Crooked Bough News Round-up

— NM residents protest pending Project Jupiter air quality permit outside Environment Department

 

at 8/21/26 4:04pm

New Mexico residents protested a pending air quality permit application for the Oracle and OpenAI data center, Project Jupiter, outside the New Mexico Environment Department in Santa Fe on Aug. 21, 2026. (Danielle Prokop for Source NM)Residents from across New Mexico gathered outside the state Environment Department office in Santa Fe Friday afternoon and called on its officials to deny an air quality permit for the controversial Project Jupiter data center under construction in Doña Ana County. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE The New Mexico Environment Department is currently scheduled to begin a hearing on whether to issue an air quality permit for the project on Sept. 14. If approved, the permit would allow Project Jupiter’s power supply to emit as many greenhouse gases as New Mexico’s largest cities combined. Protesters arrived at NMED’s office carrying signs with messages such as, “Project Jupiter makes NM stupider” and “Support these data centers: Schools, libraries, bookstores.” Those in attendance frequently criticized elected officials in Doña Ana County for approving the controversial Oracle and OpenAI development. Lifelong Sunland Park resident Irene Rodriguez addressed the crowd from a podium set up outside NMED’s front door. “We’ve been to the City Hall and the county commission and nobody has listened to us,” she said, to cries of “shame” in the audience. Critics of the project have filed multiple lawsuits over the local county commission’s 2025 vote to approve the project, alleging that commissioners violated the state Open Meetings Act and that they approved draft forms of development agreements rather than finalized ones. Lifelong Sunland Park Irene Rodriguez drove to Santa Fe on Aug. 21, 2026, to call on environment officials to deny an air quality permit for the Project Jupiter data center under construction in her community. (Danielle Prokop for Source NM) Rodriguez told Source NM she is most concerned for water resources. Although developers have promised a “closed-loop” cooling system that will use less water than the evaporative cooling in many data centers, much of the surrounding area relies on water infrastructure that is already in disrepair. Environmental group asks NM Supreme Court to pause Project Jupiter’s air quality permit hearing Albuquerque resident Patrick Jaramillo, co-director of the American Friends Service Committee’s New Mexico Program, voiced the same concern. “We believe that water is a gift from God. And the creator gave us that gift for us to nourish our life and our communities,” he said into a microphone. “And these vendidos want to take God’s gift to us to power AI slop and hate and artificial intelligence when they won’t invest in human intelligence?” Several protesters wore cardboard face masks of New Mexico officials and staged an exaggerated re-enactment of how they believed state officials paved the way for the controversial data center project, sacrificing the environment for purported economic gains. Two new legal challenges this week also took aim at elected officials roles in paving the way for the project. The Center for Biological Diversity, a national conservation group, filed a petition with the New Mexico Supreme Court alleging that State Engineer Elizabeth Anderson approved the drilling of emergency wells, which supplied millions of gallons of water to the development, in violation of a state law that requires a public notice and hearing in such instances. “These are critical due process protections that have been cast aside for Project Jupiter,” Colin Cox, a New Mexico-based Center for Biological Diversity attorney, wrote in a statement. Protesters outside the New Mexico Environment Department in Santa Fe on Aug. 21, 2026, dressed up as state officials whom they accused of fast-tracking the Project Jupiter data center under construction in Doña Ana County. (Danielle Prokop for Source NM) The Office of the State Engineer did not respond to a request for comment. Cox’s group also filed a joint motion with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center seeking to remove Max Shepherd, the hearing officer presiding over NMED’s air quality permit process for Project Jupiter, after he abruptly rescheduled the hearing from October to September. Cox’s filing argues that Shepherd’s decisions have deprived involved parties of their due process rights — which the Santa Fe-based clean energy organization New Energy Economy also argued in a separate state Supreme Court filing this week. The joint filing includes a screenshot of Lujan Grisham’s calendar, which shows that she met with Oracle representatives two days before Shepherd filed an order rescheduling the hearing to September. In a statement, a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham said the governor “takes seriously the concerns Doña Ana County residents have raised about Project Jupiter — including on air quality and groundwater use — and expects any data center operating in New Mexico to meet the state’s rigorous environmental standards and use water responsibly.” Lujan Grisham “routinely” meets with companies like Oracle, the statement said, adding that July’s meeting was a “general update.” “The governor does not interfere in state agencies regulatory decisions and has made no effort to influence the outcome of Project Jupiter’s air permit application,” the statement said. “Instead, it is her responsibility to ensure that state agencies meet their statutory obligations for a fair, transparent and independent process.” Environment Department spokesperson Drew Goretzka in a statement to Source NM said that department staffers are adhering to the current schedule but will meet the requirements of any revised schedule. “As for the motion to remove the hearing officer, that decision ultimately lies with the department’s decision-maker — the deputy cabinet secretary in this case — with whom NMED staff are not permitted to discuss Project Jupiter matters with,” Goretzka wrote. Residents from across New Mexico protested a pending air quality permit application for the Project Jupiter data center outside the New Mexico Environment Department in Santa Fe on Aug. 21, 2026. (Danielle Prokop for Source NM)

[Category: Data Centers in New Mexico, Environment & Climate Change, Gov & Politics, Center for Biological Diversity, New Energy Economy, New Mexico Environment Department, New Mexico Environmental Law Center, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, OpenAI, Oracle, Project Jupiter, Project Jupiter data center, Trend – Data Centers]

— Fentanyl seizures plummeted as Trump administration shifted focus to immigration

 

at 8/21/26 3:03pm

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in Washington, D.C., pictured in Feb. 3, 2026. (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)WASHINGTON — Fentanyl seizures decreased by 39% during the first year of the second Trump administration after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shifted the Department of Homeland Security’s criminal investigations arm to conducting immigration enforcement, according to a report government investigators published Friday.  Agents with Homeland Security Investigations, a subagency of DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reported an “all hands-on deck” environment toward immigration enforcement began in January 2025, according to the DHS Office of Inspector General report. “With ICE dedicating more staff hours to immigration investigations, staffing hours for fentanyl investigations declined,” the report said. The report found that the hours dedicated to fentanyl investigations for fiscal 2025 declined by more than 250,000 hours, or 31%, compared to fiscal 2024. “At the same time, immigration enforcement saw the largest increase across all investigative categories, rising more than 1.7 million hours (over 800 percent),” according to the report. Inspectors interviewed more than 100 agents from 11 HSI field offices for the report. At one HSI office, approximately 99% of work was dedicated to immigration, leaving almost no capacity for fentanyl investigations, the watchdog found. A drug investigation team of seven agents was reduced to about three and the rest of the personnel was reassigned to work on immigration cases, according to the report.   Fentanyl is a highly addictive synthetic opioid that is the main driver of overdose deaths in the United States. HSI plays a key role in countering fentanyl smuggling in the U.S. by targeting routes, laboratories and collaborating with law enforcement to investigate smuggling operations.     ICE agrees The inspector general recommended that HSI review staffing levels “to ensure an appropriate level of coverage commensurate with the relative priority of fentanyl investigations.” Inspector general reports are presented to the affected agency for comment ahead of publication. ICE agreed with the recommendations in the DHS OIG report. “Homeland Security Investigations will review staffing levels, and determine and implement next steps, as needed, to ensure an appropriate level of coverage commensurate with the relative priority of fentanyl investigations,” ICE’s comments in the report read. ICE estimated that recommendation would be completed by June 2027. The report also found that the technology HSI agents and analysts used had limitations during fentanyl investigations and their missions were “hindered by delays in agents obtaining funds to purchase information and evidence (i.e., drugs) during an investigation; a lack of independent authority to investigate fentanyl-related offenses; and low, inconsistent referral of fentanyl cases from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to HSI.”

[Category: DC Bureau, Gov & Politics]

— US Supreme Court allows $400M Trump ballroom project to proceed

 

at 8/21/26 3:03pm

Demolition work continued where the East Wing once stood at the White House on Dec. 8, 2025. President Donald Trump ordered the 123-year-old East Wing and Jacqueline Kennedy Garden leveled to make way for a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump can continue building a White House ballroom for now, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday, reversing a federal judges order that barred above-ground construction on the grounds of the former East Wing. The one-page order from Chief Justice John Roberts allows the justices more time to consider the legal arguments as to whether the president can continue with construction.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, a nonprofit Congress created to protect public buildings, sued to block construction late last year. The group charged that Trump violated the U.S. Constitution and federal law when he demolished part of the White House last July without approval from Congress.  The trust wrote in its brief to the high court that the trial court’s pause should remain in place because any progress on the project could not easily be undone. “We are grateful for the Decision of the United States Supreme Court,” Trump wrote on social media after the order. “The Military/Ballroom Complex being built on the hallowed grounds of the White House, which is so vital for National Security, will be THE GREATEST OF ITS KIND! Construction is under budget and ahead of schedule.” Trump has argued the 90,000-square-foot ballroom — which the administration said this month will cost $400 million, double the initial estimate — is needed to reinforce security features and provide a larger space to host foreign dignitaries. Trump has said the project is being funded with private donations. The East Wing of the White House was built in 1942. Workers last October demolished it, even after Trump said the ballroom construction would not impact the building.  A federal appeals court this month upheld the lower court order that barred further construction of the ballroom above ground, but allowed for below-ground construction. The appeals court stayed its decision for 14 days to give the administration time to appeal to the Supreme Court.

[Category: DC Bureau, Gov & Politics]

— New Mexico U.S. Rep. Leger Fernández calls for investigation into toxic metals in fire retardants

 

at 8/21/26 2:30pm

U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández on Aug. 21, 2026, announced she and other members of Congress are seeking an investigation into the environmental and health impacts of fire retardants. Above: Leger Fernández and other officials tour a Mora County acequia Nov. 25, 2025, after elevated levels of toxic metals were detected in dozens of private wells. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) on Friday announced she and fellow members of Congress are urging a federal government watchdog agency to examine the prevalence and potential impacts of hazardous metals that may be present in retardants firefighters use in battling wildfires.  Leger Fernández’s request to the U.S. Government Accountability Office cites unsafe levels of antimony, arsenic and uranium detected in dozens of Mora County private wells last November. The discovery prompted the New Mexico Health Department to issue a health alert. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE While the cause of the spike in contaminants remains unknown, health officials noted at the time that the metals are regularly found in fire suppressants used to battle wildfires, including the 2022 Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire.  Subsequent tests from the New Mexico Environment Department have found that levels of the heavy metals are within the limits of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s safe drinking water standards.  Still, Leger Fernández, in a letter Aug. 4 to the GAO, noted that the United States Forest Service and federal Interior Department have continued to rely on dropping millions of gallons of fire retardant each year. According to her letter, federal agencies dropped nearly 50 million gallons of the material on landscapes in 2024.  “This mass deployment of fire retardants has raised concerns about whether their use introduces risks to the environment and human health,” Leger Fernández and seven other members of Congress wrote.  Her letter also cited a November 2024 academic study that estimated aerial retardant drops introduced nearly 840,000 pounds of toxic metals into the environment between 2009 and 2021.  Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire victims grapple with latest crisis GAO spokesperson Sarah Kaczmarek told Source NM in an email Friday that the office had received the request and is currently evaluating whether and when to conduct the investigation lawmakers requested.  The letter asks the office to examine and provide recommendations related to how prevalent the metals are in fire retardants and the potential impacts of retardants on watersheds and human health, including firefighters. It also asks the office to identify alternative, less-harmful fire retardants and other best practices for firefighters.  “When families finally return home to communities destroyed by wildfires, they should not have to worry if the water coming out of their tap is safe to drink,” the letter says. “This will be a question that more families ask as wildfires continue to threaten communities across the West.”

