During Tuesday’s State of the State address in Sacramento, new California Governor Gavin Newsom confirmed that he plans to order National Guard troops off the U.S./Mexico border in defiance of the Trump administration. 

“The answer to the White House is, no more division and no more xenophobia,” Newsom said during his speech drawing cheers from lawmakers. The move is similar to to those taken in New Mexico even as the president continues to declare the need for increased border security.

Instead of border patrols, Newsom said he plans to redeploy the troops in ways more beneficial to California. 

“We’re not backing down,” Newsom said. “Just yesterday, I gave the National Guard a new mission – one that will refocus on the real threats facing our state.” The governor then revealed that he planned to divvy up troops in thirds — one third to help Cal Fire prepare for the coming fire season, another third to help stop drugs and guns from coming through border checkpoints, and the remaining third would focus on black market marijuana. 

“Another third will boost the National Guard’s statewide counter-drug task force by redeploying up north to go after illegal cannabis farms, many of which are run by cartels, are devastating our pristine forests, and are increasingly becoming fire hazards themselves,” Newsom said. You can watch the section of the State of the State in question in the clip above.

Is that manpower headed our direction? The Outpost has reached out to the Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal’s office for comment and received the following reply: 

The Sheriff’s office has had a long standing relationship with the state and California National Guard. They have been providing manpower and resources to the County for several years to combat illegal trespass grows on public and private lands. This is a carryover of the “CAMP” program. We have worked alongside our state and federal partners on combatting cartels and drug trafficking organizations (DTO) growing marijuana on public lands. Due to this partnership we have seen a significant decrease in these DTO growing operations in our County.

Humboldt County only identified a handful of trespass grows last year. We believe this is due to our enforcement efforts and the significant increase in Marijuana Supply and the rock bottom price marijuana is getting on the black market. At least in Humboldt County we are not seeing DTO grows like we used to. However, we welcome the Governor’s proposal to send more public safety resources to the rural areas of California to combat the few DTO’s that still exist.

I believe resources need to be shifted to combatting the trafficking of heroin and methamphetamine into our State from Mexico. Right now California is being flooded with meth and heroin from Mexico. County law enforcement has seen a steady increase in the amount of hard drugs that are in the streets of Humboldt County. The top priority for our County Drug Task Force is to stop the drug trafficking of these killer drugs into our county. The DTF is working with DEA and state DOJ to try put the maximum amount of resources into stopping the flow of drugs into our county. We would welcome more assistance from the State and the Department of Justice to help combat the growing meth and heroin problem in our rural county.