I’d like to ask you to engage your imagination. Think of someone you love who has struggled or is struggling with their mental health, maybe a family member, a close friend, or maybe yourself. Many of us know someone who has turned to drugs to cope; certainly, the rest of us can imagine such a circumstance.

Has this person made mistakes because of mental illness or drug use? Could some of those mistakes have gotten them in trouble with the law?

As a country, we disproportionately incarcerate individuals with serious mental illnesses, but our carceral system does little to nothing to address their needs.

Keep your loved one in mind: what are your hopes and dreams for this person? Do they get help for their mental health struggles? Do they participate in an evidence-based drug treatment program? Do they continue to have support even if progress is slow and non-linear? If they get the help they need, would it allow them to make fewer mistakes in the future?

As a country, we disproportionately incarcerate individuals with serious mental illnesses, but our carceral system does little to nothing to address their needs. In fact, studies show that incarceration can trigger and worsen symptoms of mental illness, and those effects last long after someone has been released. As a result, many people return to their communities worse off than before they were incarcerated, making it even more difficult to avoid the mistakes that got them there in the first place.

In a blog posted on the ACLU of New Mexico website, a suicide watch observer describes prison staff at Western New Mexico Correctional Facility (WNMCF) further traumatizing people with mental health conditions by putting them in solitary confinement, confining them to cages for rec time, bullying them and not allowing them to shower.

She tells the haunting story of one woman who was refused mental health support. Instead, the staff bullied her to the point where she saw no way out; she died by suicide, leaving behind three children.   

The conditions that the companion observer at WNMCF describes and that we know happen in New Mexico’s prison system every day also violate state and federal law.

State law prohibits placing mentally ill people in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement causes lasting harm, and its effects can be lethal, increasing the risk of premature death after incarceration. Still, prisons across the United States and in New Mexico use solitary confinement regularly to “address” a wide variety of concerns, including housing people who are at risk of self-harm.

The U.S. Constitution prohibits dangerous and categorically inhumane prison conditions and requires that incarcerated individuals be provided adequate medical and mental healthcare. Conditions like the ones described by the companion observer also violate federal laws meant to protect people with disabilities.

The U.S. Constitution prohibits dangerous and categorically inhumane prison conditions and requires that incarcerated individuals be provided adequate medical and mental healthcare.

When we think of our loved ones who are struggling with mental illness or addiction, most of us don’t have to imagine them being locked in a small cell 23 or 24 hours per day. We know it would be harmful to deprive them of appropriate mental healthcare, especially in a traumatic carceral setting. We know that isolation from loved ones and healthy coping mechanisms won’t help them find a different path.

The things we want for our loved ones can and should be available to every person who struggles like they do, regardless of income, circumstance or what kinds of mistakes their mental illness has contributed to. We simply need our decision-makers to commit to this shared vision.

My mom was born in 1958 and given up for adoption by her biological mother. Her maternal aunt, known to my brother and me as “Grandma Louise,” who only spoke Navajo, stepped in to be her mom. Grandma Louise loved my mom and raised her under Navajo traditions in Farmington, New Mexico. My mom learned from a young age to speak fluent Navajo, make traditional foods, and weave customary skirts. In fact, she later became Shiprock’s Miss Northern Navajo in 1980. How her story would have differed if she had been adopted and raised outside of Navajo culture and community remains an issue to ponder; similarly, how my story would have differed.

Even as the 1970s ushered in the self-determination era, giving Tribes autonomy to administer education and health services, the wounds incised by U.S. history formed deep, tender scars that show today.Every Native family has a story about children who were adopted or placed in foster care. Some children were fortunate to be raised by an extended family and community. Those not so fortunate, however, were likely stripped of their cultural identity—often forcefully. Elders remind us that it only takes two generations of kin disconnected from their language and culture to kill the language and culture.

Tribal Sovereignty

The annihilation of Indigenous identity is deeply rooted in U.S. history. The boarding school era began over 150 years ago, forcibly placing Native children in schools hundreds of miles away from home to “kill the Indian in him, save the man.” Grandma Louise – just a child at the time, told stories of having to hide when federal agents arrived.The 1950s began the termination era, where removal, relocation and family-separation policies were intended to kill Indigenous culture, dismantle tribal sovereignty, and terminate the U.S. government’s trust responsibilities owed to Tribes.

Cultural resilience prevailed, but the wounds were permanent. Even as the 1970s ushered in the self-determination era, giving Tribes autonomy to administer education and health services, the wounds incised by U.S. history formed deep, tender scars that show today.

ICWA

In 1978, Congress enacted the federal Indian Child Welfare Act in response to the unnecessary removal of Native children from their families and tribal communities. ICWA intends to protect the best interests of Native children by ensuring state foster care and adoption proceedings prioritize their placement with extended family and community. Research shows that Native children in the child welfare system do better emotionally, academically, and socially when this outcome is achieved.

