Shortly after obtaining his license to practice law, he became a lawyer at the Academia Teórico-Práctica de Jurisprudencia, and later its vice-president.
The justification for this was that the mother country was now occupied by foreign troops, and the royal family was being held prisoner.
Among the first acts of Garibay's administration was the issuance of arrest warrants for leaders in the independence movement — Azcárate y Ledesma, Primo de Verdad y Ramos, José Beye Cisneros, the abbot of Guadalupe, Canon Beristáin, Licenciado Cristo, Iturrigaray's secretary, and Fray Melchor de Talamantes.
On the fall of Emperor Agustín de Iturbide, he served successive Mexican administrations, as a minister in the Supreme War Tribunal, as a member of the Mexico City government, and as secretary of the Hospital of the Poor.
In addition, he wrote poetry and prose, including: The first two of these are poetical works inspired by the dedication of the equestrian statue of Charles IV by Manuel Tolsá in Mexico City in 1803.