Governor wants New Mexico legislators to debate new approach to regulating assault-style weapons - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
New Mexico could become an early political testing ground for a proposal to make assault-style weapons less deadly.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday said she'll encourage the state's Democratic-led Legislature to consider statewide restrictions that mirror an unconventional proposal from U.S. senators aimed at reducing a shooter's ability to fire off dozens of rounds a second and attach new magazines to keep firing.
The proposed federal Go Safe Act was named after the internal cycling of high-pressure gas in the firearms in question and comes from such senators as New Mexico's Martin Heinrich, a Democrat. If approved, it would mean assault-style weapons would have permanently fixed magazines, limited to 10 rounds for rifles and 15 rounds for some heavy-format pistols.
"I've got a set of lawmakers that are more likely than not to have a fair debate about guns, gun violence, weapons of war and keeping New Mexicans safe than members of Congress are," said Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, at a news conference in the state Capitol. "We will have to see how those votes all shake out."
Bans on assault rifles in several states are under legal challenge after the U.S. Supreme Court in June broadly expanded gun rights in a 6-3 ruling by the conservative majority. The decision overturned a New York law restricting carrying guns in public and affected a half-dozen other states with similar laws. After the ruling, New York and other states have moved to pass new gun restrictions that comply with the decision.
Lujan Grisham recently suspended the right to carry guns at public parks and playgrounds in New Mexico's largest metro area under an emergency public health order, first issued in response to a spate of shootings that included the death of an 11-year-old boy outside a minor league baseball stadium. The order sparked public protests among gun rights advocates and legal challenges in federal court that are still underway.
The restriction on carrying guns has been scaled back from the initial order in September that broadly suspended the right to carry guns in most public places, which the sheriff and Albuquerque's police chief had refused to enforce.
New Mexico's Legislature convenes in January for a 30-day session focused primarily on budget matters. Other bills can be heard at the discretion of the governor.
Lujan Grisham said her urgent approach to violent crime is spurring more arrests and reining in gunfire. Her effort has come amid new concerns about gun violence after a shooting Friday involving two 16-year-olds that left one of them dead outside a high school basketball game in Albuquerque.
The governor's health order includes directives for gun buybacks, monthly inspections of firearms dealers statewide, reports on gunshot victims at New Mexico hospitals and wastewater testing for illicit substances.
Most populous New Mexico county resumes sheriff's helicopter operations, months after deadly crash - Associated Press
Sixteen months after a crash killed four first responders, New Mexico's most populous county has resumed its law enforcement helicopter operations.
Bernalillo County Sheriff's officials said the Metro 1 Air Support Unit took to the sky Tuesday after months of training for pilots and mechanics, with some deputies becoming tactical flight officers.
The A-Star B3 helicopter initially will fly law enforcement missions exclusively including air patrol, critical incident response and collaborative operations with the Albuquerque Police Department's Air Unit.
Sheriff's officials said Metro 3 — a fixed-wing Cessna T-41C — will transition to a non-response role and be used solely for training purposes.
They said a new helicopter known as Metro 4 will join the fleet in the coming months with the name Metro 2 being retired in honor of the fallen first responders that included the county's undersheriff.
The Metro 2 helicopter went down in July 2022 while returning from a firefighting mission. The cause of the crash still is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Following the fatal crash in the hills near the northern New Mexico community of Las Vegas, the sheriff's office suspended helicopter operations.
US wildlife managers capture wandering Mexican wolf, attempt dating game ahead of breeding season - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
A match made in the wilds of New Mexico?
An endangered Mexican wolf captured last weekend after wandering hundreds of miles from Arizona to New Mexico is now being readied for a dating game of sorts as part of federal reintroduction efforts.
But only time will tell whether the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can succeed in finding a suitable mate for the female wolf numbered F2754. The newly captured wolf will be offered a choice among two brothers that are also housed at the federal government's wolf management facility in central New Mexico.
"We wanted to bring her in earlier so that she has a longer chance to bond with a mate and then hopefully successfully breed," said agency spokeswoman Aislinn Maestas. "We're going to be observing her and waiting to see. Hopefully, she does show interest in one or the other."
It could be late February or early March before biologists know if their efforts are successful.
It has been 25 years since Mexican gray wolves were first reintroduced into the Southwestern U.S. Through captive breeding and targeted releases, wildlife managers have been able to build up the population of what is the rarest subspecies of gray wolf in North America.
