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Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Yahoo
After El Paso joined Abbott's border crackdown, the number of dead migrants in the New Mexico desert surged
Editor's note: This story includes images of skeletal human remains found by volunteers in the desert. This article is co-published and co-reported with the Source New Mexico, an independent, nonprofit newsroom and affiliate of States Newsroom. SANTA TERESA, New Mexico — On a hot morning in September, after hours of trekking through the Chihuahuan desert, Abbey Carpenter and her partner James Holeman spotted a pile of scattered bones. Near a yucca plant, a human jawbone lay partially buried in the sand. Around it were vertebrae, femurs and ribs. Next to the bones, they saw a woman's purple underwear with two tiny hearts on the corner and a Salvadoran passport. The bones were among six sets of human remains they found that month. Carpenter and Holeman founded a volunteer group in 2020 called Battalion Search and Rescue to search for migrant bodies in this patch of desert just west of El Paso. They took photos and recorded the coordinates on their cell phone. They tied a pink ribbon to a nearby branch. Later, they mailed the passport to the Salvadoran consulate and reported the body to the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office in New Mexico — even though the sheriff sometimes doesn't respond and has accused volunteers of planting bones in the desert. Since September 2023, the group has found 27 sites with human remains in the desert, Holeman said. 'How did we get to this place as a country that we think so poorly of migrants?' Carpenter said during a recent search in the desert. Historically, Border Patrol's El Paso sector — which includes all 180 miles of New Mexico's border with Mexico and 84 miles of El Paso and Hudspeth counties in West Texas — has had among the fewest migrant deaths across the southern border. That changed in late December 2022, according to an investigation by The Texas Tribune and Source New Mexico, when the city of El Paso joined forces with Gov. Greg Abbott to participate in his signature border mission, called Operation Lone Star. By 2024, the El Paso sector had become the deadliest place for migrants to cross along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. From January 2023 to August 2024, 299 human remains were reported in the El Paso sector, the most of any sector along the southern border, according to the most recent data available from federal government data. That's more than double the number of cases reported during the 20 months prior, when 122 remains were recorded before El Paso had adopted Operation Lone Star. Since El Paso joined Texas' border mission in 2022, migrant remains discovered in the El Paso sector have increased every year, even as they have declined in every other part of the border. 'We have people dying in New Mexico deserts because of Texas policies,' said New Mexico state Rep. Sarah Silva, a Democrat from nearby Las Cruces. Though many factors determine where and when someone crosses an international border — including federal immigration policies, organized crime and natural disasters — experts and advocates say any policy that pushes migrants into the desert will likely cost lives. Immigrant rights groups and researchers say more migrants are taking deadlier routes to enter the country since Texas launched Operation Lone Star in 2021 — flooding the border with state troopers, National Guard and miles of razor wire — as the federal government's ever-changing immigration policies have delayed or blocked migrants who want to claim asylum in the U.S. 'Any state lawmaker or local leader should be aware that these policies come at a human cost,' said Aimée Santillán, a policy analyst at the Hope Border Institute, an immigrant rights advocacy group in El Paso. 'So anyone that decides to approach this type of enforcement is making a decision that they can live with these deaths.' Meanwhile, bodies lie in the desert, unidentified, for months at a time. Eight months after Carpenter and Holeman's group reported the set of six remains to authorities, many of the bones were still there. It remains unclear how New Mexico state and local officials intend to address the need for more resources to retrieve and identify the bodies. The striking increase in deaths in the New Mexico and West Texas desert is part of a global surge in migration. According to United Nations statistics from 2024, the number of immigrants worldwide has doubled since 1990, with 304 million people living in a country other than the one in which they were born. Last year was also the deadliest on record for migrants worldwide, according to the UN's International Organization for Migration. 'The rise in deaths is terrible in and of itself, but the fact that thousands remain unidentified each year is even more tragic,' said Julia Black, coordinator of IOM's Missing Migrants Project. Neither the Trump administration nor elected officials from Texas or New Mexico have addressed the issue, even as the number of bodies discovered has skyrocketed. Abbott's office blamed former President Joe Biden's 'open-border policies' for the loss of life when asked for comment. 'The heartbreaking increase in deaths is the direct result of the chaos President Biden unleashed on the border,' said Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott's press secretary. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also laid the blame on the federal government. 'While state officials are sometimes called upon to respond to emergencies, immigration remains a federal responsibility. Gov. Lujan Grisham has consistently called on every administration — Trump, Biden, and now Trump again — to fulfill federal obligations at the border and provide adequate resources for humanitarian and law enforcement efforts,' her spokesperson Jodi McGinnis Porter said in an email. Holeman, 67, started volunteering with a search and rescue group in 2018 named Aguilas del Desierto — which is Spanish for 'the Desert Eagles.' Holeman, a retired Marine veteran, said that as part of his military experience, he saw other countries returning dead American soldiers back to their families. He recognized the U.S. government doesn't provide the same benefit to the families of migrants, so he wanted to help fill this gap. He and Carpenter, 60, chose the New Mexico-Mexico border because it's an area where groups in California, Arizona and Texas don't come to regularly. They named the group Battalion Search and Rescue, named for St. Patrick's Battalion, an Irish immigrant military unit that defected from the U.S. to fight with the Mexicans in the U.S.-Mexico War. Once a month, a group of self-trained volunteers scours the desert for lost and missing migrants. The goal is to help save lives when they can, but for those who can't be saved, they hope to provide closure for families who want to be reunited with their loved ones and given an opportunity for a proper burial. 