Jobs for Felons in New Mexico

If a private business uses a written or online application, it cannot ask about arrests or convictions on it. It can consider a conviction later, after reviewing your application and talking with you about the job. Employers can still post that the law or their policy may rule out people with certain records for certain jobs.

If a private employer asks on the application anyway, you can seek relief under the New Mexico Human Rights Act. Complaints go to the Human Rights Bureau at the Department of Workforce Solutions.

For state, county and city jobs and state licenses, a conviction cannot be an automatic bar. The initial application cannot ask about convictions, and a public employer can consider a conviction only after you are chosen as a finalist.

Some records cannot be used at all: arrests with no conviction; convictions that were sealed, dismissed, expunged or pardoned; juvenile adjudications; and convictions not related to the job. A public employer or board can refuse you over a felony only if it directly relates to the job, and must put its reasons in writing.

Since April 2025, these rules do not apply to law enforcement agencies, child care licensing and jobs, caregiver jobs covered by state caregiver screening, the Children, Youth and Families Department, or public school licensure. Those agencies set their own screening rules.

Under federal law, a background check company can report a conviction no matter how old it is. Arrests that did not lead to a conviction generally drop off after seven years (the limit does not apply to jobs paying $75,000 a year or more). We found no New Mexico law that shortens that for convictions. Expungement is what closes an old case.

Most New Mexico convictions, felonies included, can be expunged by petition. First finish your sentence, pay the fines and fees owed to the state, and pay restitution. Then you need a stretch with no new conviction:

• Most misdemeanors and city ordinance violations: 2 years
• Fourth degree felonies: 4 years
• Third degree felonies: 6 years
• Second degree felonies: 8 years
• First degree felonies and domestic violence offenses: 10 years

The court also has to find that justice will be served. Some convictions cannot be expunged: offenses against a child, offenses that caused great bodily harm or death, sex offenses, embezzlement and DWI.

The case is treated as if it never happened, and you can answer that no record exists. The exception is jobs with financial firms regulated by FINRA or the SEC, where you must still disclose it.

Cannabis charges that are no longer crimes, or would be lesser offenses, under the 2021 Cannabis Regulation Act are expunged automatically. The courts must let you check whether yours has been done and ask for it to be sped up.

Federal EEOC guidance from 2012 warns employers that blanket “no felons” policies can violate Title VII, but since April 2025 a federal executive order has told agencies to deprioritize this kind of case. In New Mexico, state law and the Human Rights Act process are the stronger tools at the application stage.