The top health official for the U.S. government is visiting New Mexico this week, but it’s unclear exactly where he will make a stop on his multi-state tour.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Friday announced that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is touring “various locations in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico” between Monday and Wednesday.
The announcement, billed as part of Kennedy’s efforts to “fulfill President Trump’s promise to Make America Healthy Again,” doesn’t specify where in New Mexico he is visiting.
When Source NM asked for more information about Kennedy’s stop in New Mexico, the department said, “There will be no events open to the press in New Mexico.”
On Monday, the department said in a news release that Kennedy would appear on Tuesday morning at a “fireside chat” during the 2025 Tribal Self-Governance Conference in Chandler, Arizona.
Also on Monday, the New York Times published an article centered on Native leaders’ criticism of Kennedy for his reassignment of high-ranking federal health officials to Indian Health Service locations in western states.
The article quotes Deb Haaland, former interior secretary for President Joe Biden, congresswoman, Laguna Pueblo member and Democratic candidate for governor of New Mexico, as saying, “It’s terrible, it’s shameful and it isn’t right.”
In a news release reiterating her criticisms, Haaland on Monday afternoon also noted Kennedy’s visit to the state, and said in a statement: “I won’t mince words, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing Trump and Musk’s bidding and it is causing chaos in New Mexico. The health care system in this country is broken, but firing employees who help New Mexicans get Medicaid and cutting funding and staff for cancer cure research is unacceptable.”
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez last week joined other state attorneys general in a legal challenge against Kennedy and the department’s decision to pull $11 billion in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants for infectious disease research, including approximately $60 million to the New Mexico Department of Health.
Democratic U.S. Senator for Hawai‘i Brian Schatz, vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said Monday that IHS plays a critical role delivering health care to Native communities, and Kennedy’s reassignments do not “look like a serious plan to do that,” and “clearly did not involve Tribal consultation.”
“If this administration truly cared about fixing IHS’s staff vacancy crisis, why did it try to cut the IHS workforce by nearly 1,000 employees just months ago?” Schatz asked in the statement. “Why is it pushing to cut Medicaid, a critical funding source for IHS, to pay for tax cuts for billionaires? And why did it give high-level career employees just hours to decide whether to uproot their lives for jobs they never applied for in places they do not know?”
Schatz added that if the Trump administration actually wants to support IHS, it should ask tribal governments about what their communities need, “not use them as political pawns in its effort to purge the federal workforce in the name of so-called government efficiency.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.This story was updated following publication to include a statement from former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
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