‘We can end our public safety crisis’

The failure of govern­ment to secure our border is the number one issue for my constituents. They want us to stop the tidal wave of illegal immigration and illicit drugs into our coun­try. Most counts have the number of new “undocu­mented” arrivals at over 8 million since President Biden took office. While most immigrants are not dangerous; human traf­fickers, drug cartels and terrorists are also taking advantage of our leaders’ failure to secure the border. We have allowed some of the world’s most danger­ous people and 27 tons of fentanyl to come into our communities over the last four years.

Combine the blatant dis­regard of our immigration laws with New Mexico’s catch and release policies, and we have a recipe for disaster. Once the prevail­ing view of society is that the rule of law is mean­ingless, our society will quickly come unraveled. “Progressive” Democrats’ soft on crime and open border policies are a dere­liction of duty to tax-pay­ing, law-abiding citizens!

I often get asked what the state of New Mexico can do to stop the flood of dangerous drugs and dangerous people into our country. Simple – We must admit that we have a problem and then refuse to ignore it. While the Fed­eral Government has the primary responsibility of securing our border, the State of New Mexico isn’t free of responsibility when it comes to protecting New Mexicans from the ongo­ing border crisis. In fact, I believe we have waited long enough for Washing­ton to address this threat and it’s time that we take action.

First, we should require law enforcement officials to determine the immigra­tion status of anyone they arrest for criminal activity and mandate that law en­forcement agencies report the illegal status of crim­inals to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce­ment’s (ICE) Law En­forcement Support Center.

Second, four New Mex­ico communities have declared themselves as “sanctuary cities.” The Legislature needs to pass a law forbidding any state agency, county, or munic­ipality from withholding the immigration status of people who are arrested for committing a crime. New Mexico has one of the worst crime problems in the nation. Why are mayors and city councilors ignoring public safety even though legal citizens are demanding a change?

Third, we need to stop issuing drivers licenses to people who are, by defini­tion, “undocumented”. The current practice of issuing driver’s licenses to non-cit­izens only legitimizes the breakdown of our border.

Based upon the success­ful policies and actions of previous Presidents, we know the Biden adminis­tration has the ability to protect our border and our citizens. If they continue to refuse to protect us, we need to place the National Guard at the border to do the job our federal govern­ment continues to neglect. The Democrat Governor of Arizona and the Repub­lican Governor of Texas have already done this. Governor Lujan-Grisham, our citizens deserve to be protected as well.

In the upcoming special session, Republicans will be introducing several bills that increase public safety, such as the ones contained in this letter. We will also introduce a bill that creates guidelines for the judiciary to limit the scope of catch and release, when it comes to violent crime and drug trafficking.

Our children and grand­children will ultimately bear the brunt of our fail­ure to act. Make no mis­take, it will be our fault for allowing this crisis to go unchecked. We can end our public safety crisis, how­ever, we must be willing to punish criminals when they break the law.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Townsend of Artesia is the New Mexico State Repre­sentative for House Dis­trict 54.)