By McKenzie Johnson, former Cibola High School student

Editor’s note: On Halloween of 2018, a Cibola High School teacher, in front of the entire class, cut one Native American student’s braid without consent and called another student, McKenzie Johnson, a “bloody Indian.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico, along with the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty and Parnall & Adams Law, sued Albuquerque Public Schools on McKenzie’s behalf. A district court dismissed the case, but in late May, an appeals court ruled that New Mexico’s public schools must adhere to state anti-discrimination laws, reviving the lawsuit. In this blog, McKenzie describes how she felt about the ruling.   

It was such a shocking thing to happen. When the teacher cut the other student’s thick braid off, you could hear her sawing through the hair with the blades. The class was stunned. No one said a word. Later in the class, she asked what costumes we wore, and the teacher shined her flashlight on me and asked, "What are you supposed to be, ‘a bloody Indian?" The whole class gasped. They all looked at me, waiting for my reaction. I’m normally very outspoken, but I was in shock and didn’t say anything. I could feel my face turning red.   

Teachers should know better than to single out Native students like this in such a demeaning and humiliating way. We are surrounded by diverse communities so you would expect her to know at least a little bit about us and our culture and that actions like that create an unsafe environment for us as Indigenous youth. 

Teachers should know better than to single out Native students like this in such a demeaning and humiliating way.

Once I got over the shock, I decided I wanted to fight back. I got a lot of support from my family and community, but I also got an overwhelming amount of pushback from other students and even teachers. 

When I heard about this ruling, I was so overcome with emotion, I had to hold back tears. The ruling is a huge breakthrough for Indigenous students, and all students included.  

Teachers have a responsibility to make their classrooms a safe and welcoming space for everyone in there. As Native people, we respect our elders, but with that is the expectation that they respect us too. 

Teachers have a responsibility to make their classrooms a safe and welcoming space for everyone in there.

School staff at all levels need to understand our culture and our history so that what happened in my classroom never happens to anyone again.  

Bottom line, a teacher should not discriminate against any student nor cut their student's hair off.  

*The writer uses pseudonyms for the women mentioned to protect their and their families’ safety and privacy.

I’m a one-on-one companion observer for incarcerated women at the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility (WNMCF). My job is to monitor people in crisis, including on suicide watch. I’m speaking up about the horrible things I have witnessed here to try and save women’s lives. The women in this facility desperately need adequate mental healthcare and treatment and to be treated with dignity by correctional officers (COs). Things must change or women will continue to die. No one should have to live in conditions like these. 

Their deaths weigh on our hearts. I can’t sleep at night and have trouble eating.

In 2022, three women who were my patients died by suicide at the women’s prison.  Several others attempted suicide. Not only did the prison staff fail to save these women’s lives, but the abuse, neglect, disregard, and maliciousness of prison staff pushed them to the point of desperation that made them feel death was the only option.  

I and the other incarcerated observers did everything we could to get these women help. Despite all our efforts, we couldn’t get them what they needed. Their deaths weigh on our hearts. After a long day, it’s hard to fall asleep. I lose my appetite a lot. When I leave my shift, I can still hear the screaming of women in distress in my head. When I close my eyes, I still see the cells I am responsible for watching.  

In our unit, women who are mentally ill are in solitary confinement. One woman who died by suicide was Nadia*. She had three children who will never get their mom back. She was sent to WNMCF specifically because she had attempted suicide at the local county jail, and WNMCF was supposed to keep her safe until her trial. She spent 24 hours a day in a solitary confinement cell for two weeks. She begged constantly for help, but she never got it. The day she passed away, she called for help from mental health staff all day long, until she finally gave up.  

The prison staff never told us that Nadia was suicidal and needed an observer or companion. It was so hard for all of us to find out that she should have had one of us looking after her.  

Not only are women denied the mental healthcare we need, but the mistreatment and bullying of the women here aggravates and causes serious mental health issues. Some of the corrections officers pick on the women stuck in their cells. For example, this one CO would always tell Alexandria* that that she stinks and is fat. She would refuse to let her out for recreation time and ignore her when she asked for something she needed. The CO’s behavior affected Alexandria so badly, she used to start rocking herself back and forth in her cell whenever the CO’s shift began.  

These tragedies shouldn’t be our responsibility as incarcerated people, but if we do not fight for the women suffering, no one will.

Another one of the women this same CO picked on, Jamie*, was also a pretrial county detainee. She was quiet, hardly talked to anyone, she was scared and lost and crying a lot. The CO didn’t let her out of her cell for yard time very much, and she spent almost nine months in solitary confinement. The CO used to mock Jamie, saying “go cry to your mommy.” Well, Jamie took a sheet and hung herself. The CO let her hang long enough to have scars on her neck and permanent injuries, instead of following policy – and basic human decency – and immediately opening the door to lift her up and save her.  

When I reported the CO for her abuse, she retaliated against me and removed me from my job as a companion observer. I was sad because I wondered who is going to stand up for those girls? I did not get my job back until the COs rotated again and someone else was in charge of the unit.  

There were no consequences for that abusive CO at all. To know that COs have the power to affect someone so profoundly is heartbreaking, cruel, and wrong. The officers are trusted, and they abuse their positions. The Code of Ethics is signed by each officer and broken far too often.  

Right now, things are really bad. NMCD policy says that everyone on suicide watch must have their own observer, so that there is one on one attention for everyone who needs it. Right now, there are seven people in observation cells on two different floors of the building, and only one or two observers per shift. The cameras in the suicide watch cells, which let the CO watch every cell, have been broken for months and no one will fix them. They tell us that it is our responsibility to watch. Some of the observers have been working 12- or 16-hour shifts, but it’s still not enough.   

