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UTEP receives $7M mining gift, border reunification event canceled [1]
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Date: 2025-05-09
This is your weekly news roundup, which takes a quick look at some developments in government, politics, education, environment and other topics across El Paso.
UTEP Receives $7M Gift to Restart Mining Engineering Program
The University of Texas at El Paso has received a $7 million gift from mining company Freeport-McMoRan to support the university’s effort to restart its mining engineering program. The gift was announced Tuesday at Freeport offices on Hawkins Boulevard.
UTEP officials believe the program will be valuable to meet a national need for more mining engineers. U.S. universities graduated 312 mining engineers in 2023 and the field expects to need about 500 new engineers annually to replace those who retire or leave the field, according to the university.
The university, which started as a mining school and phased out the degree in the mid-1960s, announced last September that it would restart the program. It will be the only mining program in Texas, where mining is a $10 billion-plus industry, UTEP reported.
The institution needs program approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Officials expect to launch the undergraduate degree plan in fall 2027, and start to graduate mining engineers in spring 2031. Officials hope to graduate about 100 mining engineers annually as the program matures.
Mining engineers ensure that underground resources such as gas, oil, metals and minerals are unearthed carefully and efficiently. The excavated minerals could be used for energy, electronics, national security and many essential technologies.
The University of Texas System promised last September to invest $20 million to help UTEP establish the mining program.
Freeport, a company based in Phoenix, Arizona, is an international metals company and one of the world’s largest publicly traded copper producers. The company has job sites in the United States, especially the Southwest, as well as countries in Asia and South America.
Border Network for Human Rights Cancels ‘Hugs Not Walls’ Over Military Zone
The Border Network for Human Rights canceled its 12th annual Hugs Not Walls event, scheduled for May 10, as the Department of the Army establishes a border military zone from El Paso to Fort Hancock. Anyone who enters the military zone can be arrested for trespassing.
Armando Rodriguez, who lives in El Paso, embraces his 5-year-old daughter, who lives in Juárez with her mother, during the Hugs Not Walls event on May 6, 2023. Rodriguez had not seen his daughter face to face since she was 1 year old. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
Hugs Not Walls has taken place since 2016 under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. The event allows families separated by the border to meet in the middle of the Rio Grande, where they have three minutes to embrace relatives they have not seen in years.
Fernando Garcia, director of BNHR, said in a news conference Wednesday that the organization worked for months to secure permits and coordinate plans with the International Boundary and Water Commission, Border Patrol and law enforcement entities in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. The IBWC, which stewards the land where Hugs Not Walls takes place, had granted BNHR a permit to hold the event. On May 1, however, the U.S Northern Command issued a news release on the new military zone attached to Fort Bliss.
El Paso’s “local military structure,” Garcia said, “was supportive to somehow make this event happen, because they understood that this was a community event. But there was a crushing decision that came from above.”
Garcia said he learned May 6 that local military officials had received instructions to deny BNHR access to the area, leaving 300 families that had already registered heartbroken. The decision amounts to the “dehumanization of border residents,” including U.S. citizens, Garcia said.
The registered families will still gather in El Paso and Juárez on Saturday, but they will not be able to meet or embrace.
“Nothing can substitute for seeing your brother, your aunt, your dad, your mom and hugging them and saying, ‘Here I am, I am part of you,’” Garcia said. “Why was it so threatening for this administration to allow Hugs Not Walls to happen?”
El Pasoan Potentially Exposes Measles in Austin; Free Vaccine Events in El Paso
The El Paso Department of Public Health alerted Austin Public Health that an El Paso resident visited Travis County while infectious with measles at the end of April. Epidemiologists are performing contact tracing and confirmed the traveler visited at least one public location in Austin, Terry Black’s Barbecue. Among large Texas counties, Travis County has the lowest percentage of kindergarteners vaccinated against measles – about 90% compared with 96% of El Paso kindergarteners.
More than 50 measles cases have been reported in El Paso County, as of Thursday, May 8. The Consulate General of Mexico is hosting a free vaccination clinic to help prevent the spread from 9 a.m. to noon, Wednesday, May 14, at the Consulado General de Mexico, 910 E. San Antonio Ave.
The El Paso Department of Public Health and El Paso Fire Department are also hosting a free drive-thru measles vaccine event from 2 to 7 p.m., Monday, May 19, at the El Paso Zoo, 4001 E. Paisano Drive. No appointment or insurance is required. People should bring their shot record if available.
Health officials urge people who show symptoms of measles to stay home, avoid contact with others and call their health care provider before visiting a clinic or hospital. Symptoms include fever, cough, runny nose, red and watery eyes, a rash that typically begins at the face and small white spots inside the mouth.
County Establishing Public Art Master Plan, Advisory Committee
The county of El Paso is developing an arts master plan to bring public art to areas throughout the county, and is establishing an advisory committee to help.
El Paso County Commissioners Court on Monday approved the creation of the Arts Advisory Committee, with each the county judge and four commissioners to appoint a member. Appointments are anticipated to be completed by June.
The El Paso Community Foundation will facilitate and complete public art projects in each precinct funded with American Rescue Plan Act funds allocated by the county. While public art is not specifically part of the bond that was approved by voters in November, projects under the bond include a 1% allocation for enhancements such as landscaping or public art.
Each precinct will have $55,000 to identify and complete the future art projects. Six projects will be developed in two years. The county separately has set aside $100,000 for the arts master plan and $325,000 countywide for arts programming.
The committee members will serve up to two-year terms, and the committee will sunset after that time unless it is extended by the Commissioners Court.
La Verdad Journalists Win Top Award for Joint Juárez Fire Investigation
La Verdad Juárez journalists Rocío Gallegos, Blanca Carmona and Gabriela Minjares received first-place honors at this year’s Breach/Valdez Journalism and Human Rights Awards for their investigation into the deadly fire in a Ciudad Juárez migrant detention center in 2023. The prestigious award, named after two murdered Mexican journalists, was presented Tuesday during a ceremony in Mexico City.
The joint investigation by La Verdad with Lighthouse Reports and El Paso Matters was published in March 2024 – a year after the fire killed 40 migrants who were trapped behind bars at the center. The jury praised the investigation’s multimedia, cross-border work as exemplary investigative journalism, highlighting the organizations’ commitment to the defense of human rights.
VIDEO: Smoke and lies: Uncovering the truth about the Ciudad Juárez fire
“The impact of the report touches the deepest part of the collective conscience, showing that a tragedy of such magnitude could have been avoided. The report sheds light on the humanitarian crisis of human migration and honors the memory of the victims,” judges wrote.
Gallegos said she was humbled by the award, which “recognizes work that speaks to the power of local journalism and the power of collaboration. … It was very important for us to tell this story, the tragedy in which so many migrants under the protection of the state lost their lives.”
The package also recently won an international IRE Award for video investigation and top awards from Texas Managing Editors and the Headliners Foundation of Texas. It also received two Eppy Awards by Editor and Publisher Magazine.
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2025/05/09/el-paso-news-utep-freeport-mcmoran-hugs-not-walls-measles/
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