birth parent, should be assigned a Youth Attorney whose sole legal obligation is to advocate for the wishes of the child. It seems this was never done. Final adjudication comes from a judge, and case law favors the wishes of the child.

What is clear from the reporting is that CYFD took a 15-year-old boy on July 6 to the Paseo del Norte crossing, contacted his mother on her cell, and then told the boy to walk across the bridge alone. The plan was the mother would FaceTime CYFD when the boy arrived. He never did. I don’t know about you, buthaving a minor hike an international border crossing by himself seems, I don’t know, super sketchy at best.

The boy ran away, walking into the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint, then staying in a Texas homeless shelter for ten days as CYFD, Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) and CBP all worked out what to do next.

According to a statement from CYFD provided to KOB-TV, on July 17, this time escorted by representatives from the Mexican Consulate, CBP, and Texas CPS, the boy walked across the bridge and met his mother. He was confirmed to be living with her on the 20th. He had “declined contact” with CYFD by this time.

I can’t imagine why.

I guess since the boy is alive this could be counted as a win for CYFD. Certainly, it seems to think so. In my day job, I help craft official government statements. The disingenuousness of the statements here are so fatuous they risk becoming meme-worthy:

“Nothing is more important to CYFD than ensuring vulnerable children are safe, protected from harm and have a chance to thrive, and the department kept that mission front and center as it sought to unite the 15-year-old boy with his birth mother in Mexico. CYFD acted in the best interests of the child to unite him with his legal guardian, his mother, who was requesting unification.  Under state law, CYFD had no legal grounds to retain custody and keep him in foster care.”

First, state law requires the appointment of a Youth Attorney if a child contests a placement, and a subsequent court proceeding. How did this not happen? Second, how is not even keeping the mother on the line as you dump her kid on the Paseo del Norte bridge “ensuring vulnerable children are protected from harm?”

Finally, as New Mexico Child First executive director and all-around rockstar Maralyn Beck pointed out, no one even went to do an in-person home visit with the mother. CYFD did two video visits. Beck argued a virtual home visit does not provide sufficient verification that the parent is actually in the place in which the child will be living – it’s no guarantee of safety.

According to the Office of the Child Advocate, CYFD considers this case closed. With the boy not just out of state, but out of the country, we may never know if he’s okay.

That may be just fine by CYFD.

Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and one of cat. She can be reached at merritt@merrittocracy.news.