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In his second term, President Trump has sent federal agents and National Guard troops to American cities in the name of cracking down on crime. In his first term, he dispatched federal law enforcement to Albuquerque, New Mexico, with the same stated goal. So what effect did that have? And what is the city doing these days to combat crime? NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas reports.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: In the summer of 2020, as the country was wrestling with the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump's then-attorney general, William Barr, announced a Justice Department operation to tackle the problem of soaring crime, dubbed Operation Legend. The DOJ surged federal agents to nine cities to help crackdown on violent crime. One of those cities was Albuquerque, New Mexico.
TIM KELLER: Operation Legend made zero difference on crime in Albuquerque.
LUCAS: Tim Keller was the city's mayor then and is still the mayor now.
KELLER: In fact, crime continued to go up both during and after Operation Legend. So by that measure, it was totally ineffective.
LUCAS: Around two dozen federal agents were sent to Albuquerque as part of Operation Legend, which was led locally by the U.S. attorney's office. Over five months, some 170 defendants were charged with federal crimes in connection with the operation. Keller says the city and Albuquerque Police Department did not take part because they saw it as an effort to target minorities for low-level crime. In his view, the operation was primarily a public relations stunt. But Keller doesn't dispute that crime has been a challenge for the city before, during and after the pandemic.
KELLER: Crime, basically in every category, was going up for 10 years.
LUCAS: But things have started moving in the right direction this year, he says.
KELLER: So for the last nine months, every single crime category in Albuquerque is going down by double digits.
LUCAS: That coincides in part with the deployment of some 90 New Mexico National Guard members to Albuquerque. But unlike in Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles, the guard in Albuquerque hasn't been sent in by President Trump against the wishes of the mayor. Instead, New Mexico's Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham dispatched them in coordination with the mayor's office and the local police department. Keller says they've been put to work in polo shirts instead of military fatigues, and they don't carry guns or have arrest powers. What they are doing is handling civilian work in the department, which frees up the actual police to tackle violent crime, he says.
KELLER: They do a lot of traffic accident, traffic control, which, believe it or not, it's very time-consuming for officers. They watch a lot of our cameras at the Real Time Crime Center. They've actually saved lives by calling in folks who are in danger at bus stops. They also do monitor areas. So for example, we have them ride our buses, and they just call in issues to APD.
LUCAS: It is an anti-crime mission that looks very different from how President Trump has employed the National Guard in Washington, D.C., where armed troops in camouflage patrol city streets, or in Los Angeles, where they have protected immigration agents. Keller says most of the guardsmen in Albuquerque live there, so they know the city already, and they've received training from the police department on things like de-escalation techniques and the communication system to help them do their job. Still, some members of the community have concerns about the guard deployment. Dan Williams is with the ACLU of New Mexico.
DAN WILLIAMS: We're very worried that, even though it is different than what President Trump has done in Washington, D.C., in Memphis and other places, it normalizes the idea of the military doing civilian law enforcement.
LUCAS: Another is Matt Mirarchi. He works for Enlace Comunitario, an organization that helps victims of domestic violence in immigrant communities.
MATT MIRARCHI: We already have way too much over policing here locally. We don't need additional National Guard troops on the ground. It really is having an adverse effect on the health and well-being of community members, especially hyper-marginalized community members like our client community.
LUCAS: Keller acknowledges that the response from residents has been mixed and that using the guard is a short-term solution to a longer-term problem. He also says the way the city has employed the guard is an alternative to how it's been used by the Trump administration, but he says the Albuquerque model may not be replicable everywhere. It takes the governor, the mayor and the police department all to be on the same page, which isn't always easy. But for now, he says it's been of help in Albuquerque.
Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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