'We're just trying to fill a gap where the government is falling short,' Holeman said. Among those whom the group has helped reunite with family is Ada Guadalupe López Montoya of El Salvador, who died at the age of 33 last year. The last time her family heard from her, López Montoya was in Ciudad Juárez, preparing to cross the border into El Paso — her second attempt to enter the United States. When she stopped responding to her family, they called the Armadillos Search and Rescue, a San Diego-based humanitarian group. Cesar Ortigoza, 51, who co-founded that rescue group, called Holeman in New Mexico to ask if their group had found López Montoya, who had been reported missing since July 2023. Holeman searched his records and found that he had come across her passport, located next to human remains in September. Two months later, Ortigoza flew to El Paso, drove to Santa Teresa, New Mexico, and hiked 3 miles to the site. He called the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office to report that the remains may belong to López Montoya, whose family had been searching for her for over a year. The Sheriff's Office sent officials from the New Mexico Office of Medical Investigator, who arrived about eight hours later to recover the remains. 'As an immigrant myself, it's important that families know what happened to their loved ones,' Ortigoza said. Countless other families are still waiting for news of relatives who have disappeared while crossing the border. Some turn to Facebook, creating groups titled 'Desaparecí cruzando la frontera,' Spanish for 'I disappeared crossing the border,' with fliers depicting loved ones. Among them is 41-year-old Laura Tavares Vazquez of Guanajuato, Mexico. For nearly three years, her family has repeatedly posted a flyer with the coordinates of where she was last seen near Santa Teresa. Tavares Vazquez, who left her children behind, had called a relative from the desert to tell her she wouldn't make it, the family wrote in a post. She felt weak and had an unbearable thirst that kept her from walking. A group she was hiking with through the desert left her behind on June 11, 2022. 'That's when our nightmare began,' the family wrote on Facebook. 'It's such a hopeless feeling not knowing what happened to her, where she is, if she's okay, who has her and why, or where did they leave her behind.'. A relative, through a family spokesperson, declined to be interviewed, explaining that over the years, people have attempted to extort the family — offering to find Tavares Vazquez if the family pays an undisclosed amount of money. In March 2021, Abbott announced Operation Lone Star, a military mission to deter immigrants from crossing the Rio Grande illegally. As part of this multibillion-dollar mission, Abbott sent hundreds of National Guard soldiers and state troopers to different parts of the 1,200-mile Texas-Mexico border. At the end of fiscal year 2022, six months after the state border mission began, Border Patrol reported finding 651 bodies along the Texas-Mexico border, more than triple the total from just three years prior. Maverick County, home to Eagle Pass, quickly saw an increase in migrant bodies washing up onto the American side of the Rio Grande. In summer 2023, Abbott deployed a 1,000-foot barrier there, made up of buoys to block migrants from crossing the river. That same summer, Mexican authorities reported a migrant had been found dead — stuck to one of the floating orange spheres. The number of migrant bodies discovered on the riverbank of the Rio Grande in Maverick County jumped from 51 in 2021 to 132 the following year, according to data compiled by Stephanie Leutert, the director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin and a former State Department official under Biden. El Paso, a binational Democratic stronghold, resisted for more than a year issuing a disaster declaration that would have resulted in joining Operation Lone Star, in part because officials disagreed with Abbott's military approach. That changed toward the end of 2022, when thousands of migrants crossed the border from Juárez into El Paso, forcing the county and city to scramble to find enough shelter space for those sleeping on the streets after Border Patrol processed and released them. Texas border cities and counties were incentivized to join the border because they would get state funding and other resources. By joining Operation Lone Star, then-El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser hoped to get state-sponsored buses to transport migrants out of the city and take the pressure off the overflowing shelters. Abbott quickly sent state police and National Guard soldiers to El Paso and rolled out miles of concertina wire on the banks of the Rio Grande between El Paso and Juárez. The soldiers also began firing pepper balls, a chemical irritant, at migrants to deter them from crossing the river. Sophia Genovese, an attorney with the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, said last fall she represented a man in his 30s who was deported to Mexico and later crossed the Rio Grande from Juárez into El Paso. She said the man, who had grown up in Tennessee, tried to explain to soldiers that he was seeking asylum and wanted to surrender to Border Patrol agents. The soldiers, Genovese said, shot him with rubber bullets. He was eventually able to get past soldiers and turn himself into Border Patrol, Genovese said. 'We're really concerned. We've had clients in the past who enter through the El Paso port of entry, or near the El Paso port of entry, who are being subjected to really intense violence by the National Guard,' she said. 'Texas is very keen on participating in those enforcement operations. We're going to see more loss of life.' Leeser declined to comment. El Paso City Council member Josh Acevedo, who has opposed the city's participation in Operation Lone Star, said the effects of the border mission in this area should serve as an example that this type of enforcement causes more harm than good. He said Abbott should collaborate with New Mexico in preventing these deaths. 'But how do you get the governor of Texas, who is full of theatrics and lacks solutions, to be collaborative?' he said. Adam Isacson, a regional security expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, said smugglers take advantage of such clampdowns on the American side, making promises to vulnerable people, who are desperate to enter the U.S., that they can guide them around the blockades for a fee. 'The use of New Mexico in particular, really seems to have increased when Operation Lone Star put more people on the line, and it was just harder to turn yourself in the El Paso city limits,' he said. The trend has repeated itself for decades across the southwest border under Democratic and Republican administrations. 