It’s common for elected officials to seek higher office and use their past political achievements like a résumé on the campaign trail. But some are claiming that Democratic candidate for governor Sam Bregman is using his position as Bernalillo County District Attorney as a steppingstone to higher office. A January letter Bregman sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement gained national attention. During an interview on CNN's The Story with Elex Michaelson, Bregman said he was "horrified" by the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, including the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Bregman threatened to arrest any ICE agents who break New Mexico laws.
"If you don’t have a warrant, reasonable suspicion or probable cause in New Mexico, you don’t get to detain someone," Bregman told Michaelson. "I don’t care who you are."
The clip ended with Bregman vowing to prosecute ICE agents.
But the letter and subsequent interviews and social media posts raised the eyebrows of some of Bregman’s critics like Jonathan Ibarra, President of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. Ibarra called Bregman’s claim about prosecuting ICE “a lot of bluster.”
“When I saw the post about his letter to ICE, I had no doubt that was going to be used in a commercial," Ibarra told KSFR. "It took about 24 hours before I saw such a commercial.”
George Lujan, executive director of the Southwest Organizing Project, had a similar sentiment.
“It was an open letter saying, 'watch out, partner—don't be rooting-tooting around here, ICE, or I'm gonna get you," Lujan told KSFR. "He's that all hat, no cattle kind of a politician.”
Both Ibarra and Lujan said that Bregman can enforce New Mexico’s laws without making a social media post or giving TV interviews about his intentions. But Bregman told KSFR that the threat to ICE had nothing to do with his campaign. He said he would have sent the letter whether he was running for governor or not.
"I work with law enforcement every single day and I'm proud of the relationship and the reputation I have with law enforcement," Bregman said. "As a rule of law kind of guy, I'm not going to put up with anybody breaking our laws. I'll hold anybody accountable.”
But Ibarra said that Bregman doesn’t have a track record of holding law enforcement accountable during his tenure as DA. Bregman pushed back on that claim, saying that “no one is above the law.”
Bregman mentioned three cases specifically in which he went after violent police officers, but they were all during his time as a private attorney. Two of the cases involved wrongful death lawsuits against Las Cruces police officers and the other was an excessive force suit against an Albuquerque police officer. All three resulted in settlements for the plaintiffs that Bregman represented.
In his capacity as district attorney, Bregman charged Otero County Sheriff's Deputy Jacob Diaz-Austin with the murder of 17-year-old Elijah Hadley after that case was sent to Bernalillo County due to a conflict of interest. That case has been delayed until August.
But in other cases, Bregman often defended violent law enforcement and corrections officers. Those cases included defending a corrections officer who was indicted but found not guilty in the death of an inmate, an Albuquerque police officer who was found guilty of using excessive force, and the infamous case involving Albuquerque Police Detective Keith Sandy. Sandy was charged with the murder of James Boyd, a man with mental illness experiencing homelessness. That case ended in a mistrial.
Bregman said he has yet to prosecute any ICE agents, but his office has received some tips about unlawful ICE activity that they have not been able to verify.
Lujan also took issue with Bregman’s general reputation as being “tough on crime," which Lujan said, "really means being tough on people that are extremely vulnerable.”
Lujan is particularly concerned about some of Bregman’s past proposals regarding juvenile justice. One of the Southwest Organizing Project’s primary goals is to decrease the number of youths that are in detention facilities in New Mexico.
In 2024 Bregman proposed transferring detainees from juvenile detention to the county jail if they turn 18 while in custody. He later proposed expanding the definition of the term “serious youthful offender.”
"Transferring kids to adult facilities when it's not appropriate, and trying to to pin them with with adult sentences doesn't show any creativity or leadership," Lujan said. "Or, any ambition to improve the life of a person that's going through that.”
But Bregman said it’s “common sense” to transfer older teens out of juvenile detention centers where they could potentially have a negative influence on younger detainees.
Bregman said that his work to expand the definition of “serious youthful offender” was influenced directly by his interactions with victims’ families.
“I've had to face far too many families whose children were killed by another person 16 years of age and can't understand or fathom the idea of how that person who murdered their son or daughter is now out at the age of 21,” Bregman said.
A serious youthful offender is someone ages 15 to 18 who is charged with first degree murder. House Bill 134 from the 2025 legislative session would have expanded that category to include 14-year-olds and other crimes — second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and some gun crimes. That bill never made it to committee. Some reporting at the time claimed that Bregman worked with Republicans to introduce HB 134. In fact, the bill was sponsored by two Republicans and two Democrats. Bregman said he worked with Democratic Senator Linda Trujillo of Santa Fe to introduce a similar bill in the recent 2026 session. That bill passed the judiciary and finance committees but never made it to the Senate floor.
Like Bregman, Lujan said his work is also motivated by personal interactions with people affected by crime and the criminal justice system.
“When you talk to a 14-year-old who is caught up in the system, you come to develop an appreciation of what their life is like," Lujan said. "And to understand that they're going through something that you can't understand.”
Lujan said these interactions often leave him wondering, "how can I change the trajectory of this person’s life? How can I get them to take responsibility for their life?”
Although they advocate for different solutions, Lujan and Bregman agree—New Mexico’s juvenile justice system is in desperate need of reform.
