Otero County extends federal immigrant detention contract again after first attempt deemed illegal
—Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The Otero County Commission on Wednesday evening voted again to extend a federal immigrant detention contract, after the New Mexico Department of Justice determined its attempt earlier this month violated a state transparency law.
The unanimous vote seeks to prolong the county’s arrangement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and private prison operator MTC that allows ICE to house detainees at the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, even though a new state law, House Bill 9, goes into effect in May banning such arrangements.
The Wednesday meeting was an attempt to address violations the state Department of Justice identified as a result of the contract extension commissioners enacted March 13 after a hastily scheduled emergency meeting. The NMDOJ, in a letter March 20, determined that the commission had violated the state Open Meetings Act, which rendered the contract invalid.
County officials have said they need to maintain the contract to pay off more than $60 million in revenue bonds the county sold to build the facility in 2007. They also say the facility’s closure will result in 230 lost jobs, as well as other harms to the county and its residents.
Just before the vote Wednesday, County Attorney RB Nichols reiterated his defense of the emergency meeting and criticized the Legislature for what he said was “indifference” in passing HB9 without providing the county a path forward,
“The state proceeded with indifference — indifference to the bondholders, indifference to the employees, indifference to the immigrants at the facility here…” he said. “And indifference to the economic foundations [for] rural communities that have done nothing wrong.”
Despite the county’s effort Wednesday to extend the contract legally, Nichols alerted the commission to a new letter the NMDOJ sent Wednesday that says the contract extension is void for an entirely different reason.
Under state law, according to the letter, the state Department of Finance and Administration must sign off on “joint powers” agreements like the one between Otero County and ICE.
Nichols said the law the NMDOJ cited does not apply to Otero County, and he accused the department of inventing a new legal avenue to try to shut down the facility. He said Otero County has never had to seek approval from the DFA when it has extended the contract in the past, nor have Torrance and Cibola counties, the other counties with ICE contracts.
“The selective application of this theory on the afternoon of tonight’s meeting speaks for itself,” he said.
NMDOJ Chief of Staff Lauren Rodriguez provided the department’s letter to Source NM on Wednesday, which states the contract is “void” because the DFA secretary did not approve it.
In response to a Source NM question about whether Otero or other counties with ICE contracts have been required to receive state approval in the past, Rodriguez said in an email late Wednesday evening that, “It is always incumbent upon local jurisdictions to follow the law. We will continue to monitor and review this process.”
The commission met for about 20 minutes to approve the contract extension, as well as to re-approve a resolution meant to enable the county to hire outside lawyers to “explore any potential litigation that may arise over this matter,” Nichols said.
The commission then went into executive session to discuss “pending or threatened litigation.” Commissioner Vickie Marquardt said the discussion was regarding House Bill 9 and the NMDOJ’s ongoing inquiry, though she noted the commission would not be taking any action during the executive session.
NM attorney general joins lawsuit against feds over rule changes for nutrition program
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez on Monday joined a coalition of AGs across the nation in suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture over its allegedly “unconstitutional and unlawful” requirements that states receiving funding for two key food assistance programs cannot “promote gender ideology” or help “illegal aliens to obtain taxpayer-funded benefits.”
The lawsuit alleges that the USDA implemented new rules late last year for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, along with its supplemental program for Women, Infants and Children, which require states to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive orders and to cease all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.
Among other points, the AGs argue that the USDA’s new rules are exceedingly vague and require funding recipients to comply with “federal anti-discrimination laws, regulations, and policies,” but neglect to specify the policies in question. Moreover, the attorneys general from 20 states and Washington, D.C. allege that the new rules force states to choose between feeding vulnerable populations and capitulating to the federal government’s demand for “sweeping changes” to state policies.
“These programs are essential to feeding New Mexico children, families, senior citizens and rural communities. Almost half a million New Mexicans rely on SNAP funding alone for family meals, and I will not stand by while this administration continues to attempt to take food from the tables of our working families,” Torrez said in a statement. “By implementing these completely unrelated conditions to this funding, the administration is illegally and deliberately withholding nutrition from New Mexicans in a time when our country is already struggling with rising costs. We should be expanding access to food assistance – not undermining it.”
Nationally, nearly 30 million children participate in a school lunch program, the lawsuit says.
SNAP has been a particular flashpoint for New Mexico’s state and federal officials during the second Trump administration, particularly during the government shutdown when the USDA said it had insufficient funds to pay for the benefit and the state committed $30 million to cover residents’ benefits. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also called a special session last October to address cuts to the program in the federal budget bill.