'The prediction is that with traditional entry and smuggling routes disrupted, illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing and more suited for enforcement,' according to a Border Patrol plan from 1994 signed off by Doris Meissner, the former commissioner of U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. In 1993, El Paso Sector Border Patrol Chief Silvestre Reyes launched Operation Hold the Line, which at the time used a novel approach to deter illegal immigration in the popular crossing point: a visible blockade of Border Patrol agents spaced along the border with Juárez. The approach sent apprehensions plummeting by 76% by the end of fiscal year 1994 in the sector. The Clinton administration decided to try it in the San Diego sector, which at the time accounted for 42% of apprehensions along the southern border. But the new vigilance in San Diego and El Paso quickly shifted the migrant flows to the Tucson sector in Arizona, which saw apprehensions increase by nearly 600% between 1992 and 2004, according to Border Patrol data. Migrants increasingly looked for other places to cross, and that often led them through remote terrain where they could easily run out of water and die of dehydration. A 2009 congressional report found that these operations led to more deaths in rural areas of the border. 'One unintended consequence of this enforcement posture and the shift in migration patterns has been an increase in the number of migrant deaths each year; on average 200 migrants died each year in the early 1990s, compared with 472 migrant deaths in 2005,' the report said. Meissner, who is now a senior fellow and director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the nonpartisan think tank Migration Policy Institute, has said she regrets this strategy because of the increase in migrant deaths. 'The Border Patrol expected that there would be crossings in areas that were more dangerous. They didn't expect that it would be in the numbers that ultimately materialized. Migrants are in desperate circumstances, they make desperate choices,' she said in a 2019 interview with The New York Times. It's nearly impossible to determine how many people have died trekking through the desert. In part because bodies will deteriorate over time if they're not found. Congress requires Border Patrol to collect data on how many migrants have died. But the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the Border Patrol 'has not collected and recorded, or reported to Congress, complete data on migrant deaths.' Bryce Peterson, a volunteer and researcher with No More Deaths, an Arizona search group, said such groups have taken on the responsibility of collecting data because the federal government isn't doing its job. 'Things like the El Paso sector migrant death database are really filling in for what should be a government function, but government has failed miserably at it,' he said. As deaths continued to increase year after year, New Mexico's border counties and state agencies have been unprepared for the task of finding and collecting migrants' bodies — or unwilling to tackle it. New Mexico's 180-mile border with Mexico is rural Chihuahuan desert, and the rough terrain should be a deterrent for many, said Michael Brown, a Luna County Sheriff captain, who has found migrant bodies. But with the border crackdown in Texas, Brown said his state needs to prepare itself because he expects more immigrants crossing through. 'The [New Mexico] governor is going to have to come to the realization that this is something that potentially could happen,' he said. 'The federal government is going to have to realize that they've created a vacuum. They're going to have to deal with this eventually themselves.' In a statement, a spokesperson for the governor's office said State Police perform more than 100 humanitarian rescues each summer in response to reports, demonstrating her office's commitment to preserving life 'regardless of circumstances.' But the governor's office did not address questions about whether officials have a plan to search for, identify and repatriate remains when local or federal officials won't. More than one in four bodies found in New Mexico since 2021 is unidentified, according to an Tribune and Source analysis. In Texas, just under 7% of the people found in that period are unidentified. Lujan Grisham's office did not respond to a question about why that might be, though a spokesperson said that sites where bodies are discovered are often potential crime scenes. As a result, proper investigative protocols must be followed before repatriation can occur. In Texas, counties spend an average of $13,100 per case to collect, investigate and bury remains, according to a May 2020 University of Texas report. Though, some border counties have taken shortcuts to reduce that cost, such as not ordering an autopsy or DNA test, the report says. In New Mexico, the medical investigator's office said it has not tracked migrant deaths in the past because the number of bodies was so low. But with the recent increase in remains being found, the state will need to address the issue soon by hiring more medical investigators to avoid a backlog that would delay the identification process, according to a research article by New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator. New Mexico Sen. Crystal Diamond, R-Elephant Butte, who sponsored a failed bill in the last legislative session that would have appropriated state funds to help with humanitarian efforts, said border counties in the state need help addressing the large increase in deaths at the border. 'I think what people don't want to talk about is the cost of the humanitarian efforts, and it is the counties bearing that weight,' she said. McGinnis Porter, the governor's spokesperson, said in a statement that another challenge is that migration patterns are complex and ever-changing, 'driven by multiple factors, with cartels and human trafficking organizations choosing routes and drop-off locations that change frequently.' 'Any loss of life is a tragedy, and our hearts go out to the families of those who have died crossing into New Mexico,' McGinnis Porter added. Meanwhile, Doña Ana County, which is immediately west of El Paso, has 10 field deputy medical investigators — the most of any county in New Mexico — but 'they may be overwhelmed by the increased numbers of deaths,' a medical investigators' research article says. Carpenter and Holeman say that they've called the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office to report remains they've found. But her office has told them they don't have deputies to respond, they said. Doña Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart has said that bodies found in her jurisdiction are not her priority. She has also dismissed Carpenter and Holeman's efforts, saying she believes they are spreading misinformation and planting bones. She has also suggested the volunteers are discovering prehistoric bones. Stewart's office did not respond to requests for comment. 'I don't know where they come from. I don't know how long they've been there. I don't know if they've been planted there,' she told KTSM, a local TV station. 