WED: NM Senate passes emergency bill aimed at recouping money from Gallup schools, + More
By KUNM News
January 28, 2026 at 5:49 AM MST
NM Senate passes emergency bill aimed at recouping money from Gallup schools
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico Senate voted 36-1 on Wednesday to pass a bill with an emergency clause that could start the process of recouping millions of dollars from Gallup-McKinley County Schools.
Lawmakers have been focused on the district’s finances since December, when New Mexico Public Education Department Secretary Mariana Padilla informed them of a $35 million shortfall in her agency’s budget.
That shortfall traces to May 2025, when Gallup-McKinley canceled its contract with a virtual learning provider and accused it of breaching its contract with the district. As a result, about 3,000 students enrolled in the online learning program had nowhere to go. Two other districts in New Mexico stepped up and adopted about 1,500 students apiece into their virtual classrooms.
However, since school districts receive funding based on the prior year’s enrollment numbers, Gallup-McKinley continued to draw money for virtual students it no longer had, Padilla said at the December Legislative Finance Committee hearing.
Deputy Superintendent Jvanna Hanks previously disputed that characterization to Source NM.
Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup) on Wednesday said that Senate Bill 19, which he co-sponsored, would give state education officials the time they need to figure out how much money was overpaid to Gallup-McKinley and how they can get it back. It passed the Senate on a 36-1 vote and carries an emergency clause, meaning it will go into effect immediately if Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs it into law.
“This was caused by one school district…I was so pissed off,” Muñoz said from the Senate floor. “They should have returned the money.” Currently, he added, there’s no law on the books that would let the state recoup the money.
The district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The bill orders PED to consult with the state Department of Finance and Administration, the Legislative Finance Committee and the Legislative Education Study Committee to revisit allocations made under the current fiscal year’s budget. It would provide PED and the Legislature more time “to consider potential statutory changes to address” this issue during the 2026 session, according to an LESC analysis of the bill.
Several senators who supported the bill said that virtual learning is increasingly a necessity in a state as sprawling and rural as New Mexico but, as Sen. Michael Padilla (D-Albuquerque) said, “We have to do it the right way.”
Sen. Bill Soules (D-Las Cruces) did not hold back in his praise for the legislation.
“This will be one of the defining bills of the session,” he said.
FEMA official overseeing NM fire victims fund received six-figure payout, documents show
—Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The federal official in charge of a multi-billion-dollar fund to compensate victims of New Mexico’s biggest-ever wildfire received a six-figure payment for smoke damage at his Angel Fire home far from where the fire burned, according to documents obtained by Source New Mexico and New Mexico PBS.
Internal records reveal that Jay Mitchell, who runs the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire Claims Office, received roughly $266,000 in compensation last July for smoke and ash cleaning costs for his home and adjacent casita in Angel Fire, a ski resort town more than an hour’s drive from the hardest-hit areas of the 2022 wildfire.
Mitchell’s wife Lisa, a licensed real estate broker selling property in the Angel Fire area, received additional payments totaling more than $250,000 last August for business-related losses she said she incurred during the fire, according to the documents.
This story was reported and produced in collaboration with NMPBS, a Source New Mexico partner. Look for the station’s broadcast version at 7 p.m., Feb. 6 on channel 5.1.
Because the U.S. Forest Service accidentally ignited the wildfire with two botched prescribed burns, Congress in late 2022 passed the Hermits Peak Fire Assistance Act requiring FEMA to compensate people who lost their homes or livelihoods due to the wildfire or subsequent flooding. The claims office, which is overseeing $5.45 billion in compensation funds, also pays property owners in and around the wildfire perimeter for smoke and ash cleaning costs for both exteriors and interiors.
According to recent estimates from the claims office, 74 individuals or families who lost their homes in the wildfire are still awaiting final compensation offers more than 3 1/2 years after the fire ripped through their communities.
Mitchell and his wife did not respond to multiple recent requests for comment from Source New Mexico, including phone calls and text messages. Source NM attempted to contact Mitchell at his Santa Fe office and his Angel Fire home. At his home, Mitchell slammed the door after shouting an expletive at reporters for approaching him at his “private residence,” and his wife accused reporters of “harassing” her.
Adán Serna, communications director for U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), told Source that while he had no first-hand knowledge of the Mitchells’ payout, “It would be deeply disappointing and shows the need for greater transparency from FEMA. The senator, Serna said, “has repeatedly called for greater transparency, improved processes, and faster claims decisions. That is the sole purpose of the Claims Office: to get money out the door to people who need it. It must also answer to Congress. Unfortunately, FEMA has failed to meet those standards.”
FEMA named Mitchell as its new director of the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon claims office in April of 2024. A native New Mexican, Mitchell previously served as director of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management under Gov. Susana Martinez. He took over the claims office at a time of deep public dissatisfaction among fire victims and public officials over delays in distributing funds.
Mitchell also began work one month after the claims office rolled out its smoke compensation program.
Mitchell applied for smoke damage compensation in July 2024, and indicated in his application that he needed the payout to clean his two-story, 4,800-square-foot home and a 1,700-square-foot casita with an attached two-car garage. Recent tax records value the Mitchells’ home at about $785,000.
On July 15, 2024, Mitchell signed FEMA’s application, which requires signatories to affirm under threat of perjury that they are telling the truth that the “reported structures, contents, and need for smoke, ash, and soot cleaning on this worksheet is true and correct.”
It’s unclear how much smoke Angel Fire experienced during the wildfire, which burned primarily in nearby Mora and San Miguel counties. Last week, Source New Mexico visited Mitchell’s neighborhood, which features numerous million-dollar houses, most of them vacation rentals, tucked between aspens and Ponderosa pines on a hillside overlooking the Angel Fire Country Club.
Two year-round homeowners along the winding dirt road through Mitchell’s neighborhood, Michael Martinez and Dan Brown, in separate interviews said they were paying close attention to the fire during spring and early summer of 2022. They said they remember a few days during which they could smell smoke, but said that it did not cause any discoloration or damage to their homes or to those of anyone they know.
“We didn’t have any smoke damage,” Brown said in an interview at his home. “Now, sometimes you could smell it. Sometimes you were breathing some of it, but not heavily.”
Martinez, who lives a half mile northeast of Mitchell, told Source that, “There was no smoke damage to my house at all. We never had a day where smoke was that bad coming in. We have pictures of it just blooming up over to the south of us, but never anything that really hit our neighborhood.”
According to a Source New Mexico analysis of the map officials consult when approving smoke damage payments, Mitchell’s home is less than 1,000 feet from a boundary line demarcating a roughly 2,200-square-mile zone in which claimants need only to sign a declaration form to receive smoke compensation payments.
Had he lived on the other side of the line, Mitchell would have been required to provide additional proof of smoke damage or discoloration as part of his claim, including photos, a site inspection or invoices for professional cleaning.
After FEMA rolled out payments for smoke damage, the category quickly became one of the most expensive areas of loss the office paid out. By September 2024, the office had cut checks for $393.8 million in smoke and ash damage claims to 4,168 claimants, which works out to an average of $94,500 each. That was more than one-third of the total compensation the office had released to fire victims at that time.