Despite fits and starts, the numbers have trended upward, with last year marking the most Mexican gray wolves documented in Arizona and New Mexico since the start of the program.
Federal and state wildlife managers had been tracking the lone female wolf for months, waiting for an opportunity to capture her again. Her journey began in the mountains of southeastern Arizona and crossed the dusty high desert of central New Mexico before reaching the edge of Valles Caldera National Preserve.
She spent weeks moving between the preserve and the San Pedro Mountains. After showing no signs of returning to the wolf recovery area, officials decided to capture her before the start of the breeding season.
Their opportunity came Saturday near the rural community of Coyote, New Mexico. A helicopter crew working with the New Mexico Game and Fish Department shot her with a tranquilizer dart and then readied her for the trip south to the Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility.
It was about the well-being of the wolf, said Brady McGee, the Mexican wolf recovery coordinator.
"Dispersal events like this are often in search of a mate. As there are no other known wolves in the area, she was unlikely to be successful and risked being mistaken for a coyote and shot," he said in a statement.
Officials said the goal is that the match-making efforts net pups in the spring and more wolves can be released to boost the wild population.
The recovery area spanning Arizona and New Mexico is currently home to more than 240 of the endangered predators. There also is a small population in Mexico.
Environmentalists had pushed federal managers to let the solo female wolf be, pointing out that previous efforts to relocate her were unsuccessful following her first attempt to head northward last winter. They also pointed out that the wolf's movements were evidence that the recovery boundaries are insufficient to meet the needs of the expanding population.
"I think what we can say is that we know wolves are driven towards dispersing as a way towards mating with non-related wolves. In the case of Mexican wolves, those unrelated mates are increasingly hard to come by because of the level of inbreeding in the population and the narrow band of Arizona and New Mexico where wolves are allowed to be," said Greta Anderson, deputy director of the Western Watersheds Project.
Ranchers in New Mexico and Arizona have long complained that wolves are responsible for dozens of livestock deaths every year and remain concerned about any expansion of the wolves' range. Rural residents in Colorado are joining them as officials plan to release gray wolves there in the coming weeks.
New Mexico, the No. 2 oil-producing US state, braces for possible end to income bonanza - By Morgan Lee Associated Press
A windfall in government income from petroleum production is slowing down but far from over in New Mexico as the nation's No. 2 oil-producing state grapples with how much it can effectively spend — and how to set aside billions of dollars for the future in case the world's thirst for oil falters.
The state is headed for a $3.5 billion general fund surplus for the year running through June 2025, according to a new forecast Monday. New Mexico's annual state government income has swelled by nearly 50% over the past three years, driven largely by oil an natural gas production in the Permian Basin, the most prolific shale-oil producing region in the country that extends across southeastern New Mexico and portions of western Texas.
The state will draw in a record-setting $13 billion — exceeding annual spending obligations by one-third, economists from four state agencies said in a presentation to a legislative panel. Monday's forecast anticipates 2.2% growth in state government income, on top of 10.2% growth during the current budget year.
The estimate of government income sets a baseline for budget negotiations when the Democratic-led Legislature convenes in January, and could extend efforts to set aside money to ensure critical programs endure when oil income falters. The forecast cautions that slowing oil production and lower prices are expected to generate significantly less federal payments next year and beyond.
By the end of the decade, oil income is likely to begin a long, steady decline, "becoming a drag on revenue growth as global demand wanes," the report states.
Permian Basin production and revenue would be lower in the future if countries "make good" on their promises as part of the Paris Agreement, said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at the Washington-based nonpartisan economics group Resources for the Future, which does not advocate on energy policies. In 2015, countries at the United Nations climate conference signed onto the agreement to limit the average warming across the globe to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) and pursue efforts to cap warming to 1.5 degrees (2.7 F).
"It really hinges a lot on the different policies that governments around the world implement," Raimi said.
About half of the New Mexico's general fund revenue can be traced to the oil and natural gas sector through an array of taxes and royalties on petroleum production that takes place largely on public lands — and distributions that flow from the state's $28 billion land grant permanent fund for education, which is nurtured by oil income and investment earnings.
New Mexico's largest source of income is tethered to decisions across the globe about renewable energy production, adoption of electric vehicles, and new applications for nuclear power that could reduce fossil fuel use.
