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For Immediate Release
April, 10 2015, 04:15pm EDT
Contact:
Micah McCoy, (505) 266-5915 x1003 or mmccoy@aclu-nm.org
Paul Gessing, (505) 264-6090, pgessing@riograndefoundation.org
Emily Kaltenbach, (505) 920-5259 or ekaltenbach@drugpolicy.org
Justin Wilson, (703) 682-9320 or jwilson@ij.org
New Mexico Governor Signs Historic Property Rights Protections into Law
New Mexico outlaws civil asset forfeiture, aka “Policing for profit”
SANTA FE, NM
Today, Governor Susana Martinez signed HB 560 into law, ending the practice of civil asset forfeiture in New Mexico. Civil asset forfeiture, also known as "policing for profit," allows law enforcement officers to seize personal property without ever charging--much less convicting--a person with a crime. Property seized through this process often finds its way into the department's own coffers. HB 560, introduced by NM Rep. Zachary Cook and passed unanimously in the legislature, replaces civil asset forfeiture with criminal forfeiture, which requires a conviction of a person as a prerequisite to losing property tied to a crime. The new law means that New Mexico now has the strongest protections against wrongful asset seizures in the country.
"This is a good day for the Bill of Rights," said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. "For years police could seize people's cash, cars, and houses without even accusing anyone of a crime. Today, we have ended this unfair practice in New Mexico and replaced it with a model that is just and constitutional."
"With this law, New Mexico leads the nation in protecting the property rights of innocent Americans," said Paul Gessing, President of the Rio Grande Foundation. "Convicted criminals will still see the fruits of their crime confiscated by the state, but innocent New Mexicans can now rest easy knowing that their property will never be seized by police without proper due process."
"New Mexico has succeeded today in reigning in one of the worst excesses of the drug war," said Emily Kaltenbach, State Director for Drug Policy Alliance's New Mexico office "Like other drug war programs, civil asset forfeiture is disproportionately used against poor people of color who cannot afford to hire lawyers to get their property back. This law is an important step towards repairing some of the damage the drug war has inflicted upon our society and system of justice."
"New Mexico has shown that ending policing for profit is a true bipartisan issue with broad public support," said Lee McGrath, Legislative Counsel for the Institute of Justice. "America is ready to end civil asset forfeiture, a practice which is not in line with our values or constitution. This law shows that we can be tough on crime without stripping property away from innocent Americans."
Bipartisan legislation has already been introduced in both houses of Congress that would dramatically reform federal civil asset forfeiture laws. The Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Angus King (I-ME) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). In the House, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-CA), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) introduced an identical version of the FAIR Act.
The Drug Policy Alliance is the nation's leading organization promoting drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.
(212) 613-8020LATEST NEWS
'This Madness Has to Stop': Israeli Airstrike Totally Collapses Beirut Apartment Building
"All of Beirut shook," said one resident who was forced to take shelter in the city after an Israeli displacement order forced her from her home in the suburbs.
Mar 18, 2026
An Israeli airstrike totally demolished a large apartment building in central Beirut on Wednesday, following a night of attacks on densely populated residential areas, several of which reportedly came without warning.
Videos shared to social media and by local media outlets show the 10-story building, located in the Bachoura neighbourhood in central Beirut, suddenly collapsing into rubble in the early hours of the morning after being struck with a missile.
Israeli authorities issued a forced displacement order to residents of the building over social media around 4 am local time, roughly an hour before the strike. It warned residents of buildings in the Bachoura area that they were "located near Hezbollah facilities" and needed to move at least 300 meters away.
Israel has claimed the building was used by the militant group Hezbollah to stash large sums of money, but has provided no evidence publicly.
Citing Lebanon's Health Ministry, the Associated Press reported that at least four people were wounded in the attack, which sent emergency teams rushing to the scene through a plume of black smoke.
Residents of the collapsed apartment building have taken to social media to describe their horror at seeing their home suddenly destroyed.
