First, the good news: A Democrat governor in a border state has recognized that fentanyl trafficking is a real emergency. And more good news; the same governor has mobilized the National Guard to join the fight. It’s as if the success of Donald Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott has actually taught a lesson to blue-state leadership.
So what’s the bad news? Michelle Lujan Grisham isn’t sending the National Guard to New Mexico’s border with Mexico. She’s mobilizing them for traffic and guard duty in Albuquerque … next month. Lujan Grisham calls this a “radical, fair” step:
Well … baby steps, I guess?
Supposedly, this is in response to a “crime emergency,” although both the governor and Albuquerque city leaders claim crime is actually going down. Last year, Democrats insisted that there were no crime emergencies in the US and that the idea that crime was a rising problem was merely a Republican talking point. However, in authorizing the mobilization, Lujan Grisham’s office cited “the fentanyl epidemic and rising violent crime among juveniles” as the reasons why the National Guard was needed for law-enforcement purposes in Albuquerque, at least 250 miles away from the source of the fentanyl incursions into New Mexico and the US.
Lujan Grisham could choose to mobilize the National Guard to defend the border and stop the incursions, but that would affirm Donald Trump’s positions and policies. Instead, the governor plans to use the National Guard for these duties:
National Guard personnel will help APD with the following areas:
- Scene security and traffic control at critical incidents
- Medical assistance and humanitarian efforts along Central Avenue
- Prisoner Transport Unit assistance
- Transit security enhancement
- Metro Court security support
- Aviation/Sunport security assistance
- Shield Unit case preparation support
- APD Drone Program operational assistance
Those might be tasks rationally assigned to National Guard units for a couple of weeks in the middle of a natural disaster response or rioting acutely occurring in an urban center. Those are not appropriate assignments for the National Guard for a “crime emergency” lasting six months. Those tasks belong to law enforcement, and if Albuquerque and/or New Mexico need 60 or 70 more officers to handle those tasks, then they should budget properly and hire them. The National Guard is a military organization, not a law enforcement agency.
The ACLU is not at all pleased with Lujan Grisham’s actions:
Daniel Williams, policy advocate at the ACLU of New Mexico, called the governor’s action a show of force, not a solution.
“New Mexico already has one of the highest per capita rates of people killed by police in the nation,” Williams said. “History has shown that military collaboration with local law enforcement often leads to increased civil rights violations, racial profiling, and criminalization of vulnerable populations, particularly those experiencing homelessness and poverty.”
The problem is more basic than that. Lujan Grisham wants to use the National Guard to replace police that she won’t fund or support for long-term policies she creates. This resource drain for tasks that are not within the National Guard’s mission will impact the National Guard’s readiness for actual emergencies, as opposed to the chronic consequences of failed policies. However, the ACLU is correct to raise the issue of militarization of law enforcement, especially for months on end on a mission which is likely to be open-ended.
Furthermore, the resources are being applied to the wrong location. It’s akin to plugging a hole in a boat by sticking a life preserver over it on the inside. The fentanyl leak isn’t happening in Albuquerque; it’s happening 250 miles or more to the south at the border. The National Guard’s real purpose does directly relate to the mission of border security — so why isn’t Lujan Grisham mobilizing National Guard soldiers to bolster the Border Patrol and ICE at that front, rather than posting a few dozen of them to the rear in Albuquerque?
This is yet another example of Lujan Grisham’s incompetence at both governing and grasping basic American civics. She put both on display almost two years ago when she tried to impose a gun ban in Albuquerque that even fellow Democrats in Bernalillo County refused to enforce, and which a Biden-appointed federal judge wasted no time in quashing. Lujan Grisham at the time declared that “I don’t need a lecture on constitutionality,” just before getting one in federal court. Now she needs a civics lesson on the difference between military and law enforcement — and maybe a refresher course in New Mexico geography.
