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WED: Senators to weigh Ivey-Soto’s leadership position on Rules Committee this week, + More

New Mexico state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, of Albuquerque, attends the certification of primary election results on Tuesday, June, 28, 2022, at the state Capitol in Santa Fe, N.M.
Morgan Lee
/
AP
New Mexico state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, of Albuquerque, attends the certification of primary election results on Tuesday, June, 28, 2022, at the state Capitol in Santa Fe, N.M.

Senators to weigh Ivey-Soto’s leadership position on Rules Committee this week – By Shaun Griswold, Source New Mexico

A New Mexico state senator is facing ouster from a prominent legislative role.

Public calls to remove Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto (D-Albuquerque) from office altogether started in the spring when he was accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by lobbyist Marianna Anaya.

So far, Senate leadership is committed to pulling Ivey-Soto from the chairman position of the powerful Senate Rules Committee, according to Senate Pro Tem Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque), and will make an attempt to start the process on Thursday. It will still take a full Senate roll call or voice vote when the body meets in January to remove Ivey-Soto from this role.

“We must send a clear signal that inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated, and the Roundhouse will be a welcoming, safe environment for all people who engage in the legislative process,” Stewart said in a statement.

Over the weekend, Stewart removed Ivey-Soto from his leadership position on one interim committee.

Shortly after, she called for another committee to meet and vote on whether he should be removed from his position as chair of the Senate Rules Committee, which often determines where proposed measures fall on the agenda of NM’s short legislative sessions. This committee that Ivey-Soto chairs would also likely be responsible for how lawmakers reform the anti-harassment policy he was just subject to.

The Senate Committees Committee, which Stewart leads, handles assignments and is scheduled to meet Thursday at 4 p.m. at the Capitol in Santa Fe. The meeting in room 321 of the Roundhouse is open to the public.

The only agenda item: Senate Rules assignments.

Votes by the 11-member panel should be public, marking the first visible legislative vote about Ivey-Soto. Anaya’s complaint went through the Roundhouse anti-harassment process, an internal review beyond the public’s view.

Reform proposals for the proceedings are shaping up along two avenues. First, changes in policy adding an outside tie-breaker vote option and investigation deadlines are being weighed by another interim legislative panel. Those reforms can happen immediately, but lawmakers postponed decision-making until Oct. 11.

Second, alterations to state statute to improve transparency and oversight could only happen as part of the normal legislative process in January.

“We cannot count on the Legislature to keep us safe while he remains in the Senate,” Lan Sena, director of the Center for Civic Policy said Monday at the Roundhouse. “His dangerous behavior has been left unchecked for far too long. He should not be allowed to be in this building.”

Stewart said she wants victims of sexual harassment to know they will be heard and treated with respect, even if they’re bringing allegations about a sitting legislator.

“It’s incumbent upon us to tear down the barriers that have too often kept victims of sexual harassment from reporting on their abusers,” she said.

CLARIFICATION: This story was updated on Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 4:40 p.m. to reflect that decisions made in committee this week about Ivey-Soto’s position on Senate Rules will still have to go before the full Senate for a vote in January.

New Mexico settles wrongful death suit over veteran's death - Associated Press

A wrongful death lawsuit filed against the New Mexico Department of Health after a Vietnam War veteran contracted COVID-19 at a veterans' home has been settled for $300,000.

The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that 75-year-old Rickey Lee Widener of Ruidoso died at the New Mexico State Veterans' Home in Truth or Consequences on Dec. 3, 2020.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of Widener's widow alleged medical negligence, according to the newspaper.

News of the settlement comes after state lawmakers last week received a new evaluation of state-operated hospitals for veterans, the mentally ill and the elderly describing inadequate oversight that threatens the ability to provide quality care, including harmful conditions at a care facility for military veterans in Truth or Consequences.

The facility risks losing funding agreements with Medicaid and Medicare programs if deficiencies are still unresolved in December.

The suit said that during a Department of Health survey of the veterans' home, it was found to be in non-compliance with applicable rules, regulations and policies and procedures regarding COVID-19, causing a finding of "immediate jeopardy" to be called on Dec. 9, 2020, the lawsuit said.

Immediate jeopardy in the context of a hospital, nursing home or similar facility means it "has been determined to represent an immediate risk of serious injury or death to its patients/residents," the suit said.

