On April 8, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez released a scathing 224 page report on the investigation by the New Mexico Department of Justice (NMDOJ) of the New Mexico Children Youth and Family’s Department (CYFD) and its handling of abused and neglected children placed in CYFD care. Torrez also announced that the New Mexico Department of Justice (NMDOJ) filed a lawsuit against CYFD in the Santa Fe County District Court to end the department’s misuse of state confidentiality laws.
The investigation report is entitled “Systemic Failures: How CYFD Endangers The Children Its Meant To Protect”. The link to review the entire 224 page report is here:
https://nmdoj.gov/publications/cyfd-report/
EDITORS NOTE: This article is an in-depth report on the critical findings of the investigation report and its conclusions. The article does not cover the extensive case studies of the children neglected and abused. For the sake of brevity the article does NOT delve into the detailed recommendations and justifications made to correct deficiencies found within CYFD contained in Section V of the NMDOJ Investigation report. The NMDOJ recommendation are being reserved for future reference and discussion of proposed action to be taken by the New Mexico legislature during the 2027 legislative session, which includes and amendment to the New Mexico constitution and the potential abolishment of the CYFD.
INVESTIGATION LAUNHCED
The Justice Department’s investigation was launched a year ago after 16-year-old Jaydun Garcia died by suicide at a state-contracted group home for foster children despite repeated requests from other youth for staff to check on him. The New Mexico Department of Justice (NMDOJ) said it granted anonymity to CYFD workers and foster families interviewed as part of the investigation to protect them from retaliation. The NMDOJ did not identify any of the children or families involved in the cases it investigated but used pseudonyms to protect their identities. The report documents and incorporates extensive “case studies” of at least 28 children. The case studies go into graphic detail the child neglect and abuse and the children being placed in foster homes or other facilities because their families were being investigated CYFD amid allegations of brutal abuse or neglect. Many of the case studies are easily recognizable as high-profile cases of egregious child endangerment which many times were reported upon by news outlets.
CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES’ DEPARTMENT
The Children Youth and Family Department (CYFD) is New Mexico’s primary child protection agency entrusted with the following mission:
- Preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect.
- Providing a safe and stable foster care system.
- Upholding every child’s right to grow up in security and dignity.
CYFD’s mission is mandated by state and federal law requirements, and court‑monitored reforms, all designed to ensure that CYFD prioritizes the health and safety of children above all else. The NMDOJ initiated its investigation because CYFD has failed in that mission.
CYFD is responsible for protecting and supporting the well-being of children, youth, and families across New Mexico. The Department’s mission is carried out through various divisions, including the following four Department Divisions:
- Protective Services Division (PSD): Investigates reports of child abuse and neglect, manages the state’s foster care system, and facilitates adoptions.
- Behavioral Health Division: Coordinates state behavioral health policy for children, provides clinical consultation, and oversees facility licensing and certification.
- Family Services Division: Connects with and provides direct services to families.
- Juvenile Justice Division: Focuses on prevention and early intervention for youth at risk of delinquency.
CYFD is tasked with upholding and applying the Children’s Code in accordance with the legislature’s intent. The New Mexico Legislature has mandated that the Children’s Code be interpreted in a way that advances several public policy objectives. The most crucial public policy objective is as follows:
“[T]o provide for the care, protection and wholesome mental and physical development of children coming within the provisions of the Children’s Code and then to preserve the unity of the family whenever possible. A child’s health and safety shall be the paramount concern.”
CYFD’s Protective Services Division (PSD) is obligated to protect children from abuse and neglect, and only when safely possible, to preserve the integrity of the family unit. CYFD divides its protective services division into three units:
- Investigations
- Permanency Planning and
- Placements
These three units work together to investigate child abuse and neglect and secure a permanent and safe placement for children who have experienced maltreatment at the hands of their caregivers.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The NMDOJ investigation into the CYFD identified systemic failures that have repeatedly endangered the children CYFD is sworn to protect. According to the report, these failures are not isolated but are pervasive, deeply entrenched, and all too often result in preventable harm to children.
The NMDOJ investigation report contains the following Executive Summary that has been partially edited for brevity:
“New Mexico’s child welfare system is in crisis. The New Mexico Department of Justice (NMDOJ) investigation into the Children, Youth and Families Department (“CYFD”) … identified systemic failures that have repeatedly endangered the children CYFD is sworn to protect. These failures are not isolated [and] they are pervasive, deeply entrenched, and too often result in preventable harm.