'If [the volunteers] are not going to stand by until we arrive, because [they] are too busy roaming the desert looking for I don't know what, we're not going to take these very seriously.' Longtime rancher Nancy Clopton is still haunted by the sight of a dead woman she found on her property years ago. Clopton was tending to the water tank for her cattle in the New Mexico desert 100 miles west of El Paso. Temperatures in that stretch of desert near Hachita hit 110 degrees that week in 2021. She walked along the curved edge of the 50,000-gallon steel tank and was startled to see a person, dressed in camo, seated on its concrete skirt. She couldn't quite make out the person's face, but she guessed she was looking at a young woman. 'I yelled at her several times and got fairly close, maybe from here to that fence,' she said in a recent interview near her ranch, pointing about 20 feet away. 'She wasn't responding in any way, and I didn't feel comfortable going up and actually touching her or trying to do something. Because to me, it was fairly obvious that she was dead.' Clopton rushed inside and told her husband about the body and then called a contact at the Border Patrol. Soon after she led the agent to the water tank, a parade of border patrol agents, state troopers and medical examiners arrived. They interviewed her and collected the woman's remains. In the days following, an agent told her the woman was from Mexico, but that's all she ever learned about the woman, whom she still thinks about regularly. After authorities left, Clopton was unsure what to do with the woman's belongings and what she described as possible biohazards left behind. A crime scene cleanup company in El Paso told her it would cost up to $6,000 to clean the area. So she felt she had no choice but to take drastic action, she said. 'My husband took a bucket with five gallons of gasoline in it, and he lit it on fire,' she said of the woman's final resting place. Ranchers who raise cattle near the border wall said there is no protocol for who to call when they find a person's body, and they pointed to Clopton's experience as an example of how ranchers are left on their own to deal with the humanitarian crisis. They also echoed calls for better cell and radio tower infrastructure in the area. The woman Clopton found is Gabriela Ortiz Moreno, according to the autopsy report. She was 30 years old, from Mexico. Among her belongings was a notebook, jewelry and a pack of cookies. Whether her family ever learned of her passing is unclear. A spokesperson for the Mexican Consulate said that the information is confidential. Investigative summaries also suggest she was seeking shade at the water tank, because 'No rain or any type of cloud covering was available to the decedent,' an investigating officer wrote. 'It's terribly sad that people would be that desperate to come and that ill-prepared,' Clopton said. 'They really don't understand at all what they're facing. This is the Chihuahuan Desert.' Justin Hamel contributed reporting to this story. Disclosure: Facebook, New York Times and University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Big news: 20 more speakers join the TribFest lineup! New additions include Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center; Michael Curry, former presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church; Beto O'Rourke, former U.S. Representative, D-El Paso; Joe Lonsdale, entrepreneur, founder and managing partner at 8VC; and Katie Phang, journalist and trial lawyer. Get tickets. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Sierra Club: EPA plan to repeal emission standards would ‘put Americans at risk'
The Trump administration's EPA seeks to repeal all greenhouse gas emission standards on the power sector. (Photo by Robert Zullo/States Newsroom) Estimates from the Sierra Club found Iowa utilities would be allowed to release 26 million tons of carbon emissions annually, if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized a proposal to repeal carbon pollution standards. In its explanation for the proposal, EPA claims greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired plants 'do not contribute significantly' to dangerous air pollution and that removing pollution standards set by the agency under previous administrations would save $19 billion in regulatory costs over two decades. The Sierra Club, which is an environmental organization with chapters across the country, said the power sector is the largest stationary source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and that exposure to these air pollutants are linked to a higher risk of heart disease, respiratory diseases, pregnancy complications and cancer. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'The Trump Administration continues to put the American people at risk by stripping away environmental safeguards proven to clean up the air we breathe and improve public health,' Pam Mackey Taylor, director of the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club, said in a statement. The proposal would repeal regulations put in place in 2015 and in 2024 that put emission guidelines and standards on coal-fired power plants, via Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin's proposal argues the Clean Air Act requires the agency to determine, before it issues regulations, that pollutants emitted by fossil fuel-fired power plants 'causes, or contributes significantly to, air pollution' that is 'anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.' The current administration argues EPA in the past created regulation standards without this determination. EPA data shows that 25% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 came from the power sector, which was just slightly less than the transportation sector which accounted for 28% of domestic greenhouse gas emissions. In an EPA presentation explaining the rules which were finalized in July 2024, the agency estimated the additional carbon pollution standards would have cut 617 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and other 'harmful air pollutants that are known to endanger public health.' Sierra Club charted the impacts these regulations would have had, state-by-state based on operating coal-powered plants and their estimated closure dates. EPA regulations around carbon pollution standards for the power sector have been challenged in the past, most recently with a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case that repealed part of the 2015 Clean Power Plan emission guidelines. The proposal to repeal the most recent rules alleges Biden-era EPA leadership did not change course following the Supreme Court ruling, but created similar, rules with expanded regulations. Acting under a handful of executive orders from President Donald Trump, and Zeldin's 'Powering the Great American Comeback' initiative, the agency seeks to repeal 'all' greenhouse gas emission standards on the power sector, or alternatively, just the 'most burdensome set of requirements.' The notice said this will 'ensure affordable and reliable energy supplies and drive down the costs of transportation, heating, utilities, farming, and manufacturing while boosting our national security.' The proposal will have a public hearing 15 days after it is published in the Federal Register, where EPA will also accept public comments on the proposed rules 45 days after it is published. Those interested can search for the docket in the federal register with Docket ID number: EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0124. 'During the public comment period, we will continue to fight for clean air and protect our communities being harmed by Trump's shortsighted actions,' Mackey Taylor said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