Meanwhile, concerns grew among survivors and elected officials that even as it released huge sums of money, the office was leaving behind people who lost the most in the fire.
Those people reside in what victims refer to as the “burn scar,” the 534-square-mile wildfire that contains multiple communities. It stretches from outside of Las Vegas, through Rociada and other hard-hit areas to south of Taos. The fire destroyed more than 900 homes within that boundary, in addition to livelihoods and forestland.
Luján posted on social media in May of 2024 that he had met with Mitchell “on behalf of impacted New Mexicans” and emphasized the importance of “prioritizing people with total home loss.”
But those concerns continued into 2025 and in January of that year, Yolanda Cruz, a fire victim who moderates a Facebook page for fellow neighbors still navigating the recovery process, and Luján’s office pushed for a meeting with Mitchell to hear directly from those who had lost their homes.
According to Cruz’s notes, which Source NM reviewed, at the meeting, Mitchell committed to prioritizing compensation to fire victims living in the burn scar, and particularly those who lost their homes.
Serna from Lujan’s office said Wednesday that Mitchell, at a late January meeting last year, reiterated that commitment. Luján’s office “has repeatedly pressed FEMA for updates on that commitment and has received insufficient responses,” Serna said.
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents the state’s 3rd Congressional District where the fire hit hardest, said in a statement provided to Source NM that her office continues to hear from constituents “who are desperate for answers and aren’t getting responses, and every week of delay means more suffering for families.”
In an interview last week at her home in Sapello, Cruz sat on her living room couch and reviewed the records of the Mitchells’ payments, a picture window behind her revealing the charred remains of acres of trees.
She said she felt betrayed to see that Jay Mitchell would agree to receive any funds for himself. She said he had an obligation, even if he was technically eligible for compensation, to ask for his claim to be put “on the back burner” until everyone in the wildfire perimeter was compensated.
“It is really disheartening and disturbing that he received this,” she said, holding a document showing the $266,000 payment for smoke damage.
She rattled off names of people who live in the direct path of where the fire burned and are still waiting: her friends, the Silvas, whose adult children lost their home and had to move with young grandkids into their trailer. Their neighbor: a mechanic waiting on business compensation and funds to pay for equipment the fire melted. Down the road, Cruz has a neighbor who has since moved to near Albuquerque after losing her home and also has yet to be compensated. Then there’s the diner owner in Las Vegas who had to shut down for months.
“Jay Mitchell has not been honest with people. He is not putting the people in the burn scar first, like he said he would,” she said.
On a tour later of her scorched property, Cruz pointed to signs of progress in her family’s recovery. Her family has been able to remove the vehicles the fire destroyed, as well her granddaughter’s playground that it liquefied.
Her son had just completed downing hazard trees at the top of the hill, she noted, leaving the hilltop barren of trees and covered with blackened sawdust. Despite the lack of vegetation, deer visit her daily, she said.
As she walked slowly back down the hill toward her home, she stayed upright by placing her hands on the bark of scorched trees. By the time she reached the bottom, her hands were coated with soot.
“This always happens,” she said, wiping the soot off her hands onto her pants.
Trump's immigration crackdown led to drop in US growth rate last year as population hit 342 million - By Mike Schneider, Associated Press
President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration contributed to a year-to-year drop in the nation's growth rate as the U.S. population reached nearly 342 million people in 2025, according to population estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The 0.5% growth rate for 2025 was a sharp drop from 2024's almost 1% growth rate, which was the highest in two decades and was fueled by immigration. The 2024 estimates put the U.S. population at 340 million people.
Immigration increased by almost 1.3 million people last year, compared with 2024's increase of almost 2.8 million people. If trends continue, the annual gain from immigrants by mid-2026 will drop to only 321,000 people, according to the Census Bureau, whose estimates do not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration.
In the past 125 years, the lowest growth rate was in 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the U.S. population grew by just 0.16%, or 522,000 people and immigration increased by just 376,000 people because of travel restrictions into the U.S. Before that, the lowest growth rate was just under 0.5% in 1919 at the height of the Spanish flu.
Births outnumbered deaths last year by 519,000 people. While higher than the pandemic-era low at the beginning of the decade, the natural increase was dramatically smaller than in the 2000s, when it ranged between 1.6 million and 1.9 million people.
Lower immigration stunts growth in many states
The immigration drop dented growth in several states that traditionally have been immigrant magnets.
California had a net population loss of 9,500 people in 2025, a stark change from the previous year, when it gained 232,000 residents, even though roughly the same number of Californians already living in the state moved out in both years. The difference was immigration since the number of net immigrants who moved into the state dropped from 361,000 people in 2024 to 109,000 in 2025.
Florida had year-to-year drops in both immigrants and people moving in from other states. The Sunshine State, which has become more expensive in recent years from surging property values and higher home insurance costs, had only 22,000 domestic migrants in 2025, compared with 64,000 people in 2024, and the net number of immigrants dropped from more than 411,000 people to 178,000 people.
New York added only 1,008 people in 2025, mostly because the state's net migration from immigrants dropped from 207,000 people to 95,600 people.
South Carolina, Idaho and North Carolina had the highest year-over-year growth rates, ranging from 1.3% to 1.5%. Texas, Florida and North Carolina added the most people in pure numbers. California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia had population declines.
The South, which has been the powerhouse of growth in the 2020s, continued to add more people than any other region, but the numbers dropped from 1.7 million people in 2024 to 1.1 million in 2025.
"Many of these states are going to show even smaller growth when we get to next year," Brookings demographer William Frey said Tuesday.
The effects of Trump's immigration crackdown
Tuesday's data release comes as researchers have been trying to determine the effects of the second Trump administration's immigration crackdown after the Republican president returned to the White House in January 2025. Trump made a surge of migrants at the southern border a central issue in his winning 2024 presidential campaign.
The numbers made public Tuesday reflect change from July 2024 to July 2025, covering the end of President Joe Biden's Democratic administration and the first half of Trump's first year back in office.
The figures capture a period that reflects the beginning of enforcement surges in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, but do not capture the impact on immigration after the Trump administration's crackdowns began in Chicago; New Orleans; Memphis, Tennessee; and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The 2025 numbers were a jarring divergence from 2024, when net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation's 3.3 million-person increase from the year before. The jump in immigration two years ago was partly because of a new method of counting that added people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons.
"They do reflect recent trends we have seen in out-migration, where the numbers of people coming in is down and the numbers going out is up," Eric Jensen, a senior research scientist at the Census Bureau, said last week.
How the population estimates are calculated
Unlike the once-a-decade census, which determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets, as well as the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual government funding, the population estimates are calculated from government records and internal Census Bureau data.
The release of the 2025 population estimates was delayed by the federal government shutdown last fall and comes at a challenging time for the Census Bureau and other U.S. statistical agencies. The bureau, which is the largest statistical agency in the U.S., lost about 15% of its workforce last year due to buyouts and layoffs that were part of cost-cutting efforts by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency.