State law is unequivocal: CYFD should strive to preserve and reunify abused and neglected children with their families whenever possible, but when that goal conflicts with a child’s health and safety, the child’s interests must prevail. The NMDOJ investigation makes one fact unmistakable: CYFD has completely inverted that legislative mandate and abandoned its core mission to protect children as its highest duty. Instead of safeguarding vulnerable children, the Department has prioritized family reunification at virtually any cost—returning children to dangerous caregivers with histories of substantiated abuse or chronic neglect, and who refuse treatment or services to address those underlying issues.
This misalignment between mandate and practice has had devastating consequences, including the deaths of at least seven children since [the] investigation’s inception. And this scale and severity of harm to children over the past year is not an anomaly. New Mexico has long faced disproportionately high levels of maltreatment, repeat maltreatment, and child fatalities compared to national averages.
Interviews, case reviews, and consultation with child welfare experts reveal a troubling pattern: CYFD selectively enforces its own rules—rigidly enforcing these rules when convenient but disregarding or misinterpreting them when compliance requires decisive intervention to protect children. Policies and protocols are often wielded as shields against accountability or disregarded altogether. When children are injured or killed, CYFD’s instinct is not transparency, but self-preservation—deflecting blame, concealing poor decisions, and protecting its image instead of confronting mistakes and embracing lessons that could prevent future harm.
In addition to routinely delaying removals of children from dangerous environments and prematurely reunifying them with unfit caregivers, other systemic failures have emerged, including:
- CYFD’s leadership has lacked the qualifications and commitment necessary to uphold its obligations, fostering a culture of insularity and resistance to oversight. Rather than embracing accountability and reform, the Department has repeatedly deflected scrutiny, degraded internal guardrails, and misused confidentiality protections to obscure its failures.
- CYFD has systematically de-professionalized its workforce, forgoing the hiring of licensed social workers and relying on staff that are ill-equipped to handle the complex demands of child welfare practice. Combined with crushing caseloads, inadequate training, and absent supervision, this approach fuels burnout and turnover.
- Investigative practices are deeply flawed. CYFD investigators skip essential interviews, neglect mandatory home visits, apply safety and risk assessment tools inconsistently, and rely on hollow safety plans. These flaws are compounded by a misunderstanding of evidentiary standards, allowing obvious abuse and neglect to go unsubstantiated.
- Permanency practices are wholly deficient, driven by chronic understaffing, lack of access to trauma-focused services, inaccurate court reports, hearing delays caused by employee unpreparedness, and case management breakdowns that jeopardize child well-being.
- Failed implementation of the state’s Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) law leaves over 1,200 drug-affected newborns at risk each year. Untimely guidance, lack of training for medical providers, unenforceable plans of care, and poor oversight have led to repeated tragedies, including preventable deaths from narcotics exposure.
- CYFD impedes criminal investigations and devalues the expertise of law enforcement. The Department ignores requests for protective holds or intervention, even amid escalating danger. As a result, children are returned to unsafe environments, leading to repeated police involvement. CYFD’s actions delay or prevent forensic interviews and necessary medical exams, obstructing criminal investigations and prosecutions.
- Foster families receive inadequate support, poor communication, and face retaliatory tactics, even as CYFD confronts a critical shortage of non-relative foster homes. These practices erode trust, increase turnover, and jeopardize outcomes for children in state custody.
- Instability in the foster care system is worsening, with children experiencing placement moves at nearly twice the national average—with some enduring dozens of disruptive relocations. Beyond breaching legal mandates, the inability to ensure stable homes derails support systems, impairs formation of healthy attachments, and compounds trauma.
- CYFD has heavily relied upon office buildings as makeshift placements for children in state custody, exposing them to physical injury, sexual assault, drug use, and severe psychological harm. Housing children in office buildings strips them of privacy, therapeutic care, and the stability of a family setting, while overwhelming staff who must manage chaotic conditions and balance a child’s supervision with daily tasks.
- CYFD’s excessive dependence on congregate care facilities—designed only for short-term clinical placements—has led to unsafe conditions characterized by violence, misuse of restraints, staff mistreatment, chronic understaffing, lack of supervision, and even suicide. … .
The child welfare crisis is not an unavoidable reality, but the direct result of poor leadership, indefensible choices, missed interventions, and a widespread lack of transparency.
