Judge Cano and his wife arrested on federal charges

Editor's note: This story was updated at 7 a.m., Saturday, April 26, 20225.

FBI agents arrested former Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano and his wife, Nancy, on Thursday, April 24, 2025, on federal charges.

The Canos were arrested on Thursday in connection with an arrest in late February of three Venezuelan men living in a casita on the Canos’ property.  Joel Cano is charged with tampering with evidence. Nancy Cano is charged with conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

Joel Cano resigned from the bench in March after federal agents served a search warrant to search the casita on the Canos’ property. A man, Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, was living in the casita. Federal agents arrested and charged Ortega-Lopez for being an alien in possession of a firearm. Two other men associated with Ortega-Lopez were also living in the casita and they were also arrested because of an alleged association with a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua, according to court documents. 

Social media posts of the Venezuelan men holding guns in December 2024, some of which included Cano in the background, led authorities to investigate the men.

The New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission, an independent agency that investigates alleged misconduct committed by state court judges, filed disciplinary cases against Cano last month. The New Mexico Supreme Court responded by issuing an order on April 22 disciplining Cano, stating that he could never hold judicial office again, be a candidate for a judicial office or exercise any judicial authority in the state.

Cano issued a response to the courts on March 21, in which he said the Venezuelan men living in his casita had been in possession of legal documentation that said “This person is not subject to removal” and all three had asylum court dates. Cano also said all three men had caught rides with U.S. ICE agents, traveled through federal immigration checkpoints in New Mexico multiple times and one flew to Detroit. He argued that if the men had lacked proper documentation, they would not have been able to travel so freely for about a year.

Cano’s wife hired the men and gave them shelter in the Canos’ casita because the men had suffered significant hardship and had been living on the streets of Denver and El Paso with little to no money, according to Cano’s response on March 21.

Cano attributes the Venezuelan men’s arrest to the Trump Administration’s March 15^th invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 which gives the president the wartime authority to detain or deport members of an “enemy nation.” According to Trump’s presidential action, the Tren de Aragua are “infiltrating” the U.S. and “conducting irregular warfare.”

Both of the Canos have had an initial appearance before a judge. A detention hearing and preliminary hearing are scheduled for Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Both of the Canos will remain in custody pending their detention hearing.