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, Gov & Politics, fire retardant, heavy metals, Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire, mora county contamination, U.S. Government Accountability Office, U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández]

— Drought conditions worsen across New Mexico, West

 

at 8/21/26 1:00pm

The Elephant Butte Reservoir, pictured above on July 30, 2026, remains at 1.4% of its capacity, according to a new drought outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (Photo courtesy New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department) Record-breaking July temperatures have left nearly 95% of New Mexico in some degree of drought, according to a new outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and “isolated” monsoon rains failed to provide meaningful relief to water supply challenges across the West.  The outlook, released Thursday, monitored the status of major reservoirs across the Colorado River and Rio Grande basins, noting that many have reached historic lows, including Lake Mead and Lake Powell. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE New Mexico’s Elephant Butte Reservoir remains at 1.4% of its capacity, prompting state officials earlier this month to close the lake’s main boat ramp due to safety concerns.  Conditions will improve through November, officials said Thursday. While an uptick in monsoon rains will not “fully eliminate drought and its impacts,” forecasters predict a 90% chance of a “very strong” event triggered by a strengthening El Niño, potentially creating wetter conditions across the Intermountain West this fall.  NOAA’s previous outlook in early July was more optimistic about the potential for significant monsoon rains across the region this summer. But the forecast released Thursday noted that New Mexico instead experienced its second-warmest July on record, and the eastern part of the state “continued to dry out” without receiving any significant precipitation.  The administration’s drought map shows that 3% of New Mexico is in “severe drought,” namely Albuquerque, Santa Fe and parts of the northeastern corner of the state. About one-third of the state, predominantly in northern New Mexico, is suffering from “extreme drought,” the map shows.  The outlook notes that conditions are unlikely to improve over the next two weeks, with all but the northern and western edges of New Mexico facing 100% probabilities of above-average temperatures. 

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, drought, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NM drought]

— Demand at food banks ramps up as 25,000 New Mexicans lose their SNAP

 

at 8/21/26 11:35am

New Mexico has nearly 1,700 retailers authorized to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, and 21 percent of residents rely on the program, but 25,000 people including 13,000 children, have lost their benefits following federal cuts that also reduced the amount of food given to food banks, putting an extra strain on the safety net programs. (Daniel Montaño/KUNM)Although New Mexico has been investing heavily in fighting food insecurity in recent years, experts told lawmakers Wednesday demand for food assistance is on the rise. Federal changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and related efforts have strained local resources and put pressure on food banks. This story originally published on KUNM.org. New Mexico has the highest rate of SNAP use in the country, with one of five New Mexicans relying on the program to put food on the table. But Katy Anderson with Roadrunner Food Bank says since President Trump signed his “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” participation has fallen off. “Twenty-five thousand New Mexicans – 13,000 of those are children – have lost their SNAP benefits,” she said. Anderson told members of the interim Legislative Health and Human Services Committee that means people have been relying more on foodbanks. “SNAP for a lot of the folks that we serve is a bridge for a period of time. And without that bridge,” she said, “people are going to have to find a way to get across.” Jill Dixon, executive director of The Food Depot in Santa Fe, said that extra demand came right after federal cuts to The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) were introduced. She said in April of 2025, New Mexico’s food banks lost over 20 truckloads of food amounting to $2 million through TEFAP cuts. “The food banks here in New Mexico have seen between a 40 and a 60% reduction in the amount of food provided by that program. At the same time,” Dixon said, “were seeing a 40 to 60% increase in demand for assistance, based primarily around affordability issues and inflation.” Part of the problem, she said, is SNAP can provide nine meals for every one provided by the food bank network, so they end up working harder to support the same amount of people. Dixon said the state’s investments in food security over the last four years have helped the food banks keep pace with what theyve lost. Legislative Finance Committee analyst Ruby Ann Esquibel said the state approved $30 million in what’s commonly called GRO funding, which stands for “government results and opportunities.” The first share of $10 million was spent in its entirety, with only a single dollar and one penny left over. Dixon said there are now more than 600 food bank locations across the state and in every county. That’s more than 100 additional locations over last year and she credits that directly to the GRO funding. “Theres more places being served. Food is reaching more previously unserved and underserved communities than ever before,” she said. Dixon said the association of food banks will put together an estimate for how much funding they will need going forward to continue their work. Support for this coverage comes from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

[Category: Gov & Politics, Health, Legislature, SNAP and hunger in New Mexico, Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program]

— Officials warn of a bleak Colorado River future as deadline nears

 

at 8/21/26 8:47am

Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, speaks to PBS News about the fight for Colorado River water near the banks of the river in Grand Junction, Colorado on Aug. 19, 2026. (Screenshot via YouTube)The future of the Colorado River is looking bleak, and officials in the seven states that depend on its water say they’re happy to negotiate — but with current use rules expiring at the end of the year, compromise seems unlikely. During a more than two-hour PBS special on Wednesday, officials from the Upper and Lower basins, as well as farmers and water experts, painted an alarming picture of a shrinking river without enough water to meet legal allocation obligations set more than 100 years ago.  The Colorado River is a vital source of drinking water for 40 million people in the seven states, Mexico and 30 Native American tribes, and it provides water for farming operations and hydroelectricity.  The Lower Basin states — Arizona, Nevada and California — and the Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming — have been attempting to negotiate an updated water usage agreement for more than two years. So far, they’ve been unsuccessful.  Because of the negotiating impasse, the federal government has devised a plan to replace the agreement that expires at the end of the year. It will impose drastic cuts on the Lower Basin states, and Arizona will feel the brunt of those cuts with a cut to its river water of  up to 77%. Arizona faces an outsized burden when it comes to reductions because the Central Arizona Project, a series of canals that supplies Colorado River water to the metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson areas, is one of the newest users of the river water, making it legally one of the first to be cut.  The major sticking point in the negotiations is the Upper Basin states’ refusal to commit to any mandatory cuts, while the Lower Basin states already take cuts in dry years.  Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s water commissioner, said that her state already deals with mandatory cuts, they’re just from Mother Nature, not the U.S. government. The Colorado River is fed by melting snowpack in the Rocky Mountains, which is at a record low this year.  “What I cant promise is to deliver water when its not there,” Mitchell said. “Nobody can.” She characterized the Lower Basin states’ argument that the Upper Basin wasn’t taking mandatory cuts as a “major flaw,” since the Upper Basin uses anywhere between three to five millions acre-feet per year, based on what’s available.  An acre-foot of water is enough to cover an acre of land to a depth of one foot, or about 325,851 gallons. That’s enough to provide three homes in Arizona a year of water, on average. Mitchell said the cuts from Mother Nature are “far more fierce than the federal government will ever be,” putting farmers on the western slope of the Rockies at risk of going out of business.  And while those in the Upper Basin balk at the swimming pools and golf courses in the middle of the desert that are prevalent in urban centers of Arizona and Nevada, municipalities account for only about 25% of the Lower Basin’s water use.  Agriculture accounts for the other 75%. Andrea Travnik, assistant secretary for water and science at the U.S. Department of Interior, dodged a question from PBS about whether the federal government would contemplate putting restrictions on water use for farming, which would be incredibly politically unpopular.  Travnik said that the federal government has already worked with the states to raise water levels in Lake Mead through conservation efforts, and will continue to push for conservation, in addition to other solutions like desalination — which is extremely expensive — and water reuse.  But Brad Udall, a water and climate scientist at Colorado State University, said that if the 1,500 farmers that depend on Colorado River water for their crops are pitted against the 5 million people in metropolitan Phoenix and the 18 million people in the greater Los Angeles area, the winner will be obvious.  Udall thinks the states need to ditch the outdated 1922 Colorado River Compact, which allocated 7.5 million acre-feet for each basin, and was based on a faulty model that assumed the river system could supply 15 million acre-feet annually. While use agreements have been updated numerous times since then, the allocations to each basin remain the same.  The region is in the midst of a 20-year mega drought that is wreaking havoc on the river. Since 2000, flows in the Colorado River have decreased by 20%. And since, 2020 flows are down 35%.  After negotiations with the Upper Basin were unfruitful earlier this year, the Lower Basin states in May offered their own proposal to reduce their shared usage by 1.25 million acre-feet annually in 2027 and 2028, with about a 30% cut for Arizona.  This proposal was aimed at helping to stabilize water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the system’s two key reservoirs, whose water levels fell this month to their lowest point since 1957.  Udall described both reservoirs as just above deadpool, the point at which water drops too low to flow past a dam by gravity.  “Deadpool is a point where you lose control of the reservoir,” he said. “Mother Nature controls what happens. It controls what comes in. It controls what you send out the bottom.” Reaching deadpool would turn those reservoirs into nothing more than concrete basins where water evaporates, Udall said.  “Its kind of hard to overstate the consequences of losing those water bank accounts for the states that rely on it in the Lower Basin,” he said.  While Mitchell said that the Upper Basin couldn’t guarantee its 7.5 million acre-feet delivery of water to the Lower Basin, it would attempt to prevent the reservoirs from reaching deadpool.  Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said that the basins could come to an agreement today, if the Upper Basin would agree to take a 2% mandatory cut of its annual available water supply, or about 100,000 acre-feet in a year with 5 million acre feet available.  Mitchell did not say she would agree to those cuts, saying that the Upper Basin states are already managing their water responsibly.  But Arizona and the other Lower Basin states have undertaken significant conservation efforts for Colorado River water since 2014 and have reduced their consumption from 7.4 million acre-feet in 2015 to just over 6 million in 2024, adding 165 feet of water to Lake Mead.  All of the water officials who participated in the PBS special said they would prefer to hammer out a compromise instead of going to court, but that they were committed to protecting their water rights.  In March, Arizona retained the high-powered law firm Sullivan Cromwell to represent the state in possible litigation among the Colorado River Basin states and the federal government.  Kathryn Sorensen, director of research at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said that while the fight for Colorado River water has become “existential” because of overallocation, Arizonans shouldn’t panic yet.  Even if the Central Arizona Project goes dry, she said, Phoenix still has banked groundwater and the Salt and Verde rivers to fall back on. Sorensen said she doesn’t expect municipal water shortages, but she does predict higher water bills.  The Trump administration’s draft “preferred alternative” plan for the river, released last month, could reduce the Lower Basin’s allocation by 3 million acre-feet per year, slashing Arizona’s water supply from the river by more than 75%. But there’s still a possibility that the federal government could implement the Lower Basin’s proposal for smaller cuts instead.  The federal government’s new river usage rules, which are still being negotiated, will be released later this year.  Udall said that the U.S. is totally failing to address the overall cause of the river’s decline.  “Theres a whole bunch of scientific studies that suggest that this is very much human-caused,” Udall said. “Its due to our greenhouse gas emissions and the warming of the earth right now.” This story was originally produced by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Source New Mexico, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

[Category: Economy]

