Top prosecutor seeks civil rights division to help children - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
New Mexico's top prosecutor is seeking new authority to safeguard the rights of children in state custody amid allegations of inadequate care and protection.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez has won the backing of the Democratic-led Legislature in his mission to create a civil rights division in New Mexico — in the spirit, he says, of anti-discrimination work initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice in the late-1950s to desegregate schools in the South.
"We have state agencies that unfortunately have had a history of failing to adequately protect children in state custody," Torrez said this week ahead of a Friday deadline for the governor to authorize — or veto — the civil rights initiative. "Our primary focus would be on the protection of children and particularly vulnerable children who are the victims of child abuse."
Gov. Lujan Grisham expressed mixed feelings Wednesday about the bill, saying it might limit her administration's leeway to overhaul the state's lead agency for protecting children from neglect and abuse.
"That bill isn't signed or vetoed, and I want (prosecutors) to have every tool," Lujan Grisham said. "They have these tools already, in my view. ... I think the concept is valid."
Lujan Grisham in February announced plans to restructure the Children, Youth and Families Department amid allegations that children were neglected or abused in foster care and indications that foster children have routinely slept in the central offices of the overwhelmed agency.
Torrez points out that private civil litigation against child welfare agencies can result in financial settlements that don't openly address civil rights violations or result in institutional changes.
"They waive their rights to talk about the litigation in any detail and also to demand large-scale corrective action," said Torrez, the former district attorney for the Albuquerque area who won statewide election in November 2022.
He said a civil rights division could initiate investigations and seek broad injunctive relief by court order to address patterns of discrimination or other constitutional violations.
The new office would initially employ between five and 10 attorneys in addition to investigators and support staff, also pursuing other civil rights concerns such as consumer and environmental protection, he said.
"We are looking and will be looking at applying the law in that way, and ... protecting groups that have been historically discriminated against, but also taking it into a more modern space, which is the protection of the civil rights of children," Torrez said.
Torrez highlighted support from Democratic legislators as well as many House Republicans on a 51-13 floor vote in March.
Republican state Sen. David Gallegos of Eunice voted against the bill, even while championing other bills aimed at greater accountability at the Children, Youth and Families Department. Gallegos said he worries that anti-discrimination efforts won't be evenhanded.
Separately, the governor signed a bill establishing new deadlines and procedures for regulators to follow when children are taken into state protective custody. Bill cosponsor and Republican Sen. Crystal Diamond said the legislation aims to ensure that children who are victims of repeated abuse get the utmost attention from the judicial system.
State disaster aid for southern acequias is taking so long that some might not need it anymore - By Megan Gleason, Source New Mexico
It’s been nearly eight months since flooding disasters wrecked acequias in southern New Mexico. Since then, irrigation stewards straining to get disaster aid from the state have come to rely on donations and local county funding to get work done ahead of spring.
Acequias are able to irrigate now with all the help that didn’t come from the state emergency accounts, and some might not even need the state aid anymore.
Last summer, the Black Fire tore through the Gila National Forest, blackening trees and charring up soil. Then, when heavy rains hit the burn scar shortly after, floods ran through communities set up around the forest.
Acequia systems in Grant County took heavy damage in August 2022. The uncontrollable waters flipped headgates, silted over ditches and changed the river’s flow — destruction that remained when farmers and ranchers needed to start irrigation work last month.
Stewards, whose acequia bank accounts normally consist of minimal funding and rely on mostly volunteers to fix natural wear and tear, suddenly needed hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix up all the disaster damage.
The same situation was happening in northern New Mexico when the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire rendered many acequia systems useless around the same time last year. The difference is that blaze was started by the federal government, which has committed billions of dollars in aid to take responsibility for the destruction.
The cause of the Black Fire is still being investigated. It was human-caused.
Around the Gila National Forest, acequia stewards originally thought the county could fix up their ditches and then get reimbursed by the state. Those dollars would come from a $750,000 pot New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham made available in September 2022 for Grant County.
That route wasn’t as clear as it seemed.
Justin Gojkovich is the emergency manager of Grant County. He said local officials weren’t so sure the county would actually get money back from the state if dollars were used to repair acequias. So acequia stewards needed to apply for state help individually.