The state is looking for new revenue streams that shift the state's dependence on oil, including New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's proposal last week to help preserve freshwater aquifers with a $500 million initiative to underwrite the treatment of fracking wastewater. Early critics fear the plan might only spur more drilling for petroleum.
"We put a ton of money into funds," Lujan Grisham said from the U.N. climate conference in the United Arab Emirates, where calls to phase-out the use of fossil fuels have been on prominent display. "But you also have to create revenue streams that go into those funds that are reliable."
Meanwhile, the growth in government income has allowed the state to expand agency budgets, scale back taxes, and offer new support to families, while bolstering spending on public education and colleges that account for roughly 58% of annual state general fund spending.
It's more money in many instances than school districts and state agencies can effectively spend, as lawmakers push to bring average high school graduation rates and academic attainment up to national averages.
"All the resources have been there to pay the teachers more, to do the afterschool programing to provide the tutoring and support," said Charles Sallee, director of the Legislature's budget and accountability office, at a recent community presentation. "It's the ability of the bureaucracy to organize and use those resources. In many cases it's strained at capacity."
Frustration boiled over at a recent legislative hearing that examined state spending on public education and stagnant average student performance at public schools.
Statewide, the share of students who can read at their grade level is 38%. Math proficiency is at 24%. The state's high school graduation rate hovers at 76% — well below the national average of 87%.
Funding is increasing while the student population is declining, said Democratic state Sen. George Muñoz of Gallup, chairman of the lead state budget-writing committee at a November hearing.
"So we're paying more for kids and we're still not getting there," Muñoz said. "What are we going to do to move the needle?"
New Mexico's early childhood education trust, created in 2020, already holds roughly $6 billion. It's designed to safeguard an ambitious expansion of public preschool, no-cost child care and home nurse visits for infants.
Last year, legislators agreed to set aside $150 million in a new land and water conservation fund and agreed to channeled more money from oil and natural gas into a savings account for construction projects — devoting $3 billion by 2027.
Legislators still are pushing to open new savings accounts. An emerging proposal would devote $100 million to a trust for Native American education including Indigenous language instruction among 23 tribal communities in New Mexico, including the Navajo Nation.
What to know about abortion lawsuits being heard in US courts this week - By Geoff Mulvihill Associated Press
When the U.S. Supreme Court undid the nationwide right to abortion last year, it did not remove the issue from the courts.
Instead, it opened a new frontier of litigation, with states passing their own restrictions and opponents challenging them in courts across the country.
This week, at least four state supreme courts are dealing with abortion cases, including a Texas ruling Monday that rejected a woman's individual request for access to an abortion because of pregnancy complications.
Some things to know about the cases:
TEXAS WOMAN ENDS QUEST FOR ABORTION IN-STATE
Most of the lawsuits that have been filed against bans and restrictions are seeking to secure general access to abortion.
But last week, a Texas woman experiencing serious pregnancy complications decided not to wait for those challenges to be resolved. Saying that her condition poses a risk to her health and future fertility, she asked a court for permission to obtain an abortion immediately.
A state district judge issued an order on Thursday allowing Kate Cox to receive an abortion. The state attorney general filed an appeal, arguing that Cox's situation does not meet the criteria for an exception. He also warned that anyone providing the abortion could still face legal consequences. On Friday, the state's Supreme Court put the lower-court ruling on hold.
On Monday, before the top court had issued a final ruling, her lawyers announced that she had gone to another state for an abortion. Later in the day, the Texas Supreme Court ruled against her.
Texas doctors had told the 31-year-old Cox that their hands were tied — despite the Texas law's exception for when a woman's life is at risk — and that she would have to wait for the fetus to die or carry the pregnancy to term.
A pregnant woman in Kentucky is also seeking immediate access to an abortion, but the claim she filed Friday does not cite exceptions to that state's law; rather it argues that the ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy violates the state constitution.
ARIZONA'S DUELING LAWS
Before Arizona was a state, it had a ban on abortion that was overridden by the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established a nationwide right to abortion. Just before Roe was undone last year, lawmakers passed a separate ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
There's been confusion and litigation over which law applies. Currently, abortions are available during the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, based on a court ruling last year that said doctors can't be prosecuted for providing abortions during this time frame.
The Arizona Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday on whether the pre-statehood ban of 1864 — which would prohibit abortions at any stage of pregnancy — should apply.
