National Guard deployments cost state over $22M with no 'clear' impact on crime, legislative committee says - Matthew Reisen, Albuquerque Journal
Despite the state spending more than $22 million to deploy hundreds of New Mexico National Guard members into the Española area and parts of Albuquerque as part of a public safety emergency, a recent analysis found the operations had not shown “clear impacts on crime.”
A June 16 Legislative Finance Committee report found that “crime metrics have not changed much” in Albuquerque, while in Rio Arriba County crime rates have not been reported to back up any meaningful impacts of the deployment.
“In addition, outstanding warrants have remained steady, and calls for service to county dispatch are up. While the state has invested in crime reduction, the efforts so far have not yielded measurable results,” according to the report.
The law enforcement leaders at the helm during the Operation Zia Shield deployments in Albuquerque and Española begged to differ, saying the servicemembers freed up officers to fight crime. A Guard spokesperson said servicemembers — unarmed and without enforcement authority — clocked over 12,000 man hours in Albuquerque and over 9,600 hours up north, where they are still deployed.
The deployments were spurred months apart by executive orders signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham that aimed to address public safety challenges, specifically drug trafficking and violent crime.
The Department of Military Affairs, which oversees the state National Guard, accounted for most of the deployments spending $17.1 million and a sizable share came from the Department of Public Safety, which utilized $4.5 million of its budget to support the operations, including $3.3 million in overtime for New Mexico State Police officers, $472,000 for operational needs, like travel and lodging, and $800,000 for equipment.
In Albuquerque, crime stats provided by the police department showed a decrease in crimes like aggravated assault and auto theft in parts of the city where the servicemembers were deployed from June to December. In Española and Rio Arriba County, where the Guard deployed in October and remains active, such data was unavailable.
LFC analysts found that, with crime already trending downward across the country, they were unable to say the roughly $22.9 million investment had any impacts that were clearly measurable for the state — which for years has had violent and property crime rates well above the national average.
In a statement Tuesday, Lujan Grisham’s office said Rio Arriba County overdose deaths and related emergency room visits dropped 41% and 48%, respectively, since the deployment began, adding “these are the clearest signs that the coordinated response is doing what the emergency declaration was designed to do.”
LFC analysts pointed out that the county already had the highest overdose death rate statewide and, according to the state Department of Health, saw 48% and 81% spikes in overdose deaths and emergency room visits, respectively, in the first part of 2025, possibly linked to higher-potency fentanyl.
While the United States has seen drug overdose deaths decline, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New Mexico has seen them spike to their highest levels as of February.
Lujan Grisham’s office said the LFC report did not include more recent “task force enforcement” numbers, saying “joint agencies” in Rio Arriba County arrested more than 3,600 people, seized 219 firearms and recovered 103 stolen vehicles.
The statement said the operations in Albuquerque were different and the servicemembers “played a more supportive role across a range of functions.” On East Central, according to the statement, the operation led to more than 1,018 cases filed.
“This is only a fraction of what we could have accomplished if we had the same level of local commitment in Albuquerque as we do in Rio Arriba,” according to the statement, echoing a prior criticism. “That commitment, paired with a joint effort on collecting data, leads to successful operations.”
Lujan Grisham’s office said the millions in funding reflects her commitment to protect communities “from the toll of drug trafficking and violent crime.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller’s Office said, “We understand that different folks had different ideas of what the purpose of the Guard was, for us it was clearly stated, to be civilian support for Albuquerque police. Guard personnel were very helpful in handling support functions that did not require sworn officers, allowing APD officers to remain focused on law enforcement and crime reduction.”
Shaun Willoughby, Albuquerque police union president, said the Guard was a “temporary fix to a permanent problem” of an understaffed police force.
“Is the juice worth the squeeze?” He said. “Wouldn’t that $20 million be better spent on a massive national recruiting effort?”
Willoughby said attributing lowering crime rates to the servicemembers, who were “extremely limited” in their abilities, made “no common sense.”
“It's going to be on the backs of the hardworking men and women of this police department, not on the National Guard,” he said. “And anybody that says that they are responsible for bringing crime down, it's just a bold-faced lie.”