— Trump’s court workarounds push limits but are within legal bounds, experts say

 

at 8/21/26 5:59am

President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Oval Office on August 6, 2026. Trump signed an executive order during the event denying birthright citizenship to children of foreign diplomats after a loss at the U.S. Supreme Court limited an earlier order. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has not slowed his pursuit of central policy goals and personal passions, even after major setbacks at the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts. The high court in its 2026 term delivered blows to Trump’s core campaign promises to upend a constitutional provision governing who becomes a U.S. citizen at birth and to swiftly address the growing national debt with “trillions of dollars” raised by taxing imports.  The justices also ruled the president cannot fire, without cause, Fed Board Gov. Lisa Cook and deny her a chance to plead her case. And a lower court blocked Trump from installing his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. But even after the Supreme Court ruled against him, Trump is forging ahead and using what some legal observers describe as “creative lawyering” to find alternative routes to push his agenda, even as public support fades. He ordered new blanket tariffs in late July on at least 60 trading partners. He signed a new round of birthright citizenship orders Aug. 6. Reports also revealed that Cook received a letter Aug. 5 from administration officials that Trump is again “considering” firing her. The moves test the power dynamic between the executive and judicial branches, but are not illegal or even unconventional in modern times, experts said. “They look at it and they say, ‘We want to advance a particular policy agenda. Heres the whole array of legal arguments that we might be able to use that give us authority,’’’ said Scott Anderson, senior fellow at the centrist Brookings Institution and senior counsel and editor of the publication Lawfare. Trump is not alone in this pursuit. After all, President Joe Biden found another route to student loan debt relief after a loss at the Supreme Court. A federal appeals court effectively axed the Biden-era relief program in March. “It does happen, and (administrations) will sometimes run the risk of legal reversal, but its a rarer move,” Anderson said. “For this administration, its become the standard move.” ‘Spirit of the law’ While Anderson said Trump’s responses to the rulings are “not surprising” given the legal strategy of his second term, one could argue the “legal brinksmanship … often clearly runs contrary to some of the spirit of the law, and it capitalizes on a lot of institutional inefficiencies.”  Thomas Berry, a legal scholar with the libertarian Cato Institute, said while Trump has often used rhetoric to “delegitimize the court,” his recent actions are not out of legal bounds. “What hes doing is distinct from outright disobedience or ignoring a Supreme Courts decision, and its important to stress that that line has not been crossed,” said Berry, who directs the institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies. A White House spokesperson said the administration has “always followed court orders.” “The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Cook case required notice and an opportunity for a hearing in considering whether the President should take certain adverse employment actions. The President’s notice sent to Fed. Governor Cook offers exactly that within the precise structure enunciated by the Court,” said Lauren Bis in a brief written response from the White House. A Department of Justice spokesperson, who did not provide a name, wrote in a statement, “Investigative and prosecutorial decisions are made based on the law and the facts. To date, DOJ has prevailed in 24 emergency applications before the Supreme Court, winning over 80 percent, an unprecedented win rate that speaks for itself, and has also won dozens of merits cases at the Court.” The spokesperson highlighted the department’s Supreme Court win in June that allows the administration to follow through with plans to deport between about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians who were living in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status. Members of the media set up outside the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of Trumps arrival on April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara to determine if Trumps executive order ending birthright citizenship is constitutional. According to historians and the Court, it was the first time a sitting president has attended oral arguments at the nations highest court. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images) Birthright citizenship On the final day of its 2026 term, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s sweeping attempt to deny citizenship to children born to parents who either do not have legal status or hold temporary legal visas.  Chief Justice John Roberts led the 6-3 opinion on June 30, writing that children born in the U.S. to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present “are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.” Today’s exceptions for those who are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction include foreign diplomats and their families, members of invading armies and in most cases foreign public ships passing in nearby waters. On Aug. 6, Trump signed two executive orders again aimed at curtailing birthright citizenship. The first targets children born to the staff working for foreign diplomats; to children born in American Samoa, where Congress has yet to pass a citizenship law; and to the children born to parents who belong to what the U.S. defines as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”   “So what Trump is trying to do with these executive orders is hes trying to say, ‘OK fine, those are the categories youve given us. Were going to try to push those to the maximal extent possible,’” Berry said. “And he interprets them broadly,” Berry continued. “Do people have diplomatic immunity or not? Thats kind of a factual question. Literally the ambassador and the ambassadors spouse, they get diplomatic immunity. But does everyone from the foreign country working in the embassy similarly get immunity from U.S. law? That wasnt my impression.” Trump is also seeking to limit birthright citizenship by taking what Berry described as a “maximalist view” of what an invading army is. “Its not obvious that that analogy extends to people who are part of designated terrorist groups because theyre not literally rampaging and pillaging,” he said. “This is more people who are living here but have been, you know, labeled as part of a group thats at odds with the United States.”   Anderson said the administration “clearly is intending to just take advantage of every hint and every limitation the Supreme Court decision left open.” The American Civil Liberties Union on Aug. 12 began the process of asking the federal judiciary to reaffirm the Supreme Court ruling.  Tariffs Trump’s trade policy provides another example of the administration finding a new legal reasoning after the Supreme Court struck down the initial basis for a major administration goal. In the midst of refunding roughly $166 billion to businesses that paid taxes on imports under Trump’s emergency tariffs, the president has hopscotched across multiple trade statutes to continually impose at least 10% duties on most global goods since his Supreme Court loss in February. In a 6-3 opinion, the high court struck down Trump’s unprecedented claim of tariff authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Congress retained tariff authority in most circumstances, Roberts wrote for the majority, and Trump could not use the statute to impose duties after declaring emergencies on trade imbalances and illegal drug smuggling. Trump lost the case to a handful of small business owners and Democratic state officials. Tariffs are taxes paid by the importers, meaning American businesses were shouldering the additional costs. Trump immediately turned to another statute, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which authorizes the president to unilaterally set up to 10% in tariffs for 150 days.  The order set off another round of legal challenges, including from Democratic-led states, in the U.S. Court of International Trade. Less than a month after the Supreme Court loss, the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative also opened broad trade investigations under Section 301 of the 1974 law into the practices of nearly all U.S. trading partners. As the clock ran out on Trump’s 10% blanket tariff under Section 122 on July 24, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced his office had found forced labor practices by roughly 60 of America’s trading partners, including Canada, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Kingdom, among dozens more. The findings triggered a 10% to 12.5% duty on most goods from those countries. Days earlier, Trump announced he would use a Depression-era provision that had never been enforced — Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 — to slap a 50% duty on most Canadian imports. The U.S., for now, has delayed the start of the high tariffs as talks with Canada continue, according to reports. Trump’s strategy on pushing tariffs is “not really surprising at all,” Anderson said, adding “it’s not even inappropriate.” “The Supreme Court never said, ‘You cant do tariffs.’ In fact, it said basically you can. It just said ‘You cant do it this way.’ And that automatically points to these other ways, which everyone said is probably a more sound way to do this if the president really wants to do this,” Anderson said. “It doesnt mean its good policy,” he added. “It doesnt mean its a good idea, but theres at least a very colorable case the president can do this all legally. ” Trump holds a chart while speaking during an event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025. Touting the event as “Liberation Day,” Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imported goods. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) 2025 deportation flights Trump’s “aggressive” legal strategy has set him apart from other presidents, and, despite specific recent examples that haven’t crossed a legal line, the administration likely violated court orders in relation to immigration, according to observers. “I think there are some cases that push the envelope, might be unlawful, particularly around, like, some of those early deportations,” Anderson said. “But the majority of the time, the executive branch has been responding and complying with court orders. Its capitalizing on the fact that those orders are often very narrow.” Berry also highlighted the March 2025 deportation flights that took off with hundreds of immigrants on board despite a court order as a potential example of cases “where these agencies have outright violated court orders.” Overall, the courts have been a check on the administration’s view of expansive power, both experts said. “It is worth taking a moment to realize, like, just how vastly smaller the scope of this (most recent) birthright executive order is after the Supreme Court,” Berry said. “The decision did cut off the vast majority of options the administration has. I mean, you think about the scope of millions of people that the original order would have affected, and compare that to this. Its just night and day.” Electorate another check Voters are also a check on power, observers say. With crucial midterm elections approaching, Trump’s net approval rating is -26, meaning the percentage of voters who approve of him is 26 points below those who disapprove, according to The Economist/YouGov poll figures published Aug. 18. A Reuters/Ipsos found Trump’s approval rating at a record low of 33%, according to data published Aug. 17. A recent Fox New poll last month showed most voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy. And 55% told Reuters/Ipsos just days before the Supreme Court ruling that they disapproved of Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship. Trump surrounded himself in his second term with people who “openly denigrated” a lot of norms of the executive office and are “acting accordingly” to what they saw their voter base wanted, Anderson said. “I think they probably overreacted to this idea that simply by winning the last election, that voters have a high tolerance for this,” Anderson said. “And Republicans in Congress and potentially in 2028 are going to pay a price for that.” Anderson added if voters and lawmakers don’t like the loopholes Trump’s legal strategy is employing, then maybe it’s time for Congress to close them. “If we dont think our laws align with what we think is right ethically and good policy, then maybe they do need to be adjusted,” he said.  Maybe if we want a robust separation of powers, we need to take actions that will empower the courts and Congress to push back on executive aggrandizement more effectively, as opposed to the trajectory over the most of the 20th century, which was implicitly, sometimes expressly, more or less empowering the executive branch on the assumption that the executive branch was going to self-constrain itself.”  A  tarp covers the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on June 15, 2026, after a federal judge ruled Trumps name must be removed from the center. (Photo by Sam Gauntt/States Newsroom) ‘Everything people don’t like’ As for the Kennedy Center: Despite a judge’s order that led to the yanking of Trump’s name from the facade of the revered performing arts venue in mid-June, Trump’s hand-picked board voted Aug. 13 to again affix his name to the building.  This time, instead of above John F. Kennedy’s name, the board voted to add an inscription underneath to read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump,” according to court records. A federal judge had found that Trump’s name, which had already been added, could not officially remain there without authorization from Congress. “Its sort of everything people dont like about lawyers at its extreme. … This is kind of again looking for a loophole —  theyre going to argue ‘We are not naming the center. We are adding this appendage,’” Berry said.  “So long as its just like naming the renovation, you know, kind of like a sponsorship deal at the end of the name of a stadium or something like that, thats acceptable because its not renaming the center,” he continued. “So were likely to have litigation about that too, and its going to be a pretty lawyerly and probably annoying debate.”