The survey's findings of noncompliance included a coronavirus-positive employee who was allowed to provide care to residents with confirmed cases and those who hadn't tested positive, including allowing the staff member to hand out food trays and assist in transferring residents from unit to unit, according to the lawsuit.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health declined to comment on the settlement because there is one remaining lawsuit involving COVID-19 at the State Veterans' Home.

New Mexico has assigned at least $60 million to the Department of Health to build a new veteran's home buildings at Truth or Consequences that are scheduled for completion next year.

Proposed $2.5 billion for wildfire victims is almost triple the last time feds lit NM on fire - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico 

The $2.5 billion included in the new congressional spending plan greatly exceeds the amount Congress awarded the last time the federal government accidentally let a prescribed burn escape in New Mexico, according to a Source New Mexico review.

Despite the high number, some state lawmakers are worried about the federal government’s long-term commitment to restoring the northern New Mexico landscape — and its ability to administer the funds, given the track record so far.

In May 2000, the National Park Service lit a prescribed burn near Los Alamos, N.M. The blaze grew out of control quickly and, thanks to a delay in suppression, limited resources and merciless weather, became the notorious Cerro Grande fire — one that burned about 43,000 acres, caused $1 billion in damage and destroyed several hundred Los Alamos homes.

Twenty-two years later, on a windy April day, a Santa Fe National Forest Crew ignited a 1,200-acre swath of Las Dispensas, northeast of Las Vegas, and the blaze escaped. The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire went on to burn more than 500 homes and destroy more than 340,000 acres, and it ushered in ongoing flood and watershed damage.

Since then, state and federal elected officials have tried to get the federal government to foot the bill for compensation for people who lost homes or suffered any number of other damages, including lost business revenue, reductions in property value, new insurance costs and more.

That’s where the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire Assistance Act comes in. Federal lawmakers announced its inclusion Tuesday in the continuing resolution, which funds the government for the next couple months and pays for other measures. It’s expected to pass today.

Parts of this year’s fire compensation bill are modeled after an act of Congress paying victims of the Cerro Grande Fire.

The Cerro Grande legislation established a new office within the Federal Emergency Management Agency for “special reimbursements” intended to fully compensate homeowners and others, going beyond the limited emergency funding FEMA could provide immediately after a disaster. That’s true of this year’s bill, too.

In July 2000 — just two months after the fire began — President Bill Clinton signed the Cerro Grande Fire Assistance Act into law and allocated $455 million to FEMA for victims. The agency received an additional $90 million in 2003, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

All told, the $545 million FEMA received for those folks amounts to $937 million in today’s dollars — about two-fifths of what Congress announced Tuesday for northern New Mexico. The money won’t be real until Congress approves it this week, and it remains to be seen just how quickly the claims will be processed.

The congressional delegation members said the money is a necessary step to compensate those in the burn scar for the federal government’s mistake.

“As we work to keep the government funded this week, we will continue fighting hard to get this legislation across the finish line,” U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) said in a news release.

Outgoing New Mexico state Rep. Roger Montoya (D-Velarde) told Source New Mexico that he appreciates the sizeable amount included in the continuing resolution. But he worries that FEMA won’t be up to the task, and he said the agency lags behind what he saw happen in Cerro Grande.

Many of the Cerro Grande victims were wealthy employees at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Those impacted by the recent fire were more likely to be low-income and uninsured, and many have complained about FEMA’s response so far.

“The ($2.5 billion) got the interest of people but also made people a bit skeptical, given the insufficiency of FEMA,” Montoya said. “We’re just not seeing the kind of speed that we saw with the Cerro Grande Fire. It was almost a whole different paradigm.”

It’s taken nearly five months from the date of this year’s fire for Congress to act. Initially, moves by Congress were expected to be even slower when the legislation was included in the National Defense Authorization Act, which is still pending.

“There’s no clarity on if, or when they will have housing, temporary housing,” Montoya said. “How hard is it to bring in trailers, for Christ’s sakes? And it’s very frustrating, as the legislator, trying to answer questions to my people (wondering), ‘Why is it so slow?’”

Also, state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces), chair of the Senate’s Environment Committee, said he is less impressed with one-time allocations like this one than he would be for a recurring commitment to restore the environment over the next few years.

