Latest news with #SourceNM
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Yahoo
ICE arrested an Albuquerque man. He ended up in the hospital. Now no one knows where he is.
Jesus Jose Carrero-Marquez, 30, right, and his family pose during a recent graduation celebration for their daughter at an Albuquerque school. Carrero-Marquez was hospitalized after a federal immigration law enforcement arrest May 31 in Albuquerque's South Valley. After being detained somewhere in Texas, his wife hasn't heard from him, and records show he's no longer in custody. (Photo courtesy Daniela Marina Diaz-Ortiz) Last Saturday around 8 a.m., as she followed her husband to a mechanic in Albuquerque's South Valley, Daniela Marina Diaz-Ortiz says she and her 5-year-old daughter watched, terrified, as federal immigration agents leapt out of four SUVs and pulled her husband to the ground. 'They stopped him and took him out of the car. They didn't ask him for any identification. They didn't tell him he was under arrest or anything like that,' she told Source in Spanish in an interview outside her home Monday afternoon. 'They just pulled him out of the car, threw him on the ground, putting their feet on his back and head. At that moment, they also lifted him up by his neck and forced him into the truck.' Jesus Jose Carrero-Marquez, 30, was hospitalized at the Presbyterian Hospital emergency room for hours, potentially due to injuries sustained in the arrest, his wife and others told Source NM. Agents who waited outside Carrero-Marquez's room told hospital workers that the detainee was a violent gang member, according to New Mexico Rep. Eleanor Chavez (D-Albuquerque), who advocates on behalf of working conditions for healthcare workers across the state. Chavez said she learned of the arrest from a hospital worker and relayed to Source what the worker told her. Diaz-Ortiz adamantly denied her husband is violent or a criminal or in a gang. Source's review of state and federal criminal records for Carrero-Marquez showed only a local traffic ticket in January. Instead, Diaz-Ortiz said he is a father and husband who makes a living as a Doordash delivery driver, while seeking asylum on behalf of himself and his family after being injured in a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro several years ago. The lawyer representing his appeal did not respond to requests for comment. Diaz-Ortiz showed Source photos the family is using in its asylum appeal that show what appear to be injuries to Carrero-Marquez's leg and back, which left him with a punctured lung and a limp, she said. Source could not determine why federal immigration authorities arrested Carrero-Marquez on May 31; why they purportedly took him to the hospital; where he is being detained; or whether he's been deported. ICE offers Albuquerque immigrant reprieve — for now A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to questions from Source about Carrero-Marquez's arrest, their alleged use of force or his current location. A spokesperson said the agency would respond but had not as of publication time after multiple requests. Source will update the story as necessary. Advocates, including Chavez and immigration lawyers, have tried since May 31 to find him, including enlisting the help of U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich's office. A Heinrich spokesperson said the office had made efforts to find him but that 'ICE is not providing timely or helpful responses to our inquiries.' A recent change to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention policies has made it difficult to determine whether someone is in jail and, if so, at which detention center, said Sophia Genovese, a lawyer for the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center who joined efforts this week to find Carrero-Marquez. Following his arrest, Carrero-Marquez called his wife from detention somewhere in El Paso, Diaz-Ortiz said, and described severe pain in his head and back from the arrest, she said. The last time she spoke to him, on Sunday, her husband 'told me that they were taking him away, that he didn't know where they were going, that he hadn't seen a judge to decide whether he would be ordered to leave the country or not.' When she hadn't heard from him again on Tuesday, Diaz-Ortiz told Source she felt certain he was gone. 'I believe my husband has already been deported,' she said, because otherwise, 'I believe he would have called me.' On Wednesday morning, Diaz-Ortiz said she woke up after a long night of making deliveries to check ICE detention records for updates, which she's done multiple times a day since his arrest. She discovered, and Source confirmed, he was no longer listed in custody as of Wednesday morning. And he still had not called her, she told Source. 