Other recent actions by the Trump administration, such as the firing of Erika McEntarfer as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, have raised concerns about political meddling at U.S. statistical agencies. But Frey said the bureau's staffers appear to have been "doing this work as usual without interference."
"So I have no reason to doubt the numbers that come out," Frey said.
Governor asks New Mexico lawmakers to fund tribal media - Bella Davis, New Mexico In Depth
Tribal media stations in New Mexico could receive about $430,000 as soon as this summer, if the Legislature embraces Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s recommendation to help fill in federal funding gaps.
In Native communities nationwide, tribal stations provide a wide range of services that are often hard to come by in remote areas where cell reception and Wi-Fi can be spotty or nonexistent. They share emergency weather and missing persons alerts and notices about events, elections, and public health, and some — including KTDB-FM serving the Navajo community of Ramah, in western New Mexico — broadcast primarily in their Native languages, contributing to revitalization efforts.
“We strongly believe that an informed society, which includes tribal communities, can be strong and robust and healthy if they receive information in real time that can help them to make really important decisions, whether it’s about government or their health, the economy, and so these stations are there for the civic health of their community,” Loris Taylor (Hopi/Acoma) said in an interview.
Taylor is the president and CEO of Native Public Media, which supports radio and TV stations licensed either to tribes, tribal nonprofits, or educational institutions located on tribal lands.
There are four such local operations in New Mexico, according to the organization, serving two Navajo communities, the Jicarilla Apache Nation, and Zuni Pueblo.
But like all public media following the end of federal funding last year, their future has been uncertain.
Last summer, shortly before Congress voted to rescind $1.1 billion already appropriated for public media, a South Dakota senator announced he’d made a deal with the White House for the Interior Department to funnel $9.4 million in previously appropriated funding to tribal stations. Because it’s a one-time infusion, though, questions and concerns about funding after this year remain.
The stations, including those in New Mexico, were anywhere from 40-100% dependent on federal funding, Taylor said. Native Public Media surveyed the 36 tribal stations that have been impacted by the rescission, and the majority said they only expected to be operational for another six months to two years.
New Mexico has responded.
During the first of two special sessions held in 2025, the state set aside $429,600 for public TV and radio stations run by tribes, along with about $5.56 million for other stations.
If another round of funding makes it into the state budget, the Indian Affairs Department will be tasked with doling it out. The agency has already distributed the money appropriated last year to the Jicarilla Apache Nation’s KCIE-FM and Zuni Pueblo’s KSHI-FM, according to spokesperson Paris Wise.
Tribal stations were underfunded even before last year’s cuts, so the state’s support is desperately needed, Taylor said.
“I think the smart move is for New Mexico to continue funding the media infrastructure so that they’re not constantly looking at the federal government for funding because it now has other priorities, although I’m hoping and I continue to petition the federal government to fund tribal stations as part of their trust obligation to tribal nations,” she said.
Bernalillo County leaders consider strict limits for artificial intelligence data centers - Gillian Barkhurst, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico has found itself in the middle of an international race to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure as several data center projects move forward despite public pushback.
Breaking from state leadership, the Bernalillo County Commission considered a resolution Tuesday that would impose strict requirements for any prospective project within the county.
“If we're going to invest public money in a data center, we should set the bar high,” said the resolution’s sponsor, Commissioner Eric Olivas, at Tuesday's meeting.
The resolution is a reaction to three data and artificial intelligence projects in New Mexico, including Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa, Project Zenith in Roswell and an expansion of Meta facilities in Los Lunas.
Under the proposed resolution, to win the commission’s support, any project in Bernalillo County must be entirely powered by renewable energy, be built and run by a 90% to 95% in-state workforce and offset its water usage by funding local water projects.
Ultimately, during Tuesday's meeting, Olivas opted to defer the resolution for two weeks, pending a meeting with the governor.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other state officials have vocally supported data centers as they hope to position New Mexico as the next Silicon Valley-esque tech hub.
Olivas said that he will go into the meeting open-minded, but is unwilling to compromise protections for water and renewable energies.
The resolution is in sharp contrast to the Doña Ana County Commission, which approved an unprecedented $165 billion industrial revenue bond to fund Project Jupiter in September despite public skepticism.
The decision outraged some residents, including farmers and ranchers, who fear Project Jupiter will bleed already strained water resources dry. Locals also questioned the sincerity of corporate promises of economic prosperity.
Mirroring opposition in other counties, several Bernalillo County residents called the AI industry "extractive" during the meeting's public comment.
Some speakers said the resolution didn't go far enough to protect citizens from environmental impacts, including carbon emissions and water scarcity. Those speakers called for a total ban on data centers in the county.
"I'm tired of us getting treated as an experiment just for the means of production," said Rachelle Peña.
NM committee OKs bill giving acequias dedicated funding stream - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A New Mexico House committee on Tuesday approved a bill that seeks to give the state’s acequias a dedicated funding stream, following several recent natural disasters and challenges advocates say the historic irrigation canals face in accessing public funds.
House Bill 21, which Rep. Miguel Garcia (D-Albuquerque) sponsored, would make for a “monumental” change for the more than 700 acequias — historic irrigation canals — that wind through the state, Garcia told the House Rural Development, Land Grants and Cultural Affairs Committee.
Acequias, along with land-grant mercedes, count as public entities under state law and predate New Mexico’s statehood by hundreds of years, but they have small or nonexistent budgets and few means of generating enough of their own funding to pay for needed repairs.
The bill would establish a permanent trust fund that generates consistent revenues for acequias and land grants each year from severance tax bonds. State financial analysts estimate the fund would generate slightly more than $20 million annually to be split evenly between acequias and land-grant mercedes.
New Mexico Acequia Association Director Paula Garcia told lawmakers Tuesday that acequias statewide have $73 million in unmet needs despite efforts to access state or federal funds meant for water, infrastructure or disaster projects.
“The primary rationale for this bill is to have a reliable, recurring funding source for acequia infrastructure,” she said. “The needs are tremendous across the state.”
Acequias have to compete with other public entities for water project funding from the Water Trust Board, and an existing fund for acequia projects that the Interstate Stream Commission oversees is too small, Garcia said.
As for capital outlay, the state’s main process for paying for infrastructure, acequia leaders testified during public comment Tuesday that the process can be inadequate or slow, especially amid a backlog of projects.
“Even when you get capital outlay, sometimes you have to look for other sources of income to complete the project,” said Presiliano Torrez, who described trying to get funds for an acequia called Storm Ditch in Lincoln County damaged in recent wildfires in the Ruidoso area.
Wildfires across the state have put acequias everywhere into a “a crisis situation,” Torrez said.
“You have Mora, Las Vegas; you have Ruidoso; you have Silver City, all of which have been hit by fires,” he said. “What has happened to us as a result of fire is that we get cascading events that clog up the ditch.”
Acequias across the state have reported challenges accessing federal disaster aid, as well through a Federal Emergency Management Agency program called Public Assistance.