"I am a US citizen and surgeon who took care of the Boston Marathon bombing victims in 2013," said Haytham Kaafarani, a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. "I paid for seven years to own a small apartment in downtown Beirut for my three kids to enjoy summers there. Today, Israel reduced my dream home to rubble, with American weapons, paid by my taxes."
Another professor, Bilal R. Kaafarani, who teaches chemistry at the American University of Beirut, said something similar.
"Israel demolished the building I have an apartment in. It took 22 years of my work here and 20 years of my wife’s work to own this apartment," he said. "This madness has to stop."
The attack came after a night of intense airstrikes upon civilian areas in Lebanon's capital, which reportedly came without warning in the middle of the night and into the early morning.
According to Lebanese authorities, at least 20 people were killed in a series of attacks on Beirut and the southern and eastern parts of the country, while dozens more were injured.
Lebanon's health ministry reported that more than 900 people have been killed and 2,200 injured in Israel's latest round of attacks in Lebanon, which began on March 2 after Hezbollah retaliated against the US-Israeli war in Iran.
The attacks beginning Tuesday night came less than a day after Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned that "deliberately attacking civilians or civilian objects amounts to a war crime,” noting that hundreds of homes and other civilian infrastructure, including health facilities, had been destroyed by prior Israeli attacks in Beirut.
Israel has issued evacuation orders that have forced more than 1 million Lebanese people from their homes as part of an expanding ground invasion into southern Lebanon.
Sara Saleh, a 29-year-old taking shelter in a nearby school after being forced from her home in Beirut's southern suburbs, told the Agence France-Presse that she and her family "were asleep" when Israel's warning came down early Wednesday morning. She said they were left to flee for safety in their pajamas.
She said the attack on the apartment "was terrifying... all of Beirut shook." Speaking with a face mask to protect herself from dust kicked up by the demolished building, she said her sister's children "started crying and panicking, it was heartbreaking."
The mass displacement of civilians in Lebanon and Iran has been met with increasing criticism from UN experts and human rights organizations.
As reports of the apartment bombing rolled in, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), said that "international law is being openly ignored" and that "impunity reigns and disproportionate actions are being normalized amid the escalating conflicts in the Middle East."
"It is a vicious circle," he said. "The more violations, the stronger the culture of impunity becomes."
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Trump's Iran War to Spike US Grocery Costs, Threaten Global Food Crisis
One expert warned of a "direct hit on consumer prices" if the Iran war persists.
Mar 18, 2026
President Donald Trump's unprovoked and unconstitutional war against Iran has already been raising gas prices for US drivers, and could soon raise the cost of food both in the US and all over the world.
NBC News reported on Tuesday that the price of diesel fuel has now soared above $5 per gallon for the first time since December 2022. If the price of diesel remains high, the report explained, it will raise the price of all goods delivered by trucks throughout the US, including food.
Paul Dietrich, chief investment strategist at Wedbush Securities, told NBC News that diesel prices will become a "direct hit on consumer prices" if they remain elevated, as "groceries get more expensive, delivery costs rise, and household budgets are tightened."
"Diesel is what moves the real economy," explained Dietrich. "It hauls the food, the packages, the building supplies, and the inventory sitting on store shelves."
The cost of diesel isn't the only factor that could spike food prices, as the Iran war has also put a strain on fertilizer that farmers need to grow crops.
Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday that there is growing concern that the rising price of fertilizer caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz could lead to a global food crisis.
As Al Jazeera explained, almost half of the global supply of urea, the most commonly used fertilizer, is shipped from Middle Eastern nations through the Strait of Hormuz.
With the strait closed by Iran in response to US and Israeli attacks, Al Jazeera wrote, "urea export prices from the Middle East have surged by about 40%, rising from just less than $500 to a little more than $700 per metric ton as of last Friday."
Al Jazeera also cited an estimate from data and analytics firm Kpler projecting that up to one-third of the global fertilizer trade could be disrupted if the strait remains closed for a prolonged period.
Carl Skau, deputy executive director and chief operating officer of the World Food Program, warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could push millions of people into extreme hunger should it persist.
