(Image Credit: IMAGN) Port St. Lucie police announced Wednesday, July 19, 2023, that they seized 10,000 fentanyl pills worth $300,000 and a pound of cocaine in the city's largest drug bust to date.
Sacramento, California – As President Donald Trump pushes forward with what critics describe as an illegal militarization of Los Angeles, state officials warn the move is undermining California’s frontline defense against the flood of fentanyl and other deadly narcotics crossing the border.
Roughly 32% of the California National Guard’s Counterdrug Task Force — a group of nearly 450 servicemembers usually deployed statewide to disrupt transnational drug networks — have been redirected to Los Angeles at Trump’s order, leaving critical anti-drug missions severely understaffed. These troops now sit alongside 4,000 others at Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, with little indication of an operational role, according to state officials.
Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the shift, arguing that the California Guard has been instrumental in intercepting fentanyl shipments that increasingly come through legal ports of entry, typically smuggled by U.S. citizens. Since launching an aggressive interdiction program in 2021, the Guard has seized nearly 31,000 pounds of fentanyl and more than 50 million fentanyl-laced pills, with a street value topping $450 million.
This year alone, CalGuard-supported operations have seized over 2,400 pounds of fentanyl and nearly 1.5 million pills, Newsom’s office reported.
The governor has worked to bolster the Guard’s drug interdiction mission, more than doubling its staffing at ports of entry in 2024, aiming for nearly 400 soldiers dedicated to stemming the opioid crisis. But Trump’s redeployment orders have put those efforts in jeopardy, Newsom said, potentially handing a lifeline to cartels that have exploited fentanyl’s profitability to deadly effect.
Trump’s directive has also sidelined about half of the 140 members of Task Force Torch, the Guard’s youth and community engagement program, which focuses on at-risk youth and building local partnerships. In addition, firefighting teams known as Task Force Rattlesnake have been reduced to just 40% of normal staffing, with only six of 14 crews now available to respond to California’s increasingly destructive wildfires.
Former top military leaders, including retired four-star admirals and generals as well as ex-Army and Navy secretaries, have weighed in against Trump’s orders, filing legal briefs warning of the grave national security risks of federalizing the California National Guard. Veteran groups have also spoken out, noting that less than 20% of the Guard forces federalized under Trump are actually engaged in meaningful operations.
California has invested $60 million over four years to sustain CalGuard’s drug interdiction efforts, funding programs that have proven essential in slowing the flow of fentanyl and related synthetic opioids into local communities. With Guard resources stretched thin by Trump’s demands, state leaders fear a surge of dangerous drugs could once again slip through the nation’s busiest border crossings.