More than 450,000 New Mexicans rely on SNAP funding, according to state officials.
The New Mexico Department of Health and the state Health Care Authority declined to specify to Source NM if the Trump administration’s actions have affected SNAP or WIC benefits.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, says that the federal government allocated nearly $222 million to New Mexico for child nutrition programs in fiscal year 2025 and about $45 million for WIC programs in fiscal year 2024.
Torrez signed onto the suit along with AGs from Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
Verdicts against Meta, YouTube validate concerns long raised by parents, child safety advocates - by Barbara Ortutay, Associated Press
For years, parents, teenagers, pediatricians, educators and whistleblowers have pushed the idea that social media is detrimental to young people's mental health and can lead to addiction, eating disorders, sexual exploitation and suicide.
For the first time, juries in two states took their side.
In Los Angeles on Wednesday, a jury found both Meta and YouTube liable for harms to children using their services. In New Mexico, a jury determined that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
Tech watchdog groups, families and children’s advocates cheered the jury decisions.
“The era of Big Tech invincibility is over,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project. “After years of gaslighting from companies like Google and Meta, new evidence and testimony have pulled back the curtain and validated the harms young people and parents have been telling the world about for years.”
While it's too soon to tell if this week's outcomes will lead to fundamental changes in how social media platforms treat their young users, the dual verdicts signal a changing tide of public perception against tech companies that is likely to lead to more lawsuits and regulation. For years, they have argued that the harms their platforms cause to children are a mere byproduct, unintentional and inevitable consequences of broader societal issues or bad actors taking advantage of safeguards. They pushed against the notion that psychological harms could be the result of social media use and downplayed research that showed otherwise.
When asked about whether people tend to use a platform or product more if it’s addictive during his testimony in the Los Angeles trial, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “I’m not sure what to say to that. I don’t think that applies here.”
The verdicts show the public's growing willingness to hold the companies responsible for harms and demand meaningful changes in how they operate. What's not apparent, at least not yet, is whether the companies will take heed. Both Meta and Google said they disagree with the verdicts and are exploring legal options, including appeals.
Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director who raised alarms about Instagram's harms inside the company for years before testifying in Congress in 2023, said jury trials “level the playing field” for these trillion-dollar companies. But he cautioned that it will take actual regulation to rein them in.
“One thing that I saw working inside the company that effectively led to behavior change was when an attorney general or the FTC stepped in and required things of the company,” he said. “Both New Mexico and Los Angeles and all the attorneys general that are part of this process have really an extraordinary opportunity and the ability to ask for meaningful change.”
While both cases focused on harms to children, there are key differences between the two. New Mexico's lawsuit was filed by state Attorney General Raúl Torrez in 2023. State investigators built their case by posing as children on social media, then documenting sexual solicitations they received as well as Meta’s response. The jury was asked to determine if Meta violated New Mexico's consumer protection law.
The Los Angeles case had a single plaintiff, who goes by the initials KGM, against Meta, Google's YouTube, TikTok and Snap. TikTok and Snap settled before trial. The plaintiff in this case argued that the platform design features of the two remaining defendants, Meta and YouTube, were designed to be addictive, especially for young users. Because thousands of families have filed similar lawsuits, KGM and a handful of other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury, eventually leading to a broader settlement reminiscent of the Big Tobacco and opioid trials.
By focusing on deliberate design choices and product liability, the lawsuits were able to sidestep Section 230, which generally exempts internet companies from liability for the material users post on their services. Past lawsuits, which have focused on how the platforms distributed content, often failed on these grounds.
“For the first time, courts have held social media platforms accountable for how their product design can harm users,” said Nikolas Guggenberger, an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center. “This is a new legal territory that could reshape an industry long shielded by Section 230. Platforms will have to rethink their focus on engagement at any cost, which has outlived itself.”
The final outcome of the cases could take years to resolve pending appeals and settlement agreements, but experts say the shift in the public's sentiment and understanding of social media's dangers is already happening. In a 2025 Pew Research Center poll, for instance, 48% of teens said social media harms people their age. In 2022, only 32% said the same.
Amid social media's reckoning, however, artificial intelligence chatbots are emerging as the next frontier in the fight to make technology safer for young people.
“You can ban today's harm, but how do you know what tomorrow is going to bring?” said Sarah Kreps, a professor and director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute. Whether it's another social media app, AI or some other new technology, she added, new things will crop up.
“And people will flock to those because where there’s demand you will see a supply come to meet that demand,” she said.