'I still don't know anything about what happened to him,' she said. Carrero-Marquez's arrest follows the pattern of recent ICE detentions, which leave little trail for lawyers or advocates to follow, said Genovese with the Immigration Law Center. After being arrested and hospitalized, Carrero-Marquez called his wife from his hospital bed, she said. But hospital workers would neither confirm he was there nor allow her to see or speak with him in the emergency room, she said. While the hospital would not confirm that Carrero-Marquez was hospitalized, a spokesperson said it has 'Do Not Announce' protocols as part of federal patient privacy regulations and that patients may be under that protocol 'for many reasons.' The hospital staff had no choice but to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, the hospital worker told Chavez, the state representative. A spokesperson for Presbyterian told Source that, while it cannot discuss specific patients, it is legally required to cooperate with all law enforcement agencies. 'We do not have policies designed to help or hinder any law enforcement or other governmental agencies,' a spokesperson said in an emailed statement Friday. Confusion reigns in New Mexico's militarized border zone The officers took Carrero-Marquez to jail, likely to the Torrance County Detention Center in Estancia, Genovese said, though jail records never showed him being held there. Diaz-Ortiz was the first person to hear from him, a few days after the arrest, when he called from El Paso, she said. Before Wednesday, when his name disappeared completely, ICE records didn't say where he's being held, and instead only said 'Texas,' instead of a facility name and address. According to Genovese, he could have been held at either the El Paso Service Processing Center or at a nearby former Border Patrol holding facility intended for short-term use that ICE recently took over. The ICE takeover of the holding facility has resulted in confusion and difficulty for lawyers seeking to speak to their clients. It also means no one knows where detainees are being held. 'This is like a new trend, where we're seeing a lot of people have the exact same situation where… it just says, 'Texas.' It doesn't provide a detention facility,' Genovese said. As for why he might be in jail in the first place, Genovese said ICE agents increasingly have less discretion about detaining people who, like Carrero-Marquez, are appealing denials of asylum claims. According to online records and a document provided by Diaz-Ortiz, a judge denied Carrero-Marquez's asylum request in February. Records also show he is appealing that denial, and that the appeal is pending. While he has not yet received a final removal order, ICE has discretion to detain him during 'removal proceedings,' his current status., Genovese said. That said, given the sheer number of people currently in 'removal proceedings' with pending appeals, ICE typically would not find and detain people until a final removal order is issued, Genovese said. New Mexico sheriffs respond to federal 'sanctuary' list ICE, 'for very real capacity reasons, given the limited number of beds nationwide and the millions of cases pending at immigration court, frequently exercised discretion in the form of releasing people on their own recognizance pending their removal proceedings,' Genovese said But President Donald Trump's push for mass deportation has removed ICE's choice about when and where to arrest people, she said. 'It's changed now under the Trump administration, where there is a mandate, a requirement, that ICE make thousands of arrests per day,' she said. 'And they are targeting people with active removal proceedings, many of whom do not have any sort of interaction with law enforcement which would trigger mandatory detention.' Carrero-Marquez's daughter recently celebrated graduation at a South Valley school. His wife shared a picture showing the three of them smiling, with her in a graduation gown. Since witnessing her father's arrest, the girl is depressed, Diaz-Ortiz said, and afraid of anyone who looks like a police officer. Diaz-Ortiz doesn't know whether ICE will come next for her or her daughter, whether she should enroll her daughter back in school or what to do next. But she still has to work. On Tuesday, she took her daughter along with her as she made deliveries for DoorDash, she said, suddenly the sole caregiver and sole income earner in her family. Amid the confusion and uncertainty about her husband's whereabouts, Diaz-Ortiz said she is terrified about the prospect of him being deported back to Venezuela due to his injuries and the government's repressive policies. 'In Venezuela you can't speak freely or say what you want because they attack you,' she said. 'We came here for a better future.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New Mexico health officials: Measles sample detected in Roswell wastewater testing
