'Zero Tolerance' for Retaliation: AG Says CYFD Hid Behind Secrecy as 14 Children Died

On April 8, 2026, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez released a report of more than 200 pages on the Children, Youth and Families Department and sued the agency the same day. CYFD has since asked a judge to throw the case out, and its answer to the central charge has not changed. Its line, repeated in April by spokesperson Jake Thompson: Cabinet Secretary Valerie Sandoval has said on numerous occasions that CYFD has "zero tolerance for retribution or retaliation."

The attorney general's own findings say the opposite. His office says CYFD used the state's confidentiality law to "intimidate employees, advocates and families," withheld records from investigators, and ties the deaths of 14 children in two years to the agency's lapses. The report's title does not hedge: "Systemic Failures: How CYFD Endangers the Children It's Meant to Protect."

None of this started in 2026. The paper trail problem goes back at least five years.

The investigation began in April 2025, after 16-year-old Jaydun Garcia died in CYFD custody while placed at a former Albuquerque halfway house. Torrez said then that "the State of New Mexico failed to protect this child." A year later his team had reviewed more than 20,000 pages of records and interviewed more than 150 witnesses.

The core finding: CYFD put "family reunification at virtually any cost" ahead of child safety. Independent monitors found CYFD met zero of 42 targeted outcomes in 2024, down from 5 percent the year before.

The lawsuit, filed in First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe, is narrower. It accuses CYFD of using confidentiality to keep a "shroud of secrecy" over abuse and neglect cases in which it failed to protect children. The attorney general's office says it made more than 10 formal records requests over six months, and many were rejected outright or arrived late and incomplete. It asks the court to bar retaliation against people who lawfully discuss abuse and neglect cases.

Xaqueline "Xaquie" Bynum, 5, was found dead in her family's Silver City home on March 10, 2024. Her parents were charged in her death. A lawsuit over her death says CYFD had received multiple abuse and neglect reports on the household before she died, and none led to a substantial intervention.

The attorney general's complaint says that after her death, Xaquie's brother stayed with his grandmother, who had sent a recording of a Children's Court hearing to sheriff's investigators. CYFD then removed the boy from her home, placed him with a foster family and barred her from visiting, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. The state Justice Department calls the move "purely punitive." If that account holds, it is the agency's zero tolerance for retaliation, as applied.

In April 2021, Searchlight New Mexico reported that CYFD leadership under then-Secretary Brian Blalock ran official business on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, with at least some chats set to delete after 24 hours. Blalock acknowledged the routine deletions, said the messages were not subject to the public records law, and offered a line that has aged badly: "We destroy records every day because we have to."

Two senior staffers objected. Cliff Gilmore, who ran CYFD's public information office, and his wife Debra Gilmore, who led the Office of Children's Rights, raised the Signal use internally and with the governor's office. Both were fired on May 6, 2021. They sued under the Whistleblower Protection Act, alleging the disappearing messages were used to avoid records requests. In 2023, CYFD agreed to pay them $650,000.

In 2022, a wrongful death suit over James Dunklee Cruz, a 4-year-old killed in December 2019, added claims of intentional destruction of evidence. A CYFD caseworker testified under oath that she was made to change and delete parts of her notes before they entered the agency's permanent database, and the family's lawyers believed her work phone was wiped. The Bernalillo County district attorney said the allegations were "under review." The state settled the case for $4.9 million. No public account of the outcome of that review could be found.

The secrecy now extends to the checks. Searchlight reported in April that CYFD had agreed to nearly $16 million in sealed settlements in fiscal year 2026.

CYFD says the report "underplays or ignores significant, measurable progress." In its April 8 statement, the agency said it had hired nearly 250 staff in six months, closed thousands of completed cases to cut caseloads, ended the practice of children staying in its offices on Feb. 12, and places 90 percent of foster children in family settings. It says the court-appointed co-neutrals in Kevin S., the 2020 settlement of a foster children's class action, have acknowledged that progress, and that it did not get to review the attorney general's findings before release.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's office called the report "shocking" but said "shock value doesn't solve problems," pointing to higher foster parent payments and foster care extended to age 21. In court, CYFD has denied obstructing the investigation or using confidentiality to retaliate, and asked Judge Kathleen McGarry Ellenwood to dismiss the case with prejudice.

On July 28, 2026, the attorney general filed a second suit. It alleged CYFD staff took a 15-year-old U.S. citizen out of its custody, took him to the Bridge of the Americas in El Paso, and told him to walk into Mexico.

For CYFD and Valerie Sandoval: Why was Xaquie Bynum's brother removed from his grandmother's care, and did her cooperation with prosecutors play any part? How many employees, foster parents or caregivers have been disciplined, cut off or had placements changed after speaking publicly or to law enforcement since 2024? What is the current auto-delete setting on CYFD's Teams, text and messaging tools, and who sets it?

For Gov. Lujan Grisham's office: Did the governor's office act on Cliff Gilmore's April 2021 complaint about Signal before he was fired?

For the New Mexico Department of Justice: When will the confidentiality case be heard? Has the department referred any CYFD employee for criminal review over withheld or destroyed records?

This story is based on public records and reporting through Oct. 20, 2026, including the Department of Justice report, CYFD's statement, and reporting by Searchlight New Mexico, Source NM, the Santa Fe Reporter, the Santa Fe New Mexican, the Albuquerque Journal, KOB 4 and KUNM. Later filings in the confidentiality case and the outcome of the Dunklee Cruz evidence review could not be confirmed. We are looking for CYFD message retention schedules and anyone with firsthand knowledge of retaliation against caregivers. CYFD, the Office of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the New Mexico Department of Justice were asked for comment; responses will be added with a dated update. Tips and corrections: [email protected].