National groups rebut abortion-ban ordinances in New Mexico - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
National and regional advocacy groups have urged the New Mexico Supreme Court to strike down recent abortion-ban ordinances in several cities and counties, in a legal filing Monday.
The Supreme Court has not said yet whether it will consider legal arguments from independent parties, including a professional society for obstetricians and gynecologists, and Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. The court blocked local abortion ordinances while it deliberates.
The new briefing says that local abortion restrictions would "create a checkerboard of regulatory restrictions and enforcement schemes" that undermines uniform health care access and standards, especially pregnancy-related care in remote and impoverished communities. The arguments were cosigned by Planned Parenthood, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the local advocacy group Bold Futures NM.
Three anti-abortion groups, including a member of the national Family Policy Alliance, also recently entered the legal fray with their own briefing. They argued local governments have the right to enforce federal abortion restrictions under a 19th century U.S. law that prohibits the delivery of abortion medication and supplies.
The state attorney general petitioned the high court to strike down abortion-ban ordinances approved by local governments spanning much of eastern New Mexico. Attorney General Raúl Torrez argued that the local laws violate state constitutional guarantees — including New Mexico's equal rights amendment that prohibits discrimination based on sex or being pregnant.
Local governments of Lea and Roosevelt counties, and the cities of Hobbs and Clovis, where opposition to abortion runs deep, are disputing that interpretation of the state constitution as they defend local abortion restrictions. Since the court case began, additional abortion bans have been adopted near Albuquerque in central New Mexico and in Eunice near the Texas state line.
State abortion laws in New Mexico are among the most liberal in the country.
In 2021, the Legislature repealed a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures as felonies, ensuring access to abortion even after the U.S. Supreme Court last year rolled back guarantees.
This year, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed two abortion-rights bills that override local ordinances aimed at limiting access and shield abortion providers from prosecution by out-of-state interests.
End of COVID exposure app part of long ‘unwinding’ process - By Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
As part of the broader “unwinding” of its response to the ongoing COVID pandemic, the phone application New Mexico uses to tell people when they may have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 will go dark on May 11.
Funding for the NM Notify app has run out, New Mexico Department of Health Communications Coordinator David Barre wrote in a news release on Monday.
Contact tracing is a public health measure used to identify, assess and manage people who have been exposed to someone who has been infected with the virus. It typically comes along with quarantine in a designated medical institution, hotel, or a person’s own home.
New Mexico last year quietly closed its COVID isolation shelters.
The app was just one kind of electronic tracing. Contact tracing can also include manual investigations, like conducting interviews over the phone with people who are exposed.
Research shows that contact tracing, when paired with mass testing and early isolation, can lower the risk of transmission and dramatically reduce the burden of future isolation.
Each time someone gets infected, they run the risk (about a 10% chance, according to the World Health Organization) of developing Long COVID.
The state’s deletion of the exposure app comes after other parts of state government and the major private health care systems in the state lifted their few remaining COVID protections.
Local hospitals in May lifted their mask requirements, along with state courts in April and public schools in March.
The state in March began purging its Medicaid beneficiary rolls; said it would no longer pay for COVID vaccines, treatments and tests; and cut food assistance benefits going to more than half a million state residents.
At the beginning of 2023, the New Mexico legislature fully reopened without vaccination, masking or capacity limits.
Over the winter, the state ended free diagnostic testing for COVID, forced public sector workers back to in-person work, and denied requests from people who asked to work remotely and avoid getting infected.
Trying to keep New Mexico farming traditions alive through the 2023 farm bill - By Megan Gleason, Source New Mexico
Fear of losing generations-old farming practices and traditions to gentrification drove agriculturalist Joseluis Ortiz y Muniz to move back to his hometown Dixon in northern New Mexico.
He’s a landowner now and takes on leadership roles within the local ag community. Ortiz y Muniz (Genízaro) is also focused on farming the land as his ancestors did hundreds of years before him. He wants to make that same opportunity more accessible to those who can’t afford it.
One route to do that is through the 2023 farm bill.
The first farm bill was passed in 1933 as a New Deal initiative, with an attempt to set fair market rates for a surplus of crops that were dwindling in price due to the Great Depression. The subsidy paid farmers to reduce the production of some crops to help stabilize the ag industry.