CYFD’s shortcomings go beyond mere bureaucratic mismanagement—they represent a systematic moral failing—measured in children continuing to be abused, neglected, and lost. The following case studies, documented throughout this report, offer a window into the human cost of that failing.
The NMDOJ’s investigation was not intended to merely catalog CYFD’s many missteps but rather serve as an urgent call to action for policymakers, stakeholders, the newly appointed [Child Advocate Office (AOC)], and leaders within CYFD.
The Department’s history of empty assurances and half-measures in safeguarding children are no longer acceptable—the price for delay and denial has been too high.
The path for CYFD to restore public trust is clear: acknowledge the depth and impact of their failures, institutionalize accountability, and embrace meaningful, lasting change. CYFD’s future legitimacy—and the safety and well-being of those it serves—depends on a renewed and unwavering commitment to its highest duty: putting children first.”
NMDOJ CONCERNS HIGHLIGHTED
According to the report, amid an ongoing crisis of turnover among CYFD’s front-line case workers, the agency has increasingly recruited people who are not qualified to do their jobs and moved away from hiring experienced, licensed social workers.
Justice Department investigators wrote this:
“Faced with high caseloads and poor retention, CYFD lowers employment standards to quickly fill vacancies, often hiring individuals without relevant credentials or experience.”
According to the NMDOJ report, the problem of an unqualified CYFD workers is accompanied by the staggering rate at which New Mexico children are exposed to abuse and neglect compared with the rest of the country. A recent report by the NM Legislative Finance Committee found 13.9 children out of 1,000 have experienced maltreatment in 2024. The national level is 7.2.
The Justice Department said CYFD’s failures are in part fueled by the agency’s overcommitment to keeping at-risk families together. While Child Protective Services workers are obligated to make reasonable efforts to keep families together, the NMDOJ said CYFD must prioritize a child’s safety and not send a child back to a home where they are likely to be hurt again. The NMDOJ investigation report states:
“CYFD’s failures to make timely and common-sense decisions that prioritize child safety has been a central driver of New Mexico’s child maltreatment crisis. In many cases, CYFD’s chronic inaction has led to extended delays in removing children from dangerous environments or not removing them at all.”
The Justice Department’s concerns about unqualified employees also reached the top levels of leadership at CYFD, with investigators saying several people formerly in senior positions had reported former Cabinet Secretary Teresa Casados’ [as having a]“limited understanding of child welfare issues [which] negatively impacted the Department’s performance.”
Justice Department investigators found that in many of the most severe abuse and neglect cases discussed in the report, CYFD made efforts to hide its failures, including by doctoring investigators’ accounts. NMDOJ investigators wrote this:
“When children are injured or killed, CYFD’s instinct is not transparency, but self-preservation — deflecting blame, concealing poor decisions, and protecting its image instead of confronting mistakes and embracing lessons that could prevent future harm.”
The Justice Department alleged that CYFD also obfuscated its investigation over the past year, resisting requests for child abuse and neglect records and releasing only some of the information requested. CYFD often cited an “inappropriately broad reading” of state laws protecting children’s privacy in abuse and neglect proceedings. The report states:
“CYFD’s approach was consistent: deflect, delay, and withhold. … CYFD’s application of confidentiality operates more as an impediment to transparency and accountability than as a genuine safeguard for the privacy of children and families.”
INVESTGATIVE REPORT CONCLUSION
The NMDOJ report ends with the following conclusions:
“The NMDOJ’s investigation points unmistakably to one conclusion: CYFD has wholly abandoned child safety as its guiding principle. The witnesses interviewed and case studies highlighted show the grave harm that can result when CYFD delays removing vulnerable children from dangerous environments or reunifies them with families before underlying safety threats are resolved. Reunification should be the goal, but only when caregivers have meaningfully addressed the conditions that led to removal. A more deliberate child-centered approach is essential to ensure that reunification supports—not undermines—long-term family stability and child well-being.
CYFD has fallen short in multiple other respects, including:
- Tolerating weak leadership;
- Avoiding transparency and accountability;
- Shifting away from hiring licensed social workers,
- Yielding a poorly trained and unsupervised workforce buckling under high caseloads;
- Performing flawed investigations and superficial safety plans;
- Permitting chronic permanency delays;
- Failing to protect drug-exposed infants;
- Disregarding law enforcement warnings and protective hold requests;
- Eroding partnerships with foster families;
- Allowing placement instability to worsen; and
- Relying on office stays and expanded congregate care facilities that subject children to physical violence, sexual assaults, and ongoing trauma.
