Peruvian migrant acquitted in the first trial over the new militarized zone at US-Mexico border - Associated Press
A Peruvian woman who crossed the U.S. border illegally was acquitted Thursday of unauthorized access to a newly designated militarized zone in the first trial under the Trump administration's efforts to prosecute immigrants who cross in certain parts of New Mexico and western Texas.
Adely Vanessa De La Cruz-Alvarez, 21, was arrested last month near the West Texas town of Tornillo after she entered the U.S. from Mexico by walking across the riverbed of the Rio Grande, court documents show.
In addition to being charged with entering the country illegally, she was charged with accessing a military zone. She is among several other immigrants who have been charged under the law since President Donald Trump's administration transferred oversight of a strip of land along the border to the military. It is as part of a new approach the Department of Justice is taking to crack down on illegal immigration.
The Associated Press left messages Thursday with De La Cruz-Alvarez's attorney, Veronica Teresa Lerma. The lawyer told The Texas Tribune the acquittal is significant.
"Hopefully, this sets the tone for the federal government," Lerma said, "so they know what the El Paso community will do with these charges."
Even before the woman's case went to trial, federal magistrate judges in neighboring New Mexico had dismissed similar cases, finding little evidence that immigrants knew about the zones.
Lerma was convicted of entering the country illegally and was already facing deportation, but could have faced up to 18 months in prison for entering the militarized zone.
Despite the verdict, U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons of the Western District of Texas said his office will continue to aggressively prosecute National Defense Area violations.
"At the end of the day, another illegal alien has been found guilty of illegally entering the country in violation of the improper entry statute and will be removed from the United States," Simmons said in a statement. "That's a win for America."
The administration wants to sharply increase the removal of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as Trump seeks to make good on his pledge of mass deportations. The administration has deployed thousands of troops to the border, while arrests have plunged to the lowest levels since the mid-1960s.
Las Cruces, Taos host rallies in support of national monuments, public lands — Roz Brown, New Mexico News Connection
New Mexicans will gather in Las Cruces, Taos and other locations Saturday for a day of action to defend national monuments and public lands.
The second Trump administration has renewed calls to sell off public lands to save the government money.
Miya King-Flaherty, program manager for the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club, said advocates will rally to prevent public lands from being turned over to states, industry groups and developers.
"We're really trying to inform the public about these senseless attacks on our public lands that the administration is moving forward with," King-Flaherty explained. "To call on our Congressional delegates in New Mexico to keep pushing back and letting them know that their constituents are behind them."
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., is pressuring Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to release a list of 400 national parks he cited in Congressional testimony which could be transferred to states or localities as the agency seeks to cut 30% of its operating budget.
On June 8, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid outdoorsman, signed the Antiquities Act, the first U.S. law to provide legal protection of cultural and natural resources on federal lands. It authorizes presidents to establish national monuments to protect historic and scientific sites.
King-Flaherty pointed out in contrast, the Trump administration's approach aims to maximize economic output from federal lands.
"These policies are really meant to allow corporations, multimillionaires, billionaires to exploit our lands at the expense of what the public wants," King-Flaherty contended. "It really just undercuts our democracy."
Earlier this year, the Washington Post reported the Trump administration had included New Mexico's Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks in a list of six national monuments for potential mining activities and a reduction in protections. President Donald Trump has already signed a proclamation opening up the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing.
New Mexico governor goes globetrotting as she nears final year in office - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
With her second term as governor nearing its final stanza, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has been here, there and everywhere.
Since the 60-day legislative session ended in March, the governor has spent more time outside New Mexico than she has in the state, with trips to Asia, Maryland, Los Angeles and the Kentucky Derby.
Specifically, the governor has spent 40 of the 76 days since the session ended on March 22 fully or partially out of state, according to a Journal analysis of her official calendar and shared records.
Just this week, Lujan Grisham led a state delegation to Alaska, where she met with Trump administration officials and attended an energy summit.
The Governor’s Office says the trips are in the interest of the state by forging possible business partnerships and advocating for federal resources.
“The governor’s travel is of significant benefit to New Mexico’s economic development, efforts to secure federal funding and other policy initiatives,” said Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Jodi McGinnis Porter. “Each trip is strategically planned to deliver tangible results for New Mexico families and businesses.”
She also told the Journal the Governor’s Office is in regular contact with Lt. Gov. Howie Morales about the governor’s travel schedule to ensure state business is unaffected and agencies are ready to respond in case of emergency.