While that practice remains in some capacity, the farm bill has grown to offer more support for farmers such as agricultural training, crop insurance and even supports food aid programs for low-income Americans.
Congress is authorized to renew the farm bill every five years. The current farm bill expires in September, and federal lawmakers are fighting over how much money the U.S. will spend to maintain programs.
As D.C. fights over the framework for a new farm bill, agriculturalists like Ortiz y Muniz want to see greater support for younger farmers and agriculture practices that date back hundreds of years in places like Dixon.
“We need to be provided support that is relevant to our acequias and traditional life ways, and not support that is replicating conventional 10,000 acre farm-type systems,” he said.
He’s a water fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition, a nonprofit organization that wants the federal government to make one million acres of land available to the next generation of farmers. That could impact over 52,000 young people, according to a policy brief from the coalition.
It’s clear farm bill subsidies have created inequality for young and small land farmers like those that are part of the coalition. Over the last 25 years, more than 79% of federal farm subsidies went to just 10% of farms and individuals that qualify, according to a study by the Environmental Working Group.
Corilia Ortega, a council member in Taos, grows on less than an acre of land. Still, she said, that food supports herself and a few other community members.
She said it’s becoming more common for young farmers to grow on small plots of land like that, largely because people can’t afford to purchase huge properties.
“For many people, when we talk about food systems, agriculture, the mentality is these big ag lands — these big parcels that are 50 to hundreds of acres. And that’s truly a thing of the past,” she said. “I will never be able to buy 50 to 100 acres.”
And, she added, people of color and women have historically been discriminated against in accessing loans. Communities of color were also displaced from their land, affecting who owns property today.
“If you already have capital, if you already have an operation that you’ve inherited, you then have even more access to resources and funding mechanisms and loan programming,” Ortega said. “But that isn’t something that one individual has built. It’s a family legacy of many generations building that to exist in 2023.”
Ortega said being able to qualify for more grants or loans would make a big difference. She said the farm bill could address racial and gender inequality within these loan programs so more people can access land ownership.
“We can definitely support and uplift small-scale growers,” she said.
Ortiz y Muniz encountered his own challenges to get land in his hometown. For a long time, he didn’t even realize farming could be a sustainable career. Upon learning more about the industry, he said he realized he needed to go back to Dixon to help revive the traditional land-based culture.
It took Ortiz y Muniz seven years to get back to Dixon, and even longer to buy property. He eventually became a parciente, using acequias to irrigate his farm, and is now a mayordomo who watches over the acequia system.
He said the farm bill needs language about acequias and land grants that are largely unique to New Mexico, and broader support for Indigenous land-based principles that don’t view land and water through a capitalistic lens.
As money dominates small communities and replaces traditional practice, Ortiz y Muniz has also noticed broader issues. He said gentrification is erasing this rich culture in places like Dixon. It’s also happeningthroughout New Mexico.
“I gotta get back home,” Ortiz y Muniz said, recalling his push to go back to Dixon, “not only to do the community-based work, but also to revive my family’s land and to work in the communities, to help curb gentrification and to create opportunities for traditional families to be able to stay and make a living.”
INEQUITABLE LAND ACCESS
In 2021, the National Young Farmers Coalition launched a campaign called One Million Acres for the Future, which pushes for equitable land access in the new farm bill. This is the biggest challenge for young farmers, especially those of color, according to the coalition’s 2022 survey.
The federal government could help with this, but another issue could be inadequate outreach. Some farmers aren’t even aware dollars are out there to help, which Ortiz y Muniz said is true in northern New Mexico. Not knowing about subsidy programs means missing out on much-needed money.
David Howard is the policy development director of the National Young Farmers Coalition. He said that’s true, and a lot of agricultural communities aren’t aware that a program that helps farmers get land is already up and running through the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program is an effort through the U.S. Department of Agriculture that funds projects for underserved producers. Although that program is already going, Howard said the farming coalition’s biggest priority is ensuring that gets included in the farm bill so it has a longer lifespan.
Applications for that program closed last year. The farm bill could keep funding going for that program for at least half a decade, even longer if Congress renewed it beyond 2028.