In addition to acequias’ historic value, the waterways remain vital for thousands of farmers and rural families across New Mexico and benefit public and private well systems by distributing water across the landscape, Garcia and other acequia stewards said..
The bill passed unanimously and heads to the House Taxation and Revenue Committee.
Bill increasing penalty for violent crimes against law enforcement clears first legislative hurdle - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
Backers of a proposal to increase the penalty for certain violent crimes against law enforcement officers in New Mexico are hoping the fourth time is a charm at the Roundhouse.
The bill, House Bill 61, passed its first assigned House committee via a unanimous vote on Tuesday, but still faces several hurdles before reaching Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's desk.
Several law enforcement officials testified in support of the bill, including Sgt. Rachel Discenza-Smith of the Farmington Police Department who was injured in a 2023 mass shooting.
While the 18-year old shooter in that case was shot and killed by police, law enforcement officers said approval of the legislation would send a message the state values their work and sacrifice.
"Nobody calls the police because they are having a good day," said Detective Lisa McGaha of the Farmington Police Department.
"We are battered, we are spit on, we are called every name in the book, and we are expected to tolerate this and continue doing our jobs," added McGaha, who said many officers deal with emotional trauma from their experiences on duty.
Specifically, the bill would increase the penalty for serious aggravated battery against a peace officer from a third-degree felony to a second-degree felony. That would mean the criminal sentence for individuals convicted of such a crime would jump from three years in prison to nine.
Currently, aggravated battery is one of the only criminal charges that carries the same penalty regardless of whether the victim is a civilian or a law enforcement officer. Other crimes like assault carry more serious penalties when officers are involved.
This year's bill marks the fourth consecutive year in which Rep. Andrea Reeb, R-Clovis, has pushed for such legislation. In previous years, some of the bills have stalled in a Senate committee after winning approval in the House.
Reeb, a former prosecutor, told members of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee she has met with Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to discuss the proposal.
She and other supporters also said the stories of law enforcement officers could be key to winning legislative approval.
Rep. William Hall, R-Aztec, said enactment of the proposed change could bolster efforts to improve law enforcement officer retention in New Mexico.
"It is imperative for police officers to know they're backed when this happens," said Hall, who is a retired FBI agent. "I want people who enter this career to stay in this career."
However, while law enforcement officers and state Department of Public Safety Secretary Jason Bowie spoke in support of the legislation, there was also testimony in opposition.
Representatives of the state Law Offices of the Public Defender and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico both urged lawmakers to oppose the bill, with Denali Wilson of the ACLU pointing out existing state law already contains stiff penalties for the offense.
A legislative analysis of the bill said 99 cases were filed statewide during the 2024 budget year with aggravated battery against a peace officer as the primary charge. Of those cases, only 11 resulted in convictions.
In addition, New Mexico State Police Maj. Randy Larcher said Tuesday at least six law enforcement officers around the state were injured in the line of duty last year.
The bill ultimately passed the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee on a 6-0 vote. It now advances to the House Judiciary Committee, its last stop before potentially reaching the House floor.
Landowners argue in court to limit stream access - Santa Fe New Mexican
In Denver, three appellate judges in U.S. District Court are hearing arguments in a long-standing dispute about who controls New Mexico streambeds.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the conflict was rehashed once again in oral arguments in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday. The controversy dates back to a 2017 rule adopted by the New Mexico State Game Commission. The rules allowed landowners with streams and rivers flowing through their property to deem those waterways as “non-navigable.” People hoping to fish or recreate on those waterways would need written permission to access them — or risk being accused of trespassing.
In 2022, however, the state Supreme Court sided with outdoor recreation and conservation groups to uphold the public’s rights to access New Mexico’s streams and waterways.
But property owners have complained that allowing the public onto waterways cutting through their property has exposed their lands to litter and vandalism. In 2024, a group of New Mexico landowners in San Miguel and Rio Arriba counties filed a lawsuit, claiming their rights were being violated when they were forced to allow people onto the waterways on their property.
In January 2025, U.S. Fourth Judicial District Judge Kea Riggs dismissed that suit. That decision followed a complaint filed in 2023 against property owners by state Attorney General Raúl Torrez. That filing said landowners had been blocking access to the Pecos River with “No trespassing” signs, and fences made of PVC pipe and wire.
New Mexico lawmakers advance $2 million for federally defunded farm-to-food bank program - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Legislation that would restore a federal farm-to-foodbank program advanced Tuesday morning through the New Mexico Legislature’s House Agriculture, Acequia and Water Resources Committee, along with a bill to hike fines for stealing water and funding for statewide water projects.
The committee unanimously passed House Bill 101, sponsored by Rep. Joanne Ferrary (D-Las Cruces), which would provide $2 million for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to resurrect a now-defunct federal program that purchased food from local farmers and ranchers to provide to food banks that feed hungry New Mexicans. The bill would go into effect immediately upon signing because of its emergency clause, so funding would be available for purchasing in the summer and fall, said Ferrary.
The bill originally requested $200 million, but that was a typo, Ferray told the committee.
“It strengthens New Mexico’s local and regional food systems by focusing on in-state producers, with a focus on small to mid-sized farmers,” Ferrary said. “All purchases will be made within New Mexico, ensuring that investments will remain local while expanding food access for underserved communities.”
Over three years, the federal program accounted for $4.5 million in purchases to local farmers and food was distributed in all 33 counties, said Bonnie Murphy, the manager for the regional Farm to Foodbank program.
The bill would require a line-item in the budget in order to go into effect. While the executive budget requested the $2 million for a farm-to-foodbank program, the Legislative Finance Committee did not include it in its proposed budget.
Rep. Susan Herrera (D-Embudo), who sits on the House Appropriations and Finance Committee as well, said that the program was “flagged in the committee’s recommendation” and would likely be put into the budget over the weekend.
The committee also passed in an 8-1 vote House Bill 111, which gives state water authorities the power to hand out stiffer fines for violations of the state’s water laws.
Sponsored by Rep. Kristina Ortez (D-Taos) and backed by the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, HB111 would be the first to increase fines for using water without a water right since the law was passed in 1907. The bill “reflects the real cost of water,” she said, increasing the daily penalty from $100 to $3,400 per day.
“Illegal water use and unauthorized well-drilling are increasing across New Mexico, which drains aquifers, undermines lawful water rights and shifts the cost of enforcement and scarcity onto everyone else who follows the law,” Ortez said. “At the end of the day, water laws only work if they can be enforced and HB111 makes sure that breaking the law is no longer cheaper than following it.”
Ortez said the bill does not change the process for simple mistakes made by water rights owners who exceed the amount of water they can use. Instead, it targets “egregious” cases of stealing water, and would require a determination through an administrative process, she said.
Nat Chakeres, the general counsel for the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, told lawmakers the state has had about 20 to 25 cases in recent years that could have merited a fine.
The bill will next be heard in the House Judiciary Committee.
The committee also unanimously approved the annual request for water projects across the state. House Bill 63 includes requests for 113 projects by 75 water entities across the state for fixing water and sewage infrastructure. The $522 million request for all the projects outstrips available funds by about $187 million, according to the fiscal analysis.
