I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman signed onto a letter with Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., announcing opposition to the budget bill passed by the House because of large cuts to border security that would cut 870 Border Patrol agents and $272 million in funds for surveillance systems along the United States’ border with Mexico.
The letter was written by Schumer and co-signed by Bingaman and Tester.
The New York Times reported:
Support for their criticism came in testimony last week before a House Homeland Security subcommittee by Richard M. Stana of the Government Accountability Office. He reported that by the Border Patrol’s own standards, its agents had “operational control” over only 873 miles of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico in 2010, or about 44 percent.
However, chief of the Border Patrol Michael J. Fisher disputed the numbers used by Stana because of advances in surveillance technology and a doubling of the Border Patrol force since 2004.
With more than 20,700 agents last year, the Border Patrol has doubled in size since funding increases began in 2004. Arrests of illegal border crossers have dropped steeply, to 463,000 last year from 1.1 million in 2004.