“Given the size of this particular fire and the amount of structures, it’s also work that takes years to keep re-seeding it in times you’re not successful,” he said. “It’s not a one-year proposition.”

Churches defend clergy loophole in child sex abuse reporting - By Jason Dearen And Michael Rezendes Associated Press

It was a frigid Sunday evening at the Catholic Newman Center in Salt Lake City when the priest warned parishioners who had gathered after Mass that their right to private confessions was in jeopardy.

A new law would break that sacred bond, the priest said, and directed the parishioners to sign a one-page form letter on their way out. "I/We Oppose HB90," began the letter, stacked next to pre-addressed envelopes. "HB90 is an improper interference of the government into the practice of religion in Utah."

In the following days of February 2020, Utah's Catholic diocese, which oversees dozens of churches, says it collected some 9,000 signed letters from parishioners and sent them to state Rep. Angela Romero, a Democrat who had been working on the bill as part of her campaign against child sexual abuse. HB90 targeted Utah's "clergy-penitent privilege," a law similar to those in many states that exempts clergy of all denominations from the requirement to report child abuse if they learn about the crime in a confessional setting.

Utah's Catholic leaders had mobilized against HB90 arguing that it threatened the sacred privacy of confessions. More importantly, it met with disapproval from some members in the powerful Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as the Mormon church, whose followers comprise the vast majority of the state Legislature. HB90 was dead on arrival.

In 33 states, clergy are exempt from any laws requiring professionals such as teachers, physicians and psychotherapists to report information about alleged child sexual abuse to police or child welfare officials if the church deems the information privileged.

This loophole has resulted in an unknown number of predators being allowed to continue abusing children for years despite having confessed the behavior to religious officials. In many of these cases, the privilege has been invoked to shield religious groups from civil and criminal liability after the abuse became known to civil authorities.

Over the past two decades state lawmakers like Romero have proposed more than 130 bills seeking to create or amend child sex abuse reporting laws, an Associated Press review found. All either targeted the loophole and failed to close it, or amended the mandatory reporting statute without touching the clergy privilege amid intense opposition from religious groups. The AP found that the Roman Catholic Church has used its well-funded lobbying infrastructure and deep influence among lawmakers in some states to protect the privilege, and that influential members of the Mormon church and Jehovah's Witnesses have also worked in statehouses and courts to preserve it in areas where their membership is high.

In Maryland a successful campaign to defeat a proposal that would have closed the clergy-penitent loophole was led by a Catholic cardinal who would later be defrocked for sexually abusing children and adult seminarians.

In other states, such as California, Missouri and New Mexico, vociferous public and backroom opposition to bills aimed at closing the loophole from the Catholic and Mormon churches successfully derailed legislative reform efforts.

"They believe they're on a divine mission that justifies keeping the name and the reputation of their institution pristine," said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, speaking of several religious groups. "So the leadership has a strong disincentive to involve the authorities, police or child protection people."

LOOPHOLE PROTECTS CHURCHES FROM SURVIVORS AND PROSECUTORS

Last month, an AP investigation found that a Mormon bishop in Arizona, at the direction of church leaders, failed to report a church member who had confessed that he sexually abused his 5-year-old daughter. The AP found that Rep. Merrill Nelson, a church lawyer and Utah Republican lawmaker, had advised the bishop not to report the abuse to civil authorities because of Arizona's clergy privilege law, according to documents revealed in a lawsuit. That failure to report allowed the church member, the late Paul Adams, to repeatedly rape his two daughters and allegedly abuse one of his four sons for many years.

In response to the case, state Sen. Victoria Steele, a Democrat from Tucson, on three occasions proposed legislation to close the clergy reporting loophole in Arizona. Steele told the AP that key Mormon lawmakers including a former Republican state senator and judiciary committee chairmen thwarted her efforts before her proposals could be presented to the full Legislature.

"It's difficult for me to tell this story without talking about the Mormons and their power in the Legislature," Steele said. "What this boils down to is that the church is being given permission to protect the predators and the children be damned. … They are trying with all of their might to make sure this bill does not see the light of day."