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico Senate voted 36-1 on Wednesday to pass a bill with an emergency clause that could start the process of recouping millions of dollars from Gallup-McKinley County Schools.
Lawmakers have been focused on the district’s finances since December, when New Mexico Public Education Department Secretary Mariana Padilla informed them of a $35 million shortfall in her agency’s budget.
That shortfall traces to May 2025, when Gallup-McKinley canceled its contract with a virtual learning provider and accused it of breaching its contract with the district. As a result, about 3,000 students enrolled in the online learning program had nowhere to go. Two other districts in New Mexico stepped up and adopted about 1,500 students apiece into their virtual classrooms.
However, since school districts receive funding based on the prior year’s enrollment numbers, Gallup-McKinley continued to draw money for virtual students it no longer had, Padilla said at the December Legislative Finance Committee hearing.
Deputy Superintendent Jvanna Hanks previously disputed that characterization to Source NM.
Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup) on Wednesday said that Senate Bill 19, which he co-sponsored, would give state education officials the time they need to figure out how much money was overpaid to Gallup-McKinley and how they can get it back. It passed the Senate on a 36-1 vote and carries an emergency clause, meaning it will go into effect immediately if Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs it into law.
“This was caused by one school district…I was so pissed off,” Muñoz said from the Senate floor. “They should have returned the money.” Currently, he added, there’s no law on the books that would let the state recoup the money.
The district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The bill orders PED to consult with the state Department of Finance and Administration, the Legislative Finance Committee and the Legislative Education Study Committee to revisit allocations made under the current fiscal year’s budget. It would provide PED and the Legislature more time “to consider potential statutory changes to address” this issue during the 2026 session, according to an LESC analysis of the bill.
Several senators who supported the bill said that virtual learning is increasingly a necessity in a state as sprawling and rural as New Mexico but, as Sen. Michael Padilla (D-Albuquerque) said, “We have to do it the right way.”
Sen. Bill Soules (D-Las Cruces) did not hold back in his praise for the legislation.
“This will be one of the defining bills of the session,” he said.
FEMA official overseeing NM fire victims fund received six-figure payout, documents show
—Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The federal official in charge of a multi-billion-dollar fund to compensate victims of New Mexico’s biggest-ever wildfire received a six-figure payment for smoke damage at his Angel Fire home far from where the fire burned, according to documents obtained by Source New Mexico and New Mexico PBS.
Internal records reveal that Jay Mitchell, who runs the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire Claims Office, received roughly $266,000 in compensation last July for smoke and ash cleaning costs for his home and adjacent casita in Angel Fire, a ski resort town more than an hour’s drive from the hardest-hit areas of the 2022 wildfire.
Mitchell’s wife Lisa, a licensed real estate broker selling property in the Angel Fire area, received additional payments totaling more than $250,000 last August for business-related losses she said she incurred during the fire, according to the documents.
This story was reported and produced in collaboration with NMPBS, a Source New Mexico partner. Look for the station’s broadcast version at 7 p.m., Feb. 6 on channel 5.1.
Because the U.S. Forest Service accidentally ignited the wildfire with two botched prescribed burns, Congress in late 2022 passed the Hermits Peak Fire Assistance Act requiring FEMA to compensate people who lost their homes or livelihoods due to the wildfire or subsequent flooding. The claims office, which is overseeing $5.45 billion in compensation funds, also pays property owners in and around the wildfire perimeter for smoke and ash cleaning costs for both exteriors and interiors.
According to recent estimates from the claims office, 74 individuals or families who lost their homes in the wildfire are still awaiting final compensation offers more than 3 1/2 years after the fire ripped through their communities.
Mitchell and his wife did not respond to multiple recent requests for comment from Source New Mexico, including phone calls and text messages. Source NM attempted to contact Mitchell at his Santa Fe office and his Angel Fire home. At his home, Mitchell slammed the door after shouting an expletive at reporters for approaching him at his “private residence,” and his wife accused reporters of “harassing” her.
Adán Serna, communications director for U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), told Source that while he had no first-hand knowledge of the Mitchells’ payout, “It would be deeply disappointing and shows the need for greater transparency from FEMA. The senator, Serna said, “has repeatedly called for greater transparency, improved processes, and faster claims decisions. That is the sole purpose of the Claims Office: to get money out the door to people who need it. It must also answer to Congress. Unfortunately, FEMA has failed to meet those standards.”
FEMA named Mitchell as its new director of the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon claims office in April of 2024. A native New Mexican, Mitchell previously served as director of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management under Gov. Susana Martinez. He took over the claims office at a time of deep public dissatisfaction among fire victims and public officials over delays in distributing funds.
Mitchell also began work one month after the claims office rolled out its smoke compensation program.
Mitchell applied for smoke damage compensation in July 2024, and indicated in his application that he needed the payout to clean his two-story, 4,800-square-foot home and a 1,700-square-foot casita with an attached two-car garage. Recent tax records value the Mitchells’ home at about $785,000.
On July 15, 2024, Mitchell signed FEMA’s application, which requires signatories to affirm under threat of perjury that they are telling the truth that the “reported structures, contents, and need for smoke, ash, and soot cleaning on this worksheet is true and correct.”
It’s unclear how much smoke Angel Fire experienced during the wildfire, which burned primarily in nearby Mora and San Miguel counties. Last week, Source New Mexico visited Mitchell’s neighborhood, which features numerous million-dollar houses, most of them vacation rentals, tucked between aspens and Ponderosa pines on a hillside overlooking the Angel Fire Country Club.
Two year-round homeowners along the winding dirt road through Mitchell’s neighborhood, Michael Martinez and Dan Brown, in separate interviews said they were paying close attention to the fire during spring and early summer of 2022. They said they remember a few days during which they could smell smoke, but said that it did not cause any discoloration or damage to their homes or to those of anyone they know.
“We didn’t have any smoke damage,” Brown said in an interview at his home. “Now, sometimes you could smell it. Sometimes you were breathing some of it, but not heavily.”
Martinez, who lives a half mile northeast of Mitchell, told Source that, “There was no smoke damage to my house at all. We never had a day where smoke was that bad coming in. We have pictures of it just blooming up over to the south of us, but never anything that really hit our neighborhood.”
According to a Source New Mexico analysis of the map officials consult when approving smoke damage payments, Mitchell’s home is less than 1,000 feet from a boundary line demarcating a roughly 2,200-square-mile zone in which claimants need only to sign a declaration form to receive smoke compensation payments.
Had he lived on the other side of the line, Mitchell would have been required to provide additional proof of smoke damage or discoloration as part of his claim, including photos, a site inspection or invoices for professional cleaning.
After FEMA rolled out payments for smoke damage, the category quickly became one of the most expensive areas of loss the office paid out. By September 2024, the office had cut checks for $393.8 million in smoke and ash damage claims to 4,168 claimants, which works out to an average of $94,500 each. That was more than one-third of the total compensation the office had released to fire victims at that time.
