What do you do when there are real solutions and work to be done, but you just don’t feel like it?
For NM’s new GOP House Minority leader Rod Montoya and a delegation of NM’s MAGA Republicans, apparently the answer is put on aviators, wear your best tough guy outfit, and point at things.
Last week’s Stand & Point Tour in Southern NM included Montoya alongside well known MAGA Republican and Election Denier John Block, accompanied by the GOP’s Stefani Lord, Jennifer Jones, and Harlan Vincent all giving their best impressions of Hollywood stars in a Western…
Montoya stepped into the House Minority leader role after the short, and unsuccessful tenure of Ryan Lane. Having only been in leadership for a month, Montoya is already pushing for the state to interfere in immigration and border security, both of which are a federal issue with solutions already on the table.
Included in the solutions proposed by a bipartisan set of US senators in March:
- Upgrading a nearly 40 year old system, including new technology, additional judges, and asylum officers to ensure faster processing of claims
- Additional funding of refugee-assistance programs to ensure humane and dignified pathways for asylum seekers
- Money for FEMA grants to local governments and nongovernmental organizations to take the burden off cities/states in supporting refugees
- Increasing funds for law-enforcement agencies—including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency—for support functions, including testing DNA to ensure that adult migrants were not making false claims about being related to the children traveling with them.
If Montoya and his Merry Band of NM MAGAs want to actually do something meaningful on border security and immigration reform, they might be better served by ratcheting down the political opportunism, taking off the aviator sunglasses, and getting practical with their GOP compatriots in congress. Southern New Mexicans deserve less rhetoric and more solutions.
That’s also consistent with a majority of Americans, including in battleground states, who want a balanced approach to immigration and border security, not grandstanding and photo ops, as Politico noted recently:
“A new battleground state survey found that 66 percent of voters (and 73 percent of Hispanic voters) want a balanced approach to immigration “that includes both border security and protects Dreamers, providing them and other eligible immigrants who have been here for many years a pathway to citizenship.”
That said, a balanced approach would require empathy, accountability, and real change, not standing around pointing at things.
The NM GOP could choose to push their party to focus on solutions instead of leaning back into their MAGA habits and a history of being beholden to wealthy, out of touch leadership… Until then, for everyday New Mexicans the message they’re sending is more like, “hold on to your aviators and don’t hold your breath.”