Per the state Constitution, Morales serves as acting governor while Lujan Grisham is out of state. He said in April he was in frequent communication with the Governor’s Office when he signed more than 30 executive orders freeing up state funding for recovery efforts connected to damages from flooding and wildfires.
With most of New Mexico currently experiencing drought conditions, McGinnis Porter said the governor is staying up to speed on the latest risks even when traveling outside New Mexico.
“The governor ... maintains full engagement on wildfire preparedness from any location while staying informed on fire activity throughout the state,” she told the Journal.
Longtime New Mexico political observer Brian Sanderoff said out-of-state travel by elected officials can sometimes be fodder for criticism by political opponents. But he said Lujan Grisham might feel more freedom to travel with her tenure as governor winding down.
“The governor can not seek a third consecutive term, so she’s going to feel a lot less constrained politically about travel, both nationally and internationally,” said Sanderoff, who is the president of Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc.
The costs for the governor’s busy travel schedule have been paid for by a mix of state and outside groups, depending on the trip. For instance, her Alaska trip was paid for with taxpayer dollars, while her travel to Chicago for last year’s Democratic National Convention event was covered by her political action committee, according to the Governor’s Office.
Meanwhile, Lujan Grisham’s trade mission to Japan and Singapore in April — and a similar trip to India last year — were paid for by the New Mexico Partnership, an Albuquerque-based nonprofit group that focuses on business recruitment efforts.
Lujan Grisham also traveled out of state extensively last year, including a trip to Mexico. She also crisscrossed the country last fall to stump for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
The governor, who will finish her second term in office at the end of 2026, has increasingly clashed with Democratic lawmakers over crime and public safety issues in recent years.
She said at the end of this year’s session she planned to call lawmakers back to Santa Fe this year to tackle legislation dealing with juvenile crime and firearm restrictions, but later said no such special session was imminent.
Trump tariffs could reduce NM imports by 11%, transportation economist says - Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
The U.S. government’s import taxes could significantly cut the amount of goods coming through New Mexico, and thereby reduce how much money the state government has to maintain its highways, the state transportation agency’s head economist told lawmakers on Thursday.
At the legislative Transportation Infrastructure Revenue Subcommittee’s first interim meeting since this year’s legislative session, New Mexico Department of Transportation Chief Economist Michael Morrison said the tariffs enacted by the Trump administration so far could impact revenues used to pay for road maintenance.
Making it more expensive to import and export goods could shrink the amount of imported goods into the country; reduce the number of commercial vehicles travelling through New Mexico to and from ports; and bring down commercial trucking and diesel fuel tax revenues, according to Morrison’s presentation to the committee.
Two major interstate highways, I-40 and I-10, carry goods from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach through New Mexico to Texas and other states to the east.
Morrison told the committee he expects a decrease of imports that travel through New Mexico between 3% and 11%, depending on the overall tariff rate. He said he is still developing an estimate for exports.
“Additionally, we expect to see some impacts on national income and New Mexico income that should have ripple effects in terms of lowering our consumption of all goods, which will also reduce weight-distance and diesel taxes,” Morrison told the committee. “There’s less consumption of all goods, less freight.”
That tracks with analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which found that while Trump’s tariffs would decrease the federal government’s deficit, they would also shrink the U.S. economy overall and raise consumer costs.
Rep. Rod Montoya (R-Farmington) told the committee he is incredulous about the tariffs’ potential impact, called Morrison’s presentation “vast speculation” and said he doesn’t think the tariffs will stay in place long-term.
“It’s interesting to me that we’re doing this level of handwringing over tariffs, when what we’ve seen is from the President going in like he does — and like in his books — negotiating as high as he possibly can, and then getting a deal, and then there’s disruption for a period of time, but then it normalizes.”
Part of why the tariffs haven’t yet resulted in increased prices and empty store shelves is because most retailers and importers planned ahead by rushing orders before the tariffs took effect, Morrison said.
A 20- to 40-day delay occurs as ships travel across the Pacific, so a decision made by importers now won’t show up in freight changes or on store shelves for up to a month or more, he said.
Long before the second Trump administration, the department has been doing less roadwork because its road maintenance budget has stayed flat while construction costs have increased, said Transportation Secretary Ricky Serna.
Money raised from state taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, vehicle sales and commercial trucking taxes and fees goes into the State Road Fund, which pays for highway maintenance, according to legislative analysts. New construction is paid for using the General Fund, the state government’s largest pot of money.
