New Mexico — Hiring & Onboarding

New Mexico employers must complete Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, for every individual hired for employment in the United States. The employee completes Section 1 no later than the first day of employment; the employer examines acceptable documents and completes Section 2 within three business days of the employee's start date. Employers must retain each Form I-9 for three years after the date of hire or one year after employment ends, whichever is later. New Mexico has no state-specific I-9 requirements and does not mandate E-Verify use (except where required by federal contract).

Source: USCIS Form I-9 Central

New Mexico prohibits private employers from inquiring about an applicant's arrest or conviction history on an initial employment application, whether written or electronic. This "ban-the-box" restriction took effect July 1, 2019, under an amendment to the Criminal Offender Employment Act (NMSA § 28-2-3.1).

Scope and timing

The prohibition applies to initial employment applications only. After reviewing the employment application, an employer may take an applicant's conviction into consideration upon discussion of employment with the applicant—in practice, during interviews or the later stages of the hiring process. The statute does not prevent background checks; it only shifts the timing of criminal-history inquiries to a later point in the hiring process, after the application stage.

What employers may and may not do

Employers may not include questions about criminal history (arrests or convictions) on initial job application forms. Employers may, however:

• Notify the public or applicants—for example, in a job posting or during an interview—that the law or the employer's policy could disqualify applicants with certain criminal histories from employment in particular positions.
• Conduct criminal background checks after the initial application review and during discussion of employment.
• Consider conviction information when making hiring decisions, provided the inquiry occurs after the application stage.

Sealed and expunged records

New Mexico law separately prohibits employers from asking applicants for information about criminal records that have been sealed or expunged under the state's Criminal Record Expungement Act, enacted in 2019 alongside the ban-the-box amendment.

No employer-size threshold; remedies under the Human Rights Act

Unlike some state ban-the-box laws, NMSA § 28-2-3.1 does not contain an express employer-size threshold in the plain text of the private-employer provision. Applicants who believe an employer has violated the ban-the-box requirement may seek relief under the New Mexico Human Rights Act (NMSA § 28-1-1 et seq.).

Relationship to public employers

New Mexico's ban-the-box law for public employers (state and local government) has been in place since 2010 under NMSA § 28-2-3. That provision goes further: public employers may not ask about criminal history on an initial application and may only consider a conviction "after the applicant has been selected as a finalist for the position," and even then a conviction may not automatically disqualify someone from public employment. The 2019 amendment extended ban-the-box protections to private-sector applicants, though with a less stringent timing requirement (discussion of employment rather than finalist status).

Exceptions

The Criminal Offender Employment Act expressly exempts law enforcement agencies from its ban-the-box restrictions (NMSA § 28-2-5). Positions that are subject to other state or federal laws requiring criminal-history inquiries—such as certain health-care, childcare, or positions working with vulnerable populations—may have different obligations, though employers should carefully review those mandates to determine whether they override the timing requirements of § 28-2-3.1 or simply permit later inquiries.

Source: NMSA § 28-2-3.1, Criminal Offender Employment Act—Legislative Handout, New Mexico Legislature