By: The New Mexico Senate Republicans
In June, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison did something local leaders in Albuquerque and Las Cruces should have welcomed with open arms: he personally invited both cities to compete for a share of nearly $300 million in federal funding through the Department of Justice’s Model Cities Initiative. This is money for police recruitment and retention, forensic technology, real-time crime centers, mental health and substance use treatment, victim services, and youth violence prevention. It is exactly the kind of assistance that resource-starved cities like Albuquerque and Las Cruces claim they need. All they had to do was apply.
They didn’t.
Instead of pulling together a serious, competitive application, Las Cruces city councilors published an op-ed calling the offer a “Trojan horse” and pointed to a city ordinance that flatly bars accepting federal public safety money if it’s connected in any way to immigration enforcement. Albuquerque, meanwhile, has a well-worn habit of walking away from federal crime-fighting dollars over the same objection, going back to its refusal to even apply for the $71 million Operation Relentless Pursuit grant. In both cities, the pattern is identical: reflexive opposition to anything with President Trump’s name attached to it, dressed up as principle.
Let’s be honest about what happened here. New Mexico has some of the highest violent crime rates in the country. Albuquerque residents have spent years pleading for more resources for their police department. Las Cruces has its own struggles with youth violence and substance abuse. And when the federal government showed up with up to $150 million to help address exactly those problems, the response from local leadership wasn’t “how do we make this work for our residents.” It was “how do we make sure this administration doesn’t get credit?”
That is not leadership. That is politics dressed up as principle, and New Mexicans are the ones who pay for it, with their safety.
Hating President Trump is a pathetic excuse for jeopardizing public safety in our communities. We don’t care what someone thinks of this president. We care whether the people of Albuquerque and Las Cruces have the resources to put more officers on the street, clear their rape kit backlogs, and get people struggling with addiction into treatment instead of jail or the morgue. Those problems don’t check a party registration before they show up on a family’s doorstep, and our response to them shouldn’t depend on who happens to be in the White House.
New Mexico families deserve leaders willing to work with anyone, Republican or Democrat, federal or local, if it means safer neighborhoods. Instead, they got leaders more interested in protecting their political brand than protecting their constituents. If Albuquerque and Las Cruces will not take $150 million to fight crime because of who is offering it, voters in both cities should ask themselves a hard question this election season: whose interests are actually being served?
It certainly isn’t theirs.
