NEW MEXICO
New Law Equates At-risk with Abuse
New Mexico's fairly uneventful legislative session was winding to a close. But the giant was only pretending to be asleep. On March 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee amended House Bill 717, changing the definition of abuse to include the language, "Abused child means a child who is at-risk of suffering serious harm."
Home School Legal Defense Association had not opposed H.B. 717 earlier in the legislative process because there was nothing in the language which we considered a threat to New Mexico parents. On March 20, as soon as we learned of the amended language, we drafted an urgent legislative alert to our New Mexico members asking them to contact Governor Gary Johnson's office to urge his veto of House Bill 717.
Unfortunately, by the time our members received the alert it was too late. With unprecedented speed, H.B. 717 passed both the New Mexico house and senate and was signed by Governor Johnson on March 20. The governor had 10 days to sign the bill and it is not apparent at this time why he signed it so quickly.
We consider this law very dangerous, because it could result in the Children Youth and Family Division (CYFD) attempting to remove children based upon speculation that abuse might occur in the future. The bill does not indicate what factors define an "at-risk" family. Our concern is that traditional, politically incorrect families could be targeted as "at-risk," subjecting them to arbitrary intervention by CYFD.
