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Members of the press looked on as U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich and southern New Mexico congressman Gabe Vasquez received a briefing Monday at Las Cruces’ office of the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program. The initiative coordinates with state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies on fighting narcotics production and traffic in the United States.
In the midst of clicking cameras and prominent signage bearing Heinrich and Vasquez’s names together, HIDTA officers delivered a frank and detailed report on local drug interdiction efforts, limitations due to available resources and elements of state law and dynamic patterns in how fentanyl moves across the southern border.
The two men, both Democrats seeking reelection to their seats in November, had appeared together at the Santa Teresa Port of Entry earlier in the day for a tour of Customs and Border Protection facilities and to hear from that agency on border security and staunching the flow of smuggled fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can be deadly even in small doses, and is involved in nearly 70 percent of U.S. overdose deaths, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Following the discussion with HIDTA staff, Heinrich and Vasquez moved to a podium that had been set up in a break room to discuss drug trafficking and border security: Matters of urgent concern for New Mexico’s border communities, which Republicans are pressing as a major campaign issue ahead of the Nov. 5 elections.
Ahead of their joint appearances, Vasquez’s election opponent, Republican Yvette Herrell, issued a statement deriding the visits as a “blatant election year stunt” and criticizing Vasquez’s record on border security. Herrell is seeking a return to the congressional seat representing the southwestern corner of New Mexico and all of its southern border. She held the seat from 2021 until 2023, after a narrow defeat in the 2022 election.
Heinrich is seeking his third six-year term in the senate, facing Republican Nella Domenici. While a newcomer to the campaign trail herself, Domenici is the daughter of the late former senator Pete Domenici, the last Republican to represent New Mexico in the U.S. Senate.
For his part, Vasquez took the opportunity to talk about a bill he introduced last month, with Republican and Democratic cosponsors, to increase funding for scanning technology and staffing for CPB. He also referred to bills he had presented to combat efforts by criminal organizations to recruit U.S. children into smuggling operations and to stiffen penalties for human trafficking, which also drew Republican cosponsors.
“Combating fentanyl is not about politics; it’s about saving lives,” Vasquez said in prepared remarks. “Unfortunately, this issue has become a political football, with some using it to attack immigrants rather than addressing the root causes of the problem. The reality is that the majority of the convicted fentanyl traffickers in the U.S. are U.S. citizens. Our focus must be on practical solutions, not partisan divides.”
Heinrich addressed the challenge of tighter surveillance of goods and people moving through ports of entry without excessively slowing traffic. While CBP has signaled it needs more officers on the ground and more scanning equipment to meet that challenge, Heinrich said enlargement and other modifications of port facilities were part of the solution, as well as software to help human officers discern suspicious materials from the flood of scanned images on their screens.
When pressed about claims by their rivals that their appearances were just for show, Heinrich countered: “What we’ve been working on, it’s years’ worth of work. It’s work we’ve been doing with local law enforcement for many years now and it’s why we have results on the ground, of equipment that’s hitting the ground and allowing local law enforcement to do a better job.”
Heinrich made additional stops in the county, his itinerary including a visit to the Vamos Niños mobile children’s museum on a stop in Anthony, N.M.; the nonprofit Family and Youth Innovations Plus, a provider of health care and community services, in Las Cruces; and New Mexico State University’s Physical Science Lab.
