Friday, July 8, 2022
CapitalPress.com 3
BLM urges dismissal of lawsuit
over Hammond grazing allotments
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Capital Press File
A foreign farmworker picks apples in Orondo, Wash.
U.S. to offer 300,000
temporary work visas, says
a top official of Mexico
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
The U.S. will offer 300,000
additional temporary work visas
to citizens of Mexico and Cen-
tral America in July, according to
Mexico’s secretary of the Interior.
Some of the workers could
potentially end up in the U.S. agri-
cultural sector.
“Every day, we are talking with
the American government to try to
create conditions,” Adan Augusto
Lopez Hernandez, secretary of the
Interior, told attendees at a busi-
ness sector meeting in Tijuana,
Mexico, on June 22.
Lopez Hernandez said “the
American government agreed to
grant” 300,000 temporary work
visas: 150,000 for Mexicans or
foreigners who are in Mexico and
150,000 visas “distributed propor-
tionally” among Central American
nations.
Lopez Hernandez said it has
cost Mexico “a lot, in social terms”
to be a crossing point for migrants,
and he hopes a U.S. expansion of
temporary work visas will help
“lower the tension.”
An official agreement between
the two countries has not yet been
announced.
U.S. President Joe Biden plans
to host Mexico’s president, Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador, in Wash-
ington, D.C., on July 12, according
to the White House.
Lopez Hernandez, the Interior
secretary, said business leaders
can expect an announcement about
additional visas to come out of the
meeting.
“Now, the president (of Mex-
ico) is going to Washington next
month, and an announcement is
going to be presented,” said Lopez
Hernandez.
The White House did not imme-
diately confirm whether the Biden
administration plans to grant
300,000 additional work visas, but
a White House statement issued
June 28 said Biden and Lopez
Obrador will discuss their efforts
to address global challenges and
visions for the future, including
“cooperation on migration.”
Sean Savett, press secretary
for the National Security Council,
told the Capital Press on June 30
the seasonal worker program the
U.S. has set up with Mexico “has
allowed an alternative to irregular
migration that fills critical needs in
the U.S. economy.”
In fiscal year 2021, Savett said,
the U.S. issued more than 350,000
agricultural and non-agricultural
temporary work visas.
“We have been working along-
side Mexico, Central America and
Haiti to expand these programs
based on need, while protecting
workers and ensuring recruitment
is fair and ethical,” said Savett.
As part of the Summit of the
Americas, an event held in early
June, the U.S. announced a $65
million program to expand labor
protections for farmworkers and
added 11,500 new seasonal worker
visas for northern Central America
and Haiti.
Savett said the U.S. is similarly
expanding its work with Mexico.
The two countries, he said, recently
created a working group focused
on expanding labor mobility and
improving worker protections.
The federal government is seek-
ing the dismissal of a grazing law-
suit involving Oregon’s Hammond
Ranches because cattle won’t graze
the affected allotments until an
environmental review is done.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Man-
agement has begun an “environ-
mental impact statement” of live-
stock management and ecological
health on four allotments tradition-
ally grazed by the Hammond fam-
ily near Diamond, Ore.
Cattle won’t be permitted onto
the 26,000 acres of public land
before the EIS is finished, so there’s
no longer any basis for an environ-
mental lawsuit that opposes cattle
grazing by the Hammond family,
according to BLM.
“The case is moot because there
is no live controversy between the
parties,” said Shannon Boylan, the
government’s attorney, during oral
arguments on June 29.
The Western Watersheds Proj-
ect and three other environmental
groups urged a federal judge not to
dismiss the lawsuit, arguing there’s
no guarantee BLM will actually
follow through on the study.
“Right now there is no EIS, so
it’s premature to declare the case
moot,” said Talasi Brooks, attorney
for the environmental plaintiffs.
“We don’t know what the agency
will do this time, and we won’t
know until they do it.”
The Oregon ranch family was
thrown into the public spotlight
more than a decade ago, when
Dwight Hammond and his son,
Steven, were charged with arson
for setting fires to rangelands.
Criminal and civil litigation
involving the Hammonds has taken
many twists and turns since then.
After being convicted in a jury
trial, the Hammonds spent time
behind bars and were released —
only to be re-imprisoned after a
federal appeals court decided they
had to serve longer five-year man-
datory minimum sentences.
Their return to federal prison
was met with protests that culmi-
nated in the standoff at the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge in 2016,
which gained national attention.
Capital Press File
Allotments traditionally used for grazing by Hammond Ranches
are undergoing an extensive environmental review. The federal
government has urged a judge to dismiss a lawsuit against graz-
ing on those allotments.
The Hammonds were released
from prison early after former
President Donald Trump pardoned
them in 2018.
The following year, BLM
restored the grazing permit that the
Hammond family had lost after the
arson convictions.
A federal judge overturned
that decision and remanded it to
the BLM, but the agency again
renewed their grazing permit in the
final days of the Trump administra-
tion in early 2021.
Environmental groups filed
another lawsuit over the deci-
sion but the BLM soon decided to
rescind the permit decision after
the Biden administration came into
office.
The BLM now says the law-
suit should be thrown out because
the environmental plaintiffs no lon-
ger have a problem for the federal
court to sort out.
“There is no continuing harm
because grazing never occurred,”
said Boylan, the agency’s attor-
ney. “I don’t know what the court
would be reviewing if this case is
not dismissed.”
Until the BLM makes a new
grazing decision based on the
environmental impact statement,
there’s nothing to fight about in
court, she said.
“It would be premature for the
agency to declare it will make one
decision or another because it has
not completed the environmental
analysis yet,” Boylan said. “Plain-
tiffs have the opportunity to partici-
pate in the EIS process.”
Hammond Ranches hasn’t
intervened in the lawsuit but has
submitted comments on the BLM’s
EIS process, said Alan Schroeder,
the company’s attorney.
When the grazing permit was
rescinded, the agency initially said
it only planned to respond to pro-
tests — but it has now undertaken
a much more complex process, he
said.
“One could be frustrated with
the fact they have further reversed
course,” Schroeder said.
Completing an EIS takes about
4.5 years on average, according to
a federal estimate.
In its letter to BLM, the ranch
questioned why it hasn’t been
issued an interim grazing permit,
since BLM is effectively “holding
hostage” private land that’s adja-
cent to the public allotments.
Fencing off the private prop-
erty is “not prudent for a wealth of
ecologic and economic consider-
ations,” the letter said.
The environmental plaintiffs
claimed the lawsuit isn’t moot
because the BLM hasn’t termi-
nated the “environmental assess-
ment,” or EA, that justified the
grazing permit’s renewal.
“The agency can issue a new
decision based on that EA at any
time,” said Brooks, the environ-
mental attorney. “The fact the EA
is still in effect means the agency
can do the same thing again. BLM
can authorize grazing based on the
EA at any time.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew
Hall said at the conclusion of oral
arguments that he’d try to issue a
decision within 60 days but urged
the parties to find an interim solu-
tion before then.
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