Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland were in New Mexico today to highlight the work in helping address public safety, including the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) and human trafficking crises throughout Indian Country. The leaders were briefed by representatives of both Departments at the headquarters of the Interior Department’s Missing and Murdered Unit (MMU), and held a listening session with the Eight Northern Pueblos, which include the Nambé, Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Taos and Tesuque Pueblos.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Begin Remarks of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland (August 12, 2024):
Earlier today, Department of the Interior Secretary Haaland and I visited the headquarters of the Unit in the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs that is dedicated to combating the crisis of Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons. We were briefed by experts from the Unit and prosecutors from this office who work every day to make Indian Country safer. And we all underscored our commitment to ending these tragedies and helping Tribal communities heal.
Then we met with Tribal Leaders from the Eight Northern Pueblos of New Mexico to learn about what each Tribe is experiencing in its community. Since 2021, the Justice Department has provided $12.9 million to support a number of Tribal justice initiatives across the Northern Pueblos. We are committed to working with our partners to ensure that all members of Tribal communities feel safe.
Now, I am grateful to be able to meet with the federal, state, local, and Tribal law enforcement partners gathered around this table.
This group of leaders represent the law enforcement officers across the state who make daily sacrifices to protect the people of New Mexico. This also represents the collaborative approach that is at the heart of the Justice Department’s strategy to combat violent crime.
When I became Attorney General three and a half years ago, I knew that the most powerful tool we would have to address violent crime would be our partnerships. That was my experience as a line attorney prosecuting violent crime and narcotics trafficking in the early 1990s, and as a Justice Department official organizing and supervising those efforts later in the 1990s.
So, we built an anti-violent crime strategy rooted in strengthening our collaboration across federal law enforcement; with state, local, and Tribal law enforcement; with partner agencies like Albuquerque Community Safety; and with the communities we all serve.
And we fortified those partnerships by bringing to bear the latest technologies for identifying and prosecuting the criminals who represent the greatest danger to our communities.
Now we have seen results. According to the Albuquerque Police Department, there was about a 19% decrease in homicides and a 41% decrease in robberies in 2023 compared to 2022.
This is consistent with what we have seen nationally, where last year, we saw one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 years nationwide. That included the largest drop in homicides in 50 years.
But we know that progress in Albuquerque and many communities is still uneven. And of course, there is no acceptable level of violent crime.
The Justice Department is working here in New Mexico and across the country to arrest violent felons, disrupt violent drug trafficking, and prosecute the individuals responsible for the greatest violence.
Last month — working with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and FBI — this U.S. Attorney’s Office successfully prosecuted a felon who unlawfully possessed a firearm and shot a woman in the back of the head at a Walmart. She survived, but she required emergency surgery and extensive rehabilitation. Thanks to the work of this office and its partners, the defendant was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
Also last month, this office secured a six-year sentence for a man who illegally possessed firearms and used them to threaten his wife.
The defendant in that case was under a court protection order that prohibited him from harassing, stalking, or threatening his wife. Despite that, he went to the family residence, stockpiled an arsenal of weapons, and held his wife in the garage against her will. Their son overheard and called 911. And after hours of negotiations, law enforcement arrested the defendant.
The man’s conduct violated a federal statute that prohibits firearm possession by those who, like the defendant, are under court protection orders that prohibit them from harassing or threatening intimate partners. That is the same statute the Department successfully defended before the Supreme Court just a few months ago.
This case underscores why that statute is so important to the Department’s work to combat domestic violence in New Mexico and across the country.
We will continue to combat violent crime and firearms offenses that endanger our communities.
Now, at the same time, we are working relentlessly to get fentanyl — which is the deadliest drug threat this country has ever faced — out of our communities.
Last year, this U.S. Attorney’s Office participated in a joint enforcement operation in Carlsbad that resulted in eight drug trafficking indictments. In April, three of those defendants pled guilty for their roles in the conspiracies to distribute significant volumes of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine.
That same month — working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Homeland Security Investigations, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and New Mexico State Police — this office secured a 14-year sentence for a man who was caught with more than 19 pounds of fentanyl in his hotel room.
And back in March, the office secured a guilty plea from a man who intended to distribute more than 32,000 fentanyl pills and 1.7 kilograms of methamphetamine. Investigators found that he had used a social media platform to advertise and sell his drugs.
There are too many families in New Mexico and across the country who have suffered, whose lives have been shattered by fentanyl poisoning. That is why we will never give up on fighting this terrible epidemic.
The examples I have shared with you are just a snapshot of the work this office does every day to fulfill the Justice Department’s mission to keep our communities safe, to protect civil rights, and to uphold the rule of law.
I am very proud of the work of the U.S. Attorney and of all the men and women of this office in the District of New Mexico. And I am equally proud of the partnerships they have nurtured with the federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies represented in this room. These people work every single day to keep the communities in New Mexico safe.
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