‘Fundamental mission’
State National Guard spokesperson Hank Minitrez said at the peak there were 150 servicemembers deployed to Albuquerque, largely relegated to East Central. He said the “Española mission,” which includes surrounding areas of Rio Arriba County, currently has 48 servicemembers assigned.
Minitrez said the only differences between the two deployments “involve uniform and local operational requirements.”
In Albuquerque, the Guard wore black polos, body armor and khaki pants. In the Española area, they wore standard Army or Air Force camo uniforms with body armor. Servicemembers did not carry guns for either deployment.
“The fundamental mission remains the same: support local law enforcement by performing duties that do not require a sworn law enforcement officer,” Minitrez said, including providing traffic control, offering medical assistance and assisting prosecutors with “back-office support.”
He said the Guard also conducted vehicle and foot patrols “to provide an additional visible presence” and identify suspicious activity. Minitrez said, in the Española area, those efforts led to 81 arrests where servicemembers directly assisted in reporting a crime or finding a suspect.
Minitrez said there is no official end date for the Rio Arriba County deployment.
Española Police Chief Jack Jones called the Guard "magnificent."
Jones said, at any given time, there are eight to 12 servicemembers in Española. They hold perimeters for special events like Fiestas and patrol high-crime areas.
“They identify things that look out of the ordinary, and they call us, and we go,” Jones said. He said the Guard was a great help during a recent bosque fire, helping people evacuate and blocking roads.
Jones did not have comparable data but said the deployment had shown results, like a 74% increase in arrests — not a measure used to reflect increases or decreases in crime.
“It's not that crime has gone away. It's just we don't have the crime that we had,” he said.
Jones, who lives in Albuquerque and travels to Española for work, said he knows both areas well and “Albuquerque is not in crisis.”
“The only crisis is a made-up crisis with the homeless population,” he said.
Retired Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said the governor’s criticism came from a failure to get the unhoused off the sidewalks of East Central.
“It didn't fix the visualization — people seeing unhoused people, because they're still unhoused,” he said. “There was a thought process that by enforcing laws it was going to clear up the homeless… which I knew it wasn't going to do.”
Medina said he orchestrated the way the Guard was deployed in the city and stands by the choices he made, including no uniforms and no enforcement capabilities.
Medina said the biggest accomplishment of the operation was having servicemembers block off accident scenes and work airport security to “free up a gun and badge to do gun and badge work.”
He said it was regrettable that the focus of the Albuquerque deployment fell onto the governor’s statements and political beefs. Medina said the servicemembers “were the ones in the streets.”
Doña Ana County residents criticize local, state officials for advancing Project Jupiter - Leah Romero, Source New Mexico
More than 300 residents of Doña Ana County, where the massive Project Jupiter data center is under construction, aired their frustrations this week with state lawmakers as they shared their plans for the 2027 legislative session.
New Mexico Democratic Sens. Joseph Cervantes, Carrie Hamblen, Bill Soules and Jeff Steinborn – all from Las Cruces and vocal opponents to Project Jupiter – convened a Legislative Listening Session on Tuesday on the New Mexico State University main campus. Residents had the chance to ask questions pertaining to water usage, air quality, energy, economic development and other concerns about the project being built in the southern part of the county.
The $165 billion AI development that will support OpenAI and Oracle has drawn criticism for months due to issues with transparency, claims of mismanagement by county and state elected officials and rushed permit approvals by other state agencies.
“This is about money,” Cervantes said during the meeting. “This is a predatory project taking advantage of people like us that are the least able to fight it.”
Cervantes suggested that if such a project were proposed in Santa Fe, Albuquerque or elsewhere in the northern part of the state, it would have been quickly halted – and that county commissioners would be voted out of office.
Taylor Axtell, a conservation photographer in Las Cruces, asked the panel about the feasibility of having the Office of the State Auditor investigate every aspect of the data center project, including elected and appointed officials.
“We want our county commissioners investigated,” Axtell said. “They need to be held accountable. If this is illegal, would this also cause the project to fall apart?”
