On Monday, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced via Twitter that due to the “ongoing humanitarian crisis at the southern border,” her state would be suing the Trump administration for “indiscriminately releasing migrants in communities in the state’s borderland area.”
Filed in conjunction with the city of Albuquerque, the goal of the lawsuit is “to ensure that New Mexico border communities are not unfairly overburdened and that asylum-seeking individuals and families are not left without basic necessities.”
The city and state allege they have been “profoundly impacted” by the Trump administration’s decision in October to cancel the “safe release” policy, which is a 10-year-old practice of coordinating transportation for asylum seekers into the interior United States where they ostensibly would remain until their court hearing (if they so choose to appear).
San Diego, which like Albuquerque is a sanctuary city, filed a similar motion in April complaining that asylum seekers were staying put and the San Diego taxpayers were having to foot the bill. Interesting, since San Diego’s politicians have shown no apprehension about spending resources on health and education benefits for illegal aliens already here.
Both lawsuits name the heads of various homeland security agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Border Patrol – all agencies which have been warning for months about the worsening situation on the border.
As those same agency chiefs have been calling on Congress and state lawmakers to assist them in stopping illegal immigration, Lujan Grisham has refused to acknowledge any crisis existed – until the illegal aliens arrived in her backyard.
Lujan Grisham plaintively pleading for assistance to deal with the “humanitarian crisis” is the same woman who confidently asserted in January after a visit to the border, “I haven’t seen anything to indicate that we have an emerging crisis here at the border.”
Despite border apprehensions averaging at more than 60,000 a month at the time, the newly-elected governor announced in February plans to withdraw most of the 200 New Mexico National Guard troops already deployed to the border.