LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) – As thousands of National Guard troops deploy to the Mexico border, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions plans to bring his firm stance on immigration enforcement to New Mexico where a group of Southwest border sheriffs are meeting Wednesday.
Sessions will speak in Las Cruces at the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition Annual Spring Meeting with the Southwestern Border Sheriff’s Coalition, which is made up of 31 sheriff’s departments from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
Their counties are located within 25 miles (40 kilometers) of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Immigrant rights activists promised to protest Sessions’ visit on Wednesday, as they rejected his past characterization of the border region during a 2017 visit to El Paso, Texas, as “ground zero” in the Trump administration’s fight against cartels, and human traffickers.
“He treated our home like a war zone, referring to it as ‘ground zero,'” said Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso. “He was wrong then, and he is wrong now.”