Measles outbreak in NM detention centers grows to 15 cases - by Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
New Mexico health officials on Wednesday reported an additional two cases of measles at the Luna County Detention Center, bringing the state’s total to 15 infections so far this year — all in detention centers.
The New Mexico Department of Health reports 10 cases in Luna County; three in Doña Ana County and two in Hidalgo County, all among federal detainees. No hospitalizations or deaths have been associated with the cases, according to health officials.
Phone calls and emails to the Luna County Detention Center warden were not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.
The state has deployed vaccination crews to all three facilities to reduce spread. NMDOH Communications Director Robert Nott told Source NM in an email that crews at the detention centers have issued 160 vaccines in Luna County; 287 vaccines in Doña Ana and 43 in Hidalgo.
While the highly contagious virus was reported eradicated from the U.S. in 2000, dropping vaccination rates and occasional outbreaks from travel have meant increased spread in recent years. In 2025, there were more than 2,000 measles cases nationwide, the largest outbreak in nearly four decades. In New Mexico, a string of 100 reported measles infections between February and September 2025 marked the state’s first outbreak since 1996.
Earlier this month, federal health officials highlighted New Mexico’s communication and vaccine outreach during the 2025 outbreak, finding the strategies coincided with a 55% increase of measles vaccinations over the same period the previous year.
This year, 32 states, including New Mexico, have reported measles cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Measles symptoms, which include fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes and a spotty rash on the face, can develop one to three weeks after exposure. People can spread the virtual infection several days before and after symptoms appear.
Health officials urged New Mexicans to check their vaccine status and noted the spring travel period could mean increased spread.
“Measles is very contagious and there have been almost 1500 measles infections reported this year in the United States,” NMDOH Medical Epidemiologist Dr. Chad Smelser said in a statement. “The best way to prevent measles infection is to be fully vaccinated.”
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New Mexico, Meta to face off again in court - Oliver UyttebrouckAlbuquerque Journal
New Mexico isn't done with Meta yet.
Attorneys for New Mexico and the social media giant will face off again in May to determine if Meta created a public nuisance and whether it must fund programs to mitigate alleged harms to New Mexico children.
A jury on Tuesday found that Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — failed to protect New Mexico children and ordered the company to pay $375 million in civil penalties for violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act.
The jury reached the verdict in less than a day following a six-week trial in 1st Judicial District Court before Chief Judge Bryan Biedscheid.
Following the verdict, Meta responded that it disagrees with the verdict and plans to appeal. "We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online,” a Meta spokesman said in an email.
State Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed the suit against Meta Platforms and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2023, alleging the company failed to protect children from sexual abuse, online solicitation and human trafficking. The suit alleged both violation of the Unfair Practices Act and creating a public nuisance.
The second phase of New Mexico's legal action against Meta begins May 4 when Biedscheid has scheduled a bench trial, without a jury, to consider the state's public nuisance claim.
Torrez told CNBC on Wednesday that the New Mexico will seek injunctive relief to provide greater protections for teenagers who use Meta platforms.
“That means changes to the design features of the platform itself, real age verification, changes to the algorithm, an independent monitor to oversee those changes, and fundamentally, a demand that they do business differently in New Mexico,” Torrez told CNBC.
The New Mexico Department of Justice said in an email that the state will seek a court order requiring Meta to pay additional damages and make specific changes to Meta’s products and operations.
On Wednesday, a jury in Los Angeles found Meta and YouTube must pay $3 million in damages to a 20-year-old woman who alleged she became addicted to the platforms, worsening her mental health struggles.
The California jury recommended an additional $3 million in punitive damages after finding the companies acted with malice or fraud in harming children on their platforms.
Public nuisance claim
In a Jan. 13 court filing, New Mexico argued that the state was entitled to a jury trial on claims under the state's Unfair Practices Act, "but not on its public nuisance claim."
In its lawsuit, the state alleged that Meta’s platforms create a public nuisance in several ways, including "enabling human trafficking to occur in New Mexico" and enabling the distribution of child sexual abuse material. The platforms also contribute to “an increase in suicide, eating disorders, depression, bullying and other harms” to New Mexico children, the suit alleges.
A Meta spokesman denied the allegations in an email this week. "We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content," the statement said.
In the second phase of the trial, the judge will determine whether Meta's platforms created a public nuisance and whether the company must fund programs to address the alleged harms.
“We will be asking for more financial relief for the state of New Mexico to remedy that, to help support our kids and create a safe digital environment,” Torrez told CNBC.
