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Issue: arizona national guard

Ducey has no desire to tighten coronavirus restrictions

Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire explains Friday the role the Arizona National Guard will play in helping to restock grocery stores whose shelves have been stripped of many items by shoppers hoarding goods. With him is Gov. Doug Ducey and Cara Christ, the state health director. (Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer)
Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire explains Friday the role the Arizona National Guard will play in helping to restock grocery stores whose shelves have been stripped of many items by shoppers hoarding goods. With him is Gov. Doug Ducey and Cara Christ, the state health director. (Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer)

Gov. Doug Ducey insisted Friday he has no intent to order Arizonans to stay at home as his counterparts in New York and California have done.

In his latest briefing, the governor said he sees no reason to go beyond his directive issued late Thursday to shutter bars, gyms and movie theaters in counties where there have been confirmed cases of COVID-19 and to allow only take-out and delivery services by restaurants. That currently covers nine of the state’s 15 counties.

And Ducey said Friday he has no intention to either expand the restrictions statewide or to add other kinds of businesses where there is close personal contact to the list of businesses that have to close their doors like spas and hair salons, even as the number of confirmed infections reached 68.

The state late Friday also recorded its first death, that of a male in his 50s living in Maricopa County with what state officials said were “underlying health conditions.”

The governor said broader restrictions are not necessary.

“I have no desire to shutter something that would not protect public health,” Ducey said.

The governor acknowledged that the restrictions he has ordered have changed, sometimes over the course of less than 24 hours. But Ducey said there’s a good reason for that.

A sign on the door to American Eagle in The Village inside the Yuma Palms Regional Center states the store is closed until March 28, due to coronavirus and to "Keep Smiling!". (Randy Hoeft/The Yuma Sun via AP)
A sign on the door to American Eagle in The Village inside the Yuma Palms Regional Center states the store is closed until March 28, due to coronavirus and to “Keep Smiling!”. (Randy Hoeft/The Yuma Sun via AP)

“Each escalation, declaration and executive order that I have put out has been with the guidance of Dr. Cara Christ (the state health director) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But even without any stay-at-home directive, both the governor and his health director say that’s still their advice, albeit one without enforcement.

“Stay home, especially if you or a loved one have an underlying medical condition or are elderly,” Christ said. “If someone in your household has COVID-19 everyone in the household should stay home until you are recovered.”

And the health director said Arizonans should pretty much forget about actually getting testing to determine if they have the novel coronavirus.

“We continue to face a national shortage of test collection supplies and lab reagents,” Christ said. “There are not enough tests at this time for everyone who wants to be tested.”

But she said that, for those who do not have extreme symptoms like difficulty breathing, knowing whether they have COVID-19 or something else, testing really won’t help them.

“It’s important to be clear: There is no specific treatment for this disease,” Christ said. “And the result of a COVID-19 test will not change your clinical treatment while you are sick.

Friday’s briefing also provided the first indications of what role the National Guard, called out by Ducey late Thursday, will play in restocking stores. The governor said the bare shelves have nothing really to do with an insufficient supply but is instead a direct effect of hoarding.

“There is not a shortage of toilet paper or hand sanitizer or bottled water,” he said.

“This has been binge buying,” the governor said. “This has been caused by the very real fear that is out there.”

And the fact is, Ducey said, there’s no way grocers can keep their shelves stocked at the rate items are being snapped up. That goes to what he said will be the role of the troops.

“We can do big-scale logistics,” said Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire, the adjutant general of the Arizona National Guard. He said that particularly means moving large quantities of food “that final mile” between warehouses and grocery stores.

Ducey said that’s where the bottleneck is.

“It typically takes two trucks to restock a grocery store,” he said. “Today, in this environment, it’s taking 12 trucks.”

That’s where the soldiers fit it, driving trucks and unloading pallets of goods.

McGuire said there may be situations where soldiers are actually helping not just unload pallets of items but actually are ensuring that items get onto shelves.

“But I can tell you with only 8,000 of us we can’t stock every store in the state,” he said. More to the point, the general said that’s not what he has in mind for his soldiers.

“I hope that we are a bridging strategy to have those types of duties filled by community members that are not feeling ill that want to support their community, either go to work for these food companies or come in as volunteers,” McGuire said. He said the better use of soldiers would be for those things for which his troops have been trained.

Consider, he said, a situation where a commercial truck driver calls in sick.

“We have a commercial truck driver that can fill in that gap,” the general said.

“That’s better use for me than to have folks unpack pallets,” McGuire continued. “But we’ll do whatever we need to do to first bridge this gap.”

The general said the initial call up is only about 200.

He could not provide an estimate of how many soldiers eventually would be involved in the operation.

