The September LWVCNM Educational Meeting will feature speakers from Volunteers for Immigrants in Detention (VIDA) --  Patricia Bonilla, a VIDA Volunteer, and Kelly McCloskey, the VIDA Volunteer Coordinator, addressing the issue of immigrant detention in New Mexico.

Pat Bonilla has been a teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL) for more than 50 years. Her students are adult immigrants from all over the world. They have taught her so much!  Pat has lived for extended periods in both Ecuador (her husband’s country) and Venezuela. Pat is doing a lot of volunteer work with VIDA and with Encuentro, another organization helping immigrant families. Over her years with VIDA, Pat has visited with hundreds of men in Torrance and Cibola County detention centers. With Encuentro, her main volunteer work now is tutoring students to pass their U.S. Citizenship exam. Pat says “I’m always so happy to see the LWV registering new U.S. Citizens at the swearing-in ceremonies!”

Kelly McCloskey will share the work that VIDA: Volunteers for Immigrants in Detention - Albuquerque and the Deportation Defense Team of the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center (NMILC) are doing at Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan and at Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia. Recently retired from a 30-year career teaching French and Spanish, she is the coordinator of VIDA and a legal assistant for the Deportation Defense Team at NMILC.

VIDA is a group of volunteers who fight immigrant detention in New Mexico and elsewhere. There will be an opportunity at the end of the meeting to write handwritten CARDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT to men who are currently detained at the Torrance and Cibola centers. VIDA will deliver the cards on their next detention center visits.

Each day, thousands of immigrants are detained across the United States in dedicated detention centers, prisons, and jails. Most people in ICE custody are held in for-profit facilities. The United States operates the world’s largest immigrant detention system. Leaders of both major political parties continue to prioritize and fund it at high levels.

Most detained immigrants are held because of their immigration status. As of February 7, 2026, 73.6% had no criminal convictions; some of the remainder had convictions only for traffic violations or other nonviolent offenses. People in ICE detention are held for unpredictable lengths of time, enduring imprisonment and isolation while facing uncertainty about their cases. VIDA volunteers provide a connection to the outside world, and they serve as observers and advocates. (cont.)

CoreCivic operates two New Mexico prisons that detain immigrants for ICE: Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia and Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan. VIDA visits and supports people at both facilities, corresponds with detained immigrants nationwide, advocates on their behalf, and exposes the human rights abuses they face. This work advances the broader movement to close detention centers, end immigrant detention, and increase public awareness of its realities.

VIDA conducts participatory defense campaigns for people whom pro bono attorneys identify as wrongfully detained or otherwise treated unjustly. With the client’s consent and guidance from counsel, volunteers and organizers quickly publicize the person’s story and build support through petitions, appeals to ICE, outreach to members of Congress and the media, and other forms of public pressure.

Please join us to learn about this issue and the work this organization is doing on behalf of these immigrants.