Courts give conflicting orders on asylum limits at border – By Elliot Spagat, Associated Press
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld sweeping asylum restrictions to prevent spread of COVID-19 but restored protections to keep migrant families from being expelled to their home countries without a chance to plead their cases.
Almost simultaneously, a federal judge in another case ruled that the Biden administration wrongly exempted unaccompanied children from the restrictions and ordered that they be subject to them in a week, allowing time for an emergency appeal.
The conflicting decisions injected legal uncertainty into the future of rules that deny migrants a chance to seek asylum on grounds that it risks spreading COVID-19.
U.S. authorities have expelled migrants more than 1.6 million times at the Mexican border without a chance to seek humanitarian protections since March 2020. The Biden administration has extended use of Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said COVID-19 concerns could stop migrant families from getting asylum to remain in the United States.
But, the judges said, migrants can seek other forms of humanitarian protection that would spare them being sent home if they are likely to be tortured or persecuted. Under a benefit called "withholding of removal" and the United Nations Convention Against Torture, migrants may be sent to third countries deemed safe alternatives if their homelands are too dangerous.
A panel of three judges — two appointed by President Barack Obama and one by President Donald Trump — sharply questioned the Biden administration's use of Title 42.
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee who wrote the unanimous ruling, noted that health concerns have changed dramatically since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the asylum restrictions two years ago. He wrote that it was "far from clear that the CDC order serves any purpose" for protecting public health.
"The CDC's order looks in certain respects like a relic from an era with no vaccines, scarce testing, few therapeutics, and little certainty," he wrote.
Walker noted that the Biden administration hasn't provided detailed evidence to support the restrictions.
"We are not cavalier about the risks of COVID-19. And we would be sensitive to declarations in the record by CDC officials testifying to the efficacy of the Order. But there are none," he wrote.
In the other ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, a Trump appointee, sided with the state of Texas, which argued that President Joe Biden wrongly broke with Trump by exempting children traveling alone for humanitarian reasons. He noted the increase in unaccompanied children at the border after the change.
Pittman, who is based in Fort Worth, Texas, said it was "beyond comprehension" that the case was even being argued. He said "there should be no disagreement that the current immigration policies should be focused on stopping the spread of COVID-19."
The Justice Department declined to comment on either ruling.
Immigration advocates claimed at least partial victory for the Washington, D.C., appeals court ruling.
"Today's decision did not strike down Title 42, but it creates legal and procedural safeguards to protect immigrants. Moving forward, immigrants cannot be deported without an assessment of whether they will be safe," said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights.
Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the appeals court case on behalf of asylum-seeking families, called the decision "an enormous victory." He said the Texas ruling "is wrong and puts children in grave danger."
Advocates of immigration restrictions took comfort in the Texas ruling.
"This is a truly historic victory, but we have a long, long, long way to go to end the administration's crusade to eradicate our sovereignty," said Stephen Miller, an architect of Trump's immigration policies who is now president of American First Legal, a legal advocacy group.
Mexico accepts migrants expelled under Title 42 who are from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The U.S. can expel migrants from other countries but it is more difficult due to costs, logistical issues and diplomatic relations. The number of asylum-seekers has grown from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — all countries with frosty relations with the United States.
New Mexico University suffers shortage of donated cadavers – Associated Press
Fewer people in New Mexico are donating their bodies to science when they die, making training harder for medical students preparing for their careers.
The University of New Mexico Anatomy Lab said Friday that it needs about 75 donated cadavers each year to train future doctors, but currently only has 18.
Amy Rosenbaum, director of the university's anatomical donations program, says medical students missed out on working with real cadavers during the early part of the coronavirus pandemic when all teaching was virtual.
"Seeing it in 3-D and in person is the best way to teach," she said.
The pandemic also has affected donations with mortuaries overwhelmed handling deaths and staffing problems, she said. Previously the university program accepted donations from across the state but now can only pickup cadavers within a 60-mile (96-kilometer) radius because of transportation issues.
Anatomy instructors may soon have to improvise when teaching students, said Rosenbaum.
"We've gone so far as to say maybe Group A can dissect one side of the body and Group B can dissect the other," she said.
New Mexico governor wants to divest from Russian stocks – Associated Press
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham wants to join other U.S. states in reconsidering public investments that might aid Russia as it wages war against Ukraine.
The Democrat announced Friday that she is urging the directors of the state's permanent funds and two major pension funds for public employees to examine investments that may benefit Russia and its supporters and take steps to divest.
"It is critical that the state of New Mexico demonstrates its support for the people of Ukraine and disclaim any investments that may directly or indirectly aid the Russian government's unjustified war," she said in a letter.
State Sen. Jacob Candelaria of Albuquerque made a similar plea earlier this week.
The State Investment Council is in charge of managing more than $35 billion in investments on behalf of New Mexico.
Council spokesman Charles Wollmann said the state's exposure to Russian stocks or bonds amounts to $7.9 million, or about 0.025% of the state's portfolio. The council sends out more than 12 times this amount to beneficiaries that include public schools and the state's general fund every month.
Wollmann said some of the state's investments are in emerging market indexes, which are now being restructured by their originators to remove Russian stocks. For other related investments, the council could instruct external investment managers to make changes once Russian markets reopen. Russian securities markets have been closed for several days, halting trading.
Still, the council will likely have to discuss the governor's request as a matter of policy, Wollmann said.
The effect of sanctions by U.S. states often pales in comparison to national ones. But officials from New York to Arkansas and Indiana have said they wanted to show solidarity with Ukraine and do what they could to build upon the penalties imposed on Russia by the U.S. government and other Western nations.