Meanwhile, Arizona abortion rights supporters are pushing to get a ballot question before voters next year that would undo both bans. Advocates in other states are attempting to put similar questions on the ballot following the success of such a measure in Ohio last month.
A BATTLE BETWEEN LOCAL AND STATE LAWS IN NEW MEXICO
New Mexico is one of seven states that allows abortions to be obtained at all stages of pregnancy, and it's become a major destination for people from states with bans, especially neighboring Texas.
That hasn't stopped some conservative city and county governments in the blue state from passing local abortion bans.
The state's Democratic attorney general is challenging those bans, saying they violate the state constitution's provision prohibiting discrimination based on sex and pregnancy status.
Most of the local laws have been put on hold by the New Mexico Supreme Court while it considers the issue. The court will hear arguments on the challenge on Wednesday.
LEGAL WRANGLING IN WYOMING
Two hearings before courts in Wyoming this week could shape litigation on the legality of abortion.
In July, Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens paused enforcement of a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy while she weighs whether to hold a trial on a challenge to the ban.
Owens is holding a hearing Thursday to choose between a trial or making a decision more quickly based on legal arguments put before her.
Prior to that, the state Supreme Court — whose five members were all appointed by Republican governors — will hear arguments Tuesday on whether to let two lawmakers and Right to Life of Wyoming intervene in the case. They contend that Republican state Attorney General Bridget Hill should defend the ban with evidence, not just legal arguments.
Hill said in a court filing that while she doesn't object to parties being added, the case should be decided solely on the legal arguments.
The state has just one clinic that provides abortions with both medication and surgery. The Casper clinic opened in April, after a nearly yearlong delay because of damage from an arson attack. A second, in Jackson, which provides only medication abortion, has said it is closing this week because of high rent and other costs.
CHANGING LAWS IN MICHIGAN
On Monday, Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the last piece of a legislative package known as the Reproductive Health Act. The package aims to reinforce and safeguard abortion rights in Michigan after voters last year approved a ballot initiative enshrining the right in the state's constitution.
The bill repeals a law that had banned insurance coverage for abortion without purchase of a separate rider. The law, coined "rape insurance" by opponents, was passed exactly 10 years ago by a state Legislature that was controlled by Republicans.
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Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press reporter Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.
Smugglers are bringing migrants to a remote Arizona border crossing, overwhelming US agents - By Anita Snow Associated Press
Gerston Miranda and his wife were among thousands of migrants recently arriving at this remote area on Arizona's southern border with Mexico, squeezing into the United States through a gap in the wall and walking overnight about 14 miles (23 kilometers) with two school-aged daughters to surrender to Border Patrol agents.
"There is no security in my country," said the 28-year-old from Ecuador, who lost work when his employer closed due to extortion by criminals. "Without security you cannot work. You cannot live."
A shift in smuggling routes has brought an influx of migrants here from countries as diverse as Senegal, Bangladesh and China, prompting the Border Patrol to seek help from other federal agencies and drawing scrutiny to an issue critical in next year's presidential elections.
With hundreds of migrants crossing daily in the area, the U.S. government on Monday indefinitely shut down the nearby international crossing between Lukeville, Arizona, and Sonoyta, Mexico, to free Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to the port of entry to help with transportation and other support. The agency also has partially closed a few other border ports of entry in recent months, including a pedestrian crossing in San Diego and a bridge in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Customs and Border Protection "continues to surge personnel and resources to the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector to expeditiously take migrants into custody," the agency said Sunday. "The fact is we are enforcing the law, and there are consequences for those who fail to use lawful pathways."
"Individuals encountered at the border are screened and vetted, and those without a legal basis to stay are removed," it said, adding that consequences can include a minimum five-year bar on re-entry. The agency said it is also focusing efforts on smugglers and transportation networks like bus lines that bring the migrants through northern Mexico.
Critics of closing the Lukeville crossing, including Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs; the state's two U.S. senators, the governor of Mexico's Sonora state and the leadership of the nearby Tohono O'odham Nation, said it could harm trade and tourism. Hobbs urged President Joe Biden to reassign the 243 National Guard members already in the Tucson sector to help reopen the Lukeville crossing.
The morning after it was closed, about a dozen Border Patrol agents in olive green uniforms watched over some 400 migrants who had spent the night by the towering wall of steel bollards, wrapped in shiny Mylar blankets they later discarded among saguaro cactus and Palo Verde trees.