“We want folks to be able to see USDA as a resource that is going to be there for them and that sees the challenges that they’re experiencing clearly,” Howard said, “and that also sees the value that they bring to our food and agriculture systems.”
Historical discrimination and straight-up land grabs by the U.S. could also be a deterrent for some communities of color that have a distrust of working with the federal government.
Howard said there’s a well-documented history of discrimination against farmers of color that continues to impact people today.
Ortega agreed. She said Black and Native people being displaced from their lands hundreds of years ago resulted in those same communities lacking land today, while white, wealthier families handed down property through the generations.
The voices that have been left out of the conversation for generations are the ones still suffering, she said.
Even with recent efforts to address these past inequities, huge gaps still remain, Ortega said.
“Those outcomes and consequences have real day implications,” she said. “Because now who is operating those lands and who does live on them and benefits from the land wealth?”
Howard said he hopes the new farm bill will boost access to resources and accountability on a federal level. But it’s a long path to complete restitution from these discriminatory policies, he added.
“It’s going to take time to fully address that disconnect in terms of the trust for the agency and the resources that are there,” he said.
Howard said the National Young Farmers Coalition believes the 2023 farm bill will pass on time this year, despite the debt ceiling fight.
“Farmers need it,” he said. “This needs to happen.”
Biden sending 1,500 troops for Mexico border migrant surge - By Colleen Long, Aamer Madhani And Tara Copp Associated Press
The Biden administration will send 1,500 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border starting next week, ahead of an expected migrant surge following the end of coronavirus pandemic-era restrictions.
Military personnel will do data entry, warehouse support and other administrative tasks so that U.S. Customs and Border Protection can focus on fieldwork, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. The troops "will not be performing law enforcement functions or interacting with immigrants, or migrants," Jean-Pierre said. "This will free up Border Patrol agents to perform their critical law enforcement duties."
They will be deployed for 90 days, and will be pulled from the Army and Marine Corps, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will look to backfill with National Guard or Reserve troops during that period, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said. There are already 2,500 National Guard members at the border.
The COVID-19 restrictions have allowed U.S. officials to turn away tens of thousands of migrants crossing the southern border, but those restrictions will lift May 11, and border officials are bracing for a surge. Even amid the restrictions, the administration has seen record numbers of people crossing the border, and President Joe Biden has responded by cracking down on those who cross illegally and by creating new pathways meant to offer alternatives to a dangerous and often deadly journey.
For Biden, who announced his Democratic reelection campaign a week ago, the decision signals his administration is taking seriously an effort to tamp down the number of illegal crossings, a potent source of Republican attacks, and sends a message to potential border crossers not to attempt the journey. But it also draws potentially unwelcome comparisons to Biden's Republican predecessor, whose policies Biden frequently criticized. Congress, meanwhile, has refused to take any substantial immigration-related actions.
Then-President Donald Trump deployed active-duty troops to the border to assist border patrol personnel in processing large migrant caravans, on top of National Guard forces that were already working in that capacity.
Jean-Pierre downplayed any similarity between Biden's immigration management and Trump's use of troops during his term. "DOD personnel have been supporting CBP at the border for almost two decades now," Jean-Pierre said. "So this is a common practice."
It's another line of defense in an effort to manage overcrowding and other possible issues that might arise as border officials move away from the COVID-19 restrictions. Last week, administration officials announced they would work to swiftly screen migrants seeking asylum at the border, quickly deport those deemed as not being qualified, and penalize people who cross illegally into the U.S. or illegally through another country on their way to the U.S. border.
They will also open centers outside the United States for people fleeing violence and poverty to apply to fly in legally and settle in the United States, Spain or Canada. The first processing centers will open in Guatemala and Colombia, with others expected to follow.
The Pentagon on Tuesday approved the request for troops by Homeland Security, which manages the border.
The deployments have a catch: As a condition for Austin's previous approval of National Guard troops to the border through Oct. 1, Homeland Security had to agree to work with the White House and Congress to develop a plan for longer-term staffing solutions and funding shortfalls, "to maintain border security and the safe, orderly, and humane processing of migrants that do not involve the continued use of DOD personnel and resources," said Pentagon spokesman Air Force Lt. Col. Devin Robinson.