Residents also voiced concerns over security for personal information and for banks and hospitals; that impacts to children and future generations are being overlooked; that the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer granted emergency water usage permits; and that the New Mexico Environment Department will similarly grant air quality permits to the project. Another resident questioned whether there was a contingency plan in place to remediate problems and pollution if the project fails.
State Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena (D-Mesilla), who attended but was not part of the panel, told Source New Mexico that she was disappointed that there was no representation from state agencies at the meeting to join in the conversation with the community.
“That’s disrespectful, it’s disappointing, it’s not government working. It’s government running away from a dirty deal they made,” she told Source. “Our people, our neighbors, our familia, they’re clear, they’re compelling, they’re articulate. They have learned up about what’s at stake here and it’s so important when elected officials come together to listen. Too bad the state wasn’t here to own their responsibility and be accountable to the decisions they’re making.”
Lara Cadena and Rep. Angelica Rubio (D-Las Cruces) spoke to members of the interim Science, Technology and Telecommunications Committee in Socorro earlier Tuesday about their plans to introduce a statewide data center moratorium bill early on in the January 2027 legislative session. Hamblen told the crowd Tuesday evening that she intends to sponsor the bill on the senate side.
Steinborn pointed to his work in the last regular session on the Microgrid Oversight Act, which died in committee, but intended to give the Public Regulatory Commission oversight over microgrids and require the use of renewable energy in such projects. He told attendees that he plans to reintroduce the bill in 2027, along with a bill requiring more transparency in lobbying activities.
Soules added that data center projects are about greed and are a “mechanism to continue the oil and gas industry in New Mexico and give them a market for their fuel.” He said since the federal government has rolled back greenhouse gas regulations, it is up to the state to regulate and ensure state laws have enforcement mechanisms to keep companies accountable.
“If you want to get the attention of people who are focused on money, you tax them and you tax them hard,” Cervantes, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said.
When asked what New Mexico residents could do, he reminded voters that several seats on the Doña Ana County Commission are up for election in November, as are legislators, the governorship and the State Land Commissioner, all of whom play a part in holding data center projects accountable.
A quartet of ABQ City Councilors raises alarm White House plans to let political staff cancel local grants - Jesse Jones, City Desk ABQ
Burqueños who rely on local housing, transit and community services could see programs lose federal funding if a proposed rule were to give political appointees new power to freeze or end grants over vague standards tied to federal policy.
Four Albuquerque City Councilors, led by Stephanie Telles and joined by Council President Klarissa Peña, Nichole Rogers and Tammy Fiebelkorn, are challenging a proposed rule from the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget that they say could give Washington broad authority to freeze city funding.
The proposed rule would allow federal agencies to freeze or end grants based on vague standards such as “national interest” or “anti-American values,” shifting key decisions from career staff to political appointees.
Councilors warned the cuts could affect Burqueños who rely on housing, transit and other community services while pressuring Albuquerque to change its sanctuary city and community trust policies or risk losing federal funding.
The proposal comes weeks after the Trump administration acknowledged in court filings that it illegally canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in New Mexico energy program funding before agreeing to restore the money.
“Public trust is strengthened when federal regulations reinforce transparent, accountable and risk-informed governance, not when they replace objective standards with undefined discretion,” the councilors wrote.
According to the OMB’s regulatory impact analysis, the changes would address “oversight gaps” and protect the “responsible stewardship of taxpayer funds.”
The analysis states that the reforms — such as ending fixed-amount subawards, or grants passed down to local non-profits, checking the Treasury Department’s Do Not Pay list and enforcing E-Verify — aim to boost transparency, curb improper payments and keep federal grants on track.
Frijoles Fire expands to nearly 8,000 acres - John Miller, Albuquerque Journal
The largest wildfire currently burning in New Mexico continues to grow amid stubbornly arid conditions, expanding in the Pecos Wilderness Area to around 7,800 acres on Tuesday and degrading air quality across the region.
While growth over most of the Frijoles Fire slowed on Tuesday, the blaze was more active along its northern perimeter, which accounted for much of the fire’s 1,800-acre expansion overnight.