River of No Return: How the Nez Perce Tribe stepped in to save wolf reintroduction in Idaho
After they were captured in Canada, the wolves released in Yellowstone National Park initially stayed in acclimation pens, like this wolf pictured in Crystal Creek on Jan. 26, 1996. (Photo courtesy of Jim Peaco/Yellowstone National Park) EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second installment of Howl, a five-part written series and podcast season produced in partnership between the Idaho Capital Sun, States Newsroom and Boise State Public Radio. Read the first installment by clicking here. NEZ PERCE RESERVATION, IDAHO – Long before the American government removed them both from their ancestral homelands, wolves and Native Americans coexisted side-by-side for centuries. Those connections run deep for Shannon Wheeler, the chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee. Wheeler remembers growing up as a boy, hearing elder members of the Nez Perce Tribe tell stories about wolves. One story involves a young boy talking with his grandfather. 'They were talking and the grandfather told him that each of us have a wolf inside of us. We actually have two wolves inside of us. One's a good wolf, and one's a bad wolf. And they're constantly fighting one another. And the grandson asked him, 'Well, Grandpa, which wolf wins?' And he says, 'Whichever one you feed the most will win,'' Wheeler said. The story of the two wolves is one that Wheeler carries with him to this day. 'We're able to utilize that lesson and our teachings to our younger ones coming up as we continue to try to grow our people and to fit into part of a world that is outside of who we are and outside of our culture and so we need those strengths,' Wheeler said. 'We need to know that we're feeding the good wolf inside of us so that we are that strong.' In addition to the stories, some members of the Nez Perce Tribe develop even deeper spiritual connections with wolves. 'What I can tell you from my position as the Tribal chairman is the wolf has always played a significant part in who we are as people, based on even the names of our people,' Wheeler said. 'Many of our people have gone out for wéyekins … A wéyekin is something where you go and fast and you get your animal spirit, and it'll come to you. And sometimes it's a himíin, it's a wolf. Himíin is the name for us for wolf.' Nearly 70 years after the U.S. government drove the wolf population to near extinction in the U.S. Rocky Mountains, that spiritual connection is what led tribal members to work to bring the himíin back to Idaho, Yellowstone National Park and the West. This is the story of how the Nez Perce pulled off a task no one else wanted – and why they're still fighting for wolves today. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX For thousands of years the Nez Perce Tribe has lived, hunted, fished and traded in what are now parts of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Wyoming. Over time, members of the Nez Perce Tribe developed a deep connection to the land and animals, said Allen Pinkham, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe who was born in 1938. 'To us, we are given the opportunity by the Creator to occupy this land that we're at right now, and then we're supposed to take care of the land and all the species that we utilize because it's a life source,' Pinkham said. 'It's an opportunity to believe and have faith in your Creator. That's what we do, and we're supposed to take care of everything else, because it provides and sustains life for ourselves.' Today, the Nez Perce is a federally recognized tribe that has about 3,500 members and governs the Nez Perce Reservation that is located in north-central Idaho. The Tribe's headquarters is located in the town of Lapwai, Idaho, and the reservation sits on a fraction of the Nez Perces ancestral territory. Lapwai is a working-class town nestled in a valley and the reservation is a mix of grassland, forested mountains and rural communities anchored by the Clearwater River. An 1855 treaty between the Nez Perce Tribe and the U.S. government set aside about 7.5 million acres of land for the tribe. But after gold was discovered on the reservation, additional treaties shrunk its size to less than a tenth of what it was. It's now about 770,000 acres Thanks to bounties, trapping and widespread poisoning, by the 1930s the U.S. federal government all but killed off wolves that used to roam the U.S. Rocky Mountains from the Canadian border to Mexico. But in the 1990s the U.S. government undertook one of the most controversial wildlife programs in history – capturing wild wolves in Canada and reintroducing them in Idaho and Yellowstone National Jan. 14, 1995 – in the aftermath of a major snowstorm, Suzanne Asha Stone was part of a convoy of vehicles that made a white-knuckle drive across icy roads to release four wolves at Corn Creek at the edge of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Central Idaho. At the time, Stone was an intern on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf capture and reintroduction team. Conditions were so sketchy that some members of the team unbuckled their seatbelts as they worried about plunging into the freezing Salmon River below, Stone said. 'If you slid off the road into the river, you wouldn't have had time to disconnect your seat belt,' Stone said. 'It was kind of like the decision of what's the worst that could happen, and preparing for that.' Carter's Hope: After U.S. government killed off Western wolves, a bold experiment brought them back The wolves, which had been flown from Canada, were placed in kennels and driven in the back of U.S. Forest Service pickups to the Frank Church Wilderness. When they arrived at Corn Creek, the wolf team opened the kennel doors and immediately released the wolves into the wild. Those first four wolves reintroduced in Idaho had only been running wild for three days when the Idaho Legislature nearly derailed the entire operation. On Jan. 17, 1995, the Idaho Legislature rejected the Wolf Recovery and Management Plan developed by the Legislative Wolf Oversight Committee. The move blocked the state from leading wolf recovery in Idaho. And it left the federal government without a local partner to monitor and oversee the first wolf population to call Idaho home in more than half of a century. What happened next is a largely untold story of how the Nez Perce Tribe stepped in to save wolf reintroduction in Idaho. Even now, 30 years later, many people in Idaho don't know the role the Tribe played. Even as the Idaho Legislature said no to wolves, the Nez Perce Tribe was demonstrating its connection to wolves and investment in wolf reintroduction. Just before wolves were reintroduced to Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in January 1995, the late Horace Axtell, who was the spiritual leader of the traditional Nez Perce Seven-Drum religion, and Tribal member Allen Pinkham traveled to Missoula, Montana. Axtell and Pinkham came to offer blessings for the wolves that had been captured in Canada and were being kept in kennels at an airport hangar before their release. They met the wolves just before they were transported over the final leg of their journey for reintroduction. During the ceremony, Axtell welcomed the wolves back home to Montana, Idaho and Yellowstone. 