On June 8, the New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously rejected an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) emergency petition to immediately halt Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Executive Order placing drug-exposed newborns in state protective custody. The New Mexico Supreme Court refused to halt the Governor’s specific policy designed to prevent drug-exposed newborns in New Mexico from being discharged to unsafe home environments.
Without comment, the New Mexico Supreme Court Justices unanimously denied a petition from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico and State Rep. Micaela Cadena, D-Mesilla, and State Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque seeking an emergency order on the grounds that the practice is unlawful and causing irreparable harm to family’s and their newborn children. The petition sought to prohibit the state Children, Youth and Families Department from taking custody of such infants at hospitals and immediately filing abuse and neglect petitions against their parents in court.
More than 130 infants have entered foster care or other suitable placements since Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham instituted the directive on July 7, 2025. Governor Lujan Grisham said this in a statement:
“The drugs devastating our families today demand a different response from state government. … My Executive Order is part of that response and it has already saved lives. The order is designed as a temporary structure to protect our most vulnerable children, not as a punishment of their parents.”
According to court documents filed by Lujan Grisham’s office in the case, the Governor’s Office asserts that the policy has improved the lives of children who are “recovering today because CYFD was able to investigate substance-exposure reports promptly and uncover the serious risks that lay beneath the surface.”
The ACLU contended that parents whose newborns were taken into state custody were denied due process and argued the practice is unconstitutional. Before July 2025, CYFD did not automatically take custody of and investigate newborns identified by hospital workers as drug exposed. Instead, infants could go home under “safety plans” and CYFD would investigate only if it received a separate report of abuse or neglect.
The ACLU alleged in its petition seeking an emergency stay that New Mexico, unlike at least 24 other states, does not consider infants abused or neglected solely because of prenatal drug exposure. The ACLU argued this in their complaint filed:
“Under this zero-tolerance policy …. newborns are removed from their parents at birth, deprived of developmentally crucial bonding time, and ushered into a system with a proven lack of capacity to provide adequate care.”
In response to the civil complaint filed by the ACLU, the governor argued she acted in response to past tragedies, including the death of a 1-month-old boy born exposed to amphetamines, fentanyl and marijuana. In January 2025, the infant was found dead, face down on a heating pad in his crib. Months earlier, another substance-exposed infant suffered a fractured leg at just 3 months old. The Governor’s Office argued that the ACLU, state Rep. Micaela Cadena, D-Mesilla, and state Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, lacked standing to bring the case. They further argued that parents can challenge removals through Children’s Court proceedings and argued this:
“The Directive makes the substance-exposed newborn’s health and safety the ‘paramount concern’ by utilizing existing authority to give CYFD the time to investigate and ensure that an infant can safely remain in the care of the parent who exposed them to a dangerous drug, multiple drugs or large amounts of alcohol — as opposed to simply letting the baby go and ‘hoping for the best.”
Maralyn Beck, founder and executive director of the nonprofit New Mexico Child First Network said this about the Supreme Court ruling denying the ACLU requested relief:
“We are relieved, if not overjoyed, to see the Supreme Court deny this petition. The governor’s directive is working … lives have been saved.”
https://www.abqjournal.com/news/court-upholds-policy-protecting-drug-exposed-newborns-in-nm/3058867
RECALLING NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE REPORT OF THE NEW MEXICO CHILDREN YOUTH AND FAMILY’S DEPARTMENT
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. 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/
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.
…
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
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.”
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 sobering conclusion:
“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.
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
(EDITORS NOTE: In the interest of full disclosure, Pete Dinelli served as an Assistant District Attorney with the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office in the mid 1980s and was assigned to the Violent Crimes Division by then District Attorney Steve Schiff. Dinelli was one of two prosecutors that did a grand jury presentation and investigation of the state’s negligent handling of child abuse cases and neglect cases before the Children, Youth and Family Department was created. Many years later as Chief Deputy District Attorney appointed by then District Attorney Jeff Romero, Dinelli’s duties included supervision of the “Crimes Against Children” division that prosecuted child neglect and abuse cases.)
The lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico and State Representative Micaela Cadena, D-Mesilla, and State Senatro Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque seeking an emergency order to immediately halt Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Executive Order placing drug-exposed newborns in state protective custody is what can be simply characterized as “Damned If You Do, Damn If You Don’t” litigation against the Governor and the State. It was an ill-advised lawsuit.
It’s more likely than not similar litigation would have been filed if the State failed to intervene placing drug-exposed newborns in state protective custody. Over the past 30 plus years, many lawsuits have been filed against the Children’s Youth and Family department for their negligent handling of child abuse cases leading to an infant’s death or injuries and millions of dollars have been awarded. It’s clear that the Governor’s no tolerance policy is in fact working and saving lives given that more than 130 infants have entered foster care or other suitable placements since Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham instituted the directive on July 7, 2025.
The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously rejecting the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) emergency petition to immediately halt Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Executive Order placing drug-exposed newborns in state protective custody was the right thing to do from a legal as well as moral obligation. It was the right thing to do given the content of the New Mexico Department of Justice’s investigation of the New Mexico Children Youth and Family’s Department (CYFD) findings that its failures are in part fueled by the agency’s overcommitment to keeping at-risk families together.
The Governor’s Executive Order of placing drug-exposed newborns in state protective custody is the aggressive action demanded to overcome CYFD’s abandonment of child safety as its guiding principle as found by the Department of Justice investigation and the grave harm that can result when CYFD delays removing vulnerable children from dangerous environments.
The safety of any child, especially the new born and children of tender years who cannot defend themselves against drug abuse, physical abuse or sexual abuse by their own parents, must always take precedence over trying to preserve a family unit. The blunt reality is that physical abuse, sexual abuse or drug exposure of any child at the hands of their own parents is evidence that a viable family unit no longer exists or that the family unit is so dysfunctional that it is in the very best interest of the child to separate the child from the family. In such instances, the state has a moral obligation to intervene to protect the health, safety and welfare of a newborn or child of tender years.
New Mexico courts must and can do more. 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.