“Over the weekend, we’re going to be adding to that,” he said. But McGuire made it clear that there are Guard troops doing other jobs in the private sector that are better off where they are.

“If I pull in doctors, nurses, medics that are already working in our local hospitals, it’s a zero-sum game,” he said.

Groceries aside, one issue is medical supplies, particularly ventilators that may be needed for hospitals to treat people with respiratory problems.

Christ said the state has anywhere from 1,500 to 1,800 beds in intensive-care units. She said her agency is trying to find out where there are ventilators, not only as hospitals but out-patient surgical facilities and training centers.

“And we are putting in an additional request for federal ventilators,” Christ said.

The governor said Arizonans need to recognize that the situation created by the outbreak is not going to go away any time soon.

“We don’t have any illusions about this fight,” he said.

“We are in this for the long haul,” Ducey said. “I think it’s important that people begin to think of this as a marathon and not a sprint.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect one death has been reported in the death. 

 

 

Ducey says he’s prepared to send Guard to border

Brig. Gen. Kerry Muehlenbeck discusses her promotion by Gov. Doug Ducey to the state's adjutant general, also making her the top officer in the Arizona National Guard. The appointment occurred as the governor said he is weighing the sending Guard soldiers to the border to deal with the flow of migrants. (Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer)
Brig. Gen. Kerry Muehlenbeck discusses her promotion by Gov. Doug Ducey to the state’s adjutant general, also making her the top officer in the Arizona National Guard. The appointment occurred as the governor said he is weighing the sending Guard soldiers to the border to deal with the flow of migrants. (Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer)

Taking a new slap at the Biden administration, Gov. Doug Ducey said Thursday he is prepared to send the Arizona National Guard to the border – even if it means at state expense. 

“We’re going to use every tool, authority and resource that we have,” the governor said after announcing his pick of Kerry Muehlenbeck as the new state adjutant general. The attorney and former deputy Pima County attorney will be the first woman in charge of Arizona’s 8,300 Guard soldiers. 

“To be successful on the Southern border, we need to work in partnership with the federal government,” Ducey continued. “But Arizona’s going to act regardless.” 

The governor said that, as far as he is concerned the border was “largely stable not that long ago.” Since then, he said, there have been 180,000 people apprehended and nearly 18,000 children in the care of the federal government. 

“And the federal government is not very good at being a parent,” the governor said. 

“So this is something where we need federal support,” Ducey said. “We’re trying to get the Biden administration to realize that the border’s part of the situation that their White House is responsible for.” 

But even as the governor said he was going to be speaking to the president to talk border issues, he took a swipe at the president’s choice of Vice President Kamala Harris to be the point person on border issues.

“Vice President Harris has equated ICE with the KKK.” 

That refers to a Senate confirmation hearing in 2018 for Ronald Vitiello, President Trump’s nominee to head ICE. 

Harris had a line of questions about the Ku Klux Klan. Vitiello responded that it is a “domestic terrorist group” because it “tried to use fear and force to change political environment” and that was “based on race and ethnicity.” 

“Are you aware of the perception of many about how the power and the discretion at ICE is being used to enforce the laws, and do you see any parallels?” Harris asked. 

Vitiello said he did not. 

Ducey has become one of the top Republicans tossing barbs at the Biden administration. That included not only a photo-op trip to the border last month but multiple radio and TV interviews on border issues, including two appearances in as many weeks on Fox News – one before his Thursday press conference here – to take shots at how the situation is being handled. 

“The border traditionally is a federal issue and a federal focus,” the governor said during the press conference. “The Biden White House has ignored the situation at the border in Arizona and I think across the southern United States.” 

Ducey said the state already is doing what it can. 

“We’re working with ranchers and border sheriffs and leaders at the county level,” he said, saying he is hoping for more from the White House on what will be the next steps from Washington. 

“But the National Guard will be part of this solution,” Ducey said. “And we will have action taken.” 

Muehlenbeck’s appointment as adjutant general also makes her director of the state Department of Emergency and Military Affairs. 

Muehlenbeck came to Arizona in 1993 to serve as assistant staff judge advocate at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. Four years later, after separating from the active military, she joined the Arizona Air National Guard where she also served as both a wing-level and headquarters staff judge advocate. 

She became the state’s deputy adjutant general in 2018. 

Muehlenbeck described her service as a “traditional, drill-status Guardsman,” meaning she also had full-time outside employment, including a stint with the Pima County Attorney’s Office. 

She currently is a professor at Mesa Community College, a job she apparently will have to give up in her new position. 

“The historical importance of being the first female adjutant general in Arizona is not lost on me,” she said. 