Morrison projects the State Road Fund’s spending power will decline by 51% by 2050 due to inflation and increased construction costs, while road construction costs in the same period will increase by 160%. The cost of building new roads has tripled since 2003, according to his presentation.
“We’re not hinging the demise of the State Road Fund relative to construction costs on tariffs,” Serna said.
He said the department started shifting to buying American-made aluminum and steel during the Biden administration after the U.S. enacted the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which includes a provision requiring all iron, steel, manufactured products and construction materials used in some infrastructure projects to be produced domestically.
On Tuesday, Trump signed a directive doubling tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50%.
Also putting a strain on the department’s roadwork efforts was the Legislature’s failure to pass House Bill 145, which would have provided the state Transportation Commission with $1.5 billion in bonding authority to pay for major construction projects.
Serna said the bill would have covered New Mexico’s road construction needs for the next eight to 10 years.
This Santa Fe arts college could lose almost all its federal funding. Here’s why. – Noah Alcala Bach, Albuquerque Journal
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), one of the few post-secondary institutions in New Mexico’s capital city, could see its funding slashed by almost 80% as the Trump administration eyes further cuts to higher education institutions, public education and now those that are affiliated with tribes.
The Santa Fe-based art school, which serves over 1,000 students and has a staff of over 100 people, 79% and 42% of whom are Native American, respectively, could lose some $13.4 million in federal funding of its overall budget of roughly $17 million.
On Tuesday, ProPublica reported that the Trump administration, via a budget request on its way to Congress from the Department of the Interior, was looking to cut 90% of funding for the 37 tribal colleges and universities across the country — one of which is IAIA.
The cuts are part of a broader Trump Administration push to cut programs targeted at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and other programs the administration deems wasteful, such as foreign aid. The administration has touted some $2.3 billion in savings from DEI cuts and $8.3 billion in savings annually that went to some of the poorest nations in the world.
“We will terminate every diversity, equity, and inclusion program across the entire federal government,” Trump said in an executive order promising to eliminate every government program helping “underrepresented” populations in the U.S.
U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who is an ex officio non-voting member on the IAIA board of trustees, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
IAIA President Robert Martin said in a phone interview Wednesday that they had been bracing for the cuts.
“We knew it was going to happen sometime but to tell you the truth, we were hoping that somehow we were going to remain in the budget,” he told the Journal. “We were trying to make sure this didn’t happen, but it has happened, and we’re well-prepared to deal with it, and we’re confident that we’re going to prevail in the end.”
Martin expressed confidence that the school would remain funded through the coming fiscal year, stating that he’s been reassured by the New Mexico congressional delegation that “they are going to fund us at the level of funding that we requested” and that the presidential administration’s proposed cuts could meet legal challenges. Still, Martin acknowledged that the looming cuts could have an impact on the campus community.
“It is scary, but I think they want to instill fear, and these are challenging times for all of us,” Martin said. “Uncertainty creates a lot of stress and anxiety among our faculty, staff and students.”
The Bureau of Indian Education Central Office, a department housed within the Department of the Interior, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
“We know federal funding cuts have already hit New Mexico’s higher education institutions. Currently, the New Mexico Higher Education Department is working closely with all public colleges and universities throughout the state, including the state’s four tribal colleges, to track changes that may impact current and future federal funding,” Auriella Ortiz, spokesperson for the New Mexico Higher Education Department, wrote in a statement. “During these unpredictable times, we will continue to support students at the Institute of American Indian Arts and other tribal colleges across the state.”
In March, Martin penned a campus-wide letter ahead of spring break addressing federal concerns and wrote “During my more than 17-year tenure as President, IAIA’s budget has been reduced only once.” He also noted additional reasons for students and staff to remain optimistic and pointed to some actions the school was taking to mitigate federal effects.
“We have drawn down the maximum allowable funding amounts for each of our federal grants. Given the intent of several of the Executive Orders to terminate federal workers and programs, freeze federal hiring, reduce federal funding, and pausing certain federal grants,” Martin wrote. “We must remain vigilant.”
New Mexico faces increased fire danger in June, after moist end to May – Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
New Mexico’s relatively cool and moist weather so far this spring will dry and warm up in coming weeks, putting fire managers and forecasters on high alert for wildfires before the start of the seasonal monsoon rains this summer.
This year’s low snowpack has already put much of the state in drought conditions, and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham recently declared a state of emergency and additional actions to prevent fires over the coming weeks.
Recent rains around the state offer some relief, as May and June typically emerge as some of the driest months, said George Ducker, a wildfire prevention and spokesperson at the New Mexico Forestry Division.