(Rimma Bondarenko/ Getty Images) New Mexico public health officials on Tuesday announced wastewater testing in Roswell had identified a positive sample for measles. A state health department news release said the June 3 sample result will not impact the number of cases in the state, which requires a diagnosis and often a laboratory confirmation of a sample taken from a person. The sample comes as part of a wastewater testing initiative NMDOH undertook starting in mid-March, conducting weekly wastewater measles testing in Albuquerque/Bernalillo County, Carlsbad, Chaparral, Deming, Las Cruces, Portales, Rincon, Rio Rancho, Roswell, Santa Fe and the South Central treatment plant in Doña Ana County. In an interview with Source NM, NMDOH Medical Epidemiologist Dr. Daniel Sosin said the agency is partnering with researchers at Rice University in Houston Texas for that testing. The wastewater results have limits, and don't reveal when, where or even how many people might have measles. But they do provide warning. In this case, the positive result from Roswell indicates more cases might be coming in Chaves County, NMDOH says. Chaves County 's last measles case was recorded on April 5. As of Tuesday, New Mexico measles infections remain unchanged at 81 cases. Sosin said the wastewater testing program augments the department's strategies for increasing vaccine availability and contract-tracing known cases, and likened the approach to layers of Swiss cheese. 'If you have enough slices, you cover the holes so cases don't slip through,' Sosin said. 'Wastewater is one more layer that helps us monitor for a condition that we don't expect to see in all parts of the state, but could see and want early recognition for.' Sosin said measles wastewater testing is better for early detection or asymptomatic spread, and those detections could mean putting area doctors on alert for additional cases. The major limitation of wastewater surveillance, he said, is the tool is only precise for a general picture and cannot be narrowed further. 'We can't follow up for contact tracing or notifications to reduce ongoing transmission,' Sosin said. 'It's really more of an indicator that [measles] is there and we should be watching more carefully for it.' Sosin said the best guidance to the public remains the recommendation to get two doses of the vaccine to prevent contracting and spreading the measles. The state says since Feb. 1, 34,210 New Mexicans have received MMR shots. Measles symptoms can appear one to three weeks after contact with airborne droplets from an infected person's coughs or sneezes. They include fever, cough, red eyes usually followed by a spotted red rash spreading from the head to the body. Measles can be spread in days before and after symptoms emerge. NMDOH urges any people with symptoms to stay at home and contact the NMDOH Helpline at 1-833-796-8773 for further questions about testing, vaccines or treatment. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Progress takes time, and New Mexico children can't afford to wait
New Mexico ranked last for child well-being in the 2025 edition of the annual national KIDS COUNT report. (Photo by Gino Gutierrez for Source NM) New Mexicans are a people of strength, resilience, and deep-rooted pride—shaped by our commitment to community and our dedication to the well-being of families. That's why it's painful to reconcile our values with the news in this week's release of state rankings on child well-being from the Annie E. Casey Foundation's annual KIDS COUNT® Data Book. Once again, New Mexico is ranked 50th. Two things are true: progress takes time—and our children can't afford to wait. This year's data reflects conditions from 2023—before the full impact of many recent policy changes has had time to take hold. These include expanded child care assistance, increased Pre-K funding, and expanded health care access. These efforts matter, and in time, they will move the needle. But today, too many children are still waiting for the resources they need. We can't expect our ranking to change if we don't develop a comprehensive set of bold, targeted policies to uplift the children in our state. This legislative session, NM Voices for Children and our partners fought hard for such policies. We championed Paid Family and Medical Leave, a strong family-first safety net, but it died in the Legislature. We advocated for a fairer tax system so that families struggling to meet basic needs would be supported, but it was vetoed. We stood with Native leaders to support Indigenous-led education, and preserve Native sovereignty, languages, and cultures within the education system, but it was left unsigned. This must change. Despite these setbacks, we have made real and measurable progress. New Mexico is a national leader in free child care for most families and free school meals for all students. We also made historic investments in early childhood education, a state Child Tax Credit to help working families meet basic needs, and expanded health care access for more New Mexican families. Many of these gains have been hard won over the past seven years, thanks to the leadership of our current governor and legislators. We must also recognize that meaningful progress spanned across multiple administrations, such as the 2013 Medicaid expansion, which expanded vital health care to thousands more New Mexicans. Let's remember the lessons of past transitions. For instance, previous administrations have made decisions that disrupted critical services, such as behavioral health care. As we approach an election year and a new governor sets their agenda, we must remain focused, loud, and strong in advocating to put children first. Too many children and families face unaffordable housing and limited access to employment opportunities with benefits and a living wage. Looming federal proposals threaten to make the situation worse. Deep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and education