[Category: DC Bureau, Gov & Politics]

— Abortion could return to Supreme Court, this time with a focus on women's health

 

at 8/21/26 5:59am

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled earlier this month that the state of Idaho cannot regulate abortion when a pregnancy threatens a person’s physical or mental health. Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador has appealed the decision. (Otto Kitsinger for the Idaho Capital Sun)A federal court ruling out of Idaho has potential implications for exceptions in abortion bans nationwide and could eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court to decide. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled earlier this month that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides a narrow right for a pregnant patient to obtain an abortion if the pregnancy could be a risk to their health, including their mental health. It’s the first ruling since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health in 2022 to find that the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion access in certain situations.   Mary Ziegler, a legal historian and law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, said Winmill’s ruling could be the beginning of a “slow erosion” of the Dobbs decision, similar to the way that anti-abortion advocates used lawsuits and legislation to chip away at the law established by Roe v. Wade after it was decided in 1973. Supreme Court justices appear split over whether to protect abortion care during emergencies “They kind of worked over the course of decades to do a death by a thousand cuts, chipping away at its breadth,” Ziegler said. “This may be kind of a funhouse mirror version of that.” For years, anti-abortion state officials and advocacy groups used various legal tactics to diminish access to abortion nationwide after Roe v. Wade determined that the procedure was a constitutional right. Over time, state legislatures passed procedural laws that made it more difficult for providers to offer abortion services, as well as so-called “fetal pain” laws, and worked up to passing the six-week and 15-week abortion bans that eventually led to Dobbs.  Two years ago, U.S. Supreme Court justices were asked to consider whether Idaho could set aside federal law mandating stabilizing care in an emergency if that stabilizing care, in a doctor’s opinion, was to terminate a pregnancy. Now the question could be whether any pregnancy scenario where a patient’s physical or mental health is threatened is something that all states can regulate under Dobbs. Health exceptions Out of the 13 states that have near-total abortion bans, five have no exception for preserving a pregnant patient’s health, including Idaho, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Dakota.  All 13 have an exception to save a pregnant womans life, but doctors say there most often is no clear moment when they can easily say a person will die without an immediate abortion. Instead, doctors are left to guess whether terminating a pregnancy to save a patient would cost them their license to practice or land them in prison. Even in states with health exceptions, some doctors hesitate to act because of the ban,  opting for delays that can cause medical complications such as organ damage or fertility loss. An Arkansas woman said she was denied an abortion during a miscarriage in 2024, resulting in a days-long ordeal that eventually led to her being transferred out of state to Kansas, where abortion is legal. Quotation A pregnant woman’s health is not a state resource to be allocated at the legislature’s whim. The Fourteenth Amendment exists precisely to prevent subjugation like this. – U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill Winmill’s legal decision blocks enforcement of Idaho’s near-total abortion ban when a pregnancy is terminated under those circumstances. Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, a Republican, appealed the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, and also asked Winmill to pause that injunction while the decision is appealed. “The state’s interest in protecting unborn children from unjustified abortion is irreparably harmed by the order, and public interest and equity support a stay for that same reason,” Idaho Assistant Solicitor General Aaron Green wrote in the request for a stay. The attorney general and leadership at the Idaho Family Policy Center, a religious organization that helped craft the legislation that established the state’s ban, have expressed confidence that Winmill’s decision will be reversed quickly. “The Fourteenth Amendment protects the basic rights that are part of the historical fabric of our nation, not a right to take the life of an innocent child in the womb, an act that was a crime at the time that the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified,” said Caleb Pirc, general counsel for the Idaho Family Policy Center, in a statement. “We fully expect Judge Winmill’s attempt to shoehorn a right to abortion into the Constitution to be swiftly rejected on appeal.”  Supreme Court watch Dr. Stacy Seyb, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist  for Idaho’s largest health system, St. Luke’s, sued state officials and the Idaho Board of Medicine in 2024, arguing that the state’s near-total ban prevented him from providing appropriate care to all of his patients. Maternal-fetal medicine specialists handle the most high-risk pregnancies, including patients carrying multiples and those with conditions such as high blood pressure and gestational diabetes.   In his ruling, Winmill wrote that although Dobbs allowed states to regulate abortion access, that case was about elective abortions, and that his ruling was about a pregnant woman’s ability to seek care under “the most difficult and tragic circumstances,” almost always when the woman wanted the pregnancy. U.S. Supreme Court ruling reinstates ability to perform emergency abortions in Idaho under ban “By banning health-preserving abortion, Idaho attempts to deny this fundamental right on the basis that the threat of harm comes from a fetus, which depends on the woman for survival,” Winmill wrote. “But a pregnant woman’s health is not a state resource to be allocated at the legislature’s whim. The Fourteenth Amendment exists precisely to prevent subjugation like this.” Winmill discussed the history of abortion bans in his opinion, writing that when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, the states and territories that restricted abortion also included exceptions for therapeutic purposes when a doctor was acting in good faith. But Winmill went further than many judges have gone by including a pregnancy’s threats to mental health, something that only Alabama has recognized as an explicit healthcare exception for abortions among states with bans, according to KFF. There, a psychiatrist is required to diagnose a pregnant patient with a serious mental illness that could result in their death or the death of the fetus in order to qualify for that exception. “The brain is an organ of the body, and healthcare providers use empirical tools to reliably assess the risk of suicidality and the most effective treatments,” Winmill wrote. “It is an affront to human dignity to bar pregnant women from receiving life-saving care on the basis that the threat comes from a mental health condition rather than a physical health condition.” Idaho’s role Idaho has been at the center of the national debate about when health conditions take priority over an abortion ban since the first year after the Dobbs decision.  The U.S. Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden sued Idaho to require that it acknowledge a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act — better known as EMTALA — in the context of patients who come to the emergency room with pregnancies that may need to be terminated to prevent infection or other adverse health outcomes. The U.S. Supreme Court heard that case in late April 2024, but sent it back to the lower appellate court in June, saying it was too early in the process for justices to have considered ruling on it. The case was later dropped by the DOJ under President Donald Trump, but St. Luke’s filed its own lawsuit against the state that is still ongoing. That case is also before Winmill in federal court. At the time of the EMTALA arguments, Idaho officials had argued that if it allowed women to get a legal abortion in an emergency room, anyone could come to a hospital’s emergency department  and threaten to harm themselves.   Tanya Pellegrini, co-director of litigation at The Lawyering Project and one of the attorneys who represented Seyb in this month’s case, said that wasn’t true under EMTALA, and it won’t be true following Winmill’s ruling.  “I think the order really speaks for itself in terms of why mental health should not be treated differently from physical health,” Pellegrini said. Ziegler said she won’t be surprised if Seyb’s case ends up before the Supreme Court in the near future, because it strikes at the heart of questions about the Dobbs decision that have yet to be fully resolved. “It’s a really important question that they’ll have to address sooner or later,” Ziegler said.  Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@stateline.org. This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Source New Mexico, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

[Category: Abortion Policy, Health]

— Family members describe recent ICE arrests in Santa Fe, as residents protest

 

at 8/20/26 6:37pm

Madeline Pernillo, 18, spoke during an Aug. 20, 2026, news conference regarding the recent federal immigration arrest of her uncle in Santa Fe, one of as many as 16 recent arrests reported in the area. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM) Two relatives of people whom federal immigration agents arrested Wednesday in Santa Fe spoke out at a news conference Thursday, during which New Mexico elected officials decried the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s tactics in what they described as a spree of immigration arrests in the city this week.  Madeline Pernillo, 18, and Yajaira Gutierrez, 19, described ICE’s arrests of their relatives in two separate events Wednesday. Their relatives are two of as many as 16 arrests that local immigrant advocates have identified in Santa Fe and surrounding communities recently, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico.  Pernillo’s description matches one of the more high-profile arrests this week in the parking lot of La Familia’s Alto Street clinic, which resulted in the father of an 11-year-old girl being arrested. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE   A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Source NM on Thursday that agents “conducted a targeted enforcement operation” against a man they identified as Edgar  Chacon-Miranda when they saw him park at the medical center.  Pernillo said the man ICE arrested is her uncle. He had just stepped out of the car Wednesday with his 11-year-old daughter before a medical appointment at La Familia’s Alto Street clinic when ICE agents approached their car. “Just as they were getting out of the car, they were surrounded by ICE agents,” Pernillo said in Spanish. “The agents began questioning the girl, asking for her fathers name, how many siblings she had and if she knew her mothers name. When she innocently gave her mothers name, she became upset and started crying.” After that, agents began threatening to break the car’s windows if Chacon-Miranda did not get out of the car. Chacon-Miranda complied and agents arrested him, Pernillo said.  “As the agents handcuffed him, my 11-year-old cousin was left traumatized,” she said. “She now wakes up crying at night.” The statement from the unnamed DHS spokesperson described Chacon-Miranda as a “criminal illegal alien” with an extensive criminal history, including arrests for battery against a household member, criminal sexual penetration, child abuse and child abandonment.  Court records show Chacon-Miranda was accused of those crimes in Santa Fe in 2018, but the charges were later dropped due to the case not being prosecuted within time limits.  Immigration attorney Allegra Love, who is representing Chacon-Miranda, blasted ICE in a phone interview with Source NM for suggesting her client was violent or a criminal when he’s never been convicted. She noted he successfully applied to receive lawful permanent resident status after the charges were dropped.  “He actually qualifies for a green card in the United States despite these charges because he was never convicted of them,” Love said. “That has to mean something, but it doesnt mean something to ICE. It doesn’t mean anything to ICE.” The arrest at the clinic parking lot has sparked outrage from local elected officials, who said ICE  should not make immigration-related arrests at medical facilities, as well as other community locations such as churches and schools. U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), who convened the Thursday news conference, has introduced legislation to prohibit ICE from arresting people at what she referred to as “sensitive places” like the clinic.  “ICE should stay away. They used to stay away under the Biden administration. They used to stay away when it was Obama,” Leger Fernández said. “It was Trump and his cruel and corrupt policies that have decided, ‘No, there is no safe and sacred place from their raids,’ and so we are also calling upon ICE to start respecting the Constitution.” Pernillo said her uncle, a father of three, was “simply fulfilling his duty as a father” when ICE arrested him.  “At that moment, my cousin should have been thinking about school, not the moment her father was torn away from her,” she said.  As for the second arrest, Gutierrez said she was with her mother-in-law, whom she identified as 43-year-old Adriana Ruiz, on the way to a medical appointment for Gutierrez’s 2-month-old baby, who was hooked up to an oxygen machine.  Gutierrez said they were getting into their car when ICE agents approached.  “We asked for the paperwork required for such stops, but they refused to show it and gave us false information,” Gutierrez said in Spanish. “They claimed they were looking for a car that didnt even match my mother-in-laws vehicle. We tried to reason with them, but all we got were threats.” Ruiz stepped out of the car and agreed to be arrested “for the sake of my daughter,” Gutierrez said.  New Mexico U.S. Rep. Leger Fernández denounces ICE arrest in Santa Fe healthcare clinic parking lot “She did it for her granddaughter because we want safety for our families. We just want to live a normal life like any other human being,” she said. “No one is different, and everyone has rights, but apparently, that doesnt apply in this case.” A DHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment about Ruiz’s arrest Thursday. Gutierrez told Source NM after the news conference that she is very concerned about her mother-in-law, who has health problems. Gutierrez said she and other relatives still do not know where ICE agents took Ruiz or whether she is receiving medical care. “We are just worried,” she said.  State House Majority Floor Leader Rep. Reena Szczepanski (D-Santa Fe) and advocates Somos Un Pueblo Unido, an immigrant advocacy organization, also spoke at the news conference. Szczepanski touted the state Legislature’s recent enactment of a bill that bans public entities from helping ICE detain immigrants, and she said lawmakers are actively considering more immigration-related proposals. All speakers said they are working on fighting back against Trump’s mass deportation efforts.  “No one in Santa Fe or in New Mexico or in this country should have to decide between taking their children to school or to a medical appointment for fear of exposing their families to immigration enforcement,” said Gabriela Ibańez Guzman, an attorney with Somos Un Pueblo Unido.  The City of Santa Fe and Santa Fe County issued a joint statement Thursday that both governments reaffirm our commitment to the safety, dignity, civil liberties and rights of everyone who calls Santa Fe home, and noted that neither city police nor the county sheriff participated in the federal immigration agencys arrests. Protesters took to the streets in Santa Fe Thursday evening by the state Capitol in response to the ICE arrests. Santa Fe County Commissioner County Commissioner Lisa Cacari Stone participated in a protest by the state Capitol on Aug. 20 2026, in response to ICE arrests in Santa Fe throughout the week. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)Protesters turned out Aug. 20, 2026, to protest ICE arrests in Santa Fe. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)Protesters turned out Aug. 20, 2026, to protest ICE arrests in Santa Fe. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)Protesters turned out Aug. 20, 2026, to protest ICE arrests in Santa Fe. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)

[Category: Immigration, American Civil Liberties Union, La Familia Medical Center, Somos Un Pueblo Unido, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcemen, U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández]

— New Mexico governor appoints 2 new district court judges

 

at 8/20/26 4:56pm

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced on Aug. 20, 2026, the appointment of Maria Montoya Chavez (left) to serve as a judge on the Second Judicial District Court and Kirsten Louise Dick (right) to serve as a judge on the Thirteenth Judicial District Court.(Courtesy photos)New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday announced her appointments of two new district court judges: Maria Montoya Chavez as a judge on the Second Judicial District Court and Kirsten Louise Dick for the Thirteenth Judicial District Court. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE Montoya Chavez, whose appointment starts Sept. 28, has practiced law in the state for more than 25 years, and fills a new judgeship the state Legislature created, with her term running until the next general election after one year of service, at which point she will run for election for a full term. She previously served as chair of the Family Law Section of the State Bar of New Mexico and has a law degree from St. Marys University School of Law in Texas and a bachelors degree in criminology from the University of New Mexico, according to a news release. Dick, who currently serves as a hearing officer and special commissioner for the Second Judicial District Court, fills a vacancy left by Cheryl Hein Johnston. Her term begins Sept. 12, and she will also run in the next general election after one year of service for a full term. She holds a law degree from UNM and a bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Denver. She previously served as Second Judicial Courts Childrens Court managing attorney, as a rules attorney for the New Mexico Supreme Courts Clerk of Courts Office and as a judicial law clerk and assistant attorney in the chambers of Justice Barbara J. Vigil.