Latter-day Saints and Catholics hold a number of influential positions as leaders and committee chairmen in the Arizona Legislature, including the speaker of the House, and have been known to advance or block legislation in line with the church's priorities and values.

In one high-profile example, two Republican legislators took a stand in 2019, refusing to vote for a budget until lawmakers passed a measure allowing past victims of child sexual abuse to sue churches or youth groups that turned a blind eye to the abuse. Legislative business ground to a halt for weeks amid fierce opposition from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Roman Catholic Church and insurers along with their allies in the Legislature, which finally approved the measure.

The Adams case is not the only example of the privilege being invoked in cases where a clergy member's failure to report led to prolonged abuse. In Montana, for example, a woman who was abused by a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses in the mid-2000s won a $35 million jury verdict against the church for failing to report her abuse. But in 2020 the state Supreme Court reversed the judgment, ruling that church leaders were under no obligation to report, citing the state's clergy-penitent privilege.

The privilege can also be used to protect religious organizations from criminal liability. In 2013, a former Boise, Idaho, police officer turned himself in for abusing children, something he had reported to 15 members of the Mormon church, none of whom notified authorities. But prosecutors declined to file charges against the church because of Idaho's clergy-penitent privilege law.

The Mormon church said in a written statement to the AP that a member who confesses child sex abuse "has come seeking an opportunity to reconcile with God and to seek forgiveness for their actions. ... That confession is considered sacred, and in most states, is regarded as a protected religious conversation owned by the confessor."

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops did not immediately return a request for comment about its campaigns against state bills seeking to do away with the clergy-penitent privilege.

But supporters of the clergy privilege say abolishing it will not make children safer. Some go so far as to say that the ability of abusers to report privately to clergy encourages them to confess and often leads to stopping the abuse.

"It's considered essential to the exercise of religion to have a priest-penitent privilege that will allow people to to approach their clergy for the purpose of unburdening themselves, their mind, their soul … to seek peace and consolation with God as well as with their fellow beings," Utah state Rep. Nelson told the AP. "Without that assurance of secrecy, troubled people will not confide in their clergy."

Jean Hill, the government liaison for Utah's Catholic Diocese who helped organize opposition to Romero's bill, pointed to a single research paper to argue that laws that target privileged, confessional conversations in the context of child abuse have not increased reporting in those communities.

"When you take away every opportunity for people to get help, they go underground and the abuse continues," Hill said.

But the authors of the study Hill cited, published in 2014, have cautioned about reaching such conclusions based on their research.

Frank Vandervort, a law professor at the University of Michigan, and his co-author, Vincent Palusci, a pediatrics professor at New York University, told the AP that the study was limited, partly because churches often wouldn't give them access to data on clergy reporting.

"A single article should not be the basis for making policy decisions," said Vandervort, lead author of the study. "It may be entirely the case that there's no connection between the changing of the laws and the number of reports."

PRIVILEGE NOT 'CONSTITUTIONALLY REQUIRED'

Efforts to rid state laws of the privilege have been successful in only a handful of states, including North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas and West Virginia. Records and interviews with lawmakers in the 33 states that still have the privilege show that intense opposition from powerful religious organizations is more often too much to overcome.

Former California state Sen. Jerry Hill said a bill he introduced in 2019 to require clergy members to report suspicion of child sex abuse or neglect by co-workers was killed after opposition from the Catholic and Mormon churches, as well as other religious groups.

"The opposition of the Catholic Church was instrumental in creating a lot of controversy around the bill and a lot of questions related to religious freedom," Hill said. The Catholic Church made it clear it would sue if the bill passed, Hill said.

Michael Cassidy, a professor at Catholic-affiliated Boston College Law School and a former state prosecutor, said it's not clear how a religious freedom case regarding the clergy privilege would turn out.

Some supporters believe the privilege is securely rooted in the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion. But Cassidy said "there is no firm precedent that says the clergy-penitent privilege is constitutionally required."

"The Supreme Court has never held that," Cassidy said.

He's proposed a middle path: allow clergy to maintain the secrecy of the confessional but carve out an exception for "dangerous persons" including child sex abusers.

Often, legislative efforts to close the clergy loophole run up against lawmakers who are also church members, as well as intimidation from advocacy groups aligned with various religions. It's a one-two punch that has killed many bills quietly before they are even introduced, and has led to the privilege loophole being deemed by child welfare advocates as a poison pill included in mandatory reporting bills, the AP's review found.