Meanwhile, concerns grew among survivors and elected officials that even as it released huge sums of money, the office was leaving behind people who lost the most in the fire.
Those people reside in what victims refer to as the “burn scar,” the 534-square-mile wildfire that contains multiple communities. It stretches from outside of Las Vegas, through Rociada and other hard-hit areas to south of Taos. The fire destroyed more than 900 homes within that boundary, in addition to livelihoods and forestland.
Luján posted on social media in May of 2024 that he had met with Mitchell “on behalf of impacted New Mexicans” and emphasized the importance of “prioritizing people with total home loss.”
But those concerns continued into 2025 and in January of that year, Yolanda Cruz, a fire victim who moderates a Facebook page for fellow neighbors still navigating the recovery process, and Luján’s office pushed for a meeting with Mitchell to hear directly from those who had lost their homes.
According to Cruz’s notes, which Source NM reviewed, at the meeting, Mitchell committed to prioritizing compensation to fire victims living in the burn scar, and particularly those who lost their homes.
Serna from Lujan’s office said Wednesday that Mitchell, at a late January meeting last year, reiterated that commitment. Luján’s office “has repeatedly pressed FEMA for updates on that commitment and has received insufficient responses,” Serna said.
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents the state’s 3rd Congressional District where the fire hit hardest, said in a statement provided to Source NM that her office continues to hear from constituents “who are desperate for answers and aren’t getting responses, and every week of delay means more suffering for families.”
In an interview last week at her home in Sapello, Cruz sat on her living room couch and reviewed the records of the Mitchells’ payments, a picture window behind her revealing the charred remains of acres of trees.
She said she felt betrayed to see that Jay Mitchell would agree to receive any funds for himself. She said he had an obligation, even if he was technically eligible for compensation, to ask for his claim to be put “on the back burner” until everyone in the wildfire perimeter was compensated.
“It is really disheartening and disturbing that he received this,” she said, holding a document showing the $266,000 payment for smoke damage.
She rattled off names of people who live in the direct path of where the fire burned and are still waiting: her friends, the Silvas, whose adult children lost their home and had to move with young grandkids into their trailer. Their neighbor: a mechanic waiting on business compensation and funds to pay for equipment the fire melted. Down the road, Cruz has a neighbor who has since moved to near Albuquerque after losing her home and also has yet to be compensated. Then there’s the diner owner in Las Vegas who had to shut down for months.
“Jay Mitchell has not been honest with people. He is not putting the people in the burn scar first, like he said he would,” she said.
On a tour later of her scorched property, Cruz pointed to signs of progress in her family’s recovery. Her family has been able to remove the vehicles the fire destroyed, as well her granddaughter’s playground that it liquefied.
Her son had just completed downing hazard trees at the top of the hill, she noted, leaving the hilltop barren of trees and covered with blackened sawdust. Despite the lack of vegetation, deer visit her daily, she said.
As she walked slowly back down the hill toward her home, she stayed upright by placing her hands on the bark of scorched trees. By the time she reached the bottom, her hands were coated with soot.
“This always happens,” she said, wiping the soot off her hands onto her pants.
Trump's immigration crackdown led to drop in US growth rate last year as population hit 342 million - By Mike Schneider, Associated Press
President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration contributed to a year-to-year drop in the nation's growth rate as the U.S. population reached nearly 342 million people in 2025, according to population estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The 0.5% growth rate for 2025 was a sharp drop from 2024's almost 1% growth rate, which was the highest in two decades and was fueled by immigration. The 2024 estimates put the U.S. population at 340 million people.
Immigration increased by almost 1.3 million people last year, compared with 2024's increase of almost 2.8 million people. If trends continue, the annual gain from immigrants by mid-2026 will drop to only 321,000 people, according to the Census Bureau, whose estimates do not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration.
In the past 125 years, the lowest growth rate was in 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the U.S. population grew by just 0.16%, or 522,000 people and immigration increased by just 376,000 people because of travel restrictions into the U.S. Before that, the lowest growth rate was just under 0.5% in 1919 at the height of the Spanish flu.
Births outnumbered deaths last year by 519,000 people. While higher than the pandemic-era low at the beginning of the decade, the natural increase was dramatically smaller than in the 2000s, when it ranged between 1.6 million and 1.9 million people.
Lower immigration stunts growth in many states
The immigration drop dented growth in several states that traditionally have been immigrant magnets.
California had a net population loss of 9,500 people in 2025, a stark change from the previous year, when it gained 232,000 residents, even though roughly the same number of Californians already living in the state moved out in both years. The difference was immigration since the number of net immigrants who moved into the state dropped from 361,000 people in 2024 to 109,000 in 2025.
Florida had year-to-year drops in both immigrants and people moving in from other states. The Sunshine State, which has become more expensive in recent years from surging property values and higher home insurance costs, had only 22,000 domestic migrants in 2025, compared with 64,000 people in 2024, and the net number of immigrants dropped from more than 411,000 people to 178,000 people.
New York added only 1,008 people in 2025, mostly because the state's net migration from immigrants dropped from 207,000 people to 95,600 people.
South Carolina, Idaho and North Carolina had the highest year-over-year growth rates, ranging from 1.3% to 1.5%. Texas, Florida and North Carolina added the most people in pure numbers. California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia had population declines.
The South, which has been the powerhouse of growth in the 2020s, continued to add more people than any other region, but the numbers dropped from 1.7 million people in 2024 to 1.1 million in 2025.
"Many of these states are going to show even smaller growth when we get to next year," Brookings demographer William Frey said Tuesday.
The effects of Trump's immigration crackdown
Tuesday's data release comes as researchers have been trying to determine the effects of the second Trump administration's immigration crackdown after the Republican president returned to the White House in January 2025. Trump made a surge of migrants at the southern border a central issue in his winning 2024 presidential campaign.
The numbers made public Tuesday reflect change from July 2024 to July 2025, covering the end of President Joe Biden's Democratic administration and the first half of Trump's first year back in office.
The figures capture a period that reflects the beginning of enforcement surges in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, but do not capture the impact on immigration after the Trump administration's crackdowns began in Chicago; New Orleans; Memphis, Tennessee; and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The 2025 numbers were a jarring divergence from 2024, when net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation's 3.3 million-person increase from the year before. The jump in immigration two years ago was partly because of a new method of counting that added people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons.
"They do reflect recent trends we have seen in out-migration, where the numbers of people coming in is down and the numbers going out is up," Eric Jensen, a senior research scientist at the Census Bureau, said last week.
How the population estimates are calculated
Unlike the once-a-decade census, which determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets, as well as the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual government funding, the population estimates are calculated from government records and internal Census Bureau data.
The release of the 2025 population estimates was delayed by the federal government shutdown last fall and comes at a challenging time for the Census Bureau and other U.S. statistical agencies. The bureau, which is the largest statistical agency in the U.S., lost about 15% of its workforce last year due to buyouts and layoffs that were part of cost-cutting efforts by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency.