New Mexico increases focus on race in K-12 despite backlash – By Cedar Attanasio, Associated Press / Report for America
New Mexico's K-12 students will see a greater focus on race and ethnicity, including Native American history, in their curriculum over the next two years under new standards aimed at making social studies teaching more culturally responsive.
The New Mexico Public Education Department recently finalized the changes following months of debate that included pushback from parents worried their kids would be labeled racist. The standards don't mandate specific lessons or textbooks but will require school districts to increase their focus on social identities and understanding the world through the lens of race, class and privilege.
New Mexico is the latest Democratic-led state to approve new public school standards amid a move toward more open discussion of race. As in Washington and New York, the standards require students to identify and articulate their cultural identity starting in elementary school. Ethnic studies will now be part of the high school curriculum, though not required for graduation as in California.
A dozen other states have passed laws to restrict topics related to race and gender over concerns, particularly among the GOP, about "critical race theory," which has become a catch-all term for identity politics in education. In Virginia, the governor is looking to root out all traces of "inherently divisive concepts" some parents believe could make children feel as if they are racist because of their skin color.
In New Mexico, hundreds of parents, teachers and grandparents weighed in for and against the proposed changes last fall. Officials heard public comments in thousands of letters and hundreds of appearances in an all-day Zoom forum.
Supporters backed a closer look at the history of Indigenous communities in the state and more discussion of race and identity at an earlier age.
The final rule, published Feb. 16, rebutted some criticisms about identity and integrated a plea for including personal finance in the curriculum changes.
School districts will begin training teachers on the new standards next year and implement them in the classroom in the fall of 2023.
It's the state's first overhaul of social studies standards since 2001, expanding sections in history, geography, civics and economics.
The new standards change the way Native American histories are taught. In the coming years, students are more likely to study the state's 23 tribes on their own terms and more in depth. In the past, that history was cursory and focused on comparing and contrasting with European conquerors.
State education officials are also under pressure to make the K-12 school system more relevant to the 11% of students who are Native American, owing in part to an ongoing lawsuit. A court ruled in 2018 that the state isn't meeting the educational needs of Indigenous kids, and the education department has yet to release a plan to address the issues laid out by the court, and faces further litigation.
Alisa Diehl, an education attorney at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty representing the plaintiffs, calls changes to the social studies standards a "first step toward providing a public education system that takes students' cultures, languages and life experiences into account as required by our statutes and constitution."
Opponents of the new approach expressed fears that children would be labeled as victims or oppressors based on their race.
Some commenters color-coded the entire proposed rule, identifying language that they saw as echoes of critical race theory, including phrases like "unequal power relations," "privilege or systemic inequity," and requirements that students identify their "group identity" starting in kindergarten.
The agency also removed "mentions of sexuality, communism, police brutality and gun violence following concerns raised by the public," said Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Maddy Hayden.
The agency decided to keep the privilege, power and inequity language, and even increased the instances of those terms in an effort to make the language consistent across different sections of the final rule, in response to public comment.
The response to those criticisms stated that: "Critical race theory is suited for graduate school-level discussions, and is not contained in the standards."
At the heart of the debate is whether discussing differences in the classroom hardens social divisions or softens them.
Earlier this month, Republicans in the New Mexico Legislature proposed banning critical race theory. They also proposed replacing leadership at the education department, currently appointed by the governor, with an elected board. Both measures failed.
In a letter to state education officials last week, released Wednesday, Republican leaders said they would advocate for districts to use wiggle room in the curriculum requirements to keep conservative textbooks and lesson plans. They said education officials ignored public opposition.
The department "had no real intention of making significant changes to the proposed standards which were clearly outside of the mainstream of New Mexico's values and traditions," the letter said.
The letter was signed by House Republican leaders including Rebecca Dow, of Truth or Consequences. Dow is one of three members of her party fighting in a primary to take on the sitting governor, a Democrat.
"Whether they fit all the definitions of 'critical race theory' or not, the new standards appear designed to divide New Mexicans by race, ethnicity and economic status," said Paul Gessing, president of the libertarian think tank Rio Grande Foundation.
Authors of the changes say identity has become a more important and more visible aspect of society and needs to be studied.
"It's more like a deep exploration that there are identity differences that exist, and that everybody is not always going to think the same. But the level of respect for everybody's varying opinions is what we want to bring out in the classroom," said Irene Barry, an English teacher in Aztec, New Mexico.
Barry says the biggest changes in the social studies standards are an incremental introduction to social identity from K-12, and the expansion of civics and geography into high school. The previous standards didn't focus on identity and wrapped up geography and civics in middle school.
Education department leaders said removing the language advocated by Barry and other teachers would devalue their work, despite the many objections from the public voiced in comments.
"You want to be respectful of them and their voice and the role they played in creating these (education standards)," said Gwen Perea Warniment, deputy secretary of teaching, learning and assessment for the education department.
In economics, the agency responded to public comments with sweeping changes, adding an entirely new section on personal finance, following a letter campaign backed by a local education policy think tank.
By fifth grade, students can be learning how to track spending and savings. In high school, standards include sections on understanding credit scores, the consequences of credit cards, and ways to build wealth with tools such as stocks, savings and real estate.
"New Mexico now joins the 45 other states that include personal finance in their K-12 education standards, which is an important first step to tackling intergenerational poverty," said Abenicio Baldonado, education reform director for Think New Mexico, which promoted the letter campaign.
Baldonado is advocating for personal finance to be required for high school graduation.