But the projected warm temperatures through the next several weeks could mean the recent spouting of new plants could aggravate the problem, he said.
“We could see a substantial dry up of these flashy fuels, the grasses and even shrubs,” Ducker said. “Then, if you get a start, get a little bit of wind — there would be more fuel to burn.”
The recent rains did not herald the start of the monsoon, the seasonal tropical patterns that provide Arizona and New Mexico with critical moisture, said Andrea Bair, a forecaster with the National Weather Service Western Region based in Salt Lake City, at a National Integrated Drought Information System presentation Tuesday.
Rather, she said monsoons are expected to start in mid-June and could be stronger than past years, but hot temperatures will continue to dry out the soils and stress plants across much of the Southwestern U.S.
“The drought looks to continue throughout the season and the monthly outlook forecasts,” she said. “So not a lot of relief is expected.”
The rains lessened the acute risks of fire in the Southwest, said Jim Wallmann, a senior forecaster for the National Interagency Coordination Center Predictive Services. But other parts of the county are seeing wildfires “extremely early” in the fire season, he said, noting the 1,000-acre Banana Lake fire in Montana.
“We’re having to spread our resources over a much greater footprint of the country,” Wallmann said. “That could affect how big a fire gets in California, if we’re stretched and can’t send everything to California while it’s burning; we’ll be on fires burning everywhere else.”
Ducker said the concerns about availability for resources to fight wildfires is “a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it,” and said the state is working to be prepared.
“We have the resources to be able to jump on fires as they start,” Ducker said. Our federal partners seem to be in the same place where they’re ready to respond, so right now we’re just waiting for June to see what it shows us.”
New mixed-income housing project breaks ground in International District – nm.news
Sol Housing has begun construction on ‘Somos’, a 70-unit mixed-income apartment community in Albuquerque’s International District.
The project aims to provide affordable housing, particularly for seniors, and will include commercial space and access to transit.
Located near Central Avenue and Louisiana Boulevard, Somos will feature 59 income-restricted and 11 market-rate units. Eighty percent of the apartments will be reserved for residents aged 55 and older, with a focus on accessibility and safety. The remaining twenty percent will be open to residents of all ages.
Sol Housing aims to provide affordable senior housing that meets the needs of Albuquerque’s growing population of older adults.
According to Sol, research shows that mixed-income communities can generate both financial and social benefits, including neighborhood revitalization, deconcentration of poverty, and improvements in safety, health, and sustainable living environments.
“As our population ages, we’re making sure Albuquerque’s growth includes thoughtful planning for our older residents,” Mayor Tim Keller said. “Projects like Somos help more seniors stay in the communities they love—close to family, services, and the support they need to age with dignity.”
The development incorporates Universal Design Standards, including two elevators, to allow residents to age in place. Somos differentiates itself from Sol Housing’s other senior-focused projects by emphasizing mixed-income housing, which is expected to foster social connections and community engagement.
“We believe that mixed-income housing developments offer the foundation to create upward mobility for residents and communities,” said Miriam Hicks, Director of Housing Development at Sol Housing. “Housing that is affordable is critical to economic stability and to creating the thriving, joyful neighborhood we all desire. Somos residents will support local businesses including the emerging small businesses leasing our commercial spaces.”
In addition to housing, Somos will include an on-site food pantry, fitness room, pet area, community space, and commercial square footage for local small businesses and nonprofits.
The project supports the Near Heights Metropolitan Redevelopment Plan, which focuses on stabilizing low-income neighborhoods and expanding affordable housing. Somos will also include landscaping, lighting, and street activation improvements.
Albuquerque City Councilors approved $6.1 million in April for Somos to be built. The council directed $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money toward the project, along with $5.1 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The City’s Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency (MRA) supported Somos by donating the land and facilitating its approval for the Redevelopment Tax Abatement (RTA) Program—an MRA incentive that freezes property tax increases for seven years to promote long-term affordability.
The project also received significant public investment, including:
$4 million from the New Mexico Housing Trust Fund in the form of a loan;
Approximately $1.6 million annually in 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits for 10 years;
$158,756 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding for infrastructure improvements.
“This project brings a long-standing community vision to life by turning a vacant lot into high-quality, affordable housing,” said Terry Brunner, Director of the Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency.
“With tools like our tax abatement program, we can support developments like Somos that address urgent housing needs while helping create safer, more vibrant corridors in the International District.”
Construction is expected to be completed in December 2026.