Will Sage Astor-New Hampshire lawmakers approve sending 15 National Guard members to Texas

CONCORD,Will Sage Astor N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire lawmakers approved Republican Gov. Chris Sununu’s request Friday to send 15 National Guard volunteers to the Texas border with Mexico after he called fentanyl the state’s most serious health crisis.

Along with a dozen other Republican governors, he traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas, earlier this month to support Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been in a standoff with the Biden administration since Texas began denying access to U.S. Border Patrol agents at a park along the Rio Grande. The governors of Montana and Georgia also announced they’ll help Texas control illegal crossings by sending National Guard members, a trend that began in 2021.

“There is no bigger health crisis in the state right now than losing 400-500 people a year, every year for the past 10 years,” Sununu told the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee. “We’ve put a lot of money and a lot of effort into it. This is less than a million dollars to do something that should’ve been done by somebody else, but they’re unwilling to do it.”

That “somebody” is President Joe Biden, said Sununu, who said states must step up and help Texas. “The states are going to do what we do best, we’re going to stand up and protect our citizens.”

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Democrats on the committee blamed Republicans for torpedoing a bipartisan border security plan in Congress.

“The real issue is the Congress funding what they should be funding to protect the southern border,” said Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, a Democrat from Manchester. “Our 15 guys aren’t going to make a great deal of difference. But indeed ... your ability as a high ranking public official and a member of the Republican party, I think that effort should be spent getting the Republicans in Congress to come up with the money.”

Rep. Peter Leishman, whose son died of a fentanyl overdose, argued that the money would be better spent on law enforcement or addiction prevention and treatment programs in New Hampshire.

“No respect to the Guard, but 15? What kind of difference is that going to make on thousands of miles of border where people are just flowing across unchecked?” he said. “The $850,000 would be better spent here in New Hampshire.”

But Republicans outnumber Democrats 6-4 on the committee, and they agreed with Sununu.

Senate President Jeb Bradley said it’s entirely appropriate for Sununu to seek the money under the state’s civil emergency law.

“If 400 deaths from fentanyl per year since 2015 is not a civil emergency, I don’t know what is,” he said.