They started submitting paperwork to the state in December 2022. The Mimbres and Gila Valley ditch associations asked for over $1 million in recovery funds for work such as debris removal and fixing up infrastructure like dams or headgates. That exceeds the amount of emergency dollars Lujan Grisham set aside.
The Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management approved debris removal work in the requests submitted, said spokesperson David Lienemann. That makes 20 acequias eligible for these state reimbursement funds.
The issue is that some of those months-old applications describe the need to fund work that’s since been completed.
Danny Roybal is a mayordomo of an affected acequia system in Mimbres, N.M. He said a lot of debris removal has already been done with the help of work from the N.M. Department of Transportation and financial aid from non-state organizations or individuals.
He said he’s not completely sure what the state emergency money would even be used for now. The Mimbres systems have even gotten water flowing again in nearly all of the ditches, he remarked.
“If we’ve got water running in here, this money from the state would be for what?” he asked.
Roybal said he asked DHSEM but didn’t get a clear answer. He said if the funds could be used for flood mitigation efforts, that would be helpful instead now.
DHSEM still has to send out project worksheets to the stewards in Grant County that were approved to have their work reimbursed from the $750,000 state aid.
That hasn’t happened yet.
Lienemann said it’s in the process of getting done.
Roybal said the state did send out some project worksheets but had to take them back to fix incorrect details.
He said there have been consistent communication issues with DHSEM.
“It’s the same kind of stuff that we’ve been fighting with DHSEM the whole time. They’re very uncoordinated,” Roybal said.
The first disaster recovery dollars to arrive for the Grant County acequias didn’t come from the state.
Instead, funds came in the form of donations in February. Mimbres irrigation systems got a $50,000 check from a private donor, and Gila Valley systems got $100,000 from the mining company Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
And while stewards were getting those dollars, Grant County decided to hand over $600,000 to aid with repairs.
“With the help that we got thanks to the county and also that private donor, they have all been able to get water running back into ditches again,” Roybal said. “So it’s been pretty amazing.”
Some state work got started around then, too. In late February, the Department of Transportation started cleaning up debris and sediment that floods had swept into acequias.
Roybal said the transportation department got work done a lot quicker than anticipated. The work was scheduled to take six to eight weeks, but Roybal said it was done in about two weeks.
He said that finished up in March.
What’s preventing water from flowing in all the Mimbres ditches right now is the river itself, Roybal said, which is running high. He said stewards should all have water in their ditches in a month or so when the water calms down.
Destre Shelley is a steward in the Gila Valley. She said some of those systems are also having the same issue with the Gila River running high. It’s preventing recovery work from being done over there, she said.
“There’s been too much flow in the river to be able to get in and repair the diversions,” she said.
Roybal said more floods will come in the future. Fire season is getting started now, and monsoon season is just around the corner, too. Water will keep running easily off the Black Fire burn scar for years to come with the potential for more natural disasters.
That means repairs now could get torn apart again later on. Roybal said with that in mind, fix-ups have been just enough to get irrigation going.
“We’re trying to do just the bare minimum to protect what we do have,” he said.
Some of the acequias’ requests for state help also included mitigation measures to prevent damage from future disasters.
Biden administration rolls out $585 million for Western water projects - Jacob Fischler, States Newsroom via Source New Mexico
The Biden administration will send $585 million to water projects in 11 Western states, Interior Department officials said Wednesday.
The funding, provided in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, will go toward 83 projects in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, California, North Dakota and Washington. The law provided $8.3 billion for water infrastructure projects over five years.
SIX PROJECTS IN NEW MEXICO WILL RECEIVE MONEY FROM THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT’S BUREAU OF RECLAMATION, AGING INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS:
- $7.1M Caballo Dam and Reservoir Bonita Lateral Upgrade Reclamation
- $1.78M Elephant Butte Historic District Recreation Area Restaurant and Patio Reclamation Funding
- $3.39M Elephant Butte Historic District Roads and Parking Lots Rehabilitation Reclamation
- $9.6M Elephant Butte Recreation Area Water Infrastructure Rehab
- $4M El Vado Dam and Reservoir Repair
- $4.5M Rio Grande Channelization Lower San Acacia Reach Improvements
Speaking to reporters by phone Wednesday, administration officials said the funding was part of a government-wide effort to respond to persistent drought conditions that have caused increased wildfires in Western states and threaten future drinking and agricultural water supplies.