Other recent actions by the Trump administration, such as the firing of Erika McEntarfer as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, have raised concerns about political meddling at U.S. statistical agencies. But Frey said the bureau's staffers appear to have been "doing this work as usual without interference."
"So I have no reason to doubt the numbers that come out," Frey said.
Governor asks New Mexico lawmakers to fund tribal media - Bella Davis, New Mexico In Depth
Tribal media stations in New Mexico could receive about $430,000 as soon as this summer, if the Legislature embraces Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s recommendation to help fill in federal funding gaps.
In Native communities nationwide, tribal stations provide a wide range of services that are often hard to come by in remote areas where cell reception and Wi-Fi can be spotty or nonexistent. They share emergency weather and missing persons alerts and notices about events, elections, and public health, and some — including KTDB-FM serving the Navajo community of Ramah, in western New Mexico — broadcast primarily in their Native languages, contributing to revitalization efforts.
“We strongly believe that an informed society, which includes tribal communities, can be strong and robust and healthy if they receive information in real time that can help them to make really important decisions, whether it’s about government or their health, the economy, and so these stations are there for the civic health of their community,” Loris Taylor (Hopi/Acoma) said in an interview.
Taylor is the president and CEO of Native Public Media, which supports radio and TV stations licensed either to tribes, tribal nonprofits, or educational institutions located on tribal lands.
There are four such local operations in New Mexico, according to the organization, serving two Navajo communities, the Jicarilla Apache Nation, and Zuni Pueblo.
But like all public media following the end of federal funding last year, their future has been uncertain.
Last summer, shortly before Congress voted to rescind $1.1 billion already appropriated for public media, a South Dakota senator announced he’d made a deal with the White House for the Interior Department to funnel $9.4 million in previously appropriated funding to tribal stations. Because it’s a one-time infusion, though, questions and concerns about funding after this year remain.
The stations, including those in New Mexico, were anywhere from 40-100% dependent on federal funding, Taylor said. Native Public Media surveyed the 36 tribal stations that have been impacted by the rescission, and the majority said they only expected to be operational for another six months to two years.
New Mexico has responded.
During the first of two special sessions held in 2025, the state set aside $429,600 for public TV and radio stations run by tribes, along with about $5.56 million for other stations.
If another round of funding makes it into the state budget, the Indian Affairs Department will be tasked with doling it out. The agency has already distributed the money appropriated last year to the Jicarilla Apache Nation’s KCIE-FM and Zuni Pueblo’s KSHI-FM, according to spokesperson Paris Wise.
Tribal stations were underfunded even before last year’s cuts, so the state’s support is desperately needed, Taylor said.
“I think the smart move is for New Mexico to continue funding the media infrastructure so that they’re not constantly looking at the federal government for funding because it now has other priorities, although I’m hoping and I continue to petition the federal government to fund tribal stations as part of their trust obligation to tribal nations,” she said.
Bernalillo County leaders consider strict limits for artificial intelligence data centers - Gillian Barkhurst, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico has found itself in the middle of an international race to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure as several data center projects move forward despite public pushback.
Breaking from state leadership, the Bernalillo County Commission considered a resolution Tuesday that would impose strict requirements for any prospective project within the county.
“If we're going to invest public money in a data center, we should set the bar high,” said the resolution’s sponsor, Commissioner Eric Olivas, at Tuesday's meeting.
The resolution is a reaction to three data and artificial intelligence projects in New Mexico, including Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa, Project Zenith in Roswell and an expansion of Meta facilities in Los Lunas.
Under the proposed resolution, to win the commission’s support, any project in Bernalillo County must be entirely powered by renewable energy, be built and run by a 90% to 95% in-state workforce and offset its water usage by funding local water projects.
Ultimately, during Tuesday's meeting, Olivas opted to defer the resolution for two weeks, pending a meeting with the governor.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other state officials have vocally supported data centers as they hope to position New Mexico as the next Silicon Valley-esque tech hub.
Olivas said that he will go into the meeting open-minded, but is unwilling to compromise protections for water and renewable energies.
The resolution is in sharp contrast to the Doña Ana County Commission, which approved an unprecedented $165 billion industrial revenue bond to fund Project Jupiter in September despite public skepticism.
The decision outraged some residents, including farmers and ranchers, who fear Project Jupiter will bleed already strained water resources dry. Locals also questioned the sincerity of corporate promises of economic prosperity.
Mirroring opposition in other counties, several Bernalillo County residents called the AI industry "extractive" during the meeting's public comment.
Some speakers said the resolution didn't go far enough to protect citizens from environmental impacts, including carbon emissions and water scarcity. Those speakers called for a total ban on data centers in the county.
"I'm tired of us getting treated as an experiment just for the means of production," said Rachelle Peña.
NM committee OKs bill giving acequias dedicated funding stream - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A New Mexico House committee on Tuesday approved a bill that seeks to give the state’s acequias a dedicated funding stream, following several recent natural disasters and challenges advocates say the historic irrigation canals face in accessing public funds.
House Bill 21, which Rep. Miguel Garcia (D-Albuquerque) sponsored, would make for a “monumental” change for the more than 700 acequias — historic irrigation canals — that wind through the state, Garcia told the House Rural Development, Land Grants and Cultural Affairs Committee.
Acequias, along with land-grant mercedes, count as public entities under state law and predate New Mexico’s statehood by hundreds of years, but they have small or nonexistent budgets and few means of generating enough of their own funding to pay for needed repairs.
The bill would establish a permanent trust fund that generates consistent revenues for acequias and land grants each year from severance tax bonds. State financial analysts estimate the fund would generate slightly more than $20 million annually to be split evenly between acequias and land-grant mercedes.
New Mexico Acequia Association Director Paula Garcia told lawmakers Tuesday that acequias statewide have $73 million in unmet needs despite efforts to access state or federal funds meant for water, infrastructure or disaster projects.
“The primary rationale for this bill is to have a reliable, recurring funding source for acequia infrastructure,” she said. “The needs are tremendous across the state.”
Acequias have to compete with other public entities for water project funding from the Water Trust Board, and an existing fund for acequia projects that the Interstate Stream Commission oversees is too small, Garcia said.
As for capital outlay, the state’s main process for paying for infrastructure, acequia leaders testified during public comment Tuesday that the process can be inadequate or slow, especially amid a backlog of projects.
“Even when you get capital outlay, sometimes you have to look for other sources of income to complete the project,” said Presiliano Torrez, who described trying to get funds for an acequia called Storm Ditch in Lincoln County damaged in recent wildfires in the Ruidoso area.
Wildfires across the state have put acequias everywhere into a “a crisis situation,” Torrez said.
“You have Mora, Las Vegas; you have Ruidoso; you have Silver City, all of which have been hit by fires,” he said. “What has happened to us as a result of fire is that we get cascading events that clog up the ditch.”
Acequias across the state have reported challenges accessing federal disaster aid, as well through a Federal Emergency Management Agency program called Public Assistance.
In addition to acequias’ historic value, the waterways remain vital for thousands of farmers and rural families across New Mexico and benefit public and private well systems by distributing water across the landscape, Garcia and other acequia stewards said..