[Category: Gov & Politics, District Court, judges]

— Despite record low in veteran homelessness, half the states saw increases

 

at 8/20/26 3:27pm

A veteran waves from a housing unit built exclusively for veterans by a Utah-based nonprofit. Despite national veteran homelessness reaching a record-low in 2025, half the states recorded increases during the January 2025 point-in-time count. (Photo Courtesy of USA Project Valor)Veteran homelessness dipped slightly from 2024 to 2025, according to the latest results from the January 2025 point-in-time count. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development counted 32,495 veterans experiencing homelessness, 387, or 1.2%, fewer than the previous year. HUD counted 18,877 veterans in shelters, and 13,518 living unsheltered in places not meant for habitation. Twenty-five states recorded increases in veteran homelessness from 2024 to 2025, and 23 recorded decreases. Just two states — Alaska and Massachusetts —  saw no change. The state with the largest increase, by raw numbers, was Oregon, which saw 228 added veterans, a 16% increase. Pennsylvania saw an increase of 98 veterans, a 14% increase, while New York, with an additional 93 homeless veterans, had a nearly 8% increase. Mississippi had the largest percentage increase, rising 88%, going from 40 homeless veterans in 2024 to 75 a year later. Utah and Wyoming saw increases of 36% and 30%, respectively. California recorded the largest numerical decline, with 624 fewer veterans experiencing homelessness, a 7% dip to 8,686. Florida declined by 192, while Indiana and Illinois each recorded 79 fewer homeless veterans. North Dakota’s numbers dropped 36% to 28 homeless veterans. Since 2010, veteran homelessness has fallen by more than 56%, reaching an all-time low in 2025, and it’s been one of the few sustained decreases in any subset of homelessness during that time span. Details from this past January’s point-in-time count have not been released. Adam Ruege, principal of policy and evaluation at Community Solutions, a national nonprofit that works with cities, counties and states to reduce homelessness, said the long-term decline resulted from sustained federal investments in housing and mental health services dating back to 2009.  States have taken a bigger role in addressing veteran homelessness, with programs ranging from incentives for landlords, to coordinated services. “Twenty years ago, being a veteran increased your likelihood of being homeless,” said Ruege, who previously worked for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “What we’re seeing states do now, is that they are filling the gap between what the federal response isn’t doing and what localities can’t do because of funding constraints.  In July, New Jersey announced that its Bringing Veterans Home initiative saw more veterans finding housing than entering homelessness. According to state officials, since the initiative launched in November 2024, it has permanently housed more than 2,500 veterans, backed by more than $30 million in state and federal money. There’s pending legislation to codify the program. In March, the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs had a statewide by-name registry that allows agencies and service providers to coordinate individual cases instead of making veterans navigate programs independently. The registry, at last update, showed 150 veterans experiencing homelessness, dropping 25% in a year and 41% in two years. States making efforts to incent or spur landlord participation in voucher and other housing programs, Ruege said, is one of the biggest steps toward getting veterans into permanent housing. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis approved a statewide measure in June that created a pilot program getting landlords to participate in a federal voucher program that compensates landlords for holding a vacant unit for up to 45 days while a veteran prepares to move in and reimburse up to $2,000 in qualifying property losses beyond the security deposit. Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed a law in April that establishes an incentive program that can give grants to nonprofits for landlord and housing provider incentives, risk-mitigation payments and veterans past due rent. “I think a big factor in their success has been recruitment of landlords,” said Ruege. “It’s just a matter of political and private will, and in some ways, the will of a landlord, to make strides in cutting down homelessness on the local level.”  California announced $109.6 million in July for 278 permanent supportive homes across four communities, including 103 units reserved for veterans. In March, Pennsylvania awarded about $805,000 from its Veterans Trust Fund to county agencies and nonprofits, including programs providing emergency housing assistance, residences, for veterans leaving homelessness and services for veterans exiting homelessness. Erin Healy, a principal for large-scale change at Community Solutions, said veterans have often been treated differently from other groups experiencing homelessness. “So, there is a sense of urgency around veteran homelessness, which doesnt necessarily exist, even though it should, for all homelessness,” Healy said. “But we know these solutions and more empathy can still work for these other groups that are experiencing homelessness.” Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling gave governments greater latitude to enforce public camping restrictions, at least 14 states and more than 350 cities have adopted tougher laws targeting camping, sleeping or other activities associated with unsheltered homelessness.  Indiana, for example, enacted a statewide public camping ban that took effect in July, while Georgia and Oklahoma have adopted laws that can hold local governments accountable for failing to enforce restrictions on public camping and related conduct. Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org. This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Source New Mexico, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

[Category: Economy, Housing]

— Denver named top 3 finalist for Democrats' 2028 national convention

 

at 8/20/26 2:25pm

From left, Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib, Gov. Jared Polis and DNC Chair Ken Martin address delegates and the media at Denver's Ball Arena on May 6, 2026, during a visit to evaluate the city's bid for the 2028 Democratic National Convention. (Photo by Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)Denver is one of three finalists the Democratic National Committee will consider to host its 2028 national convention.  If selected, Colorado’s capital would host the 2028 Democratic National Convention two decades after it last hosted it, when Barack Obama accepted the party’s 2008 presidential nomination in front of a crowd of more than 80,000 people at what was then known as Invesco Field at Mile High. “Twenty years after Barack Obama accepted our party’s nomination at Mile High, Democrats can return to the west to show the country what comes after Donald Trump: leaders who protect our freedoms, lower costs and give working people a fair shot. Denver is ready to make it happen,” Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib said in a statement.  Denver is a finalist alongside Boston and Philadelphia. The three cities advanced from a list of five finalists named in the spring.  In May, Murib, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis hosted Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and other DNC officials for a three-day site visit to evaluate Denver’s bid.  “We proved what this city could do when we hosted in 2008, and we’ve only gotten better since,” Johnston said in a statement. “Today, Denver blends modern transit, world-class venues, and a thriving hospitality scene with the unbeatable energy of the Rocky Mountain West. Hosting the convention again would be a tremendous opportunity for everyone who calls Denver home.” Scheduled for Aug. 7 to 10, 2028, the convention will follow the Democratic Party’s schedule of presidential primaries and caucuses throughout the first half of the year, awarding the nomination to the candidate the party picks in its bid to retake the White House from Republicans in November 2028. The Colorado Democratic Party said in a press release that a national convention could result in an economic boost of more than $400 million for Denver and Colorado.  This story was originally produced by Colorado Newsline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Source New Mexico, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

— Can a dam expansion hold back climate considerations on the Colorado River?

 

