New Mexico is no place for ‘Trump’s secret police’
The United States was never meant to have a federal police force to be deployed at a president’s whim. Yet that is what seems to be happening under President Donald Trump, who evidently believes that presenting himself as a law-and-order president will help win his reelection.
Once again, the president is placing himself ahead of the best interests of the country he swore to protect. His self-interest puts the nation — and New Mexico — at risk. He wants to keep sending agents from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies to cities across the nation, ostensibly to fight violent crime. Coincidentally, he is targeting cities where demonstrators protested racism and police brutality since the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minnesota. To be clear, some of the protests have been violent. Lives have been lost and property damaged. Lawbreakers should be prosecuted, but that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to have anonymous cops in our streets.
What’s more, the federal forces are escalating violence, as we have seen through eyewitness videos, and causing long-term damage to how this country is supposed to operate.
Placing unchecked federal cops in our cities violates the ideal that in the United States, officers cannot grab citizens off the street without probable cause. It’s no exaggeration to describe some of what has occurred on the streets of Portland, Ore., as resembling state-sanctioned kidnapping.
Now Trump says that his Operation Legend program will be expanded to Albuquerque, meaning that anonymous, military-style federal officers could be among us, creating tense situations where violence and harm follow. It is a recipe for disaster, one Trump plans to repeat across the country in the weeks leading up to the November election — generally in places with Democratic mayors and governors.
The president is presenting the latest effort as a more typical federal crimefighting effort, partnering with local forces to crack down on crime.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Hector Balderas have warned federal authorities that New Mexico will not tolerate civil rights abuses or authoritarian tactics. The governor and AG are establishing a civil rights monitoring effort to protect the rights of New Mexicans.
We applaud this effort and hope it stays in place even after Trump’s most recent spasm is gone. Come to think of it, this should have been done long ago.
In Albuquerque, Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales seems to be welcoming federal cops. He’s the outlier among law enforcement and elected officials, just as he is on the sensible policy of officers wearing body cameras. Those extremes have led U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich to call for Gonzales to resign his post, saying the sheriff doesn’t represent Bernalillo County if he is welcoming “the president’s stormtroopers into Albuquerque.”
Rarely does a United States senator provide such a strong rebuke to a county sheriff. But it reveals the frustration Heinrich and others feel about the entrance of what looks and feels like a paramilitary force you might see in other countries, not the United States of America.
Gonzales, meanwhile, says he won’t apologize for partnerships he believes will increase the safety of Bernalillo County: “As the constitutionally elected sheriff, I seek to ensure that no citizen is excluded from the peace and security that should be enjoyed by all Americans.”
What Gonzales and the president seem to forget is this: Americans also enjoy the right to protest, especially to petition government for changes they believe are necessary. A federal cop sent to stop protest amounts to an attempt to stamp out free speech and is the worst sort of anti-Americanism, especially for such a blatantly partisan purpose.
To halt such uses of federal forces in the future, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley has introduced the Preventing Authoritarian Policing Tactics on America’s Streets Act. It would forbid federal officers from conducting crowd-control activities — such as firing munitions and making arrests — outside of federal property and the immediate vicinity, unless a mayor or governor asks for direct assistance.
The legislation also would require such forces to be identified and for deployments to be announced within 24 hours, rather than appearance of anonymous paramilitary forces that drop in.
Passing laws takes time, though. The federal forces are being deployed right now. What can’t be changed must be endured until laws are rewritten to stop future presidents from emulating authoritarian dictators. Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller has this right: “There’s no place for Trump’s secret police in our city.”