The bill passed unanimously and heads to the House Taxation and Revenue Committee.
Bill increasing penalty for violent crimes against law enforcement clears first legislative hurdle - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
Backers of a proposal to increase the penalty for certain violent crimes against law enforcement officers in New Mexico are hoping the fourth time is a charm at the Roundhouse.
The bill, House Bill 61, passed its first assigned House committee via a unanimous vote on Tuesday, but still faces several hurdles before reaching Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's desk.
Several law enforcement officials testified in support of the bill, including Sgt. Rachel Discenza-Smith of the Farmington Police Department who was injured in a 2023 mass shooting.
While the 18-year old shooter in that case was shot and killed by police, law enforcement officers said approval of the legislation would send a message the state values their work and sacrifice.
"Nobody calls the police because they are having a good day," said Detective Lisa McGaha of the Farmington Police Department.
"We are battered, we are spit on, we are called every name in the book, and we are expected to tolerate this and continue doing our jobs," added McGaha, who said many officers deal with emotional trauma from their experiences on duty.
Specifically, the bill would increase the penalty for serious aggravated battery against a peace officer from a third-degree felony to a second-degree felony. That would mean the criminal sentence for individuals convicted of such a crime would jump from three years in prison to nine.
Currently, aggravated battery is one of the only criminal charges that carries the same penalty regardless of whether the victim is a civilian or a law enforcement officer. Other crimes like assault carry more serious penalties when officers are involved.
This year's bill marks the fourth consecutive year in which Rep. Andrea Reeb, R-Clovis, has pushed for such legislation. In previous years, some of the bills have stalled in a Senate committee after winning approval in the House.
Reeb, a former prosecutor, told members of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee she has met with Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to discuss the proposal.
She and other supporters also said the stories of law enforcement officers could be key to winning legislative approval.
Rep. William Hall, R-Aztec, said enactment of the proposed change could bolster efforts to improve law enforcement officer retention in New Mexico.
"It is imperative for police officers to know they're backed when this happens," said Hall, who is a retired FBI agent. "I want people who enter this career to stay in this career."
However, while law enforcement officers and state Department of Public Safety Secretary Jason Bowie spoke in support of the legislation, there was also testimony in opposition.
Representatives of the state Law Offices of the Public Defender and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico both urged lawmakers to oppose the bill, with Denali Wilson of the ACLU pointing out existing state law already contains stiff penalties for the offense.
A legislative analysis of the bill said 99 cases were filed statewide during the 2024 budget year with aggravated battery against a peace officer as the primary charge. Of those cases, only 11 resulted in convictions.
In addition, New Mexico State Police Maj. Randy Larcher said Tuesday at least six law enforcement officers around the state were injured in the line of duty last year.
The bill ultimately passed the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee on a 6-0 vote. It now advances to the House Judiciary Committee, its last stop before potentially reaching the House floor.
Landowners argue in court to limit stream access - Santa Fe New Mexican
In Denver, three appellate judges in U.S. District Court are hearing arguments in a long-standing dispute about who controls New Mexico streambeds.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the conflict was rehashed once again in oral arguments in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday. The controversy dates back to a 2017 rule adopted by the New Mexico State Game Commission. The rules allowed landowners with streams and rivers flowing through their property to deem those waterways as “non-navigable.” People hoping to fish or recreate on those waterways would need written permission to access them — or risk being accused of trespassing.
In 2022, however, the state Supreme Court sided with outdoor recreation and conservation groups to uphold the public’s rights to access New Mexico’s streams and waterways.
But property owners have complained that allowing the public onto waterways cutting through their property has exposed their lands to litter and vandalism. In 2024, a group of New Mexico landowners in San Miguel and Rio Arriba counties filed a lawsuit, claiming their rights were being violated when they were forced to allow people onto the waterways on their property.
In January 2025, U.S. Fourth Judicial District Judge Kea Riggs dismissed that suit. That decision followed a complaint filed in 2023 against property owners by state Attorney General Raúl Torrez. That filing said landowners had been blocking access to the Pecos River with “No trespassing” signs, and fences made of PVC pipe and wire.
New Mexico lawmakers advance $2 million for federally defunded farm-to-food bank program - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Legislation that would restore a federal farm-to-foodbank program advanced Tuesday morning through the New Mexico Legislature’s House Agriculture, Acequia and Water Resources Committee, along with a bill to hike fines for stealing water and funding for statewide water projects.
The committee unanimously passed House Bill 101, sponsored by Rep. Joanne Ferrary (D-Las Cruces), which would provide $2 million for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to resurrect a now-defunct federal program that purchased food from local farmers and ranchers to provide to food banks that feed hungry New Mexicans. The bill would go into effect immediately upon signing because of its emergency clause, so funding would be available for purchasing in the summer and fall, said Ferrary.
The bill originally requested $200 million, but that was a typo, Ferray told the committee.
“It strengthens New Mexico’s local and regional food systems by focusing on in-state producers, with a focus on small to mid-sized farmers,” Ferrary said. “All purchases will be made within New Mexico, ensuring that investments will remain local while expanding food access for underserved communities.”
Over three years, the federal program accounted for $4.5 million in purchases to local farmers and food was distributed in all 33 counties, said Bonnie Murphy, the manager for the regional Farm to Foodbank program.
The bill would require a line-item in the budget in order to go into effect. While the executive budget requested the $2 million for a farm-to-foodbank program, the Legislative Finance Committee did not include it in its proposed budget.
Rep. Susan Herrera (D-Embudo), who sits on the House Appropriations and Finance Committee as well, said that the program was “flagged in the committee’s recommendation” and would likely be put into the budget over the weekend.
The committee also passed in an 8-1 vote House Bill 111, which gives state water authorities the power to hand out stiffer fines for violations of the state’s water laws.
Sponsored by Rep. Kristina Ortez (D-Taos) and backed by the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, HB111 would be the first to increase fines for using water without a water right since the law was passed in 1907. The bill “reflects the real cost of water,” she said, increasing the daily penalty from $100 to $3,400 per day.
“Illegal water use and unauthorized well-drilling are increasing across New Mexico, which drains aquifers, undermines lawful water rights and shifts the cost of enforcement and scarcity onto everyone else who follows the law,” Ortez said. “At the end of the day, water laws only work if they can be enforced and HB111 makes sure that breaking the law is no longer cheaper than following it.”
Ortez said the bill does not change the process for simple mistakes made by water rights owners who exceed the amount of water they can use. Instead, it targets “egregious” cases of stealing water, and would require a determination through an administrative process, she said.
Nat Chakeres, the general counsel for the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, told lawmakers the state has had about 20 to 25 cases in recent years that could have merited a fine.
The bill will next be heard in the House Judiciary Committee.
The committee also unanimously approved the annual request for water projects across the state. House Bill 63 includes requests for 113 projects by 75 water entities across the state for fixing water and sewage infrastructure. The $522 million request for all the projects outstrips available funds by about $187 million, according to the fiscal analysis.