In Utah, after religious officials publicly opposed her bill seeking to close the loophole, state Rep. Romero, a lifelong Catholic, received ominous voicemails and emails. Fearing for her staff's safety, she reported some of them to state law enforcement.

"It's utterly despicable that you think that this is all right," said one anonymous caller claiming to represent a group called Young Americans for Liberty. "If you care to, return my message. If not, I'm going to call you every day until you do."

The blowback also got personal: Devout Catholic members of Romero's own family stopped talking to her. "They thought I was trying to attack the Catholic Church and get rid of confession, one of our sacraments," Romero said. "That's how it was presented to them."

In 2003, as the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal swept the nation, a bill seeking to rid Maryland of the privilege in child abuse cases evoked a strong rebuke from Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, then the powerful archbishop of the Diocese of Washington, D.C.

"If this bill were to pass, I shall instruct all priests in the Archdiocese of Washington who serve in Maryland to ignore it," McCarrick wrote in a Catholic Standard column. "On this issue, I will gladly plead civil disobedience and willingly — if not gladly — go to jail."

The bill withered under McCarrick's attack and never emerged from committee. Similar legislation proposed in 2004 suffered the same fate. Today, the clergy-penitent privilege in Maryland remains intact, even though McCarrick has been defrocked for sex crimes.

Virginia updated its mandatory reporting law in 2006. While the bill started out with clergy among those listed as reporters with the privilege intact, they would be removed from the final bill. The privilege, oddly, was left in. The state went on in 2019 to add ministers, priests, rabbis and other religious officials to the list of mandatory reporters of child abuse, but again protected the clergy-penitent privilege.

State Del. Karrie Delaney, a Virginia Democrat who sponsored the bill in 2019 that added clergy to the list of mandated reporters, said that including language to close the privilege would have doomed the bill.

"We wanted to pass the bill," Delaney said. "And we knew that not having that (exemption) in there would have drawn an enormous amount of resistance from particular faith communities that really would have put the bill in jeopardy."

In heavily Catholic Pennsylvania, 40 bills have included changes in mandatory child sex abuse reporting laws over the past two decades. None of them has challenged the clergy-penitent privilege. That comes as no surprise to child sex abuse survivors and their advocates, who have seen the Catholic Church and its lobbyists spend millions in a battle in Pennsylvania over a proposed two-year legal window for survivors to file lawsuits against their alleged abusers.

In other states, legislators said they didn't know clergy had a way around reporting abuse. After learning of the loophole from the AP, Vermont state Sen. Richard Sears, a Democrat, said he would introduce a bill in the next legislative session to try to close it. "I wasn't even aware it existed," Sears said.

In 2003, amid the uproar over the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandals, several states added clergy to their child sex abuse reporting laws, often with the exception for clergy who learn about child sex abuse during spiritual confessions.

That's what happened in New Mexico.

With the privilege protected, the bill sailed easily through both houses and was even supported by The Archdiocese of Santa Fe, which was embroiled in its own church sexual abuse scandal.

Since then, there have been several bills introduced in the New Mexico Legislature aimed at clarifying language in the reporting law. Only one would have eliminated the clergy-penitent privilege. It died in committee.

"We have repeatedly asked the Legislature to strengthen reporting requirements in schools and religious institutions," state Attorney General Hector Balderas told the AP. He said unreported child abuse is a major problem "resulting in tremendous amounts of trauma."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico contributed to this report.

NM joins 20 states and DC in supporting the right to travel out of Texas for an abortion - Shaun Griswold, Source New Mexico

New Mexico’s Attorney General is now part of a 20-state coalition seeking to protect people living in Texas who must travel out of state for abortion services.

Last week, the state joined 20 others and the District of Columbia in an amicus brief in support of the class-action lawsuit Fund Texas Choice v. Paxton that is seeking a federal injunction to stop anti-abortion laws in Texas.

The case was originally filed in federal court in August by a coalition of Texas reproductive rights groups, arguing that the state’s trigger law banning abortion targets the services those groups provide. They fundraise for travel costs and hotels, and link up patients in Texas to abortion providers where the practice is legal, such as New Mexico.