'And so he sang a song for the wolves,' Pinkham said. About that time, the late Nez Perce leader Levi Holt traveled to Boise to meet with policymakers, said his nephew, James Holt. Levi Holt delivered a speech at the Idaho State Capitol pushing to have the Nez Perce Tribe take responsibility for the new wolf program in Idaho, James Holt said. 'My uncle Levi, being very active at that time, made that impassioned speech before decision makers to actually push them to have the Tribe be the managing partner for that reintroduction effort,' James Holt said. It worked. Because of the Tribe's connection to wolves and history of coexistence, the Nez Perce Tribe was ready to take over wolf reintroduction and conservation after the Idaho Legislature said no. 'The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was looking for a partner, and we became that partner,' said Aaron Miles Sr., who has worked as natural resources manager for the Nez Perce Tribe since 1999. Miles was still finishing his forestry degree at University of Idaho when the Nez Perce took over the program in Idaho. He took pride in seeing the Tribe taking a lead role in protecting a species that had shared a homeland with his ancestors. But Miles also heard plenty of stereotypes and lots of misinformation about the Tribe – even among college students he was helping tutor. 'I'd hear all the chatter about, well, can the Tribe do this? How can they do that?' Miles said. 'They're all these questions, and sometimes it was racist. It wasn't just the fact that they were asking an honest question. But it had to be like, 'OK, these Indians, this or that,' and here I am helping some of these guys with their homework, and that really upset me.' Biologist Marcie Carter is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe who served on the Tribe's wolf project starting in June 1997. Carter got her start while she was still a student at Lewis-Clark State College and helped put together the first wolf management plan. 'Our goal was to go into the field, find paired up wolves that potentially had pups, and document the reproduction of those wolves, and also count how many pups were out there,' Carter said. 'That summer I don't even recall how many, we probably had maybe five or six pairs of wolves that had puppies that year,' Carter said. 'So they started out very well.' Carter and another biologist spent their summer hiking around Central Idaho in places like Stanley and the Bear Valley area near the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, looking for wolves. The wolves had been fitted with radio collars that allowed the wolf project team to track their location. Typically a pilot and another team member would fly overhead, locate the wolves from the air and then use a radio to relay the animals' location to the biologists on the ground. At that point, the biologists would hike in and locate the wolves. 'We worked 10 days in a row, and then we'd take four days off,' Carter said. 'And we camped out, we backpacked and lived in a tent and slept on our Therm-A-Rest and ate packaged noodles. And every day for those 10 days, that's what we were doing. We were up, out and looking for any type of sign of wolves.' Although she grew up in Idaho and had spent time in the woods, Carter hadn't really ventured into the wilderness until she joined the Nez Perce's wolf project team. Before setting out, she had to borrow a backpack, sleeping bag, tent and cook stove. A typical assignment during her first summer in 1997 involved flying into Central Idaho's remote Chamberlain Basin with a team of other biologists. Located within the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the Chamberlain Basin was the site where one of the first wolf packs in Idaho established territory following the reintroduction of wolves. That pack became known as the Chamberlain Basin Pack. 'That was basically our lives during that time,' Carter said. 'It was just backpacking, walking, hiking, listening. It was a great time.' The reason they spent so much time in wolf country is because that is the best way to get an idea of how the wolves are doing and what they are up to. Carter and the team conducted howl surveys. With hands cupped over mouths, researchers threw their heads back and let out their best imitation wolf howls. They hoped to get live wolves to howl in response, which helped them track the wolves' location. 'Howl' is the largest investment in time and resources we've put toward one project at the Idaho Capital Sun. If you find value in what we do, you can support work like this with a one-time or recurring donation at To read the weekly installments of 'Howl,' released every Wednesday morning, sign up for our free email newsletter, To join us for our free live panel discussion 'Wolves in the West — 30 Years of Reintroduction and the New Threats Wolves Face Today' on June 17 at the Special Event Center in Boise State University's Student Union Building, register online. As the team hiked and drove across wolf country, they scoured the ground for wolf tracks and droppings that researchers call scat. They analyzed data from wolves fitted with radio collars. They documented the newborn pups. And they counted the wolves that were killed. Once a year the team packed all that data into a report documenting Idaho's wolf population. 'It was all very positive and very, very jaw-dropping type work,' Carter said. Although the wolf project started as a cool summer job for her, it became more than that. Carter soon began asking one of her grandfathers about wolves. Boise State Public Radio, Idaho Capital Sun partner for June 17 wolf reintroduction panel discussion They talked about how himíin, the Nimíipuu language word for wolf, comes from the word for mouth. That's because wolves talk to each other, Carter said, with their howls. When older members of the Nez Perce Tribe began to find out about the wolf project, they asked Carter about her work and shared stories about the Tribe's history. When they talked about losing wolves from the landscape, sometimes the older Nez Perce members talked to Carter about other losses the Tribe experienced. 'It was a learning experience for me, not just in the field, but culturally,' Carter said. 'It's just that it goes back to the loss of the connection that all Tribal people went through, with being moved to the reservation, being forced to stop speaking our language,' Carter said. 'It did kind of raise that awareness – also for other Tribal people – that loss that we had experienced and continue to experience,' Carter said. 