New Mexico's governor rejects Trump's 'charade of border fearmongering,' withdraws National Guard troops

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Trump described a "tremendous onslaught" of immigrants heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border, argued that "the lawless state of our southern border" is an "urgent national crisis," and said that's why he is pushing for a border wall and sending another 4,750 active-duty military personnel to the border, bringing the total to 4,350.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) agrees with The Washington Post's fact-checkers that "by any available measure, there is no new security crisis at the border," so right before Trump's speech, she announced she's recalling almost all of the National Guard troops her Republican predecessor deployed to the border at Trump's request.

Lujan Grisham, who took office last month, said she would leave 11 to 15 of New Mexico's 80 deployed National Guard members in the state's southwestern corner to assist with humanitarian needs in an area where Central American migrants have been crossing and turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents. But she rejected "the federal contention that there exists an overwhelming national security crisis at the southern border," and said "New Mexico will not take part in the president's charade of border fearmongering by misusing our diligent National Guard troops."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Lujan Grisham also told 25 National Guard troops from other states — Arkansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Kansas, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire — to withdraw immediately from New Mexico's border. Before her announcement, she said, there were 118 National Guard members stationed at the border.