The groups say their fundraising operations to pay for those services are under threat, as well. They argue that the Texas laws could be interpreted in a way that leads to legal penalties, violating Texas residents’ rights to freely move across state lines for abortion care.

The brief was filed in support of people from those 21 locations where abortion services are legal but who live in Texas for school or work. They argue that Texas law violates “federal constitutional right to interstate travel by impeding the movement of individuals across Texas state lines.”

Texas was one of several places that had a state in law in place banning abortion outright or after a certain period during a person’s pregnancy. Those laws went into effect shortly after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned constitutionally protected access to abortions.

Yesterday, The Texas Tribune reported that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the defendant in the case, fled his home to avoid getting served subpoena papers related to the case.

In the amicus brief, the states argue that Texas laws “are likely to cause unwanted pregnancies, imposing grave socioeconomic and health consequences, including complications resulting in death.”

They say that the anti-abortion laws will mostly impact low-income residents and those from rural communities.

The 20 states and the District of Columbia say that thousands of their residents live in Texas for college, graduate school or temporary work, and that millions more visit Texas annually.

“The coalition has a significant interest in ensuring that those residents may leave Texas and return to their home state to access time-sensitive, lawful, and safe medical care, including abortions,” they write.

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas said his office signed onto the amicus brief to protect New Mexicans “and our health care providers from legal threats that infringe on constitutional rights, including the right to travel across state lines.”

The states also argue that abortion providers who live in Texas but are licensed to work in places where the practice is legal won’t be able to travel and provide services in those states “without imperiling their liberty.”

Other states signed onto the amicus brief include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington and Washington, D.C..

“The number of individuals choosing to cross state lines for abortion care will likely substantially increase as more severe and punitive abortion restrictions take effect,” the states write the court.

New Mexico reproductive providers are not only seeing that increase but also worry they don’t have the capacity to meet new demand.

In September, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she will use $10 million in state money to build a clinic in Las Cruces, N.M., just hours away from the Texas border. Lujan Grisham and state lawmakers have consistently spoken in support of ensuring New Mexico upholds reproductive rights in the state.

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) told Source NM in September that staffing and rural clinics have to be a priority within that promise.

“We have a shortage of providers. There’s major barriers, irrespective of what’s happening in policy and in the budget, just for individuals who need access to care,” she said. “New Mexico has a health care provider shortage overall. And one of the big challenges, especially in our rural areas, is that we don’t have access to a lot of health care clinics of any kind.” 

New Mexico's repeat child abuse rate among nation's worst - Associated Press

New state data shows New Mexico's repeat rate for child abuse is among the worst in the country, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The Albuquerque Journal said more than 40% of children in New Mexico who had a substantiated serious injury from physical abuse or neglect in fiscal year 2022 came from families who had a prior involvement with the state's Children, Youth and Families Department in the preceding 12 months.

A report by the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee said the Families Department "continues to underperform on targets for repeat maltreatment, maltreatment of foster care children, and serious injuries after protective services involvement" and added that the state's rates for repeat maltreatment "are among the worst in the nation."

Barbara Vigil, a retired New Mexico Supreme Court judge who became the Families Department's secretary nearly a year ago, told the Journal that the agency is "incredibly proud of the ongoing improvements that are being made in our child welfare system … but we acknowledge that improvements must continue to be made."

Vigil said a key to reducing child maltreatment rates is strengthening the Families Department's workforce including hiring and retaining employees.

The state's legislative finance committee reported that 14% of children substantiated by the Families Department as having been maltreated were victims of another substantiated maltreatment allegation within a year.

Repeat maltreatment in New Mexico decreased from 17% in fiscal year 2019, but still remains higher than the U.S. average of about 8%, according to the Journal.

The newspaper said the rate of maltreatment victimizations per 1,000 days in foster care was 10.1, better than the 14.7 the prior year but higher than the target of 8.

The turnover rate for protective services workers was 37% in the fiscal year that ended June 30, the highest rate since 39.7% in fiscal 2019.

Vigil said the Families Department is increasing training of child protective workers and is examining their compensation.

She also said the agency is looking at ways to recognize earlier in its intervention with families those cases that might escalate into serious injuries for children such as burns, human bites, starvation, wounds, internal injuries or malnutrition.