'And then that reconnection – it happened with wolves. It's happening with salmon. Maybe someday it'll happen with grizzly bears.' Over six years on the wolf project, Carter documented growth and stabilization in Idaho's wolf population. And as she observed wolves in their natural habitat, Carter saw a very different side to the animals that people warned her about. 'I saw these families of wolves taking care of each other and playing, and they are not this evil that people think,' Carter said. During Carter's time monitoring wolves, the population increased significantly. Compared to the original 15 wolves released in Idaho's Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in 1995, the Nez Perce Tribe reported a minimum of 192 wolves in the central Idaho recovery area in the fall of 2000. At the end of 2005 – a decade after wolves were reintroduced to Idaho – the Nez Perce team and Idaho Department of Fish and Game biologists had identified 59 resident wolf packs in Idaho. Biologists observed a minimum of 370 wolves in 2005, and estimated the state's wolf population to be 512 in 2005. By 2005, wolf territory in Idaho stretched from near the Canadian border, south to Interstate 84 and east from the Oregon border to the Montana and Wyoming borders, the wolf team noted in its annual report. During 2005, Wildlife Services officials said 26 cattle, 218 sheep and nine dogs were reported as 'confirmed' or 'probable' wolf kills. As the number of wolves and wolf kills increased, so did the calls to remove the wolf from the Endangered Species List and turn management of wolves over to the states. Under the Endangered Species Act, animals that are listed in danger of extinction are given protections – like the protection of critical habitat and prohibitions on hunting – and recovery plans. For species protected by the Endangered Species Act, the animals' recovery and stabilization is the priority. Animal species that have been saved by Endangered Special Act protections include the bald eagle, the California condor, the whooping crane and grizzly bear, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Once species are removed from Endangered Species Act protections, regulations can be eased and states can approve hunting rules or other management and lethal population control methods. In January 2006, then-Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Interior transferring day-to-day management of wolves to the state of Idaho. After about a decade, the Nez Perce Tribes' role leading wolf recovery in Idaho had come to an end. 'I think we would have kept it, but the funding was going away, and so we did not have the money to keep a program going,' Carter said. 'And so I think the only way was basically to hand it over to the state.' By 2007, the state of Idaho was officially planning for its first wolf hunts since reintroduction in 1995. At that same time, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife put forward plans to remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List. A series of legal battles ensued, where wolves were removed and then returned to the Endangered Species List. In January 2009, Samuel N. Penney, the then-chairman of Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, wrote a letter expressing the Tribe's full support for removing wolves from Endangered Species Act protections in Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, northern Utah and eastern Washington. Penney told then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar that wolves met recovery goals for the Northern Rocky Mountain region in 2002. By 2008, Idaho's wolf population was estimated at over 800 wolves in 88 packs, Penney wrote. 'The Tribe wants, and understands that citizens of United States also want, wolves to be conserved,' Penney wrote. 'The Tribe is confident that you understand the importance we place on being able to make decisions locally about how to wisely manage this resource in combination with all our other wildlife resources.' Ultimately, wolves were removed from Endangered Species Act protections in 2011 after Congress inserted language into the federal budget requiring the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove wolves in Idaho, Montana, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and north-central Utah from the Endangered Species List. By May 2011, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game had taken over management of wolves in Idaho, and put wolf hunting tags up for sale. Then in 2021, the Idaho Legislature expanded wolf hunting and trapping by removing the limit on the number of wolf tags hunters can buy, allowing trapping on private land year round and allowing the state to enter into contracts with third parties to kill wolves. The state of Idaho had officially set out to reduce the wolf population by killing the predators. Now Marcie Carter and other wolf advocates worry the government is starting to go down the same road it did 100 years ago when wolves were eradicated from the U.S. Rocky Mountains. 'We did all this great work, and we spent hours and hours out in the woods and then to come to this point where they're treated like vermin, it's really disorienting,' Carter said. 'It's definitely being undone,' Carter added. 'It's been being undone since we stepped out. It's very expensive to recover wolves and it's not very expensive to take them off the landscape.' Journalists Clark Corbin and Heath Druzin reported and wrote Howl over the course of 14 months, trekking deep into the backcountry in some of the most remote places in the Lower 48 chasing the story of America's wildest and most controversial wildlife comeback story – wolf reintroduction. New installments of the written series will be published in the Idaho Capital Sun each Wednesday through July 2. The Howl podcast is available free everywhere that podcasts are available. Upcoming Howl schedule: Wednesday, June 18: Fixing Yellowstone: How an intact ecosystem set the stage for a wolf queen's long reign. Despite being orphaned and repeatedly challenged for alpha status and ultimately being killed by a rival pack, Wolf 907 leaves a long legacy. Wednesday, June 25: Cattle Battle: How wolves and livestock collide – and how one Idaho project offers solutions. Western ranchers say their livelihood is at stake after wolves were reintroduced into the Lower 48 30 years ago. Wednesday, July 2: Ghost Wolves: While wolves might represent nature's greatest and most controversial comeback, some longtime wolf advocates say they aren't seeing wolves in the same places they always used to after the Idaho Legislature expanded wolf hunting and trapping in the state. Some scientists have openly questioned how the state of Idaho tracks and counts wolves, and some original members of the wolf reintroduction team worry 30 years of hard work to bring wolves back could be undone. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bill backed by SD congressman to regulate digital assets makes it out of U.S. House committee
