Injunction shields New Mexico from Trump's order ending birthright citizenship - Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal
A federal lawsuit filed earlier this year by New Mexico and other states provides New Mexicans with at least temporary protection from President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, state officials said this week.
The U.S. Supreme Court last week limited the power of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions, including those blocking an executive order that would end a decades-old guarantee of citizenship for all children born in the United States.
But the court’s June 27 ruling leaves in place an injunction granted by a federal judge in February that blocks implementation of the executive order in New Mexico and 27 other states that have challenged Trump’s action in court. The Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship itself.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he was disappointed by the court’s ruling but noted that the injunction remains in force for New Mexico and other states challenging the order in the courts.
“New Mexicans should take comfort in the fact that this decision will not impact our communities because of our steadfast commitment to upholding the rule of law and our willingness to fight to uphold our constitutional order,” Torrez said in a statement.
New Mexico and 17 other states sued the Trump administration in January just days after the president issued Executive Order 14160, which argues that the Constitution does not automatically confer citizenship to all children born in the U.S. Several other states and individuals have filed separate lawsuits challenging the order.
Birthright citizenship, enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, confers citizenship on “all persons born” and “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. The amendment was adopted in 1868 to guarantee citizenship for African Americans.
“We remain confident that this Executive Order — clearly unlawful and deeply harmful to millions of Americans — will ultimately be struck down,” Torrez said.
On Feb. 13, U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin of Boston issued a nationwide injunction blocking the government from implementing the executive order anywhere in the U.S.
Sorokin joined federal judges in Maryland, Washington and New Hampshire who also issued preliminary injunctions blocking the order. The court’s ruling last week upended those injunctions.
Trump said after the ruling that his administration would move ahead with plans to end birthright citizenship. But he and Attorney General Pam Bondi have offered few details about how they would carry out the policy.
New Mexico Solicitor General Alethia Allen said this week that the 18 states that filed the suit against the administration believe they will win their arguments on the merits, but the timeline of the case is unclear.
The Supreme Court sent the case to the First Circuit Court of Appeals to settle additional issues about the injunction, Allen said. Ultimately, the case likely will return to Sorokin’s court in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, she said.
“Obviously, depending on how the injunction is ultimately fully applied will impact how much either side will push the court to move quickly,” Allen said. “Because we have differing views on the impact of the injunction, my guess is if it’s not us, it’s going to be the federal government pushing for quick resolution in this case.”
Bernalillo County jail will no longer allow physical mail and is taking some items from cells - Matthew Reisen and Nakayla McClelland, Albuquerque Journal
The Bernalillo County jail will no longer allow inmates to keep personal items like photos and books — outside of religious texts and legal material — in their cells or receive physical mail from family and friends.
Metropolitan Detention Center officials said the new policy was being put in place in an attempt to keep contraband and drugs out of the facility. MDC identifies contraband as any material prohibited by law or material that can cause physical injury or affect facility security.
Starting July 18, MDC will not accept physical copies of any written documents including books, magazines and other literature for inmates, according to a news release. The facility will also no longer accept packages sent to inmates and any sent will be returned to the sender.
“Items such as books and personal effects can be used to conceal contraband within the facility, and so to fulfill MDC’s commitment to the safety and security of staff, inmates and visitors, these items will be removed,” said MDC spokesperson Daniel Trujillo.
He said inmates will only be allowed to keep religious texts and legal material and they will be able to mail other personal items to family and friends for safekeeping.
Under the new policy, any mailed items are to be sent to Maryland, where they will be scanned by a third-party service, Trujillo said. The scanned copies will then be reviewed by MDC staff for “any violations of the inmate mail policy” and, if approved, made accessible to inmates through a tablet computer.
“Inmates will now access this material through a digital library available on tablets,” he said. MDC has approximately 1,000 tablets, a ratio of one tablet for every two inmates, and inmates have access to the tablets during out-of-cell times from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Trujillo said “legal mail, internal education materials and other approved documents” will continue to be delivered physically.
From October 2022 to July 2023, drugs like fentanyl, methamphetamine and cannabis were seized from inmates at the facility more than 180 times, in quantities large and small, according to MDC reports obtained through an Inspection of Public Records Act request.