Shelter-in-place order is lifted at Albuquerque High, parents criticize lack of information - By Nash Jones and Bryce Dix, KUNM News

Albuquerque Public Schools announced yesterday afternoon that students and staff at Albuquerque High School and the nearby Early College Academy / Career Enrichment Center were ordered to shelter in place due to a “possible threat.” The order has since been lifted.

The district made the announcement shortly before 2:00 p.m. on Twitter and its website. About 35 minutes later, they announced that dismissal for the day would be delayed, as no one is allowed in or out of the campus during a shelter-in-place order.

Just before 3:30 p.m. APS announced the order had been lifted after police completed their investigation, finding no evidence of the threat in question.

No details about the nature of the threat or the investigation were immediately released. The district's silence on the threat's details has garnered criticism from parents and others on social media who are concerned about APS withholding information while their kids are locked down. APS has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Bus service was suspended for the day on Tuesday. Entrance and exits to the school were restricted for those picking students up, including those who usually ride the bus.

Jill Biden hosts White House reading for student poets - By Darlene Superville Associated Press

Jill Biden on Tuesday hosted a reading by this year's group of National Student Poets, allowing each one to read their winning work in a White House room set up to mimic a coffee house.

The first lady said she herself has turned to poetry to find joy in other people's words at times, including when she'd lie awake consumed by worry or when she felt lost.

"In the words of others, I found the contours of my own joy," she said. "I found a place to lay down my fears. I found a compass that would lead me through the darkest of woods. And on the page, tangled in hurried lines, in smudges of ink, I found myself."

"So it's truly special to be able to welcome the 2022 National Student Poets," she said as the five high school poets sat behind her on high stools.

In the State Dining Room, books and knickknacks were stacked on the fireplace mantle beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. A sandwich board advertised a poetry reading at 4:30 p.m. Votive candles flickered on round tables where some 60 guests had taken seats.

Ada Limón, the 24th poet laureate of the United States, called each student up to read their winning work. Biden congratulated the students after the reading and hugged each one.

"We're not just celebrating poetry," Limón said. "We're celebrating the future of poetry."

The 2022 National Student Poets, and their schools, are:

—Vidhatrie Keetha, Horace Mann School, Bronx, New York.

—Emily Igwike, University School of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

—Winslow Hastie Jr., Charleston County School of the Arts, North Charleston, South Carolina.

—Jesse Begay, New Mexico School for the Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

—Diane Sun, Interlake High School Bellevue, Washington.

Biden also recognized this year's 10th anniversary of the National Student Poets Program, which was created in 2012 to highlight the role of writing and the arts in academic and personal success for communities across the country, the White House said.

It is the nation's highest honor for youth poets presenting original work. Alumni from the past decade attended Tuesday's event.

The program selects and provides scholarships annually to five student poets — one from each of the five U.S. geographical regions — to serve as literary ambassadors in their communities.

Feds want psychological tests for parents of separated kids -By Lindsay Whitehurst And Colleen Long Associated Press

The Biden administration is asking that parents of children separated at the U.S.-Mexico border undergo another round of psychological evaluations to measure how traumatized they were by the Trump-era policy, court documents show.

The request comes in a lawsuit filed by migrants seeking compensation from the government after thousands of children were taken from parents in a policy maligned as inhumane by political and religious leaders around the world. Settlement talks with attorneys and the government broke down late last year.

Justice Department attorneys are also reserving the right to have a psychologist examine the children who were separated, if necessary. The evaluations are routine in emotional-damages claims, but these cases are unusual because the government's role in traumatizing parents and children by the separations has been well documented.

"President Biden called the Trump family separations criminal and a moral stain on the nation, but now his administration is hiring doctors to try and claim the families didn't suffer all that much," said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and a lawyer for plaintiffs in the effort to compensate migrants.

Government attorneys argued that the migrants "allege that their mental and emotional injuries are ongoing and permanent in nature" and that their injuries are directly related to the government's policy. They say it is necessary for the government to have its own opportunity to examine them.

The requests came in two cases filed by 11 families. There are nearly two dozen similar cases pending in other courts, and some have already submitted to government-requested psychiatric evaluations.

