By Julia Goldberg | Editor-in-Chief
Good morning, everyone. Monday has arrived and a busy week awaits. Lawmakers will be convening in communities across New Mexico this week, tackling topics ahead of next year’s legislative session that include housing, energy and behavioral health, among other matters. We’ll be covering as much as we can, while crossing our fingers for rain. In the meantime, we’ve got news to start your day below, with more on the way at sourcenm.com Thanks for being here.
The New Mexico State Ethics Commission on July 10, 2026, announced it had officially sued the Corrections Department regarding probation officers’ coordination with federal immigration agents. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
New Mexico State Ethics Commission sues state Corrections secretary over probation ICE referrals
Just a week after filing new documentation alleging New Mexico Corrections Department probation officers’ widespread coordination with federal immigration agents, the State Ethics Commission on Friday announced it was proceeding with a lawsuit against Corrections Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero, Source’s Patrick Lohmann reports.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham joined lawmakers, cabinet officials, children and childcare providers on March 10, 2026, to sign her free, universal childcare initiative into law. (Photo by Joshua Bowling/Source NM)
New Mexico gov’s office argues universal childcare lawsuit is ‘imaginary constitutional crisis’
A Republican lawsuit pending before the New Mexico Supreme Court over the state’s universal childcare program is “less a legal challenge than a political lament.” So argued lawyers for New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the state Early Childhood Education and Care Department in new filings in the ongoing case, Source senior reporter Joshua Bowling reports.
Rogelio Bolufé poses for a picture at a Trump resort in Florida in an undated photo. The 43-year old Cuban was deported by ICE in May 2026 and claims mistreatment while in their custody, including in New Mexico. (Photo courtesy Haymel de la Vega)
From Alligator Alcatraz to Ecuador: A Cuban detainee's journey through ICE facilities
Source New Mexico sister publication the Arizona Mirror traces Rogelio Bolufé’s journey in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, prior to a deportation flight to Ecuador, a country the native Cuban had never visited. Bolufé also spent time at New Mexico’s CoreCivic-run Torrance County facility, and previously told Source's Patrick Lohmann that he was denied access to legal counsel and his legal documents.
From left, Regal horned lizard, reticulated Gila monster and Gray-checkered whiptail lizards can be found in the Antelope Pass area of the New Mexico bootheel, a territory conservationists say needs protection. (Photos by Joshua Emms and Brian Blais, courtesy of the New Mexico Herpetological Society)
Canadian company announces it has ‘abandoned’ push to mine gold at New Mexico lizard, dark sky haven
Source’s Patrick Lohmann reports New Mexico environmentalist groups are celebrating the continued preservation of an obscure corner of western Hidalgo County, following a Canadian company’s announcement that it no longer seeks to develop its gold and silver mining claims on public lands otherwise known for their abundance of lizards and dark skies.
ICYMI
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We're reading (and gifting) journalist (and Source contributor) Alicia Inez Guzmán’s New York Times story on a new study that says the U.S. underestimates the peril were Los Alamos National Laboratory to leak plutonium.
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