Howard M. Friedman (LexBlog Mexico)

In Calvary Albuquerque Inc. v. Blinken, (D NM, March 13, 2024), a New Mexico federal district court dismissed challenges to the denial of an R-1 (Temporary Religious Worker) visa for Stefen Green, a South African citizen who was to be hired as Calvary Church’s Worship Director. At issue was the fact that Green received honoraria and...

In Gospel Light Mennonite Church Medical Aid Plan v. New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance, (D NM, Oct. 13, 2023), a New Mexico federal district court refused to enjoin New Mexico’s insurance superintendent from regulating Health Care Sharing Ministries. The court held that the state’s Insurance Code is a neutral, generally applicable statute, saying...

In Dousa v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, (SD CA, March 21, 2023), a California federal district court held that U.S. immigration officials violated the free exercise rights of Kaji Dousa, a pastor at New York City’s Park Avenue Christian Church. Dousa worked extensively with immigrants in Mexico and at the southern border.  The court...

In a press release issued this week, The Satanic Temple (“TST”) announced that it has set up its first Reproductive Health Clinic in New Mexico. TST has developed an abortion ritual that it claims is protected by the First Amendment. According to the press release: [A]nyone in New Mexico seeking to perform The Satanic Temple’s...

The Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico announced yesterday that a U.S. Bankruptcy Court has confirmed a Plan of Reorganization that has been agreed to by the Committee representing victims of clergy abuse and by the Archdiocese. According to an Open Letter from the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors recommending that abuse victims vote to...

Suit was filed this week in a New Mexico federal district court by a physician and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations challenging the constitutionality of New Mexico’s End-of-Life Options Act.  The complaint (full text) alleges in part: 6. The Act purports to protect physicians who object to assisted suicide for reasons of conscience, saying...

McKinley v. Grisham, (D NM, June 7, 2022), involves various challenges to Executive Orders and Public Health Orders issued by New Mexico officials in response to the COVID pandemic. While most of the challenges were dismissed, the court allowed plaintiffs to move ahead with their free exercise challenge to restrictions on in-person gatherings at houses of...

In In re Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Santa Fe, (NM Bkruptcy., Sept. 17, 2021), a New Mexico federal bankruptcy court refused to lift the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay of suits which the Diocese of Santa Fe enjoys while going through bankruptcy reorganization proceedings. Rudy Blea, a former lay minister in the Catholic Church,...

On Tuesday, Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation held unconstitutional several provisions of the Penal Code of the state of Coahuila that criminalizes abortion.  According to a Court press release (full text in Spanish), the Court unanimously declared Article 196 of the Penal Code of Coahuila unconstitutional.  The section criminalizes voluntarily having an...

President Biden yesterday issued Memorandum on Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad (Jan. 28. 2021) (full text).  The Memorandum calls for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to consider whether to revise or repeal the Trump Administration’s rules that prohibit recipients of Title X funds from referring patients to abortion providers. The rule has had...

 In Manzanita Band of the Kumeyaay Nation v. Wolf, (D DC, Oct. 16, 2020), in a suit by a Native American tribe the D.C. federal district court refused to enjoin construction on two barrier projects along the U.S.-Mexico border in California. The court said in part: The Kumeyaay’s principal claim of injury is this: So...

 In In re Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, (NM Bankr., Oct. 9, 2020), a New Mexico federal bankruptcy court granted an unsecured creditors committee– apparently representing primarily clergy sex abuse victims– derivative standing to pursue claims that some $150 million in assets actually belong to the Archdiocese, not to individual parishes. The...

In a 268-page opinion in Legacy Church, Inc. v. Kunkel, (D NM, July 13, 2020), Legacy Church lost its challenges under the Free Exercise Clause and the Freedom of Assembly Clause to New Mexico Department of Health Kathyleen Kunkel’s Public Health Emergency Orders imposing various restrictions on gatherings for religious services. Summarizing its holdings, the court...

In Legacy Church, Inc. v. Kunkel, (D NM, April 17, 2020), a New Mexico federal district court refused to enjoin enforcement of the Order issued by the New Mexico Department of Health that bars gatherings of more than five people in houses of worship. Legacy Church, a megachurch, requires approximately 30 clergy and technical staff members...

In Khan v. Barela, (10th Cir., March 26, 2020), the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 35-page opinion reversed a New Mexico federal district court’s sua sponte dismissal of a federal pre-trial detainee’s pro se 1st and 4th Amendment claims. Erik Khan was a pre-trial detainee for some four years. His 1st Amendment free speech...

Rev. Kaji Douša, senior pastor of New York City’s Park Avenue Christian Church, has filed suit against the federal government claiming that she has been targeted for ministering to migrants at the southern border and in Mexico.  The complaint (full text) in Dousa v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, (SD CA, filed 7/8/2019) alleges in part:...

AP reports that a mistrial was declared Tuesday after an Arizona federal court jury was unable to reach a verdict in the prosecution of Scott Warren, a volunteer with the humanitarian group No More Deaths. Warren was charged with concealing and harboring aliens after he offered aid to two migrants near the U.S.-Mexico border. Warren’s defenses...

In Schwartz v. Korn, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38486 (ED TN, March 11, 2019), a Tennessee federal district court allowed an inmate to move ahead with his complaint that his food is not being prepared according to kosher requirements and he does not receive the same number of meals as other inmates. In Khan v. Barela, 2019...