In a press call a few days ago, U.S. representative for New Mexico’s first district, Melanie Stansbury, announced that the state’s delegation invited the director of First Nations health clinic in Albuquerque to President Trump’s address to tonight’s joint session of Congress.
Calling the First Nations health facility “one of the best clinics to help address the fentanyl and opioid crisis,” Stansbury said that clinic and healthcare services in general for New Mexico’s low-income families could be “decimated” by cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.
Stansbury and more than 100 other members of Congress had sent a bipartisan letter to the administration about the defunding actions.
They issued the missive after learning that the Indian Health Service was slated to lay off an additional five to six thousand workers this week.
Stansbury also called out the federal government for “mass firings” that have impacted the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education, and Albuquerque tribal school, Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute.
“ Teachers who have taught at that school for decades were fired in the middle of the school day and even told to leave their classrooms while students were there," Stansbury said.
"And as I've returned back to Washington, it's very clear that even the secretaries of our agencies and senior political staff are unaware of who has been fired at these agencies because the mass firings are being executed by Elon Musk and his DOGE effort.”
Stansbury said other federal firings will hit New Mexico particularly hard because the state has some of the highest proportions in the U.S. of federal employees, active duty military, and veterans.
