When the New Mexico Legislature's interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee convenes Monday morning, expect a number of Republican members to be locked up behind bars.

The Senate's ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Crystal Brantley of Elephant Butte, used her connections in the Trump administration to arrange a long-discussed tour of the Otero County Processing Center, an immigration detention facility in Chaparral, at the same time as the meeting.

The tour, however, wasn't sanctioned by the committee chairman, Sen. Joe Cervantes, a Las Cruces Democrat who said the meeting will proceed nonetheless.

"I think we'll have a quorum, and if not, we'll operate as a subcommittee," he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

A months-long effort to get an inside look at the faci

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