Three or four times as many CBP field operations officers in navy blue uniforms helped the migrants into white vans for a short drive to a canopied field intake center. From there, agents took migrants for processing to the Border Patrol's Ajo station, a half-hour north, or to other locations such as Tucson.
U.S. authorities have been so short-handed in Arizona that they have used charter flights to transfer some migrants from Tucson to three Texas border cities for processing, according Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that analyzes flight data.
Federal air marshals who provide security on commercial flights, and even Federal Protective Service officers who guard U.S. government buildings, are being diverted to the border, officials have said, without saying exactly where they are going.
"We are seeing a lot of different kinds of uniforms down here," humanitarian aid worker Tom Wingo said in Lukeville.
Nonprofit groups worry about the migrants' well-being.
"This is a humanitarian crisis that's happening in our own backyard," said Dora Rodriguez, chairperson of the Tucson nonprofit Humane Borders, which keeps water tanks on the border for migrants. "There are hundreds of people, including infants and children, who are stranded in remote areas of the desert for days."
The Lukeville area's popularity as a place to cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. emerged in recent months. It's one of the most striking examples of migrants shifting to a remote area, putting the Border Patrol on its heels. In 2019, Antelope Wells, New Mexico, became a popular spot. This year also has seen hundreds of migrants camping in the mountains of Jacumba Hot Springs, California, waiting for agents to process them.
Because Lukeville is so remote, Border Patrol staffing is light, so traffickers in the region controlled by Mexico's Sinaloa cartel steer people there. The arrivals last week included 41-year-old Luiz Velazquez, his wife and their three children from Zacatecas, a Mexican state plagued by drug cartel violence.
Heat-related illness was a major concern several months ago when daytime temperatures climbed into the triple digits. The worry now is overnight temperatures in the 40s, in a place where the closest hospitals and nonprofit migrant shelters are nearly two hours away.
Chris Clem, a retired Yuma, Arizona, sector chief, said it is part of smugglers' strategy to stretch agents as thinly as possible, forcing highway checkpoints to close and other resources to be diverted for processing migrants. The remoteness creates "enormous strain" on the Border Patrol, he said.
Art Del Cueto, a Tucson-based vice president with the National Border Patrol Council, said the union wants stricter measures to deter migrants from coming. He said it's not so much a matter of too few agents, but one of too many migrants.
Heading into next year's presidential elections, the border is a top issue for voters, especially Republicans, and immigration issues could be a liability for Biden, a Democrat, as he runs for reelection.
A national AP-NORC poll conducted in November found about half of U.S. adults say increasing security at the U.S.-Mexico border should be a "high priority" for the federal government, with 3 in 10 calling it a "moderate priority." Republicans were more likely than Democrats to call it a high priority.
Biden's approach to immigration combines new legal pathways to enter the country with more restrictions on asylum for those who cross the border illegally. Former President Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner for the 2024 nomination, has promised even tougher hardline immigration policies in a second term.
Additional funding for border security has been held up in Congress over a package to provide additional aid to Israel and Ukraine in their wars against Hamas and Russia.
John Modlin, the Border Patrol's Tucson sector chief, said Friday that the agency made 18,900 arrests for illegal crossings the previous week in the sector that includes most of Arizona's border with Mexico. That translates to a daily average of 2,700 arrests, well above October's daily average of less than 1,800 and barely 700 in December 2022.
The 2020 census listed Lukeville's population as 35, but the mobile home park where many residents lived now appears abandoned, with boarded up buildings and a scattering of old manufactured homes. A previously busy service station and store that sold ice and snacks to travelers was closed indefinitely on Monday.
The Lukeville border crossing is also popular among U.S. residents driving from Arizona to the popular resort of Puerto Peñasco, or Rocky Point. Nicknamed "Arizona's beach," it is about 62 miles (100 kilometers) south of the border on the northern shores of the Sea of Cortez.
Americans who want to travel to Puerto Peñasco now must cross through Nogales, a three-hour drive to the east, or San Luis, a two-hour drive to the west.
Alfonso Durazo, the governor of Mexico's Sonora state has asked officials of both countries to "undertake all necessary efforts necessary to resume as soon as possible the extraordinary commercial, tourist and social relationship that have historically distinguished Sonora and Arizona."
"The solution is not to close border crossings," Durazo said.
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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Maria Verza in Mexico City and Rebecca Santana and Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.