But the parents have already sat for hourslong depositions in which they recounted what happened in detail. Government investigators have said children separated from their parents showed more fear, feelings of abandonment and post-traumatic stress symptoms than children who were not separated.

Some children believed their parents had abandoned them or had been killed. For some, the mental trauma caused physical symptoms, like chest or heart pain, according to a 2019 report from the inspector general's office in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Parents studied by Physicians for Human Rights, a nonprofit collective of doctors that works to document human rights violations, exhibited suicidal thoughts and suffered a raft of problems including nightmares, depression, anxiety, panic, worry and difficulty sleeping.

Biden administration officials have decried the Trump-era policies. Biden, a Democrat, said during his presidential campaign the policies were "an outrage, a moral failing and a stain on our national character."

Justice Department attorneys acknowledge in court documents that parents have already undergone multiple mental health evaluations but say an adult-psychology expert found it was necessary to get another opinion, according to court documents.

"It is standard practice for plaintiffs alleging severe emotional injury to be examined by the opposing party's expert," federal attorneys wrote. They point to a similar southern Florida case in which a father and child agreed to the same examination and say it's "well within" what's considered appropriate.

An examination would take about eight hours, four hours for clinical interviews and four hours of emotional and trauma testing, federal attorneys wrote. It would not be invasive and would happen at an agreed-upon place and time. The previous evaluations were done by experts chosen by the parents' lawyers.

The two sides had been negotiating a settlement, but then Biden said that families of separated children deserve some form of compensation. An early proposal of $450,000 per person was reported and was heavily criticized by Republicans. When asked about the proposed figure, Biden said: "That's not going to happen."

Talks ended shortly after. The settlement talks had also included discussion of granting the families legal U.S. residency and providing counseling services.

There is a separate legal effort to reunite other families, and there are still hundreds who have not been brought back together. The Biden administration has formed a reunification task force that has reunited roughly 600 families.

Trump's "zero tolerance" policy meant that any adult caught crossing the border illegally would be prosecuted for illegal entry. Because children cannot be jailed with their family members, families were separated and children were taken into custody by Health and Human Services, which manages unaccompanied children at the border. No system was created to reunite children with their families.

According to the government watchdogs, Trump administration leaders underestimated how difficult it would be to carry out the policy in the field and did not inform local prosecutors and others that children would be separated. They also failed to understand that children would be separated for longer than a few hours, and when that was discovered, they pressed on, the watchdogs said.

Jill Biden hosts White House reading for student poets - By Darlene Superville Associated Press

Jill Biden on Tuesday hosted a reading by this year's group of National Student Poets, allowing each one to read their winning work in a White House room set up to mimic a coffee house.

The first lady said she herself has turned to poetry to find joy in other people's words at times, including when she'd lie awake consumed by worry or when she felt lost.

"In the words of others, I found the contours of my own joy," she said. "I found a place to lay down my fears. I found a compass that would lead me through the darkest of woods. And on the page, tangled in hurried lines, in smudges of ink, I found myself."

"So it's truly special to be able to welcome the 2022 National Student Poets," she said as the five high school poets sat behind her on high stools.

In the State Dining Room, books and knickknacks were stacked on the fireplace mantle beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. A sandwich board advertised a poetry reading at 4:30 p.m. Votive candles flickered on round tables where some 60 guests had taken seats.

Ada Limón, the 24th poet laureate of the United States, called each student up to read their winning work. Biden congratulated the students after the reading and hugged each one.

"We're not just celebrating poetry," Limón said. "We're celebrating the future of poetry."

The 2022 National Student Poets, and their schools, are:

—Vidhatrie Keetha, Horace Mann School, Bronx, New York.

—Emily Igwike, University School of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

—Winslow Hastie Jr., Charleston County School of the Arts, North Charleston, South Carolina.

—Jesse Begay, New Mexico School for the Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

—Diane Sun, Interlake High School Bellevue, Washington.

Biden also recognized this year's 10th anniversary of the National Student Poets Program, which was created in 2012 to highlight the role of writing and the arts in academic and personal success for communities across the country, the White House said.

It is the nation's highest honor for youth poets presenting original work. Alumni from the past decade attended Tuesday's event.

The program selects and provides scholarships annually to five student poets — one from each of the five U.S. geographical regions — to serve as literary ambassadors in their communities.