Days after blasting Trump’s crime crackdown, MLG declares her own

Just days after denouncing President Donald Trump’s decisive crime crackdown in Washington, D.C., New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has declared her own emergency order to address violent crime—this time in Española, Rio Arriba County, and the area Pueblos. The move is raising eyebrows over the governor’s apparent double standard when it comes to executive action on public safety.

In a Wednesday announcement, Lujan Grisham said she was responding to urgent pleas from local leaders to confront a “significant surge in violent crime, drug trafficking, and public safety threats” overwhelming local resources. Police calls in Española have more than doubled in the past two years, with dispatches to businesses quadrupling. Rio Arriba County now leads the state in overdose deaths, driven by fentanyl and other illicit drugs.

“When our local leaders called for help to protect their communities, we responded immediately with decisive action,” Lujan Grisham said in her statement. “We are making every resource available to support our local partners on the ground and restore public safety and stability to these areas that have been hardest hit by this crisis.”

Under Executive Order 2025-358, the governor authorized up to $750,000 in emergency funding for the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management to coordinate the response, provide law enforcement support, and address related needs such as temporary shelter, health care, and food. The order also allows for the deployment of the New Mexico National Guard if necessary.

This local emergency declaration stands in stark contrast to Lujan Grisham’s recent rhetoric toward President Trump’s federalization of the D.C. Metropolitan Police and deployment of 800 National Guard troops to combat surging violent crime in the capital. In a joint statement with Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, she condemned Trump’s action as “massive executive overreach,” accusing him of making “unilateral decisions that appear politically motivated.” She argued that his move “sets a dangerous precedent,” despite his citing years of skyrocketing homicides and carjackings.

Critics note that the language of her own order mirrors the urgency and scope of Trump’s D.C. operation. Both actions involve direct intervention to bolster local law enforcement, mobilize state or federal resources, and restore public safety in areas deemed unable to manage the crisis alone. The difference appears to be political rather than procedural.

Her order cites a host of public safety crises—rising homelessness, family instability, and fatal overdoses—that echo the conditions Trump pointed to in Washington. Yet while she touted her “state and local cooperation” model in criticizing Trump, the Española emergency involves sweeping state-led measures and potential Guard activation—precisely the type of “outside intervention” she claimed to oppose.

Lujan Grisham’s crime emergency will remain in effect until all authorized funds are spent or officials determine the crisis has subsided. But the timing of her decision, so soon after lambasting the president for deploying similar tools, is already fueling charges of hypocrisy and political opportunism.

For residents of Española and Rio Arriba County, however, the focus is on whether this sudden intervention will deliver the results years of inaction have failed to produce—and whether the governor’s emergency order will bring lasting safety to one of New Mexico’s hardest-hit regions.