New Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s top immigration official will face criminal charges in a fire that killed 40 migrants in Ciudad Juarez last month, with federal prosecutors saying he was remiss in not preventing the disaster despite earlier indications of problems at his agency’s detention centers.

The decision to file charges against Francisco Garduño, the head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, was announced late Tuesday by the federal Attorney General’s Office.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The governor of New Mexico scaled back a tax relief package on Friday based on concerns it could undermine future spending on public education, heath care and law enforcement while signing into law $500 individual tax rebates and the largest proposed spending plan in state history.

Vetoed items within the tax relief package included reduced tax rates on personal income, sales and business transactions as well as proposed credits toward the purchase of electric vehicles and related charging equipment.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Migrants fearing deportation set mattresses ablaze at an immigration detention center in northern Mexico, starting a fire that left 39 dead, the president said Tuesday following one of the the deadliest incidents ever at an immigration lockup in the country.

Hours after the fire broke out late Monday, rows of bodies were laid out under shimmery silver sheets outside the facility in Ciudad Juarez, which is across from El Paso, Texas, and a major crossing point for migrants. Ambulances, firefighters and vans from the morgue swarmed the scene.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s Legislature passed a $1.1 billion tax relief package Saturday at the close of its annual session as lawmakers tapped a financial windfall from oil production in efforts to break through entrenched cycles of poverty with tax refunds to working families with children, reduced tax rates and increased incentives for private industry.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s House of Representatives has endorsed new limitations on public access to police body-camera video when it captures images of nudity, violence, injury or death.

The 46-19 vote Thursday sent the bill to the Senate for consideration. Proponents of the initiative include the New Mexico State Police and associations representing county and municipal governments, including sheriffs’ departments.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico bill that would make it a crime to store firearms in places that children could access cleared a major hurdle with the endorsement of the state Senate on Friday.

New Mexico is among the top 10 states for firearms deaths per capita. Earlier this year, a 6-year-old student in Virginia shot his teacher, which renewed debates across the country about gun control and school safety.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Three defendants from an extended family arrested in a 2018 law enforcement raid on a ramshackle desert encampment rejected compromise offers from prosecutors to resolve kidnapping, terrorism and weapons charges in proceedings Friday at U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The man who was once Mexico’s top security official and in charge of fighting the drug cartels goes on trial Tuesday on charges he accepted millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for helping the powerful Sinaloa Cartel move drugs and its members avoid capture.

Genaro García Luna was best known as the mumbling, tough-looking former security secretary under ex-President Felipe Calderón who spearheaded the bloody war on cartels between 2006 and 2012.

A failed Republican candidate who authorities said was angry over his defeat and made baseless claims the election last November was “rigged” against him was arrested in connection with a series of drive-by shootings targeting the homes of Democratic lawmakers in New Mexico’s largest city.

Solomon Pena, 39, was arrested Monday evening, just hours after SWAT officers took him into custody and served search warrants at his home, police said.

MEXICO CITY, Nov 23 (NNN-Xinhua) — The Pacific Alliance leaders’ meeting, previously scheduled for Friday, is postponed due to the Peruvian Congress’ refusal to let President Pedro Castillo travel to Mexico, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.

“The Pacific Alliance meeting was suspended because the president of Peru was not allowed to attend,” Lopez Obrador, who has taken over the alliance’s temporary presidency from Castillo, announced during his daily press conference.