However, in 2018, a federal district court in Texas, in a widely criticized decision, held that ICWA violates the U.S. Constitution. That decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The American Civil Liberties Union, along with its 13 affiliates (including New Mexico), submitted an amicus brief in support of preserving Native American families, respecting the cultural heritage of Tribes, and advocating for children’s rights and a child’s interest in family integrity

The ominous threat to Indigenous identity and tribal sovereignty seems to be one without end. If ICWA were ruled unconstitutional, not only would there be no way to protect Native children against removal, but the overall domino effect would topple 200 years of Indian law precedent that currently guards the rights of Tribes to exist as sovereign nations on Native lands.   

 

Thankfully, in a huge victory for tribal sovereignty this June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the attack against ICWA in Brackeen v. Haaland. This landmark ruling reaffirms legal precedent upholding tribal sovereignty, hard-fought rights over tribal land and water, health care, criminal and civil jurisdiction, and tribal self-governance—a win for New Mexico’s 23 federally recognized Tribes, Nations, and Pueblos.

 

Most importantly, it ensures ICWA’s provisions will continue to protect Native families and keep them together.

Photo above right: Rolinda ("Ro") Sanchez. Photo above left: Grandma Louise.

When the New Mexico Voting Rights Act was signed into law, there was an air of relief and gratitude for the hard work and opportunity we had been presented. For the first time in New Mexico’s modern history, voters, advocates, and elected officials will be able to collaborate meaningfully to engage more people than ever before.

There’s so much eagerness in the community to get to work on connecting people to our collective power.

Its passage was a long time coming and the result of decades of work by multiple communities and advocacy groups in our state and nationally who never gave up on the fight to ensure everyone has the opportunity to vote.

We are so proud New Mexico is now a real leader in access to the ballot. While other states’ legislatures and conservative federal courts are chipping away at voting rights, making it harder for people of color, young people, and people who were formerly incarcerated to vote, New Mexico is moving in the opposite direction. 

There’s a lot to this new law, which will begin implementation this July, but we can break it down into two main sections: rights restoration and the Native American Voting Rights Act.

Voting Rights Restoration

Like many states, New Mexico already had a law on the books for over 20 years that technically allowed people who had been incarcerated to regain their right to vote when they did their time and reentered society. But like many states, the process was by design so difficult to navigate that very few people managed to do it.

It was a demoralizing, dehumanizing system.

Imagine having to get multiple reference letters and approvals from state offices only to have county clerks­ – who didn’t always know what they were looking at – determine your forms and letters weren’t valid. To fix this, you would need to get a letter from the governor stating otherwise.

For most people, these were barriers they just couldn’t get past.

With this new law, when people reenter society, they automatically regain the right to vote. This empowers 11,000 to get out and participate in the democratic process right now.

For many people who worked to get this legislation through, it was a very personal journey. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this work. People who had been caught in New Mexico’s carceral system never gave up on pushing for this law and changing the narrative in the Roundhouse. They shared their stories with the public and showed up in force at the legislative session. It was such an inspiring, well-earned win.

Native American Voting Rights Act

New Mexico made history this session with the first-in-the-nation Native American Voting Rights Act (enacted by the New Mexico Voting Rights Act). It will have a huge impact on expanding and protecting Native communities’ right to vote in our state.

The right to vote is relatively new to Native people in the United States. Miguel Trujillo, a veteran from Isleta Pueblo, successfully sued to get the right to vote in New Mexico in 1948, but it was one victory in a long, ongoing battle. Here and across the country, Native communities are systematically, and intentionally, disenfranchised.

Local governments have more strategies to cut Native voters out of the democratic process than you can shake a stick at: denying funding for polling locations, lack of language access, placing polling locations hundreds of miles away from tribal communities, not recognizing rural addresses, failing to consult with tribes before changing elections and more.

Given this history, and years of failed attempts to get the Native American Voting Rights Act passed in New Mexico, this win was a major shift. Last year, in a very painful process, we got close, but the bill was filibustered in the final hours of session. This year, with the collaboration of tribal leaders and tribal voting groups, the Native American Voting Rights Act moved through the legislature with bipartisan recognition of the need to ensure tribal communities, especially rural ones, have same right to vote as any other community.

There was amazing collaboration among advocacy groups, electeds, and tribal leaders in the bill’s creation and in the work to get it across the finish line. Dozens of community groups representing tens of thousands of New Mexicans came together to makes this happen, and all 23 Tribes in New Mexico supported it.

It’s important to point out that this respect for tribal sovereignty has a lot to do with the fact that three Native American legislators were sponsors of the bill. Representation truly matters.

Because Tribes had input, the law mandates consultation and cooperation with the Tribes so that the people who know their community most, make the decisions about what is needed. For example, the law creates more clarity on how people register to vote. I worked with a voter from the Pueblo of Pojoaque whose voter registration was rejected six times because he didn’t have a “known address.”

Now the Pueblo can set up a precinct office and have people use that address when they register. The Tribes themselves can now designate where polling places should be and make other decisions that help their very different communities’ voting needs.

Literally, thousands more New Mexicans will be able to participate in the democratic process, and we will be directing our time to working on ensuring the law is implemented fairly and spreading the word for all those who have regained their right to vote. We’re excited to get to work.