The NMDOJ expects this report to serve as the foundational roadmap guiding the incoming state child advocate’s work. Central to their success is unfettered access to the records required to evaluate CYFD’s decisions and practices. Yet the NMDOJ’s investigation has shown that CYFD regularly resists such cooperation, even when the law plainly requires it.
If the child advocate encounters this familiar resistance, policymakers should respond promptly and decisively to compel the Department’s compliance. The Office of Child Advoacte (OCA) must not be reduced to a symbolic role whereby it is presented as the face of CYFD’s oversight but denied the levers of action to effectuate it.
Equally important, the child advocate must neither rubber-stamp CYFD’s actions nor excuse or rationalize its misconduct but instead serve as an unapologetic champion for children’s safety and well-being. Transparency and accountability can no longer be optional.”
CYFD REPONDS TO REPORT
On April 8, CYFD spokesperson Jake Thompson issued the following statement:
“We are still reviewing the attorney general’s report, but it’s clear that it underplays or ignores significant, measurable progress the department has made in the last seven months — progress acknowledged by outside partners, the plaintiffs and co-neutrals in the Kevin S. settlement and sister agencies.
The death of any child is a tragedy. We grieve the loss of every life and share in the heartbreak endured by family and friends.
CYFD did not have the opportunity to review Attorney General Torrez’s findings, recommendations, and conclusions before their release today, which prevented CYFD from assessing them and taking any needed immediate corrective action to better protect children.
The attorney general identified eight systemic issues and CYFD, under the leadership of Acting Secretary Valerie Sandoval and her team, had already taken decisive action on each. This includes:
- Hiring nearly 250 new staff over the past six months, closing thousands of already completed cases to sharply cut caseloads and established new training and support to keep staff.
- Working closely with the state Health Care Authority, Department of the Health and the Early Childhood Education to implement the governor’s executive order related to the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act, reducing deaths of substance exposed babies under the directive to zero.
- Providing new resources for foster families, building out a more specialized care system known as Foster Care Plus for children with high needs and actively recruiting more foster families.
- The end of office stays. The practice of children staying in offices ended on
February 12. A new and collaborative public and private partnership is successfully placing children in safe settings. - Working with law enforcement across the entire state to identify at-risk children and help keep them safe, as law enforcement has authority to remove children from unsafe settings.
- CYFD strongly disputes that we are overusing congregate care, when, in fact, ninety percent of children in foster care are placed in family settings, including kinship, based on their needs.
- CYFD also disputes that we put reunification ahead of child safety. Federal and state law require we attempt reunification absent aggravating circumstances.
Acting Secretary Sandoval has said on numerous occasions that CYFD has zero tolerance for retribution or retaliation.”
CYFD Spokesman Thompson disputed that CYFD places higher priority on keeping families together than on children’s safety. He noted federal and state laws require the agency to attempt to reunite families when there are no indications serious harm will come to children. Thompson said CYFD has already made progress on each of the systemic issues identified in the report, providing new resources for foster families and creating a new program for specialized foster care. Thompson said CYFD has made significant progress in addressing its workforce issues, hiring nearly 250 new case workers in the past six months, closing thousands of completed cases, and implementing new training and support to help retain staff. Thompson also disputed some of the issues the Justice Department cited, such as CYFD relying too heavily on group homes and other congregate care settings.
LAWSUITE FILED
During the April 8 press conference releasing the NMDOJ report, Attorney General Raul Torrez said the NMDOJ also filed a lawsuit against CYFD alleging the child welfare agency intentionally obstructed its investigation by improperly citing confidentiality laws designed to protect children’s privacy in abuse and neglect cases. The Justice Department alleges in the lawsuit CYFD uses those confidentiality laws to intimidate staff and foster parents expressing concerns about its practices.
Attorney General Raul Torrez said he plans to work with state lawmakers to pursue legislative reforms of the child welfare system, but he believes the Roundhouse must rebuild CYFD from scratch. Torrez said this:
“I am of the view that the Legislature should start with a blank piece of paper. … Instead of trying to redesign a broken house, start with a blank sheet of paper and build what you think needs to exist from the ground up, and then see if you can map that on to the existing structure. … I’m not sure that you can, to be perfectly honest with you, in part because it’s not only a structural problem, it’s a cultural problem.”
