Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Prosecutions Rise in New Mexico During First Year of Current Administration

ALBUQUERQUE - In the year since First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison assumed leadership of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico in April 2025, the office has brought 9,081 criminal cases related to border security and immigration enforcement, including illegal reentry, alien smuggling, immigration fraud, false statements, firearms offenses, and drug trafficking investigations stemming from southern border enforcement efforts. This represents a significant increase from the 3,457 criminal cases prosecuted during the April 2024 through April 2025 period.

The office also managed a significant civil caseload during the same period, including habeas corpus matters tied to immigration detention and federal custody proceedings.

"These cases show how transnational criminal organizations exploit people for profit, import violence across our southern border, and poison our communities with drugs and weapons," said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison. "In New Mexico, we are focused on identifying the leaders, dismantling the networks they rely on, and using federal prosecutions to disrupt these operations at every level."

The District of New Mexico's border security and immigration enforcement efforts focused on dismantling criminal networks responsible for human smuggling, drug trafficking, firearms offenses, and other crimes that threaten public safety and national security. Prosecutors worked closely with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute organizations operating across the Southwest border and throughout the United States.

Many of these prosecutions were part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. HSTF Region II CORE 7 is comprised of agents and officers from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Customs and Border Protection - Office of Field Operations (OFO), U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) and Air and Marine (AMO), Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), United States Department of the Interior - Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Joint Task Force North (JTF-N), United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), United States Marshal Service (USMS), Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DSS), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Texas Department of Public Safety (TXDPS), El Paso Police Department (EPPD), New Mexico State Police (NMSP), West Texas / New Mexico High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA), Albuquerque Police Department, New Mexico Sixth Judicial District, Las Cruces/Dona Ana County Metro Narcotics Agency, and the prosecution is being led by the Office of the United States Attorney for the Districts of Western Texas and New Mexico.