Indiana Rep. Erin Houchin, left, and South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson, both Republicans, speak with reporters inside the U.S. Capitol on May 21, 2025. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom) A bipartisan bill cosponsored by U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, to establish clearer regulations for digital assets passed out of a House committee Monday. The legislation, known as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, aims to create a framework for the regulation of digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies, and the firms that deal in them. The bill was introduced to address what Johnson calls uncertainty in the oversight of blockchain-based technologies. A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger of cryptocurrency transactions that is maintained across a worldwide network. 'Over the next few years, blockchain technology will transform most every industry,' Johnson said in a news release. 'Unfortunately, regulatory uncertainty has pushed innovation and investment overseas. Our bill creates clear rules of the road, ensuring America will power the future of blockchain and digital assets.' The bill lays out new disclosure, registration and operational requirements for companies dealing in digital assets. It also seeks to delineate regulatory responsibilities among agencies, providing a clearer legal environment for innovation and enforcement. The legislation now moves to the full House for consideration. The bill is sponsored by Rep. French Hill, R-Arkansas. Johnson is one of eight original co-sponsors, including three Democrats. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A question of 'worthiness': GOP pols and the people they're cutting off from core health programs
A sign displayed by U.S. Senate Democrats at a Washington, DC press conference on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom) Modern public policy debates – particularly those surrounding matters of government budgeting – frequently delve into and hinge on complex issues of public finance and economic forecasting. The current divide between North Carolina Senate and House Republicans over whether to slow down or plow ahead with scheduled income tax cuts is a classic example. The ultimate decision will hinge in large part upon which economic projection carries the day – the Senate's assessment that state revenues will remain strong even with new tax cuts, or the House's take that the nation's softening economy, along with big federal budget cuts, provide grounds for caution. For many other important debates, however, the criteria lawmakers will ultimately use in making their decisions are not nearly so grand or data driven. Indeed, in many instances, the basis for the decision will come down to a question rooted in gut instinct: Are the people who will benefit worthy? Seriously. This is not a parody or an exaggeration. Right now, Republican elected leaders in Washington and Raleigh are advancing major changes to how the nation and state dispense social safety net benefits, based not on a complex calculus about how the decision will improve societal outcomes, save lives, or even save the government money. Instead, the changes are premised on the sponsors' belief that the people to be cut off from assistance don't deserve it. It's really that crass and simple. The prime example of this brand of decision making is the plan to impose work requirements on Medicaid health insurance enrollees. Under the so-called 'big, beautiful bill' narrowly passed by the U.S. House at President Trump's behest late last month, millions of current low-income program participants will be required to regularly prove that they are working a prescribed number of hours each month, or that they fit into a number of vaguely worded exemptions. In other words, according to the scheme, poor people who work fewer hours or sporadically at odd jobs (as is so common among many people of modest means trying to scratch out a living) do not deserve health insurance. Never mind that verifying the work status of millions of people on a regular basis will necessitate the creation of a vast new government bureaucracy. Never mind the research that shows millions of poor people will lose coverage because they lack the wherewithal (computers, transportation, basic literacy) to properly document their work histories. Never mind the research showing that such a change would bankrupt hundreds of community health centers that rely upon Medicaid reimbursements. Never mind that this will, in turn, result in a flood of struggling people inundating hospital emergency rooms. Never mind that thousands of people will experience premature deaths. In a recent interview with NC Newsline, Sara Rosenbaum a Professor Health Law and Policy at the George Washington University, who recently published a report on work requirements, derided the policy as the latest iteration of the infamous English Poor Laws of 1601 that likewise conditioned public aid on supposed worthiness. 'It's inconceivable to me that we would, in 21st Century America, tell [a poor person] 'you're not worthy,'' Rosenbaum said. Meanwhile, two program reductions advanced by GOP budget writers in the North Carolina General Assembly recently appear to be cut from the same maddening cloth. The first would eliminate a state Department of Health and Human Services program launched in 2022 called 'Healthy Opportunities.' The program, which has operated as a pilot project in three counties, is based on the simple premise that helping people enrolled in Medicaid with food, transportation, housing, and other non-medical health-related needs would improve their physical health. And you know what? It did. Program participants were healthier and ended up in hospital emergency rooms less. Indeed, when researchers compared health care costs in the 12 months before and the 12 months after enrollment in Healthy Opportunities, they found cost savings of 85 dollars per person, per month. Unfortunately, like their colleagues in Washington, North Carolina lawmakers appear to have decided that recipient 'worthiness' is more important than saving lives and money, and so unless saner voices prevail, the program will go away. And the same appears to be true for Medicaid coverage of weight-loss prescriptions. As Jonathan Ray – a Charlotte physician assistant – wrote in a recent essay for NC Newsline, 'obesity is not merely a matter of personal responsibility; it's a complex health issue influenced by various factors, including genetics, environment, and socioeconomic status.' And these medicines (like Wegovy and Ozempic) have, he added, helped thousands upon thousands of people to achieve significant weight loss, improve their metabolic health, and reduce the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Unfortunately, obese people too have been deemed insufficiently worthy, regardless of the potential savings in lives and money the drugs might help secure. In short, try as they might to portray their actions as being about protecting the public purse, the hard truth is that affluent modern American politicians are, like their predecessors in late Medieval England, smugly sentencing poor people whom they deem unworthy of aid to early deaths.