GOV. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM REACTS
On April 8, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued the following statement in response to the NMDOJ report and the lawsuit filed:
“I share New Mexicans’ heartbreak over these disturbing allegations, and I will never minimize the tragedy of any child that CYFD has failed to protect. [However] … it’s important to note that the Attorney General’s report captures a system of the past. The disturbing episodes recounted in the document occurred before our new cabinet secretary, Valerie Sandoval, assembled a dedicated and talented new leadership team. This team has rebuilt CYFD’s relationships with advocates, attorneys and community partners who now are rowing in the same direction as they transform New Mexico’s system for protecting our most vulnerable children. Child welfare agencies sometimes fail — sometimes tragically — but they are designed to shield our most vulnerable children from heinous abuse at the hands of adults who are supposed to care for them.
Child welfare failures aren’t unique to New Mexico — they exist in every state, driven by decades of structural gaps, misaligned federal and state law and systems ill-designed to keep pace with the complexity of the families they serve. I have always known that. And unlike some, I haven’t just talked about it. When my administration recognized that CYFD needed bold, structural change, we acted. In January, I issued an executive order prohibiting the overnight placement of children in CYFD offices. The order directed the agency to work with partners to ensure every child is placed in a safe and appropriate setting.
Overnight office stays ended on Feb. 12. Last summer, I directed CYFD to reform its approach to enforcing the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, requiring the state to immediately seek custody of newborns exposed to drugs. The program so far has resulted in 168 children removed from dangerous homes. We’ve increased foster parent payments by 25%, putting more resources in the hands of the people doing one of the hardest and most important jobs in New Mexico. We’ve also extended foster care eligibility from 18 to 21, providing young adults, aging out of the system with housing support, behavioral health services, job assistance, and food access. And we continue to do more.
The Attorney General’s report is shocking but shock value doesn’t solve the problems, and our response is to keep doing the important daily work of keeping New Mexico’s children safe.”
LAWMAKERS REACT
State lawmakers universally expressed outrage at the Justice Department’s findings. They also expressed ideas on how to move forward.
House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, said he did not disagree with Torrez’s suggestion to rebuild CYFD from the ground up. Speaker Martinez noted he has sponsored legislation in the last 3 years to move control of the child welfare agency out from under the governor to an independent commission. He also said CYFD is spread too thin to be effective, given it manages both protective services and juvenile justice programs, a point also made by the Justice Department in its report. Speaker Martínez said this:
“The truth of the matter is, the agency has long outlived its usefulness, quite frankly. The fact that we have the same agency dealing with foster children also dealing with criminal justice is insane, and that has to change.”
Albuquerque area Democrat Sen. Michael Padilla said the ongoing failures of CYFD detailed in the report were “unacceptable for the protection of New Mexico’s children.” However, he noted CYFD has struggled for many years and said the blame did not lie with Lujan Grisham’s administration. Padilla said he plans to propose legislation next year that would move governance of CYFD to a board of regents rather than the governor. The panel should include people experienced in child welfare, he said, such as a behavioral health specialist and a foster parent, and that it should have an executive director to closely oversee the child welfare system who would not turn over when a new governor is elected. Padilla said this:
“I think this allows for long-range planning, budgeting, financing, goal-setting and development for the people that do this very important work.”
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
The entire 224 page New Mexico Department of Justice investigation report is an extremely difficult read as it highlights in graphic detail so many child abuse and child neglect cases. All excuses given by the Children, Youth and Families Department and any and all claims made CYFD Spokesman Thompson of progress made by the department over the last seven months pales in comparison to the preventable mental and physical damage that has been inflicted upon New Mexico’s children over so many decades of poor performance and dereliction of duty to children by the CYFD.
Enough is enough! The level of corruption and dereliction of duty by CYFD is likely so extensive that it would be best to abolish the department because of the level of incompetence and physical and mental injury to so many children over so many decades. The suffering and abuse of New Mexico’s children is preventable and must be stopped.
The New Mexico Courts need to intervene and order the takeover of CYFD with the appointment of a special master to begin an aggressive agenda to bring the department under control until the legislature can act. The New Mexico legislature needs to step in and abolish the Children’s Youth and Family Department and create a new, independent agency that is overseen by a governing board, much like what has been proposed by New Mexico Speaker of the House Javier Martinez.
Links to quoted or relied upon news sources are here:
https://www.koat.com/article/new-mexico-attorney-general-cyfd-lawsuit/70956044
The link to a related article is here: