New Mexico sues child welfare agency over teen sent to Mexico

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued the state's Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) on July 28, asking it to help return a 15-year-old US citizen from Mexico. The complaint says CYFD staff drove the teenager to a border crossing in El Paso, Texas, on July 6 and instructed him to walk into Mexico alone to find his mother.

The Associated Press reported that the lawsuit also seeks a temporary restraining order requiring court approval before CYFD places a child outside the United States. The court had not decided whether to issue that order when the case was reported.

The teenager returned to the US side but was not taken back

The teenager had lived in New Mexico with his siblings and godmother and had little contact with either parent for years, according to the complaint. His mother, a Mexican national, had been arrested on drug-related charges and deported earlier in 2026. A hospital contacted CYFD in June after declining to discharge him to his godmother because she was not his legal guardian, and the agency placed him in foster care.

The complaint says the teenager crossed into Mexico but could not immediately find his mother. He then ran across several traffic lanes and returned to the United States. US Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency that manages border inspections, urged CYFD staff to drive him back to New Mexico, but staff refused and allegedly called him a “Texas problem.”

Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the state agency that handles child welfare cases, then took temporary custody of the teenager. The complaint says Texas officials tried to contact CYFD and eventually returned him to his mother in Mexico several weeks later. Torrez said the teenager remained there after several attempts to reenter the United States.

The state agency says the reunification was safe

CYFD denied that the teenager's safety was at risk. The agency said his mother requested the reunification and that staff conducted two virtual home visits before concluding that her home was safe. It also said his godparents had asked a court to end their informal guardianship and that his siblings later moved across the border to live with their mother.

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham's office said New Mexico and Texas authorities and a New Mexico judge had separately concluded that the teenager should be with his mother. The office also said the attorney general's filing did not explain where the teenager would live or who would care for him if he returned.

Torrez's complaint gives a different account of the process. It alleges that CYFD did not adequately assess the mother, sent a minor across an international border without an adult and failed to ensure continuity of care for a heart condition requiring daily medication. These are allegations rather than findings by the court, and APPI News could not independently review the home visits or medical records.

The legal dispute centers on the safety of the placement

New Mexico law does not expressly bar a child welfare agency from reuniting a child with a parent in another country if the transfer is safe, Cristen Conley, director of the University of New Mexico's Corinne Wolfe Center for Child and Family Justice, told the Associated Press. The lawsuit therefore focuses on whether the agency assessed and carried out this placement safely, rather than on a categorical ban on cross-border reunification.

The teenager later contacted New Mexico's Office of the Child Advocate, an independent state watchdog for the child welfare system. The office referred the case to the New Mexico Department of Justice. No ruling resolving the competing accounts was reported by the article's publication date.

A separate case involving a mother deported from Texas shows how removal decisions can leave US citizens and people with continuing US legal claims on opposite sides of the border. Read more about Jessica Treviño's challenge to her deportation and proposed DACA termination.

An April investigation had already faulted CYFD

An April 2026 New Mexico Department of Justice investigation identified systemic failures at CYFD, including inconsistent risk assessments and cases in which reunification took priority over child safety. The report examined other cases and does not establish what happened in this teenager's placement, but it provides the institutional context for Torrez's request for court oversight.

CYFD has said it will answer the complaint in court. Until a judge weighs the evidence, the allegation that staff endangered the teenager and the agency's claim that the placement was safe remain unresolved.

Frequently asked questions

What does the lawsuit allege?
It says CYFD staff drove a 15-year-old US citizen to an El Paso border crossing and directed him to enter Mexico alone. It also alleges that staff refused to take him back after he returned to the US side.

Where was the teenager when the case was reported?
He was living in Mexico with his mother after Texas child welfare officials returned him to her, according to the complaint. Torrez asked CYFD to help bring him back to the United States.

What does CYFD say?
The agency says the teenager was safe, his mother requested reunification and two virtual home visits found the home suitable. It said it would respond to the complaint in court.

Has a court ruled that the transfer was unlawful?
No such ruling was reported by the article's publication date. The lawsuit asks for the teenager's return and court approval for future placements outside the United States.