New Mexico lawmakers asked Texas for border help, despite Grisham’s criticisms

(The Center Square) – Recent news coverage of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham criticizing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security efforts doesn’t mention that just months before, New Mexico legislators traveled to Texas to learn how to secure New Mexico’s border.

As The Center Square first reported in February after Texas’ border security operations expanded, illegal border crossings shifted west, into New Mexico, Arizona and California. Lujan Grisham is Texas’ only neighbor not to participate in Texas’ border security mission, Operation Lone Star, unlike Oklahoma and Louisiana.

As Lujan Grisham criticized Texas, illegal border crossings surged in New Mexico, spilling into Texas, including apprehensions by Texas OLS officers. In the U.S. Customs and Border Protection El Paso Sector, which includes two west Texas counties and all of New Mexico, Border Patrol agents in southeast New Mexico were inundated. New Mexico apprehensions outnumbered those in Texas in seven of the past nine months, according to Border Patrol data exclusively obtained by The Center Square.

This month saw the highest number of the year: 9,035 illegal border crossers in the El Paso Sector, with the majority, 7,893, apprehended in New Mexico, according to the data.

Lujan Grisham’s criticism was in response to news reports claiming Texas was installing new barriers along its New Mexico and Mexico border near El Paso. The barriers have been there for nearly one year, The Center Square reported.

“Texas has been so successful in securing our southern border, migrants are now illegally crossing into New Mexico, and then into Texas,” Abbott press secretary Andrew Mahaleris told The Center Square. “To be clear, Texas began installing barriers on the border of New Mexico last October. This barrier has proven to be effective in deterring migrants who illegally crossed into the United States.”

Understanding Texas’ success, New Mexico Senate Republicans and community leaders traveled to Texas in June to be briefed by OLS officials and learn how New Mexico could replicate OLS efforts. Texas Border Czar Mike Banks was involved in the briefing, saying, “Our neighbors and states across the country are turning to Texas for guidance and direction on the most effective ways to secure the border.”

State Sen. Bill Sharer said they requested the briefing “to learn how Texas has improved public safety through comprehensive border security,” including Texas’ border wall. Referring to one section of the border wall in Del Rio, Sharer said, “This thing is amazing and how it works is amazing. … We’ve learned from the Texas Department of Public Safety on how all of this works together. It’s not a wall, it’s an entire system.”

State Sen. David Gallegos said, “We’ve been really blessed to be out here to see it and learn from experts. What they’re doing here, they’re protecting not only their citizens but also the migrants that are coming over. … We’re looking at what we can do for our state by supporting what Texas is doing.”

“The amazing part is we don’t have to recreate everything,” Sharer said. “Texas has done the work. They know what works and we can use it all in New Mexico.”

From January through Sept. 23, according to the latest available Border Patrol apprehension data exclusively obtained by The Center Square, over 11,100 illegal border crossers have been apprehended in New Mexico in the El Paso Sector.

They outnumber apprehensions in Texas seven of the last nine months:

January: 728 (437 TX/291 NM);February: 937 (375 TX/562 NM);March: 1,145 (458 TX/687 NM);April: 870 (395 TX/475 NM);May: 752 (442 TX/309 NM);June: 504 (89 TX/415 NM);July: 394 (135 TX/260 NM);August: 507 (28 TX/479 NM);September: 9,035 (1,142 TX/7,893 NM)

“Illegal entry in Texas has consequences,” Banks told The Center Square. The majority of southwest border crossings shifted west because statewide efforts in California, Arizona and New Mexico weren’t “putting up the resistance that Texas is,” he said.

Texas accounts for 28% of Border Patrol apprehensions so far this month and averaged over the last nine months, with 72% in California, Arizona and New Mexico, according to the data.

New Mexico apprehensions also account for nearly 56% of all apprehensions in Texas’ five CBP sectors. Texas has the most CBP sectors of the four southwest border states and shares the longest border with Mexico. Of the US-Mexico’s 1,954-mile-long land border, Texas shares 1,254 miles, followed by Arizona’s 378, New Mexico’s 180 and California’s 140.

Of the nine CBP southwest sectors, San Diego has reported the greatest number of illegal border crossers this year, followed by Tucson. At a recent Texas legislative hearing, Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw said because of Texas’ efforts, the epicenter of the border crisis shifted to San Diego and Texas “would like to keep it that way.”