Across nearly three dozen lawsuits, about $12 billion of funding is at risk
On Jan. 21, 2025, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez joined leaders in 17 other states and Washington, D.C., to challenge President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to redefine birthright citizenship. Torrez in a statement called it a “direct attack on the Constitution and the fundamental rights it guarantees to every child born on American soil.”
In the nearly one year since then, Torrez’s New Mexico Department of Justice has led or signed onto 36 such cases in total. The legal challenges have taken aim at the administration’s cuts to SNAP funding, deployment of National Guard members and threats to withhold Victims of Crime Act grants from states that did not support federal immigration enforcement measures.
Torrez’s office in February took the lead in a multi-state lawsuit against Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, arguing that Trump “sought to elevate an agency, which was primarily responsible for the maintenance of government websites, into effectively a department of everything” and inappropriately appointed an agency head who wasn’t required to undergo Senate confirmation.
Source NM spoke with Torrez about his year of suing the White House, the extent to which these claims have restored federal funding to programs in New Mexico and how he balances it with his “day job” as the top legal officer in the state. He expressed frustration with how DOGE cuts have become “internalized” across federal agencies, despite Musk’s departure. And he took aim at the U.S. Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Roberts, and its use of the emergency docket to weigh in on many of these issues.
Read the full interview here.