Trickle Down Healthcare: How Federal Chaos Hurts Rural New Mexicans
All across rural New Mexico, access to good, competent healthcare has always been a struggle for working people and families. Whether one is looking for an Endocrinologist in Farmington in the Four Corners, or a Dentist that takes Medicaid in Hobbs in the Permian Basin, it is a time-consuming process. Fitting into a packed appointment schedule, taking time off from work or school, arranging childcare, and especially trying to find transportation to see a healthcare provider who is sometimes one or two hours drive away are all parts of the complicated reality for so many New Mexicans.
I organize with undocumented, immigrant & working class youth in Southern New Mexico, and for them, young adults who are just starting to figure out their lives, and taking on the challenge of addressing long-term and new health issues, this problem of access is magnified ten-fold. Unable to access Medicare or Medicaid, paying exuberant out-of-pocket prices for routine check-ups, not to mention specialized care, and a certain kind of unfamiliarity with the healthcare system due to their status keeps many young people in a cycle of long term sickness.
So where do a lot of folks end up going? Often, in places that have them, they seek care at “Federally Qualified Health Centers,” which are Healthcare Centers that provide care to underserved communities, typically rural patients of color. In Southern New Mexico, the largest FQHC is Ben Archer Health Center, with 12 different clinics up and down the Mesilla Valley, and clinics at several of the High schools in Las Cruces, Ben Archer provided care to many different people, including migrant farmworkers, mixed status & undocumented families, and many working class folks on a sliding scale.
Well, they were doing so for some time. All that changed in February 2025, when a poster at one of the Ben Archers clinics in Las Cruces went up declaring that, due to an Executive Order issued by the President “.... any ineligible alien who entered the United States illegally or is otherwise unlawfully president in the United States does not qualify for federally funded services at Ben Archer Health Center [including school clinics].”
In early 2025, the watchword of the day was “Executive Orders.” A new Presidential Administration always comes with change in policy, direction, identity and posturing; and that direction was made explicit by the whirlwind of EO’s that covered things from establishing a White House Faith Office, to Designating English as the official language of the United States, to directing Federal Secretaries to identify ways that undocumented people might be benefiting from Federal Funding.
Ben Archer Health Center, eager to comply with a deadly Executive Order, which as various State Agencies and New Mexico Federal Congressional Offices pointed out, does not even apply or direct FQHCs like Ben Archer to take the actions it took, jumped at the opportunity to put at risk thousands of their patients care. After community pressure, the threat of an investigation by the NM Department of Justice, and negative press, Ben Archer leadership reversed its decision shortly after.
However, all is not well and all is not remedied. Various community members and local leaders told me that their records were kept from them, appointments were canceled, access to life-saving medication like insulin were denied, and lives were thrown into chaos. Other FQHCs stepped in and took over their patient load, and the contract to provide care to high schools in Las Cruces Public Schools was rightly cancelled.
It is clear that the leadership of Ben Archer Health Center is out of tune with the needs of the community that they share. It is also obvious that this situation is a symptom of a lack of accessible, affordable healthcare. New Mexico is well positioned to protect patients' right to the care that they deserve and need, without the fear of being turned away for their status.