Kate Loewe, an attorney representing those incarcerated at MDC under a class-action settlement agreement, said her clients are reporting “confusion, anxiety and anguish” over the forthcoming policy change.
“It’s not that they are just stopping incoming mail in the future. They are confiscating what people have now,” she said. “Taking pictures of their kids, books they bought from approved retailers, letters from loved ones — that they have in their cells now.”
Loewe said for many of her clients behind bars at MDC, particularly those battling mental health issues, books, art and photos of loved ones bring them “peace in a not peaceful place.”
Trujillo said MDC will continue to allow their care package program. Care packages — typically containing food and hygiene items — are managed by a third-party vendor and are not sent directly by members of the public.
“Because care packages follow a different vetting process and originate from controlled sources, they are exempt from the restrictions outlined in the new mail policy,” he said.
Trujillo said switching to a digital system will not only reduce the amount of contraband going into the detention center but also streamline the process of getting mail to inmates.
The current system requires officers to collect the mail from a remote location and inspect every item before delivery, MDC said.
‘It’s not over’: New Mexico doctor discusses the lasting effects of COVID-19 — Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
One of the biggest misconceptions about COVID-19 is that the pandemic is over, said Dr. Michelle Harkins, a physician and clinical researcher at the University of New Mexico.
“Well, it’s not over,” Harkins told Source NM in an interview this week. “The pandemic is smoldering. There are still people that are getting sick. You can still get COVID. There’s still a significant burden of Long COVID that we’re going to have to address.”
The most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention national early indicators, updated on July 30, show that 3% of tests for COVID are coming back positive, and 0.4% of patients in emergency rooms have the infection.
Harkins works as co-medical director of the Post-COVID Primary Care TeleECHO program, which is meant to help primary care providers recognize and diagnose Long COVID, a chronic condition defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an illness that follows a SARS-CoV-2 infection and is present for at least three months. Long COVID includes a variety of symptoms, including respiratory, neurological and digestive ones.
Harkins also is the division chief at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center’s Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine. UNM on June 24 promoted Harkins and four others to distinguished professors, after UNM HSC Internal Medicine Department Chair Mark Unruh nominated her.
“I’ve just been afforded a lot of opportunity here and a lot of great support from my colleagues and my mentors, and I just love my job,” Harkins said. “It is an incredible honor.”
Harkins said there’s a lot of misinformation that claims people no longer need to receive vaccines or wear masks. In fact, vaccination is protective against severe sickness and Long COVID, she said.
“I personally still wear a mask when I’m on a plane and in the airports, because I don’t want to get sick, and I don’t want to bring it home to a family member, or ruin a trip that I’m supposed to go on because I have COVID,” Harkins said.
While no therapies currently exist for Long COVID, Harkins told Source NM that she advises doctors to talk to their patients, believe them and work with them to figure out their goals as we wait to understand what treatments will help.
“Long COVID is not one-size-fits-all,” she said. “We know it’s a huge burden to patients, and patients need answers. No one was listening to them. People were gaslighting them, and it’s real.”
Her co-director Dr. Alisha Parada runs the only Long COVID clinic in New Mexico, where Harkins follows up with patients in her research.
What’s needed are multidisciplinary clinics to address the myriad of symptom complexes that Long COVID patients face, Harkins testified before Congress in January 2024.
“A Long COVID patient might come to a multidisciplinary clinic and need to see a neurologist, a cardiologist, and an internist, all for the same diagnosis of Long Covid,” Harkins told the U.S. Senate HELP Committee.
Earlier in the pandemic, Harkins started a different Project ECHO training program for doctors to treat patients hospitalized with acute COVID-19. She turned her focus to a Long COVID clinic for primary care providers when she received new funding.
She led clinical trials for acute COVID treatments, including those that established the effectiveness of antiviral remdesivir and anti-inflammatory baricitinib.
Those led Harkins and her team to become involved in the National Institutes of Health’s RECOVER study, which is due to end in October. She and her colleagues have been observing 148 adult patients as part of that study.
Harkins said her team has finished a clinical trial for the oral antiviral Paxlovid, and are currently running two other trials, RECOVER-ENERGIZE Post-Exertional Malaise and RECOVER-SLEEP Complex Sleep Disturbances.