The 23-year drought “has culminated in critically low reservoir conditions in the Colorado River Basin and across the West, putting a strain on our people, our farms, our wildlife and their habitats and our very livelihoods,” Interior Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said.
The funding will be used to repair water storage, water treatment and hydropower facilities.
Wednesday’s announcement coincided with a visit by administration officials to the Imperial Dam that spans the Colorado River on the Arizona-California border, and they gave particular attention to that river system, which supplies water to 40 million people.
“We’ll use every available resource and tool at the federal level to protect the Colorado River system and the critical services it provides to millions of people in countless ecosystems,” Beaudreau said.
The projects, selected by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation that manages water resources in Western states, are in every major river system in the West, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said.
The list includes 27 projects in North Dakota and 24 in California. No other state had more than six projects selected.
California alone accounted for more than half of the funding, with $307.8 million allocated to projects in the state. North Dakota will receive $80.2 million.
Colorado projects will receive the third-most money, at $68.3 million.
The largest single project is a $66 million building modernization of the Trinity River Hatchery in California.
Among the other costliest projects selected is a $56 million allocation to finalize the “planning, design and subsequent construction” of a water treatment facility and chemical storage building at the Leadville, Colorado, mine drainage tunnel.
That tunnel siphons heavy metals from nearby mines out of groundwater that flows to the headwaters of the Arkansas River.
A full list of projects is available here.
New Mexico governor signs bill to shield abortion providers - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill Wednesday that protects providers of abortions from related prosecution, professional disciplinary action or extradition attempts by out-of-state interests.
A companion abortion-rights bill signed in March guarantees access to reproductive health care in response to a string of anti-abortion ordinances by cities and counties in eastern New Mexico where opposition to abortion access runs deep.
New Mexico is increasingly seen as a destination for abortion patients traveling from states including Texas that have banned abortion, or those imposing major restrictions.
"I think there is a lot of fear there," said Democratic state Sen. Siah Correa Hemphill of Silver City, a school psychologist and cosponsor of the newly signed bill. "We want to make sure New Mexico is a state that is safe for women and safe for health care workers."
The new law also protects medical providers when it comes to gender-affirming health care without regard to the age of patients, in a counterpoint to new laws restricting or banning such care in at least a dozen other states. Indiana's Republican governor signed a bill Wednesday banning all gender-affirming care for minors.
Gender-affirming health care is defined under the New Mexico legislation as psychological, behavioral, surgical, pharmaceutical and other medical treatment for distress caused by a person's gender assigned at birth not matching the gender with which they identify.
Lujan Grisham has framed safeguards for abortion access in New Mexico in a broader context as a cornerstone of women's equality and democratic engagement.
She said Wednesday that medical professionals need legal protections to ensure continued public access to abortion in the tumultuous wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that struck down the constitutional right to abortion and allows states to set limits on access.
"This is a state that's going to stand with the men and women who provide our care. We're clear about our rights. We're clear about our choices," Lujan Grisham said at a news conference alongside eight female state legislators who sponsored abortion-access legislation. "If we don't protect providers, you can say they have access (to abortion) when it fact you do not."
In 2021, New Mexico's Democrat-led Legislature passed a measure to repeal a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures, which ensured access to abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
More recently, two counties and three cities in eastern New Mexico adopted ordinances that restrict abortion access, reflecting deep-seated opposition to offering the procedure.
The New Mexico Supreme Court last week blocked those local anti-abortion ordinances pending the outcome of a legal challenge by the state attorney general.
Eve Espey, chairwoman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of New Mexico, said the law signed on Wednesday guards against attempts to sanction or discipline medical professionals involved in abortion procedures.
"Now we can tell our providers that we can continue to do this work," she said at Wednesday's news conference.
Man charged in case of woman missing from Navajo Nation - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
A federal grand jury has indicted a New Mexico man on assault and carjacking charges in connection with the 2021 disappearance of a Native American woman whose case has helped to raise awareness about missing people and unsolved slayings in Indian Country.
The indictment naming Preston Henry Tolth, 23, was unsealed Tuesday. He is scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate Friday in northern Arizona for a detention hearing and formal arraignment.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Tolth assaulted Ella Mae Begay, a Navajo woman who was 62 at the time, took her pickup truck and drove it across state lines. Begay has not been found.
"This indictment is an important first step in determining the truth about what happened to an elderly victim on the Navajo Nation," U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino of Arizona said in a statement, stressing that the investigation was ongoing.