at 8/20/26 2:06pm

Denver Water’s Gross Reservoir expansion project in Boulder County, Colorado, is seen on April 9, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/Getty Images via Inside Climate News)This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. SANTA FE, N.M.—Is climate change enough justification to stop the expansion of a reservoir that will take more water from the dwindling Colorado River? That’s the central question in a lawsuit pitting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Colorado’s largest water utility against a consortium of environmental nonprofits. The environmentalists say the Colorado River has no more water to give, while Denver Water, the utility whose Gross Reservoir would nearly triple in capacity, argues it is ensuring its customers can withstand droughts. The Corps contends it is not required to consider climate change or the downstream effects of its expansion of a dam to grow the reservoir. The case in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has the potential to ripple through Western water management as states, tribes, cities and the federal government struggle to find a compromise on how to steeply cut water use. Some see history repeating itself, with the Gross Dam expansion emblematic of the kind of thinking that helped put the West into the very water crisis the project is meant to buffer the region against. “Does it make sense for major water projects like this to continue to move forward?” asked Sarah Matsumoto, an associate professor of clinical law at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and director of the Getches-Green Natural Resources, Energy, and Environmental Law Clinic. “I just don’t think it does anymore, without at minimum considering impacts of climate and impacts of overappropriation on the river.” That’s exactly what a 2024 district court opinion ruled, in a major win for the environmental groups. The Corps and Denver Water appealed that decision, arguing that construction of the dam expansion is nearly complete, and topping off the reservoir behind it is in the public’s best interest. There are no other alternatives to consider, the utility asserts. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires evaluating the impacts of projects that need federal approval, does not require the assessment of climate change, they contend. “We believe that considering potential climate impacts to a project goes beyond the scope of any guidelines, practicability, or NEPA reasonableness analysis,” said U.S. Department of Justice attorney Kyle Glynn, representing the Army Corps, during oral arguments for the case before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The expansion of Denver Water’s Gross Reservoir would hold an additional 77,000 acre feet of water diverted from the declining Colorado River, enough water for roughly 150,000 homes. Denver Water would get that water incrementally from an unused 1945 water right of 18,000 annual acre feet to ensure it can supply the growing metropolis of Denver and protect its water supplies during droughts. The utility plans to only use its water right during wet years when it can stockpile water from excess supply. Of the 77,000 acre feet in diversions, 5,000 would be sequestered in an “environmental pool” that would enhance streamflows on South Boulder Creek and serve as additional storage for the cities of Boulder and Lafayette. But environmentalists are not convinced there will be enough surplus water in the future for the utility to fill the reservoir. If the state is required to cut back its water use to address system-wide shortages on the Colorado River, reductions the seven states that depend on the river are currently negotiating, what happens to the over $800 million project, they wonder. Those are the concerns driving the environmental groups, which sued over what they called an inadequate NEPA process and a failure to properly examine alternatives to the project. Natural resource professors watching the case share their concerns. The court’s decision, both say, could have far-reaching consequences for Southwestern states and nearly 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River, and could determine how climate change is considered in any future litigation. Denver Water’s position is in direct contradiction with what Colorado is arguing in the current negotiations about how much water from the river states must give up, said Gary Wockner, founder of Save the Colorado, the environmental group that’s led the push against the Gross Reservoir expansion. Gary Wockner, founder of the nonprofit Save the Colorado, stands in front of Boulder Creek on Oct. 22, 2024, in Boulder, Colo. (Photo by Michael Kodas/Inside Climate News) Colorado has maintained that it and other states close to the river’s headwaters should not have to make mandatory cuts because climate change is already limiting their supply by reducing river and stream flows. Should the negotiations over cuts to allocations from the river devolve so completely that states in the upper and lower halves of the Colorado River Basin sue one another, some water law experts believe climate change would figure prominently in the litigation. “If the court supports Denver Water and says that Denver Water did not have to account for climate change to prove that they could operate the project, it sets a very difficult and perhaps powerful precedent, potentially undermining the state of Colorado’s position in the entire Colorado River negotiations,” Wockner said. Can a Dam’s Progress Block Climate Considerations? On the last day of July, attorneys for the environmental groups, Denver Water and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gathered before three justices on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in a courtroom in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Their oral arguments came nearly two years after senior federal judge Christine Arguello ruled in favor of the environmentalists, saying that “the cracked foundation of the Colorado River’s management system all but demands skepticism over any proposal that will affect the hydrology of the Colorado River basin.” Arguello’s decision didn’t stop construction to expand the dam, but forced the parties to meet and agree on remedies. Those discussions failed, however, leading Arguello to issue an injunction to stop construction in April 2025. That was lifted due to safety concerns about the dam being left incomplete, but an injunction remained preventing the clearing of the forest below to make room for the additional water, or filling the added space behind the dam. The Gross Reservoir expansion solves a problem Denver Water has been trying to address for 23 years, said Jessica Brody, general counsel for the utility, in the 10th Circuit last month. Denver Water’s storage and delivery network is divided into north and south systems, which are unconnected and imbalanced. The south system provides 80 percent of the utility’s water supply, and if it were to go down, the north system, which includes Gross Reservoir, could run out of water in just one year. That leaves the utility’s system vulnerable in times of severe drought, wildfires or other emergencies. Despite construction being nearly done, Brody said, Denver Water has a dam it cannot fill because of the lower court’s opinion. That decision was an “abuse” of the court’s power, she said, as the water rights at stake are under the jurisdiction of the state, not federal agencies. Plaintiffs never sought a preliminary injunction to stop construction, although they did when later mediation failed. Jurisdiction over the cutting of trees to make room for the expanded reservoir lies with the U.S. Forest Service and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not the Corps, she said. The arguments from Denver Water and the Corps seemed to resonate with the three justices presiding over the case, largely due to the fact the dam is nearly complete. “Poor pun: It’s water over the dam, because it’s built,” said Judge Timothy Tymkovich. “So costs, and I think climate change, are off the table now.” “In effect, they’re building a giant bathtub, even though there’s likely no water to ever fill it.” William Eubanks, the attorney representing the environmental groups, disagreed. The dam expansion is part of Denver Water’s Moffat Collection System project, which requires work in addition to the Gross Reservoir project, such as felling the trees. And there is still the question of where the water will come from. A central point for the lawsuit, he said, is that under the Clean Water Act, water infrastructure developers have to show a project can be built and fulfill the expected need—in this case, a reservoir with more water. That wasn’t done here, Eubanks said. “With the Moffat Collection System project, Denver Water and the Army Corps have recklessly gambled with over $800 million of ratepayer money,” Eubanks said before the court. Neither the Corps nor the utility forecasted whether there would be enough surplus water in the Colorado River for Denver Water to fill its reservoir, he argued. “In effect, they’re building a giant bathtub, even though there’s likely no water to ever fill it.” CU Boulder professor Matsumoto is one of 11 natural resource law experts who submitted an amicus brief to the court asking it to affirm the lower court’s decision. This case, they wrote, is a “classic example of why we need NEPA”—illustrating the consequences of an agency permitting and approving a project without a full evaluation of other alternatives and whether the project was even feasible. The foundational U.S. environmental law was designed to push agencies to “fully appreciate the consequences of their actions before they move forward with those actions,” they wrote. The Corps violated NEPA by limiting the number of alternatives it considered for the project and only examining impacts up to 50 miles downstream, not along the full course of the river, the brief noted. “It just doesn’t make any sense for the amount of water that they’re getting,” said Mark Squillace, a natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and another one of the professors part of the amicus brief. “It’s insane.” A Complicating Compact Since 1922, the Colorado River has been governed by its eponymous compact, which is now widely acknowledged to have overallocated the river by millions of acre feet of water. Under the compact, both the Upper Colorado River Basin, made up of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, and the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada, are entitled to 7.5 million acre feet of water, with another 1.5 million acre feet going to Mexico. But the river has averaged closer to 11 million acre feet since 2020—more than 6 million acre feet less than the total that has been allocated, according to the most recent federal data. Though both basins get an equal share of the river, Article III(d) of the compact specifies that the Upper Basin “will not cause the flow of the river” to be depleted below an average of 7.5 million acre feet per year over any 10-year period downstream. Failing to meet that requirement could trigger the Lower Basin to demand more water from the Upper Basin in what is known as a “compact call.” That unprecedented action could force severe water usage curtailments in the Upper Basin, and how that would affect users like Denver Water is unclear. The system is dangerously close to the hydrological conditions that could trigger a compact call. It’s a known risk for this project, the professors say, but one that was ignored during permitting. Gross Reservoir is far from the only new diversion proposed in the Upper Basin, which has never used its full allocation from the river, but sees that water as key to the region’s continued economic growth and prosperity. Over 1 million acre feet of diversions have been proposed across 30 projects in the Upper Basin. Many of those may not be developed, but they have become a sticking point in negotiations over the river’s future. “Repeating the Same Mistakes” As the lawyers argued in Santa Fe, news of a short-term federal proposal for managing the Colorado River rippled across the basin. In the absence of a new consensus among the states over how to allocate the water, the federal government stepped in to manage the crisis. Its track record on the Colorado River is deeply checkered. The compact has served as the bedrock for a web of dams, reservoirs, canals and ditches built largely with federal funding and engineering prowess to distribute water across arid Western lands. The magnitude of this diffuse system and its over-reliance on diverting and impounding water, experts say, is at least partially responsible for the severity of the West’s water crisis. The construction site of the Gross Reservoir Dam expansion in 2024. (Photo courtesy Denver Water) Some believed not everyone has learned the lesson. “We’re just repeating the same mistakes,” Squillace said. “A lot of it just results from a lack of imagination about a better way to do things.” As water supplies shift, water utilities across the West are squeezing every last drop out of their systems through a range of modifications and adjustments to their infrastructure. After the first of the West’s deep 21st-century droughts in 2002, Denver Water, which serves 1.5 million people across Colorado’s Front Range, decided it needed to act. The utility convinced the Army Corps of Engineers, which completed the original Gross Reservoir in the 1950s, that raising the dam to triple the amount of water it could impound would be the best course of action to combat drought. Since then, Denver Water has also invested in water efficiency, which allowed it to better endure droughts from 2002 to 2026. Despite a growing population, water use is below the benchmarks from the 1970s, said Jeff Martin, Denver Water’s program manager for the reservoir expansion. “We’ve really capitalized on most of our customer savings at this point,” he said. “Now, we need to shore up the rest of our need with the expanded reservoir.” But a drier future is precisely what should preclude Denver Water and the Corps from seeing this project through, said Wockner with Save the Colorado. “It’s nonsensical to be diverting more water out of rivers anywhere in the Southwest United States,” he said. “Because in many ways the climate change bullseye in the United States is on the Southwest and Colorado River Basin.” The Colorado River, Wockner said, has no more water to give. But Martin sees room for more improvement in how the river is managed. “I would be the first to say something needs to change there on how we use the river for all stakeholders, including some type of cuts throughout the system,” said Martin. “I’m not that decision maker though.” The state, he said, controls Denver Water’s rights to the river. The utility has the right to use the water that may one day fill Gross Reservoir, he said, and has been planning to do so for decades. Despite arguments that the water isn’t available, Martin has no doubt Denver Water will be able to one day fill the reservoir—if the courts allow it. What Comes Next The justices have given no indication of when a ruling on the Gross Reservoir Expansion Project will land. If Denver Water loses its current appeal, the utility claims it will be unable to ensure a reliable water supply during times of drought, and the decision may deter developers from pursuing other ambitious projects to solve the West’s water problems, from new dams to expensive desalination plants. In the Santa Fe courtroom, Teagen Blakey sat on a wooden bench watching the lawyers argue over a project that has loomed over more years of her life than it hasn’t. President of The Environmental Group, a nonprofit from Colorado’s Front Range and one of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, Blakey grew up in the area around Gross Reservoir. She remembers sitting in community meetings as a teenager when the project was being permitted. Despite the project’s impacts on Boulder County, the water won’t serve residents there, she pointed out. But the dam and reservoir expansions’ impacts will fall on the local population. At the site where Denver Water will clear the forest is a hike featuring a waterfall that would be submerged. “It’s something you can’t quantify as a value,” she said. With such a high cost to something so special, Blakey said, there must be certainty about the benefit it will provide.

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, Colorado, Colorado River, dam, New Mexico, U.S. Army Corps of Engineer]

— Frijoles Fire grows to roughly 14,000 acres, creates smoke concerns

 

at 8/20/26 12:40pm

Smoke rises Aug. 15, 2026, from the Frijoles Fire, which has grown to nearly 14,000 acres in the Pecos Wilderness. Ongoing smoke from the fire prompted state officials to issue another air quality warning Aug.19, 2026. (Photo courtesy Inciweb) The lightning-caused Frijoles Fire burning in the Pecos Wilderness as of Thursday morning had grown to just under 14,000 acres, with officials reporting 31% containment. A news release said Wednesday’s weather had influenced fire behavior and pushed smoke into nearby communities, particularly in low-lying areas. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE The state health and environment departments on Wednesday issued a smoke advisory, and announced two additional air monitors at the Nambe Community Center and the Harold L. Runnels Building, along with a third planned for Mora to measure the fine particulate matter associated with wildfire smoke. In a statement, Dr. Chelsea Langer, NMDOH bureau chief of the environmental health epidemiology bureau, said given the decreasing air quality in the area of the fire, officials were encouraging residents “to stay indoors and set up a clean room, which is a place designed to keep inside air as clean as possible. To keep indoor air clean, limit how much outdoor air is coming inside, and keep air that is already inside clean by not burning candles or incense, not using air fresheners or other strong scented products, and not smoking or vaping indoors.” Residents can also monitor the Air Quality Index, in which higher numbers indicate more pollution and health risks, online at fire.airnow.gov. As of Thursday morning, monitors showed unhealthy air quality throughout Santa Fe. “We have been proactively working with government partners to ensure communities have the most up-to-date information available through our monitoring system,” New Mexico Environment Department Air Quality Bureau Chief Cindy Hollenberg said in a  statement. “Fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke can contribute to respiratory issues and other health impacts with higher risk community members, which is why we want to provide as much data as possible.” Fire officials say they have 866 personnel on the fire, with “steep, rugged terrain in the wilderness” continuing to “challenge firefighters’ ability to safely access remote areas and use direct extinguishment strategies along the fire’s edge.” While evacuation orders are limited to an area of the small village of Cundiyó, residents in the rest of Cundiyó, as well as Cerro Piñon and Borrego Mesa area, remain in “set” status, meaning they should keep tabs on emergency alerts and create a plan to safely flee the wildfire.  Internal situation reports that the California incident command team in charge of the fire show that 11 people have evacuated due to the fire, and three others are sheltering in place.  The reports also show that no structures have yet been burned in the fire. However, they identified more than 100 structures at risk at the nearby Gorham Boy Scout Ranch, Canyon Chimayó and the rest of Cundiyó.  In addition, more than 1,000 structures in Truchas, which is nine miles north of the wildfire’s northern edge, are at risk, the reports show.  The report, known as an ICS-209 report, which Source NM reviewed Thursday, also describes staffing and other challenges firefighters face as they seek to build containment lines and allow residents to return home.  The report says “steep terrain and poor access” are increasing time required to complete containment lines. In addition, “limited crews qualified to work in these areas” are slowing progress, as the most-specialized teams, known as Type 1 crews, are regularly being shifted between areas of the fire to try to contain the fire in difficult terrain.  “This, in turn, is preventing cohesive line construction that can gain containment and shorten the duration of public displacement from their homes,” an incident commander wrote Wednesday afternoon.  In addition, the team’s window for weather conditions favorable for tackling the blaze is “narrowing as a return to unseasonably high temperatures and record-low relative humidities is expected to affect the area and drastically increase fire behavior,” the commander wrote.  The ongoing fire behavior, as well as prolonged smoke exposure and forest closures, are “significantly reducing” economic activity in the area, including fairs, festivals, camping and “once-in-a-lifetime” draw hunts for bighorn sheep in the Pecos Wilderness, the commander wrote. 