programs would hurt millions of New Mexicans. Here, three in four children rely on Medicaid, and more than one-third of SNAP recipients are children. For immigrant families, the fear of deportation continues to block access to vital services. But there is reason for hope. New Mexico has the tools, the vision, and the collective will to lead. Just as we have made progress on early childhood education, tax fairness, and expanding Medicaid, we must do the same in housing, K–12 education, economic mobility, and protection of mixed-status families to ensure that all children can thrive. We need our state's leaders to make housing affordable, raise the minimum wage, pass paid family and medical leave, and advance culturally relevant education. Once these laws are passed and the budget is signed, we need swift and effective implementation, so our kids don't have to wait. New Mexico's future depends on how we care for our children and families today. This means building a state where every child has a real shot at a bright, healthy, and secure future—regardless of their zip code, race, or immigration status. We must not lose sight of the fact that our work is about the lives of children.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Homeland Security accelerates border wall construction in New Mexico and Arizona
A stretch of the border wall near Columbus, New Mexico along State Road 9. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM) The U.S. government this week set aside environmental protection laws in order to speed up border wall construction along approximately 20 miles of New Mexico's border with Mexico. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday signed a waiver of various federal laws to expedite border wall construction in southwestern New Mexico. She also signed two similar waivers for areas in neighboring Arizona on Tuesday and Thursday. Taken together, the waivers allow the federal government to speed up construction of physical barriers and roads along approximately 36 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, the agency said in a news release on Thursday. The waivers 'ensure the expeditious construction of physical barriers and roads, by minimizing the risk of administrative delays,' DHS said. The New Mexico waiver lifts the legal requirements of 24 separate federal statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, just to name a few. 'Trump is recklessly casting aside the foundational laws that protect endangered species and clean air and water to build a wildlife-killing wall through pristine wilderness,' Laiken Jordahl, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Source NM on Friday. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told Source NM on Friday in a statement that she has serious concerns about the waivers, saying they bypass protections for endangered species, cultural heritage sites and Native American artifacts. 'New Mexico's archaeological resources and sensitive ecosystems could face permanent damage without proper environmental review,' Lujan Grisham said. 'While we understand border security concerns, the federal government should engage with state officials before waiving decades of established environmental protections.' The New Mexico waiver designates an area in southwestern New Mexico as 'an area of high illegal entry,' divided into three sections. The DHS news release states that the sections of the border where the laws have been waived total approximately 8.5 miles, but that figure is inaccurate, according to Jordahl, who has traveled to every part of the U.S.-Mexico border as part of his work. 'It is extremely frustrating how difficult they make these waivers to track,' he said. 'Instead of using simple [latitude and longitude] coordinates, they pick landmarks that are almost impossible for the public to map. I believe they may have made an error in their locations in the waiver.' One section starts at a point on the border just south of Antelope Wells in Hidalgo County and extends one-tenth of a mile east, according to International Boundary and Water Commission data. Jordahl told Source NM he found the same measurements using his own map of the border. This section is already walled off, and so DHS is likely adding another layer of wall, he said. Another section begins at a point on the border just south of Wamels Draw, a valley in Luna County, and extends approximately 7.5 miles east. This section of the border already has vehicle barriers, but is not walled off yet, Jordahl said. Building a border wall along this particular stretch would be the most environmentally damaging by far, Jordahl said, because it would threaten the movement and migration of Mexican gray wolves. 'We've seen Mexican gray wolves in this area; we've seen them cross the border,' he said. 'We've also seen them push up against the border wall in New Mexico, wander along it for days and then ultimately have to turn around, being unable to cross.' Jordahl said his organization's focus lies on Arizona's two waivers and potential wall construction, which would also threaten wildlife. 'Throwing taxpayer money away to wall off the Santa Cruz River and San Rafael Valley would be a death sentence for jaguars, ocelots and other wildlife in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands,' he said. 