As part of the agreement, the Pentagon has requested quarterly updates from Homeland Security on how it would staff its border mission without servicemembers. It was not immediately clear if those updates have happened or if border officials will be able to meet their terms of the agreement — particularly under the strain of another expected migrant surge.
Homeland Security said it was working on it. "U.S. Customs and Border Protection is investing in technology and personnel to reduce its need for DOD support in coming years, and we continue to call on Congress to support us in this task," the agency said in a statement.
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Rebecca Santana, Lolita Baldor and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
Housing advocates urge ABQ city council to create landlord database – By Bryce Dix, KUNM News
Albuquerque’s rental prices have skyrocketed since the beginning of the pandemic.
Now, with housing advocates becoming more frustrated with the state of the city’s housing crisis, they’re turning to the city council to help curb the problem by creating a landlord registry.
Organizer with the Peoples Housing Project Anna Lee DeSaulniers said landlords in Albuquerque are immune from reporting how many rental units they own, how many are filled or empty, and how much they charge for rent.
“Because, right now, there’s no incentive for [landlords] to comply with housing law, to provide safe, clean, affordable housing,” she said. “And something like a public database would be a great incentive.”
DeSaulniers said this lack of reporting by landlords hides how many rental units currently exist in Albuquerque and how many could be filled if it wasn’t for “exorbitant” rent prices.
Several cities have rental property registries, and advocates say a tool like this could have helped get relief to people quicker during the pandemic.
The ordinance was ultimately voted down on a 2-7 vote Monday–– despite overwhelming support from the public. Landlords present at the meeting were concerned the city didn’t have the resources to make data tracking a reality.
New Mexico mom sentenced for tossing baby in trash bin - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
A New Mexico teenage mother was sentenced Monday to a mandatory 18 years in prison for tossing her newborn son into a trash bin behind a shopping center, but a state district judge cited mental health concerns and the defendant's age in suspending two years of the punishment.
Jurors convicted Alexis Avila, 19, of child abuse involving great bodily harm following a days-long trial last month in which her public defender argued her actions were not premeditated and that a previously undiagnosed mental health disorder played a role.
Judge William Shoobridge told Avila that had it not been for luck and the grace of God he would have been deliberating a sentence in a murder case as there was a high probability the child would have died had it not been found that winter day in Hobbs, near the Texas border.
Avila told the judge she wants to learn how to deal with stress and anxiety and said she regrets missing out on her son's first milestones.
"I regret his first hours of life were traumatic, and I regret that he will always have this in the back of his head and will think I do not love him because that's what he'll read and hear," she said. "But that's not true at all. I do love him. I truly do."
Avila was arrested in January 2022.
Police said a group of people were looking through the trash bin when they found the baby and tried to keep the boy warm until police and paramedics arrived. Investigators used surveillance video to identify a car suspected of being involved, which led them to Avila.
Public defender Ibukun Adepoju disputed that Avila made a premeditated attempt to kill her baby. Abepoju said while Avila's actions were wrong, they were the result of her bipolar disorder and that she was disassociated and detached from her feelings.
Avila's case also spurred new conversations in New Mexico communities and among legislators about the state's safe haven law, which allows parents to leave a baby younger than 90 days at a safe location without criminal consequences.
Such laws first began to pass in state legislatures in the early 2000s in response to reports of baby killings and abandonments.
New Mexico lawmakers in 2022 approved a bill to expand the state's Safe Haven Program and provide funds to build one baby box for every county where an infant can be left.
Boxes have been installed in several other states. Florida is the latest to consider legislation that would allow for the boxes.
US readies second attempt at speedy border asylum screenings - By Elliot Spagat Associated Press
President Joe Biden scrapped expedited asylum screenings during his first month in office as part of a gutting of Trump administration border policies that included building a wall with Mexico. Now he is preparing his own version.
Donald Trump's fast-track reviews drew sharp criticism from internal government watchdog agencies as the percentage of people who passed those "credible fear interviews" plummeted. But the Biden administration has insisted its speedy screening for asylum-seekers is different: Interviews will be done exclusively by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, not by Border Patrol agents, and everyone will have access to legal counsel.