In August, Harkins, Parada and UNM nurse practitioner Debora Bear will join leading Long COVID and other infection-associated chronic condition researchers at a conference in Santa Fe, where they will meet others who manage the disease.
“I’m very excited to go,” she said. “We will learn from others and share our experiences, and see what we can bring home.”
New State Fair board meets, mulling International District revival and $500m investment — Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A board the New Mexico Legislature created earlier this year took its first steps Thursday toward what could be a $500 million investment in a long-struggling neighborhood in the heart of Albuquerque, a process that could also result in the relocation of the New Mexico State Fair.
At the New Mexico State Fair Tax District Board’s first meeting, members committed to statewide standards around open meetings and procurement; announced the hiring of a design firm tasked with creating a master plan for the fairgrounds; and outlined how the New Mexico State Fair Commission will employ eminent domain to buy out business owners in one corner of the fairgrounds.
Members include New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and New Mexico Senate President Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque), along with other state, county and city leaders.
The board is empowered to raise property taxes and issue up to $500 million in bonds to fund the development. The bonds are backed primarily by future gaming revenue taxes generated at the Downs casino and racino, which holds a multi-decade lease on property within the fairgrounds perimeter.
Based on expected taxes and current interest rates, the board could quickly raise up to $170 million in bonds to finance the project, according to a report from the Legislative Finance Committee.
Lawmakers early this year passed Senate Bill 481, which established the new special tax district and board membership. The board also announced Thursday that Stantec, an international design firm, had won a competitive bid awarding it $850,000 to come up with a master plan for the fairgrounds.
Stantec also developed the master plan for Netflix’s Mesa del Sol campus south of Albuquerque, along with mixed-use developments in Denver and El Paso.
Lujan Grisham, Stewart and others have touted the potential dramatic change at the fairgrounds as a way to rescue the adjacent International District, which has long been plagued with high poverty and crime rates. Some neighborhood advocates have raised concerns about who will benefit from the investment and whether it will gentrify a working-class neighborhood.
While no decisions have been made about whether the re-envisioning of the Expo New Mexico property will mean the relocation of the fairgrounds, Lujan Grisham said Thursday that Stantec will be giving serious consideration to that possibility as it completes options for the master plan.
The fair has been held at Expo New Mexico since 1938.
Redeveloping the area could also allow the state to build more housing units in a state and city with a severe housing shortage, advocates have said. “This state land in the heart of New Mexico’s largest city presents a unique opportunity to create badly needed new housing for the workforce, while spurring massive private investment,” Lujan Grisham said in a December news release touting the plan.
Martin Chavez, the former Albuquerque mayor, is spearheading the project as the governor’s senior adviser. He told Source New Mexico after the meeting that while the project has never been intended as an affordable housing development, that new mixed-income housing is a key component of the new master plan Stantec is working on.
That said, there is no minimum number of housing units that the firm is required to develop a plan around, he said.
The board has much else to iron out for the development to occur, including Expo New Mexico’s forced acquisition of a handful of businesses, including restaurants and a tire shop, on the southwest corner of the property near Central Avenue and San Pedro Avenue.
Ricky Serna, the state Transportation Department secretary, said his agency will support Expo New Mexico as it handles the eminent domain process and outlined next steps at the Thursday meeting.
State officials said they will soon approach business owners in the area with offers to buy their properties, offers that contemplate the value of the businesses, costs to relocate and the property themselves.
Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa raised concerns about whether the business owners would be fairly compensated and whether buying them out would just result in more vacant buildings in a neighborhood with a lot of them. She pointed out that the nearby Wal-mart and two national pharmacy chains across the street have left.
Lujan Grisham responded the state would own the buildings and would manage them as productively as possible during the “parallel planning” regarding the redevelopment that is occurring at the same time the state is acquiring the buildings.
Keller, attending the meeting remotely, said he’s seen repeated state efforts to redevelop the fairgrounds and invest in the International District that have dissipated without action. The passage of Senate Bill 481 and the meeting Thursday were already more action than he’s seen in years, he said.
“This is real, and that’s good,” he said. “So I just want to appreciate a little bit of bias towards action, so that’s what we need, and I’m confident that we’ll do it in a fair and appropriate way.”