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.
An Albuquerque grand jury indicted three men with 386 counts of fraud, forgery, conspiracy, making false affidavit perjury and altered, forged or fictitious New Mexico driver’s licenses for over 60 Chinese immigrants living in New York, reports the AP.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent out letters to 39 governors Friday, terminating all existing Memoranda of Agreement between states and ICE for the Secure Communities program, which shares fingerprints collected by state and local law enforcement to deport criminals.
The New Mexico Supreme Court has overruled Republican Gov. Susana Martinez’s decision to fire the entire state Public Employee Labor Relations Board. Martinez must now rehire two of the three board members that she dumped without the authority to do so back in February.
The Senate amended another of Gov. Susana Martinez’s legislative priorities on Saturday, this time a law that would have required all those arrested for felonies to have their DNA put into a crime database. The amending of the expansion of an already existing law, known was “Katie’s Law,” shows another rift between the governor’s desires and that of the state Senate.
A law that would require DNA to be taken from all individuals arrested for felonies, one of Gov. Susana Martinez’s legislative priorities, has wide bipartisan support and will likely land on the governor’s desk for her signature. But after the bill is passed it will face court challenges from civil liberties groups that say the law with the tenet of being innocent until proven guilty.
Gov. Susana Martinez announced today that she is seeking an expansion to Katie’s Law to require DNA samples to be taken from all felony arrests in the state. At a Monday press conference, Martinez announced that she’ll be moving the state DNA lab from Santa Fe back to Albuquerque.
In lieu of federal inaction on immigration policy, at least 25 states will soon consider legislation that mirrors Arizona’s new immigration law, SB 1070, one of the strongest immigration-enforcement measures in decades.
The DREAM Act, a bill that would allow some undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to stay in the country legally, will come up for a vote as a standalone bill sometime before the end of the year, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). This is the last chance to pass the bill before Republicans take control of the House, but even with Democratic majorities, the bill could fail during the lame-duck session.
Over the past four years New Mexico has given up more than $18 million to two private prison operators in the form of never-assessed penalties despite repeated contractual violations, a new legislative report says. The state has not regularly tracked vacancy rates at private prisons and had not even calculated how much the private prison companies might have owed if the state has penalized them for not having enough staff.
A lawsuit filed 22 years ago is still costing New Mexico money and one Senator wants to cut the cash. Sen. Rod Adair threw out the word ‘scam’ as he described the millions of dollars the state has paid in…
Last week we wrote about the bleak financial picture for New Mexico come January — a possible $1 billion shortfall, and many tough, tough decisions still to come. Well, the Land of Enchantment isn’t the only state to face…
Earlier this year New Mexico state lawmakers trimmed what the state spends on corrections, as well as a lot of other places in the budget, as a result of the sluggish economy.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico is suing a privately-run prison in Clayton for imposing cruel and unusual punishment, charging that in December, 2008, prison guards kept seven nude or semi-nude prisoners locked in a cold…
