SANTA FE — First Lady Melania Trump wrote to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last month, urging her to join a new federal initiative creating savings and investment accounts for children in foster care — a request that landed as the governor faces escalating scrutiny over conditions inside New Mexico’s child welfare system.
In a June 15 letter from the White House, Melania Trump asked governors nationwide to pledge to open Fostering the Future Accounts for children in their states’ care. The accounts, enabled by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and administered through the U.S. Department of the Treasury, are designed to give foster youth a dedicated savings vehicle that becomes accessible when they reach adulthood.
“For the first time in our Nation’s history, children in foster care will have access to a dedicated savings and investment vehicle,” Melania Trump wrote. “This gives foster youth the same opportunity for asset ownership and long-term wealth creation as every other American child.”
Twenty-three governors had already pledged to open accounts before the Treasury Department’s announcement formalizing the program last week, according to the White House. All 23 are Republicans. Lujan Grisham was not among them.
Vince Torres, executive director of the America First Policy Institute New Mexico, publicized the first lady’s letter on Wednesday on social media, tagging the governor’s account and calling on her to sign on.
“Foster youth deserve the same opportunity to build a secure financial future as any other child,” Torres wrote. “I respectfully urge [the governor] to support Fostering the Future Accounts in NM.”
The push comes as Lujan Grisham’s administration faces sustained criticism over the state’s child welfare agency. In April, Attorney General Raúl Torrez released a 224-page report documenting what his office called systematic failures at the Children, Youth and Families Department, including 14 children who died while in state custody. Torrez simultaneously filed suit against CYFD, alleging the agency used confidentiality statutes to retaliate against foster parents and others who raised concerns about child safety.
Lujan Grisham disputed the report’s framing, saying it “captures a system of the past” and pointing to a January 2026 executive order ending the practice of housing foster children overnight in CYFD offices. Advocates and shelter operators, however, told reporters in subsequent weeks that children had been shifted to youth homeless shelters ill-equipped to handle their needs, and that the underlying placement shortage remained unresolved.
At the time of publication, the governor’s office had not indicated whether Lujan Grisham would accept the first lady’s invitation to participate in the Fostering the Future Accounts program.
