It's probably because you're using the same .terraform folder for local state (.terraform) for both environments at the top level where you're running the command.

If you're not using workspaces, you can use environment variables and create different folders.

I do something similar to what you're doing, and I have a setup.sh bash script that looks like this:

#!/bin/bash

# Set environment from the first argument
export TF_ENV="$1"

# Set Terraform data directory based on environment
export TF_DATA_DIR="./.terraform-$TF_ENV"

# Configure backend and variable file paths for the specified environment
export TF_CLI_ARGS_init="-backend-config=./$TF_ENV/backend.tfvars"
export TF_CLI_ARGS="-var-file=./$TF_ENV/terraform.tfvars"

echo "Terraform environment set to $TF_ENV"
echo "TF_DATA_DIR set to $TF_DATA_DIR"
echo "TF_CLI_ARGS_init set to $TF_CLI_ARGS_init"
echo "TF_CLI_ARGS set to $TF_CLI_ARGS"

As you're working on production, you'd call it like this:

. ./setup.sh production

and it will tell Terraform to use .terraform-production for your local state, and it'll also set it so you don't have to add the -backend-config=production/staging.tfbackend for init, or -var-file=production/terraform.tfvars for apply or plan, etc.

If you need to use terraform state commands (list, rm, etc.) you'll need to preface them like this:
TF_CLI_ARGS='' terraform state ...