Begay's truck was seen the morning of June 15, 2021, leaving her home in the remote community of Sweetwater on the Navajo Nation, not far from where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet.
A year after Begay disappeared, her niece began walking from the Navajo Nation to Washington D.C. to bring attention to a decades-long epidemic of violence that has disproportionately affected Indigenous people.
Attorney Darlene Gomez, who is representing Begay's family, said in a social media post that the indictment marked a bittersweet development for family members. Gomez said the family appreciates the prayers and support from those who have followed Begay's case and shared her story in hopes of bringing her home.
The investigation into Begay's disappearance is part of the U.S. Department of Justice's efforts to address cases involving missing and slain Native Americans. Navajo Nation authorities had previously identified Tolth as a person of interest in the case.
Luke Mulligan, a federal public defender for Tolth, declined to comment on the case Tuesday.
New Mexico court records show Tolth has a criminal history that includes charges of aggravated battery, resisting arrest, residential burglary and drug possession that date back to 2019. He already was in custody pending the outcome of a 2022 case in which he was accused of stealing a man's wallet while armed with some kind of sharp weapon, court records show.
Begay's family members have met with U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who recently joined Justice Department officials in hosting the first in-person session of the Not Invisible Act Commission in Washington. The commission will be holding field hearings across the U.S. this year as it develops recommendations for preventing and responding to violence affecting tribal communities.
Judge weighs request to toss Chasing Horse's sex abuse case - By Rio Yamat Associated Press
A former "Dances With Wolves" actor accused of sexually abusing Indigenous women and girls in the U.S. and Canada for two decades has asked a judge in Nevada to toss out a sweeping indictment against him in state court.
Nathan Chasing Horse, 46, claims the sexual encounters with two women identified as victims in the Nevada case were consensual. One of them was younger than 16 — the age of consent in Nevada — when she says the sexual abuse began.
Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny said Wednesday that she would issue her decision before the end of the week. She could deny Chasing Horse's request or dismiss some or all of the charges, although she didn't offer any indication as to how she might rule during her questioning of state prosecutors and Chasing Horse's public defender.
A Clark County jury indicted Chasing Horse, 46, in February on charges of sexual assault of a minor, kidnapping, child abuse, lewdness and drug trafficking. He has been in custody at a county jail since Jan. 31, when he was arrested by SWAT officers near the home he shared with his five wives in North Las Vegas.
He also faces sexual abuse charges in Canada and the U.S. District Court in Nevada, as well as on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.
Prosecutors and police say Chasing Horse, who is known for his portrayal of Smiles a Lot in Kevin Costner's Oscar-winning film, marketed himself to tribes nationwide as a self-proclaimed medicine man who possessed healing powers and could communicate with higher beings. They accuse of him using his position to lead a cult known as The Circle, gain access to vulnerable girls and women and take underage wives.
The alleged crimes, according to court documents, date to the early 2000s and occurred in Canada and multiple U.S. states, including Nevada, Montana and South Dakota.
Clark County prosecutor Stacey Kollins told the judge Wednesday that Chasing Horse's claims were offensive, pointing to the age that one of the victims says the abuse began.
"She's taken at 14 because her mom is ill, and she's told that her virginity is the only pure part of her left and she has to sacrifice this to maintain her mom's health," Kollins said. "And to gloss over that by calling it transactional and saying there's no proof of non-consent, that's taking a lot of license to meet with the facts."
As Kollins spoke, the mother of one of the victims cried in the courtroom gallery, which was packed with Chasing Horse's supporters.
Public defender Kristy Holston argued the 19-count indictment was an overreach by the Clark County district attorney's office and that some evidence presented to the grand jury — including a definition of grooming — had tainted the state's case.
"It's not the same as a lack of consent," she said, adding that "a sex worker, for instance, doesn't desire sex with the client. But their motive for doing it is for something other than desire."
Outside the courtroom, Holston declined to further comment, while Kollins did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking additional comment.
Chasing Horse is currently scheduled to stand trial May 1 in the state case. He has pleaded not guilty and invoked his right to a trial within 60 days of his indictment.
He is due back in state court Monday morning for a hearing on another motion asking the judge to grant him three trials. Chasing Horse and his attorneys have argued that the sexual assault allegations and the drug trafficking charge contained in the state's indictment are unrelated.