Border

NM to sue Trump administration over emergency declaration, calling president ‘desperate’

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The state of New Mexico will join a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the president’s  declaration of a national emergency to pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. California announced last week that it would sue the federal government. And California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said on the ABC Sunday morning talk show “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that New Mexico and five other states would join California in the lawsuit against the Trump administration. Update: In all, 16 states, including New Mexico, filed suit. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office did not  say exactly which states were involved, but confirmed the lawsuit would be filed.

Alejandro Macias

“A black hole of due process” in New Mexico

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In December 2016, a 24-year-old small business owner, who asked to be identified as “Boris,” joined a protest in his native Cameroon. The country’s English-speaking minority of nearly 5 million people had begun coalescing into a movement for equal rights, “to tell the government our griefs, to make them understand that we have pain in our hearts,” Boris, who was recently granted asylum after five months inside Cibola County’s immigrant detention center, tells New Mexico In Depth. Teachers and lawyers led the first wave of dissent that October. The educators fought for their students to learn in English. The attorneys argued their clients should stand before judges who spoke their own language.

Corecivic

Inside a private prison’s $150M deal to detain immigrants in New Mexico

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Just shy of his third year in the United States, 24-year-old oil pipeline worker Diego Navarro said goodbye to his California friends. It was early April, and the Oklahoma resident was anxious to return home, having used a break in his work schedule to make the trip west. Navarro, who entered the U.S. without documentation in 2014, typically worked 10- to 14-hour days as part of the country’s petroleum processing machine. But at a stop for gas during the drive back with a friend, Navarro was swept up in the billion-dollar business of private immigrant detention instead. This story was originally published by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Hillary Clinton

Balderas in Iowa to support Clinton

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Just weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas is in the Midwestern state to show his support for Hillary Clinton. Balderas will be headed to the Black and Brown Forum, a minority-focused presidential forum. Clinton will appear along with the other two major Democratic presidential hopefuls, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley. “I’m proud to stand in support of Hillary Clinton as she fights for the Democratic Presidential nomination,” Balderas said in a statement. “There are too many pressing issues facing Americans, and more specifically, minority communities that require bold leadership.”