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, air quality, Frijoles Fire, New Mexico Department of Health, New Mexico Environment Department, wildfire smoke]

— New Mexico U.S. Rep. Leger Fernández denounces ICE arrest in Santa Fe healthcare clinic parking lot

 

at 8/20/26 10:43am

U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández on Aug. 19, 2026, said she tried to speak with the person or people federal agents arrested in the La Familia Medical Clinic parking lot during a visit to the Torrance County Detention Facility. (Screenshot of Leger Fernandez’s visit) U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M) is seeking answers from federal immigration authorities following reports that agents arrested one or more people in the parking lot of a Santa Fe healthcare facility on Wednesday, including the parent of a child who was left alone. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE Leger Fernández told Source NM she was preparing for a previously scheduled inspection of the Torrance County Detention Facility on Wednesday when she learned about the federal immigration operation at La Familia Medical Center in Santa Fe. She asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CoreCivic, the facility’s private operator, whether she could speak with any of the people ICE detained in the clinic’s parking lot. “We did make a request,” she said. “They told us that they anticipated there would be eight detainees arriving to the facility, but that they had not yet gotten there when we were there.” After videos and photographs of the Santa Fe operation gained traction online, La Familia officials on Wednesday posted to social media noting that federal agents were parked in the organizations Alto Clinic parking lot to make an arrest and that no officers entered the clinic building.  Still, the arrest has prompted widespread outcry from New Mexico elected officials, including Leger Fernández, who told Source NM that ICE should not be “stalking people” to health clinics to make arrests.  “The fact that they are in Santa Fe conducting these raids so that they can meet a quota has nothing to do with getting the worst of the worst,’” she said. “Its all about meeting a quota.” ICE spokesperson Leticia Zamarripa referred Source NM’s questions about the arrest to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond Thursday.  New Mexico House Majority Leader Rep. Reena Szczepanski (D-Santa Fe) in a statement Wednesday said she was outraged that ICE agents “followed a parent and child from their home to a neighborhood health clinic, then arrested that parent in the parking lot.” “This Administration’s cruel acts turn places of safety and care into places of fear. No parent should have to worry that getting medical care for their child will put them at risk of detention. I will do all I can to protect immigrant safety in our community.” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland also denounced the parking lot arrest in a post Wednesday evening as “absolutely unacceptable.”  Leger Fernández said members of her staff have spoken to eyewitnesses of the arrest and that she is hoping to find the family of the person or people arrested to continue to find answers.  As for the visit to the detention facility in Estancia, she said being denied an interview with those detained in Santa Fe capped off a “disappointing” inspection of the facility, she said.  ICE and CoreCivic officials intervened to prevent her from speaking to any detainees, she said, and the facility seemed to have been hastily sanitized ahead of her arrival. Torrance is one of three facilities in the state that houses ICE detainees, who have alleged poor water quality and health concerns amid an ongoing water shortage in Estancia. “You could smell the cleaner as you were walking, right? They had sanitized the place and emptied the hall, so that we were not able to actually see anybody,” she said.  Leger Fernández’s visit marked the first time a member of Congress has inspected the facility since CoreCivic and ICE entered into a direct contract governing the facility without Torrance County’s involvement. The two parties opted to contract directly after the Legislature enacted the Immigrant Safety Act, which prohibited public entities like counties from contracting with ICE for the purposes of immigrant detention.  In a statement Thursday, CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin told Source NM that ICE, and not CoreCivic, “determines who is permitted to speak with detainees at its facilities,” and referred additional comment to that agency.  “More broadly, our Torrance County Detention Facility (TCDF) operates under federal detention standards with ICE personnel onsite, and the facility is subject to regular audits and inspections by our government partners. The safety and well-being of the people in our care is our top priority,” Gustin said.  12:55 pmThis story has been updated after publication to include comment from a CoreCivic spokesperson.

[Category: Immigration, La Familia Medical Center, Torrance County Detention Facility, U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement, U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández]

— White House to press forward with FDA nominee despite US Senate chairman’s concerns

 

at 8/20/26 10:16am

Louisiana Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy talks with reporters in the Dirksen Senate office building on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration will face challenges securing Senate confirmation after the committee chairman in charge of that process expressed doubts.  That, however, hasn’t deterred White House officials from pressing for Dr. Heidi Overton, arguing she has the experience needed and that her policy goals align with the presidents.  “As Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, Dr. Heidi Overton has spent the last year and a half coordinating an interagency policymaking process with senior officials across HHS, FDA, CDC, USDA, and other agencies to deliver on President Trump’s MAHA agenda,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement shared with States Newsroom on Thursday. “Dr. Overton has been integral to ensuring that the Administration’s policies are correct, consistent, and grounded in Gold Standard Science, and will play a similar role at the FDA as its next Commissioner,” Desai added. “The White House looks forward to her swift confirmation by the Senate.” Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy wrote in a social media post on Wednesday that while he respects Overton’s “experience as a physician,” he isn’t convinced she’s the right person to lead the FDA, highlighting her role in a Health and Human Services Department executive order that would weaken vaccine requirements.  “Her lack of managerial experience does not prepare her well for leading a large organization that is already dealing with staffing and morale issues,” Cassidy wrote. “Additionally, Dr. Overton’s active role in last week’s nonsensical vaccine executive order calls into question her commitment to standing up for sound science and protecting children’s health. That alone is almost disqualifying.” Cassidy, as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has control over whether to schedule a confirmation hearing or a committee vote on Overton’s nomination.  It wasn’t immediately clear whether Cassidy was open to changing his mind on Overton’s nomination. He expressed doubts about HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Erica Schwartz before voting to confirm both of those nominees.  But the White House did have to withdraw surgeon general nominee Dr. Casey Means after it became clear she didn’t have the votes to advance out of committee. And Trump had to rescind Janette Nesheiwat’s nomination for surgeon general.   The president wrote in a social media post on Wednesday that he would nominate Overton “to ensure that the U.S. remains the WORLD LEADER for Scientific Discovery and CURES.” “Dr. Overton was a prestigious White House Fellow in my First Term, is a Board-Certified Physician in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine, and holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Investigations from the Johns Hopkins University,” he wrote. “She is SMART and RESPECTED by all! Dr. Heidi will work with Secretary Kennedy and Dr. Oz to RAPIDLY deliver on my priorities of FASTER Cures, INCREASED American Innovation, MAJOR Clinical Trial Reforms, LOWER Drug Prices, and even more MAHA WINS!”

[Category: DC Bureau, Gov & Politics, FDA, Gallup, Heidi Overton]

— New Mexico health officials warn of possible long ‘mosquito season,’ West Nile virus risk

 

at 8/20/26 9:34am

An undated photo of a female Culex mosquito. Mosquitos can be a serious vector in spreading diseases, such as West Nile virus. (Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)New Mexico Department of Health officials on Thursday said residents should prepare for a possible extended mosquito season, and people with weakened immune systems should be particularly cautious about avoiding bites. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE Mosquitos transmit West Nile virus, with cases normally arising in late summer. However, officials said fall forecasts of heavier rain and higher temperatures could extend the risk of mosquitos-born illnesses well into fall. “With above-average rain and heat forecasted for New Mexico through October, mosquito season may last longer than usual,” NMDOH state public health veterinarian Dr. Erin Phipps said in a statement. “West Nile virus is expected to persist until the first local hard freeze.” A state health news release cited new studies showing people taking medications that affect the immune systems known as B cell-depleting or B cell-modulating medications face higher risks for severe disease from viruses such as West Nile, and recommended residents on such medications discuss those impacts with their doctors. Officials also urged residents to take precautions against mosquito bites by using repellants approved by the Environmental Protection Agency; wearing long sleeves and pants at dusk and dawn; removing any water-holding items from the home or yard; and ensuring doors and windows have secure screens to keep mosquitos out. People can call the DOH helpline with questions at 1-833-SWNURSE; or text 66364.

[Category: Health, mosquito, West Nile virus]

— New Mexico should begin planning for the 2030 Census, expert tells state lawmakers

 

at 8/20/26 9:30am

University of New Mexico Geospatial and Population Studies Director Robert Rhatigan told state lawmakers on Aug. 19, 2026, that they should begin preparation for the 2030 U.S. Census by drafting state-tribal partnerships and funding programs related to confirming residential addresses in the 2027 legislative session. (Photo courtesy of Scott Dalton, U.S. Census Bureau.)New Mexico was considered the hardest-to-count state in the contiguous U.S. during the 2020 census, an expert told a panel of state lawmakers Wednesday while encouraging them to begin planning for the 2030 census. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE About 42% of the state’s population live in designated “hard-to-count areas,” which include communities with tribes and pueblos, families with young children, immigrants, refugees and other underrepresented people groups, University of New Mexico Geospatial and Population Studies Director Robert Rhatigan said during a presentation to lawmakers on two interim committees. How much federal funding states receive for certain programs relies on their population count from each decade’s census. In fiscal year 2016, for example, the federal government gave New Mexico nearly $8 billion based on the state’s 2010 census data. But ensuring an accurate count can often be difficult in a state as rural and mountainous as New Mexico, Rhatigan said. If an address isn’t on the U.S. Census Bureau’s master list, then questionnaires are not delivered, census workers don’t conduct follow-up visits there and the household is unlikely to be counted. For example, he said, many residents on the Navajo Nation lack proper addresses and instead rely on landmarks to give directions to and from their homes. In 2018, Rhatigan said the state had to submit more than 100,000 address additions or corrections to the federal data. “There’s about a million households in New Mexico and we found either 10% missing or placed in the wrong place,” he said. “On the Navajo Nation, these are very non-standard addresses. Somebody on their driver’s license could say: ‘Four miles north of the Chapter house.’ So we have to make sure that the Census Bureau knows exactly where that household is.” He also pointed to the Permian Basin, where oilfield workers who come from Texas and beyond might not consider themselves New Mexico residents. However, U.S. Census Bureau rules require that people report their residence as the place where they live and sleep “most of the time.” Rhatigan said he wants to see New Mexico’s next governor prioritize the 2030 census upon taking office in January. In particular, he said the governor should appoint a qualified liaison to work with the Local Update of Census Addresses program, which the U.S. Census Bureau offers for local government officials to review and improve the federal government’s residential address list before the once-a-decade count begins. That program was responsible for correctly counting more than 10% of one tribal community’s housing units in the 2020 census, Rhatigan said. In 2019, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Rhatigan to serve on the statewide 2020 Complete Count Commission, which published a list of recommendations for the 2030 census. Its biggest recommendations: Start early and invest in identifying accurate addresses. To accomplish those goals, Rhatigan said lawmakers should consider funding the LUCA program in the upcoming 2027 legislative session so that the work of reviewing and correcting addresses can begin next fall. He also urged them to craft a plan for collaborating with tribal governments. Rep. Elizabeth “Liz” Thomson (D-Albuquerque), a pediatric physical therapist, recalled working earlier in her career on Laguna Pueblo and trying to give directions over the phone without numbered addresses. She said she wants to see officials get ahead of such challenges as they gear up for the next census. “I would call for non-medical transportation…and I’d say, ‘You turn at the cattle guard and go past the third tree,’ and they’d say, ‘No. You have to have an address,’” she said during Wednesday’s hearing. “Where I grew up, in Crownpoint, you don’t get mail delivered — you have a Post Office box. I think that’s going to be another confounding factor.”