'This is happening while border crossings are at the lowest level in decades. We'll fight this disastrous project with everything we've got.' The third section starts at a point on the border west of Santa Teresa and extends approximately 12.4 miles, over Mount Cristo Rey, to the Rio Grande near El Paso. This section already has older mesh border walls, and DHS may be installing newer walls there, Jordahl said. The sections of the border described in the waiver lie in the same general area as the New Mexico National Defense Area, a newly created military buffer zone which the U.S. government is trying to use — along with novel criminal charges — to discourage people from crossing the border. Gov. Lujan Grisham, in the statement provided to Source, urged meaningful consultation with state and local officials before the federal government begins construction that 'could cause lasting harm to our communities and environment.' 'New Mexico's natural and cultural resources deserve consideration in this process,' she said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
By the #s: Federal prosecutors slow down on charges for unauthorized entry into NM's military base
The border wall seen from the northern edge of the New Mexico National Defense Area east of Columbus, N.M. in late May. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM) Federal prosecutors this month charged fewer people for allegedly trespassing on the newly established military base along New Mexico's border with Mexico, according to a Source New Mexico review of federal court records. Over the last two months or so, 570 people have been charged for 'unauthorized entry' into what is now effectively a military base along the border, Source's review shows. On April 15, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the transfer of land from the Bureau of Land Management to the military, effectively making the 180-mile border New Mexico shares with Mexico into an extended military base tied to Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Along with empowering the United States Army to patrol the border and temporarily detain people they found, the transfer exposed people arrested to a new criminal charge of unauthorized entry, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. The area transferred to the military is a little more than 400 square miles, minus state and private land, running roughly along the New Mexico Panhandle and south of Highway 9 before Hachita. Prosecutors announced the new type of criminal charge in late April and began filing charging documents soon after, with as many as 58 people facing the new misdemeanors in a single day in early May. But the charges quickly proved vulnerable to legal challenges based, partly, on whether people knew they were illegally entering a military base. The military has posted small warning signs in English and Spanish along the northern and southern borders of the so-called National Defense Area that entry is prohibited. On May 14, a federal judge dismissed more than 100 of the charges, after federal public defenders raised the issue on behalf of their clients. The dismissals coincided with a one-day dip in the number of unauthorized entry charges being brought, according to Source's review. The number of daily charges picked up again before beginning to decline early this month. Since May 30, just 11 people have been charged with unauthorized entry, according to federal filings. The reason for the decrease is unclear, including whether it's because fewer people are crossing or whether federal prosecutors have changed their strategy. Tessa Duberry, a spokesperson for the office, did not respond to a request for comment on the decrease. In addition to the judge's dismissals, the U.S. Attorney's Office dismissed at least three of its own unauthorized entry charges due to confusion about where the boundaries of the NDA lie. Confusion reigns in New Mexico's militarized border zone Meanwhile, the Army has warned hunters and hikers that they could be prosecuted if they enter the area, but per an informal agreement, ranchers can drive past the signs without issue as they tend to cattle they graze on former BLM land they lease in the NDA. Public defenders are also challenging the charge in a couple of individual cases, including one instance in which the charging documents suggest the arrestee was picked up in Arizona, and another involving a citizen of Uzbekistan who, her attorneys argue, didn't read or speak English or Spanish and therefore couldn't have known she was entering a restricted area. U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) this week questioned Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll in a Congressional committee hearing, saying widespread confusion exists about who can enter the area and 'where the boundaries of this military zone actually start and where they end.' Driscoll said the Army would work on improving signage and communication with people in the area and members of Congress. 'The army is working incredibly hard with our soldiers to put out signage. We have taken it over recently,' he responded.
