The jig is hurtling toward the sun.
Deriding the “charade of border fear-mongering by Donald Trump, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered the majority of National Guard troops deployed at the state’s southern border to withdraw.
“I reject the federal contention that there exists an overwhelming national security crisis at the Southern border,” Lujan Grisham wrote of her order, stressing that the area boasted “some of the safest communities in the country.”
Ordered just before Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, Lujan Grisham bristled at the notion of a national emergency along her state’s shared border with Mexico, though some troops will remain behind to fulfill a humanitarian mission.
Guard members from Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Wisconsin make up a large part of the 118 National Guard troops deployed in Lujan Grisham’s state.
Among the locations effected by Lujan Grisham’s order, the Antelope Wells port of entry saw 7-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin pass through her initial screening before dying of dehydration and shock in December.
In light of the continued need for humanitarian relief in Hidalgo county and other nearby communities, the state National Guard will decide how large of a presence will be needed to further support counties where large groups of families, women and children have been crossing over.
Lujan Grisham is one of a growing number of politicians along the southern border voicing their displeasure with Trump’s troop demands. Jim Darling, Mayor of McAllen, Tex., touted his city’s safety while addressing the real need facing migrants and those stationed near the border.
“Send social workers to process the asylum-seekers, not soldiers,” Darling said, per NPR. “It is a misconception that the border is insecure. There is no Central American invasion. This is a manufactured crisis.”