[Category: Gov & Politics, Native America, 2030 census, Rep. Liz Thomson, Robert Rhatigan, U.S. Census Bureau, university of new mexico]

— Cities turn to AI to speed housing permitting

 

at 8/20/26 9:20am

A person works on a condominium in Chicago. Some U.S. cities are trying to modernize the housing permitting process by adopting AI tools. (Photo by Robbie Sequeira/Stateline)New housing projects can sometimes stall out as a developer applies to city or county planning boards and goes through cycles of inspections, reviews and approvals.  Now, cities are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to address one of the most persistent sources of housing permitting delays: incomplete applications. And two new streams of federal money aim to help them. AI can handle time-intensive tasks such as scanning applications and flagging errors. The aim, some city officials say, is to eliminate repeated rounds of corrections that can add weeks or months to the process — but to leave final decisions in the hands of human reviewers. The sweeping new federal housing law enacted last month creates an Innovation Fund with $200 million annually for local efforts to speed up permitting. And the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is offering up to $3 million in grants for local governments to deploy automated building code permitting systems. Syracuse, New York, applied for one of the HUD grants, along with cities across the country, including Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Mobile, Alabama; and Richland, Washington.  Vincent Scipione, chief information officer for Syracuse, told Stateline that if the city wins the grant, it would open up a competitive bidding process for vendors and ask them about two big topics: data governance and algorithm design. The city wants to install an AI system to assist developers to file more complete applications upfront thus reducing time needed for revisions. “Who owns the data that is being handled, and how is it being handled? That’s important,” Scipione told Stateline. “If it ends up being an AI-based solution, then algorithms that are involved and we need to ask what they are going to be handling?”  Large cities including Baltimore, Denver and Los Angeles have recently launched AI tools to streamline housing permitting, and smaller cities such as Everett, Washington; Lebanon, New Hampshire; and Naples, Florida, are following suit.   Texas’ Harris County, which includes Houston, this month put $750,000 toward an artificial intelligence program meant to speed up the permitting process for new construction projects. The Denver City Council voted in March to approve a five-year contract for an AI Guided Plan Review platform to reduce permitting backlogs, for around $4.6 million. A city official said only about 37% of applications are accepted on the first round, and the goal is to increase that to 80% with the new tool.  The lone dissenting vote — council member Flor Alvidrez — raised concerns about the inaccuracies of AI systems generally. She also said local architects and developers raised concerns with her that AI may not be ready to handle the complexity of zoning codes and site-specific conditions.  Matt Mudd, press secretary for Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Craig Greenberg, told Stateline the city is testing an AI-assisted residential permitting system aimed at reducing delays caused by incomplete applications. The pilot uses property information, Geographic Information System (GIS) data and local permitting requirements to flag missing or incomplete information before an application reaches a reviewer, with early testing capable of reducing “avoidable” resubmissions by 50% or more, Mudd said. The project is in the testing phase with a small group of builders and has not yet launched publicly. Mudd said employees remain responsible for permit reviews and final decisions. CivCheck Honolulu was one of the first cities to introduce AI into its permitting process with a tool called CivCheck. That program examines building permit applications to check applications against local codes and bylaws, flag missing information and guide applications through corrections.  Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, director of the city and county of Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting, said the better the quality and completeness of the applications, the better and faster the department’s review. Prior to agreeing to work with CivCheck, Takeuchi Apuna said, city officials made sure the vendor knew that they weren’t looking to replace staff. She wanted AI to replace time spent by city planners reading incomplete applications and sending them back, and free them up for more face-to-face meetings with developers. The rollout of Honolulu’s overhaul of its decades-old permitting process, which included a cloud-based platform called HNL Build as well as CivCheck, wasn’t entirely smooth, however. An anonymous survey of more than 150 employees — half the staff — in the weeks after HNL Build launched provided almost universally negative feedback and many urged  a return to the old system, the Honolulu Civil Beat reported.   The median wait time to obtain a new building permit dropped to 2.5 months from August through April — a 40% decrease compared with the same period a year earlier, a Civil Beat review found. So far, Honolulu has reported that CivCheck pre-screening has dropped permit reviews from an average of 3.4 review cycles per application to 1.4 cycles for single- and two-family residential projects. A single review cycle is the time spent by a planner examining a permit application, identifying problems or incomplete information, sending it back to the applicant for corrections, and then reviewing the revised application.  CivCheck applications averaged 7.7 corrections, compared with 23.5 corrections for applications that did not use CivCheck, and the average time an applicant spent going through the city’s permitting process decreased from 73 days to 32.5 days, both officials from the city and county of Honolulu and CivCheck told Stateline. “We want to get back to just the face-to-face and the more complex part of the review,” Takeuchi Apuna said.  She added that AI “doesn’t necessarily catch or know how to make the decision on” the grayer areas of a project — where a proposal might meet basic requirements on paper but have unusual site conditions or neighborhood impacts — while a planner knows the context and ambiguities to determine how a rule or code applies.   Seattle also crunched the numbers during its pilot of CivCheck and found it was 87% accurate on application completeness checks and 92% accurate on design-compliance checks. CivCheck showed an approximate 50% reduction in average days for intake review of permits and a 35% reduction in correction cycles per review. However, Seattle officials noted in their reports that while CivCheck showed promise, the city was not ready to adopt it fully. As of its June 2026 report, the city was still exploring funding and logistical support for tools such as CivCheck.  CivCheck told Stateline it was working with more than 20 cities, ranging from pilot projects to full implementation.  “When you can remove three, four or five review cycles of feedback and turn that into one review cycle, thats where you start to see material improvements in permit turnaround times,” said Cyrus Symoom, co-CEO of Clariti Software, a community development and permitting solutions provider that acquired CivCheck.  Their tool, Symoom said, is solely to be used as a fact-checker but isn’t meant to replace or take the place of human decision making on permits. Ultimately, if a mistake is made, it’s up to the planner to properly vet that information. “If youre just gonna take the existing (permitting) process and bring it digital without an idea of what part of the process you want to fix, youre not gonna see any real change,” he said.  A two-way street Zhenia Dulko, a planner and researcher with the educational and membership organization American Planning Association, said that group has identified more than 70 state and local cases of AI being used across planning functions, including 13 for zoning and development.  While automation can take technical and onerous work off planners’ plates, Dulko believes  it allows planners more time for the work AI cannot perform such as talking to residents, connecting stakeholders to projects and front-facing public engagement.  “AI will help speed up some of this work but there’s a lot of this planning work that doesn’t need AI because humans want to talk to humans about their ideas and visions, and find a way to finish that project.” Dulko said planners also consider factors such as the surrounding community, inclusion and equity goals that may be harder for an automated system to replicate. “Efficiency in terms of numbers is important but in terms of time its even more important,” Dulko said. “But we just should not miss these very other important things. We should remember that this is just one part of the permitting equation.”  An August 2026 Journal of Urban Economics paper looked at Los Angeles data on development timelines for all multifamily housing projects permitted by the city between 2010 and 2022. The analysis estimated that reducing approval times by 25% could have increased the rate of housing production by almost 24%, if the researchers accounted for both already-started projects that would have been finished sooner and the effect of incentivizing new development.  But some city officials caution that while AI can help speed the permitting process, applicants are responsible for some of the delays. “I think a lot of people assume that it’s all on the local permitting agencies, and think we’re this big black box that no one can figure out what we’re doing and that we’re just sitting on applications,” said Takeuchi Apuna. “It’s important to educate people and let them know that the applicant plays a major role. CivCheck helps address that role, but permitting is really a back-and-forth process. Applicants account for at least 50% of that whole dance and the actual review time.” Saf Rabah, CEO and founder of Govstream.ai, an AI tool that has contracted with Louisville and Bellevue, Washington, says the permitting process is a two-way street that relies on both city and developer. He said the process could use more guidance from cities to help applicants who may not be well-versed with building permitting. “A lot of people end up applying for the wrong permit and go down this rabbit hole when they upload their plans. There is no validation. There is no guidance. There is literally nothing. It is a minefield of ‘gotchas’ in front of a builder,” said Rabah.  Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.   This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Source New Mexico, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

[Category: Economy, Housing]

— New Mexico health officials warn of smoke impacts as Frijoles Fire grows to more than 3,000 acres

 

at 8/10/26 4:33pm

The Frijoles Fire, pictured Aug. 8, 2026, has grown to more than 3,000 acres as of Aug. 10, 2026. (Photo courtesy Santa Fe National Forest)New Mexico officials on Monday warned that smoke from the Frijoles Fire and other wildfires burning in the state poses health risks, particularly to the elderly and those with respiratory illnesses. Smoke from the Frijoles Fire, which is burning in the Pecos Wilderness and has grown to more than 3,000 acres, is currently visible from Santa Fe, Cundiyó, Nambe, Chimayó, Pojoaque and Española, according to Santa Fe National Forest officials. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE The Frijoles Fire was among eight, presumably lightning-caused wildfires that ignited last week in the Santa Fe National Forest, along with several others burning across the state as a heat wave collides with the expected onset of the monsoon season.  State health and environment department officials said in a news release that people should use the “5-3-1” visibility rule in assessing their smoke risk.  Those who are experiencing visibility limited to five miles due to smoke should limit their time outdoors if they are over age 65, pregnant or have a heart issue or respiratory illness.  People otherwise “more likely to be affected by smoke” should stay inside if visibility is less than three miles.  And everyone should stay inside if visibility is less than one mile due to smoke, the health department notice says, unless an evacuation notice is issued.  “As smoke from any fire impacts the state, we encourage residents to stay informed and take steps to protect their health,” said Cindy Hollenberg, air quality bureau chief for the New Mexico Environment Department, in a statement. The Frijoles Fire grew to roughly 3,300 acres Monday, marking a huge increase in acreage from the 500-acre footprint it reached Saturday. The fire remained 0% contained as of Monday morning, though crews were at work throughout the day building containment lines and dropping retardant and water on the blaze. No evacuation orders are currently in place, though Santa Fe County officials have alerted residents of Cundiyo and Cerro Piñon to be on “ready” status, which means they should work on creating a wildfire buffer around their home and also keep an eye on official announcements.  20260810_MapFrijolesFire

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, Frijoles Fire, Santa Fe National Forest, wildfire, wildfire smoke]

As of 8/26/26 11:45am. Last new 8/22/26 11:20am.