CONCORD — Gov. Chris Sununu’s plan to use state dollars to send a 15-member, New Hampshire National Guard unit to the Texas border won approval along partisan lines.
The $850,000 approved by the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee is the first state funding of a temporary troop deployment to this region.
Sununu asked — and the Legislature agreed — to use federal grants to send national guard troops to the southern border in 2021 and 2023.
Deaths from fentanyl overdoses remain high as Mexican cartels push the drug into the U.S., much of it through the southern border, the governor said.
“States must undertake efforts to protect the safety of our citizens and that is more than the Biden administration has done in three years,” Sununu told the Legislative Fiscal Committee last Friday.
During a 40-minute discussion, Sununu tangled with Democratic legislators who argued that the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives was hampering progress by its refusal to take up a bipartisan immigration bill that recently cleared the U.S. Senate.
“The pressure should really be applied to the Republican members of Congress to fund border security,” said state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, D-Manchester.
Sununu called the Senate-passed immigration bill a “political red herring” and blamed President Joe Biden for repealing the Remain in Mexico policy and other anti-illegal immigration initiatives started under former President Donald Trump.
“That is simply all politics,” Sununu said, adding that Biden could have and should have taken actions to secure the border.
Partisan fight remains
Rep. Peter Leishman, D-Peterborough, said he’s acutely aware of the problem after losing a son to a fentanyl overdose.
He said Americans are smuggling much of the illegal drugs into the U.S. and questioned how much of a difference such a small guard unit would make.
“It would seem to me this $850,000 would be more appropriately spent here on drug and alcohol abuse prevention and enforcement than sending 15 guardsmen down to Texas,” Leishman said.
Sununu argued that if all states sent proportionally what New Hampshire will, then Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would have “3,000-to-4,000” additional troops to support border security.
The Legislative Fiscal Committee approved the request, 6-4, with all GOP members in support and all Democrats in opposition.
Sen. Cinde Rosenwald, D-Nashua, said pending legislation to direct more state spending to fight cyanobacteria polluting our lakes (SB 394) and lead paint poisoning of children (SB 392) would have a “more direct and positive impact” than sending guard troops to Texas.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman James Gray, R-Rochester, said these troops will get training that will help the state battle illegal immigration efforts at the northern border with Canada.
Sununu said his biggest concern there was that many individuals on the U.S. terrorist watch list have been caught trying to enter the country from America’s northern border.
A coalition of immigrant, peace and faith-based groups came out in strong opposition to Sununu’s request. They noted that recent data revealed very few arrests or encounters with those suspected of illegally trying to cross into New Hampshire from Canada.
“President Biden negotiated the toughest and fairest border security bill in decades — if Gov. Sununu and New Hampshire Republicans are actually serious about securing our border, they should take it up with Donald Trump who went up against a majority of Americans and the Border Patrol Union to kill the deal for his own political gain,” said Marisa Nahem, spokesperson for the Biden-Harris campaign in the state.
Senate President Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, pointed out that Sununu declared the immigration crisis to be a state civil emergency in order to make this state spending request.
“If 400 deaths due to fentanyl every year since 2015 is not a civil emergency, I don’t know what is,” Bradley said.
A former congressman, Bradley said the GOP-led U.S. House earlier this year attempted legislation much tougher on illegal immigration than the measure the Senate recently approved.