Indian Health Service is digging out of decades-old construction backlog for medical buildings - by Savannah Peters, Associated Press
An empty lot between a fire station and a soccer field just outside Albuquerque soon will be the home of a federal medical center first promised to Native American patients more than 30 years ago.
Earlier this month, Santa Ana Pueblo Gov. Myron Armijo took officials from the U.S. Indian Health Service and the Department of Health and Human Services on a tour of the location where patients are to receive everything from dialysis and diabetes care to optometry services.
“This will definitely change the game for health care in our area,” Armijo said.
Set to break ground in 2027, the 235,000-square-foot (22,000-square-meter) center will be run by the IHS, the U.S. agency that provides health care to Native Americans. Tribal leaders hope it will relieve pressure on the aging and overextended Albuquerque Indian Health Center, a federal facility originally built 90 years ago where some patients report waiting months for an appointment.
The Albuquerque facility was among more than 60 clinics and hospitals the agency identified for replacement in 1993 due to their age, condition and inability to serve a growing population. It remains on the list along with six other projects scattered around Arizona and New Mexico. IHS officials say it will eventually be replaced by two new facilities in the Albuquerque area, including the center planned at Santa Ana Pueblo.
In February, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged $1 billion toward those long-delayed projects, including $22 million for the Santa Ana Pueblo center. The agency estimates $8 billion is needed to tackle all remaining projects on the 1993 list that, under federal law, must be complete before the IHS can address other major construction needs.
A.C. Locklear, CEO of the nonprofit National Indian Health Board, said the $1 billion is the single largest financial investment by any administration in addressing the aging facilities. Yet, he said, it also shows the federal government has neglected its legal duty to provide adequate health care to tribal nations.
“It’s a drop in the bucket in terms of what’s needed to modernize these facilities,” Locklear said.
Aging infrastructure impacts access, quality of care
The IHS serves 2.8 million Native American and Alaska Native patients at 21 hospitals and 78 smaller health centers nationwide. The average age of those facilities is around 40 years old and one-third are in “poor” physical condition, according to a 2023 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
That isn't lost on Theresa Nelson, a 62-year-old Navajo Nation citizen who started relying on the Albuquerque Indian Health Center after retiring and losing her health insurance.
“It felt like going back in time,” she said, describing everything from the X-ray machines to exam rooms and waiting room furniture as outdated.
Nelson said the center relies on a complex system of outside referrals for treatments and tests that were easier to access in the private sector. She has been waiting for eight weeks for IHS to approve a referral for a 3D mammogram, a tool the Mayo Clinic says is offered at most U.S. health care facilities.
The Indian Health Service said appointment wait times at the Albuquerque center are less than 14 days for patients who are established with a primary care provider. But Nelson and other patients report going years without being assigned a doctor and waiting months to be seen for preventive care.
Farther west, the Gallup Indian Medical Center operates out of a mashup of modular buildings and piecemeal renovations. The hospital, which opened over six decades ago and is on the 1993 list, serves a population that includes the Navajo Nation. Tribal lawmaker Vince James said constant construction and a disjointed layout make it difficult for elderly and disabled patients to navigate the hospital and for providers to do their jobs.
“These are Band-Aid fixes,” James said. “Eventually the GIMC campus will become unsafe.”
An “unacceptable” backlogSenior HHS adviser Mark Cruz urged Congress to make a special appropriation to complete the remaining projects that are in various stages of planning and design.
Without that funding, he said, it could take another 40 years to get through the priority list.
“It’s really unacceptable that we’re still working off of that 33-year-old construction list,” Cruz said during the Santa Ana Pueblo tour.
Federal law requires the Indian Health Service to complete that list before replacing clinics and hospitals that have fallen into disrepair since 1993. That includes two nearly 90-year-old hospitals in Montana and Minnesota. The agency also can't build new facilities to meet patient demand, which has grown and shifted geographically in recent decades.
“I can’t get to additional projects that have merit across Indian Country or Alaska because I have a statutory obligation to get through the 1993 list first,” Cruz said.
In 2023 the IHS crossed a project in Rapid City, South Dakota off its priority list. The replacement of the aging and troubled Sioux San Hospital has been “transformational,” said Jerilyn Church, CEO of the Great Plains Tribal Leader’s Health Board.
The renamed Oyate Health Center is three times larger than the former hospital and equipped with far more modern medical equipment. But demand for care at the new center is already outstripping available space.
“That’s what happens when you work from a backlog,” Church said. “In the time between identifying the need and the money finally becoming available, the population grows.”