Firefighters continue to build fire lines near communities in the vicinity of the blaze, including Chimayó, Cerro Piñon, Gorham Boy Scout Ranch and Cundiyó, where some residents were evacuated late Monday.
Crews are using masticators and bulldozers to reinforce Forest Roads 424 and 306 as containment lines to help mitigate further fire spread. Both roads remain closed and are located near previous fire mitigation projects, including prescribed fires designed to reduce dead and downed debris that can cause wildfires to grow beyond natural limits.
On Tuesday night, a Santa Fe County task force accompanied firefighters as they removed potential fire fuels by hand and using heavy equipment around homes and other major structures. Crews also installed sprinkler systems and established other water supplies around these small New Mexico villages and near structures in the 2,650-acre Scout Ranch.
Chimayó, home to the famous El Santuario de Chimayó Catholic pilgrimage site, was still accessible Tuesday as smoke settled in the foothills west of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, where the fire was discovered on Aug. 4 following a series of dry thunderstorms.
“When smoke from wildfires is affecting outdoor air quality, New Mexicans can protect their health by staying indoors and setting up a clean room designed to keep smoke levels as low as possible,” said Dr. Chelsea Langer, bureau chief of the environmental health epidemiology bureau for the New Mexico Department of Health.
Smoke emanating from the fire continues to impact the town of Taos and the city of Santa Fe, where the Santa Fe Public Schools District halted outdoor recess and sports practices starting Tuesday.
Due to the continued growth and complexity of the Frijoles Fire, Forest Service Spokesperson Sean McNearney said a California Complex Incident Management Team would be briefed on Wednesday and would officially take command of the incident Thursday morning.
“They'll have a larger span of control for more resources which are arriving,” McNearney said. “They’re going to have more of these middle-level managers who can essentially command more resources underneath them.”
The remainder of Cundiyó and the nearby village of Cerro Piñon are in “Set” status, meaning residents in these areas should be prepared to evacuate if needed. Rio Arriba County has placed the community of Cordova, on the northern edge of the fire, in “Ready” status, indicating to residents they should monitor fire updates closely.
Santa Fe County has established an emergency shelter for evacuees at the Pojoaque Valley Middle School gym.
New Mexico keeps regular vaccine schedule despite Trump order - Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
New Mexico is still advising that children receive the normal vaccine schedule after the Trump administration’s Monday executive order, which called for paring down the number of recommended vaccines and spacing out existing shots.
“Here in New Mexico, nothing has changed,” said Dr. Miranda Durham, chief medical officer for the New Mexico Department of Health.
Durham said NMDOH follows the American Academy of Pediatrics childhood vaccine schedule, which makes all vaccines available to parents if they choose. Insurance coverage for vaccines will not change either — New Mexico Medicaid plans and private insurance will continue to cover childhood vaccines regardless of the executive order, she said.
NMDOH continues to recommend 17 different vaccines, including shots protecting against hepatitis A and B, influenza and COVID-19, though the White House’s executive order cut the list down to 11.
Trump also advocated for splitting the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three separate shots, to be administered at different times. The single-shot MMR vaccine has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for safe use since 1971.
NMDOH will continue to administer the MMR vaccine all at once, Durham said.
“Splitting it up … really offers no advantages,” Durham said. “There’s no safety difference. It’s just more visits, more pokes, more time off of work, more time schlepping your kid to the doctor.”
Regardless of the executive order, the MMR vaccine is not even manufactured as three different shots, she added.
“Even if, as a doctor, you wanted to order a single antigen vaccine, one that just covers measles, it’s not available in the U.S.,” Durham said. “I’m not sure it’s available anywhere.”
Measles cases in the U.S. are at a 35-year high, and flu season is rapidly approaching, so New Mexico health officials are advocating that patients be protected.
“Our message remains the same: The science is clear — vaccines are safe, effective and save children’s lives,” Durham said.
Families looking for guidance on vaccines can call the NMDOH help line at 1-833-796-8773 or text 66364 to speak with a medical professional who can answer their questions, Durham said. She recommends that parents visit the American Academy of Pediatrics website for guidance and talk to their family physician.