"If this conflict continues, it will send shockwaves across the globe, and families who already cannot afford their next meal will be hit the hardest," said Skau. "Without an adequately funded humanitarian response, it could spell catastrophe for millions already on the edge."
WFP said the disruption in fertilizer markets offers "the most recent proof that conflict is the number one driver of hunger."
"Conflict forces people from their homes, destroys infrastructure, fuels inflation, and wipes out jobs," said the agency. "All of this makes it nearly impossible for people to find or afford enough food to survive. And children are always hit hardest: A child living in a country ravaged by conflict is more than twice as likely to be malnourished and out of school than their peers in peaceful settings."
Warnings about the war's impact on the price of food come as the US economy is showing signs of accelerating inflation.
As reported by CNBC on Wednesday, wholesale prices in February surged by 0.7%, more than double economists' consensus estimate of 0.3%.
On a year-over-year basis, wholesale prices rose by 3.4% in February—the highest increase in a year.
Spikes in wholesale prices, which reflect the amount that firms pay for inputs for their products, typically also lead to increased consumer prices, as companies pass on their cost increases to customers.
"The report suggests that pipeline inflation pressures remain persistent, particularly on the services side, complicating the Fed’s path as it weighs how long to keep interest rates elevated," CNBC noted.
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Cuban President Vows 'Impregnable Resistance' to Any Trump Attempt to Seize the Island
"The US publicly threatens Cuba, almost daily, with overthrowing the constitutional order by force," said Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Mar 18, 2026
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Tuesday condemned US President Donald Trump's open threat to forcibly seize control of the island nation and vowed that any such aggression would be met with "impregnable resistance."
"The US publicly threatens Cuba, almost daily, with overthrowing the constitutional order by force," Díaz-Canel wrote on social media. "And it uses an outrageous pretext: the harsh limitations of the weakened economy that they have attacked and sought to isolate for more than six decades."
"They intend and announce plans to seize the country, its resources, its properties, and even the very economy they seek to strangle to make us surrender," the Cuban president added. "Only in this way can the fierce economic war be explained, which is applied as collective punishment against the entire people. In the face of the worst scenario, Cuba is accompanied by a certainty: Any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance."
Díaz-Canel's statement came a day after Trump said from the Oval Office of the White House that he believes he will have "the honor of taking Cuba" as it faces a grave humanitarian crisis fueled by the administration's oil embargo, which began shortly after the US abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in early January.
"I think I can do anything I want with it," Trump said of Cuba on Monday.
The New York Times reported earlier this week that Trump administration officials are demanding Díaz-Canel's ouster as part of any negotiated deal between the two countries.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime supporter of regime change on the island, said publicly on Tuesday that Cuba "has to get new people in charge." Trump said earlier this month that he's "going to put Marco over there and we’ll see how that works out."
A YouGov poll out this week shows that more Americans disapprove than approve of the US embargo on Cuba. The same survey found that only 13% of US voters would support attacking Cuba, and a mere 18% would support using military force to overthrow the country's government.
Trump's threats came as his oil embargo and the broader, decadeslong, and illegal economic warfare against Cuba continued to take their toll on the island's population, most recently in the form of an island-wide blackout that lasted nearly 30 hours.
On Wednesday, the first delegation of the Nuestra América Convoy arrived in Havana as part of an effort by individuals and organizations to deliver critical humanitarian aid to the Cuban people as the US besieges the island's economy and threatens its sovereignty.
Nathan J. Robinson and Alex Skopic, editors of the left-wing magazine Current Affairs, announced Wednesday that they are heading to Cuba to cover the mission, which they characterized as part of a "proud tradition of internationalism" on the American left.
"Beyond food, medicine, and energy infrastructure, this mission sends a message," Robinson and Skopic wrote. "As Americans, we want to make it crystal clear that the Trump administration does not speak for us when it talks about 'taking over' Cuba, and we’re sickened by what Trump and Rubio are doing to the Cuban people in the name of U.S. foreign policy. But we’re determined to do what we can, and we’re going to make sure the people of Cuba do not stand alone."
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