I fight every day to save the lives of women who are being tortured by the New Mexico Corrections Department. I know they feel forgotten and like no one is listening.

Still, being a companion observer is very meaningful to me. I am there for people mentally and emotionally, and I know I have helped people regain their confidence and get back on their feet. My work can only be effective though if COs were adequately trained and followed policy for people who are on suicide watch, like taking away towels and razors from their cells. This work is so stressful and scary. We’re trying to watch so many people all at once to make sure no one else dies that it’s impossible to do the real moral support and companionship that helps people.  

I fight every day to save the lives of women who are being tortured by the New Mexico Corrections Department. I know they feel forgotten and like no one is listening. I can’t put my real name on this letter because I could get retaliated against again. I could lose my job or even get denied timely healthcare. If I lose my job, I will always wonder who is taking care of the women locked away. But even if the prison guards find out who wrote this, at least I’ll know that I did my part to make these women’s voices heard.  

These tragedies shouldn’t be our responsibility as incarcerated people, but if we do not fight for the women suffering, no one will. Sometimes, after someone dies things get better for a little while, but they always go back to the way they were before. When someone else dies, I want to know I did everything that I could to prevent it.   

After years of public outcry from advocates, victims, and borderland residents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced a revised vehicle pursuit policy earlier this year. This new policy, which took effect this month after a delay, includes measures that we believe can be important for safeguarding the lives of everyone in our communities. But serious questions remain about the implementation, training, and enforcement of the new policy that will be critical for its success.

Our extensive concerns about CBP’s vehicle pursuit policy reflect a tragically long and growing list of pursuits that have ended in deaths or serious injuries. The ACLU of Texas’ Fatal Encounters tracker has tallied dozens of deaths from CBP vehicle pursuits over the past decade.

In one pursuit near Deming, New Mexico last year, a Border Patrol agent conducted a dangerous and unauthorized maneuver to block the path of a vehicle on the highway. The vehicle being pursued rolled over and burst into flames, killing two and severely injuring eight others.

As one of the Border Patrol agents on the scene of the crash callously put it, “They were all thrown everywhere, bro.”

Several deadly pursuits have also taken place in Texas. In January 2020, a Border Patrol chase resulted in a fatal crash near downtown El Paso and in June that same year, another Border Patrol vehicle pursuit led to a crash, killing several people in the same location.

In the vast majority of these vehicle pursuit cases, the risk taken and harm caused by the pursuit is completely out of proportion with any suspected criminal activity.

While the revisions to CBP’s vehicle pursuit policy represent a significant improvement and an important step forward for our border communities, history suggests that robust training, oversight, and accountability will be essential to ensure compliance with this new policy.

Rebekah Zemansky / Shuttterstock.com

A critical change in the revised policy is the adoption of an “objective reasonableness” standard, meaning agents will have to consider the actual need to apprehend someone as well as the potential risk not only to the public and law enforcement but also to the occupants of the subject vehicle.

Officers and agents must now consider the government’s interest in immediately apprehending an individual, including the severity of the crime at issue and the level of threat posed by the individual.

The policy prohibits officers and agents from starting or continuing a pursuit of a vehicle that is exceeding the speed limit and appears to be overloaded, unless they have probable cause that a felony involving the use, or threatened use, of physical force or violence that poses an imminent threat has been or is about to be committed, and a reasonable belief that the immediate need to apprehend clearly outweighs the risks.

This probable-cause standard also applies to pursuits that take place in or near schools that may be in session and other areas where, because of population density or the nature of the residential or commercial structures nearby, a pursuit would put the public at increased risk.

Officers and agents are also now specifically prohibited from engaging in extremely dangerous efforts to stop a vehicle such as “pursuit immobilization techniques” maneuvers, in which a government vehicle makes intentional contact with the vehicle being pursued to cause it to spin out and stop.

Finally, the policy, which includes additional restrictions on when and how high-speed pursuits can be carried out, also creates a new review structure for vehicle pursuits, which we explore in depth in our full policy brief.

While the new policy advances key, common-sense reforms, important questions remain about how CBP will operationalize this revised policy and ensure compliance and transparency.

We urge CBP to mandate that training for authorized officers, agents, and supervisors on the revised policy be taught by skilled instructors, using effective learning techniques, to ensure that officers, agents, and supervisors are sufficiently informed of the policy revisions.

The training curriculum on the revised vehicle pursuit policy should also provide clarifications about key aspects of how the policy will be operationalized, including how “objective reasonableness” is assessed by officers and agents in the field, and how the policy relates to the agency’s existing Use of Force Policy. Additionally, the agency should take steps to ensure that the revised policy clearly sets forth the minimum required standards for officers and agents, regardless of whether any other law enforcement agencies are involved in a pursuit.

It’s also critical that CBP invest in robust data collection and analysis capabilities, and that the newly created Vehicular Pursuits Review Committee accounts for key lessons and concerns raised by incidents that result in injury or death.

Our full policy brief provides additional recommendations on the agency’s review processes. Vigorous oversight and accountability measures will be essential to ensuring that CBP’s revised vehicle pursuit policy is not merely a piece of paper, but rather a robust tool to protect and preserve human life.

As CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller acknowledged, vehicle pursuits “pose inherent risks.” Here in the borderlands, our communities have been living and suffering with those risks for far too long, and we are committed to reducing the harm caused by these and other aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.

The ACLU of New Mexico has further recommendations for the implementation of the revised policy available here.