New Mexico Republican lawmakers host panel on reforming state child welfare agency - Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
Five Republicans in the New Mexico state Senate convened an hourslong “task force” hearing Wednesday focused on reforming the state’s troubled child welfare agency.
The lawmakers heard from former Children, Youth and Families Department employees and a child currently under state care and the recently confirmed head of the state’s new independent oversight office.
How to manage CYFD has become a key point in New Mexico’s gubernatorial race, particularly after reports that agency staffers earlier this year took a New Mexico teenager out of foster care, dropped him off at the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso and instructed him to walk alone into Ciudad Juárez to reunite with his estranged mother.
“This is not a department with a few rough edges. It’s a system in crisis,” Sen. Nicole Tobiassen (R-Albuquerque) said.
Wednesday’s task force meeting came just one day after Democrats in the state House of Representatives unveiled their child well-being plans for the upcoming legislative session, including a proposal to implement a three-person commission to oversee CYFD. Many of the Democrats’ proposals mirrored the dozens recently recommended by the New Mexico Department of Justice.
“I appreciate the Democrats coming out yesterday and finally talking about this,” Sen. Jay Block (R-Rio Rancho) said during the hearing. “However, the Democrats keep silencing our voice by not hearing our bills in committee.”
A former CYFD employee also spoke before the panel of Republican lawmakers. Evan Sena, who left the agency in 2024 and recounted his experiences in the state attorney general’s April investigative report, said he was alarmed by the lack of structure provided to kids in state custody.
“I’ve been exposed to drugs, been threatened, I’ve had way too many kids in my caseload,” Sena said. “There was an amount of turmoil that I’ve never seen in a state agency or any agency or workplace I’ve been to.”
In New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s investigative report, Sena is quoted as referring to CYFD office spaces, which controversially functioned as overnight homes for some kids in CYFD custody, as “third world.”
In January, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham banned the practice of overnight office stays, saying in an announcement that “children who have experienced trauma deserve safety, stability and dignity — not sleeping in offices.”
That same month, Lujan Grisham appointed Dawn Walters to lead the state Office of the Child Advocate. Walters spoke before the panel of Republican lawmakers Wednesday and told them that she believes many of New Mexico’s issues with child well-being extend beyond CYFD.
The child welfare and foster systems as a whole, she said, can be difficult to navigate for the family members of children in them. She laid out several major observations from her first several months on the job, including that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for family reunification and that family members are often contacted inconsistently or too late into the process.
She said she often hears that the system is “not only extraordinarily difficult to navigate…but it’s also extremely traumatic.”
The Office of the Child Advocate, which is administratively attached to the New Mexico Department of Justice, is a relatively new form of oversight for CYFD. In fact, Wednesday marked the 135th day of “building a new government office, essentially from the ground up,” Walters told lawmakers.
Its nascency led to some questions over who Walters reports to and how to correct course if the office ever had an ineffectual leader.
“Don’t take this the wrong way — I’m just curious,” Block said to Walters, “How do we remove you?”
After reminding Block with a laugh that “it’s only day 135,” Walters said the state attorney general has the authority to remove anyone in her position for violating certain provisions of the 2025 law that created her office.
Walters’ term is currently set to run through 2031.
“My goal is to build an office that is credible, thoughtful and relentlessly child-focused,” she told lawmakers.
Local state prosecutor recommended for disbarment - Olivia Lewis Taos News
The New Mexico Supreme Court is set to consider disbarring a prosecutor after repeated accounts of misconduct.
The Taos News reports the Disciplinary Board of the court made the recommendation in late July after it investigated three criminal cases prosecuted by Cosme Ripol with the 8th Judicial Attorney’s Office.
During the investigation, the board noted instances where Ripol brought in inadmissible or undisclosed evidence, including one occasion where he brought in evidence from a victim’s remains that had an intense odor.
The board also took notice of other theatrics like name-calling defendants, which included “mad-dog” and “bruja,” Spanish for witch.
The board concluded that these tactics resulted in unfair trials in defendants, some of which ended in mistrials or being overturned due to Ripol’s tactics.
Only the Supreme Court of New Mexico can make the final decision of disbarring Ripol. Currently, he is still working out of Raton.