The decision to use fast-track screenings comes as COVID-19 asylum restrictions are set to expire on May 11 and the U.S. government prepares for an expected increase in illegal crossings from Mexico. The Texas border cities of El Paso, Laredo and Brownsville have declared local states of emergency in recent days to prepare for the anticipated influx.
Normally, about three in four migrants pass credible fear interviews, though far fewer eventually win asylum. But during the five months of the Trump-era program, only 23% passed the initial screening, while 69% failed and 9% withdrew, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Those who get past initial screenings are generally freed in the United States to pursue their cases in immigration court, which typically takes four years. Critics say the court backlog encourages more people to seek asylum.
To pass screenings, migrants must convince an asylum officer they have a "significant possibility" of prevailing before a judge on arguments that they face persecution in their home countries on grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.
Under the Biden administration's fast-track program, those who don't qualify will be deported "in a matter of days or just a few weeks," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday.
The expedited screenings will be applied only to single adults, Mayorkas said.
Despite the administration's assurances that people will have access to legal services, some immigrant advocates who were briefed by the administration are doubtful. Katherine Hawkins, senior legal analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, noted that advocates were told attorneys would not be allowed inside holding facilities.
The Trump administration used fast-track reviews from October 2019 until March 2020, when it began using a 1944 public health law known as Title 42 to expel immigrants on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The speedy screenings were among Trump-era immigration polices that Biden rolled back in a February 2021 executive order.
Unlike the Trump administration, the Biden administration won't limit migrants to just one phone call. But it's unclear how many calls U.S. authorities can facilitate, especially if there is no answer and attorneys call back, Hawkins said.
Screenings initially will be limited to Spanish-speaking countries to which the U.S. has regular deportation flights, according to Hawkins and others briefed. The administration began limited screening this month in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, and later expanded to large tents in other border cities, including San Diego; Yuma, Arizona; and El Paso, Texas. Migrants will get a video presentation to explain the interview process.
Mayorkas, a former federal prosecutor, didn't speak in detail about access to legal counsel in remarks Thursday about a broad strategy that, in addition to the screenings, includes processing centers in Guatemala, Colombia and potentially elsewhere for people to come legally to the U.S. through an airport.
"We have expanded our holding capacity and set up equipment and procedures so that individuals have the ability to access counsel," Mayorkas said.
The Homeland Security Department's inspector general took issue with lack of legal representation under Trump's expedited screening. There were four cordless phones for migrants to share when screenings began in El Paso. Guards took them to a shack to consult attorneys.
Phone booths were later installed but didn't have handsets for safety reasons, forcing migrants to speak loudly and within earshot of people outside, the inspector general said.
Facilities built under Biden are more spacious with plenty of phone booths, according to people who have visited.
"There are rows of cubicles, enclosed," said Paulina Reyes, an attorney at advocacy group ImmDef who visited a San Diego holding facility in March.
The administration has not said how many attorneys have volunteered to represent asylum-seekers. Hawkins said officials told advocates they are reaching out to firms that offer low- or no-cost services to people in immigration detention centers.
Erika Pinheiro, executive director of advocacy group Al Otro Lado, which is active in Southern California and Tijuana, Mexico, said she has not been approached but would decline to represent asylum-seekers in expedited screenings. They arrive exhausted and unfamiliar with asylum law, hindering their abilities to effectively tell their stories.
"We know what the conditions are like. We know people are not going to be mentally prepared," she said.
The Biden administration aims to complete screenings within 72 hours, the maximum time Border Patrol is supposed to hold migrants under an agency policy that's routinely ignored.
It's a tall order. It currently takes about four weeks to complete a screening. Under Trump's expedited screenings, about 20% of immigrants were in custody for a week or less, according to the GAO. About 86% were held 20 days or less.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has identified 480 former asylum officers or those with training to assist about 800 on the expedited screenings, said Michael Knowles, a spokesman for the American Federation of Government Employees Council 119, which represents asylum officers. Despite the staffing surge, Knowles said officers worry about the pace of the work, "like an assembly line, 'hurry up, hurry up,' when you have lives at stake."
"All hands will be on this deck for the foreseeable future," Knowles said. "We don't know how long."