“But I do hope that what I’ve done and who I am is more important than simply my sex,” Muehlenbeck continued. “I never considered myself a female member of the military. I was always just another member of the military.” 

She replaces Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire who is retiring after 37 years in the military. McGuire, a Republican, is weighing a possible run for U.S. Senate in 2022 where he would try to unseat Democrat Mark Kelly. 

  

 

 

Ducey to station troops on the border

In this March 2, 2019, file photo, a Customs and Border Control agent patrols on the U.S. side of a razor-wire-covered border wall along Mexico east of Nogales, Ariz. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
In this March 2, 2019, file photo, a Customs and Border Control agent patrols on the U.S. side of a razor-wire-covered border wall along Mexico east of Nogales, Ariz. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

Declaring an emergency in six counties, Gov. Doug Ducey said Tuesday he is going to put 250 Arizona National Guard soldiers along the southern border.

In a video press release, the governor said the troops will be there to help provide support for state and local law enforcement “as the nation experiences a rapid increase in apprehensions and migrant children in federal custody.” Ducey intends to provide up to $25 million in initial funding.

“The situation in our border communities is just as bad — if not worse — than the coverage we’ve been seeing,” the governor said in the prepared video.

And Ducey, who has taken a lead role among Republicans on border issues, said it’s the president’s fault, saying there have been “very real consequences of the Biden administration’s failed policies.”

The governor mentioned there have been more than 170,000 apprehensions along the border since the beginning of the year, with almost 19,000 unaccompanied minors taken into custody. And that is higher than figures in prior years.

“The numbers don’t lie,” he said. “This surge is a direct result of the bad policies coming out of Washington, D.C.”

But what Ducey did not say is that there has been a steady increase in illegal crossings for nearly a year — back into the Trump administration — after they dropped following the Covid outbreak. In fact, Customs and Border Protection reported that crossings during the last three months of 2020 were higher than at any similar point during the Trump administration.

Ducey, who chose to make the announcement via video rather than at a press conference where he could be asked questions, said state action is needed now.

“Local law enforcement and mayors are calling out for help,” the governor said in his video.

“Citizens in our border communities are concerned for their safety,” he continued. “And nonprofits left to pick up the pieces of broken federal policies are strained.”

The emergency covers Cochise, Maricopa, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz and Yuma counties. And it authorizes the adjutant general to mobilize all or part of the Guard “as is determined necessary to assist in the protection of life and property throughout the state.”

And to underline the need, the governor said he is going to Yuma on Wednesday to get more details from community leaders and local law enforcement about what they are seeing on the ground.

This is the governor’s second trip to the border in as many months. Last month he flew to Douglas for a press conference right at the border fence surrounded almost exclusively with other Republican officials.

According to Ducey, the soldiers will assist with medical operations in detention centers, install and maintain border cameras, monitor and collect data from public safety cameras, and analyze satellite imagery for current trends in smuggling corridors.

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels said that’s exactly what he needs.

“The big thing they’re going to do for us is do non-law enforcement functions,” he said.

Some of that, Dannels said, is providing help in the jails. But he also said that Guard soldiers can watch the system of cameras he has set up “so we have true eyes on what’s going on out there.”

“So they’ll be relieving my guys who do that … so my deputies can focus more on the enforcement aspect,” Dannels said.

Ducey said soldiers actually could be doing more if the Biden administration would mobilize — and, presumably pay for — Guard deployment as they would be able to work with federal law enforcement.

“If President Biden does the right thing and acts, they will be able to support ICE and CBP, two agencies that desperately need all the support they can get,” Ducey said.

“But it doesn’t look like this administration is going to act anytime soon,” he continued. “And we’re not going to sit around and wait any longer.”

Sen. Victoria Steele, D-Tucson, called the move “political grandstanding.” She said the state has secured $110 million in emergency funding from the American Rescue Plan, crafted by the Biden administration, to support local government and nonprofits who are currently providing care to migrants at the border.

“Seriously, we’re going to spend $25 million in state money on this?” she asked in her own Twitter post.

“Where were the Arizona Republicans when the Trump administration was ripping babies out of the arms of their mother’s and father’s arms?” she asked. “Where was the outrage then?”

But the announcement also got what could be considered predictable accolades from Republican legislators.

“The security of Arizona and our residents is our first priority,” said Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, in a prepared statement released by Ducey’s office. “Illegal crossings put our border towns, safety personnel and all Arizonans at risk, but also the immigrants who are facing unsafe conditions as they cross into the state.”

House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, said the deployment “helps combat the Democrats’ misguided message that crossing the border illegally is acceptable.”

The governor’s order comes nearly a week after Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a fellow Republican,  specifically urged him to activate the Guard to assist at the border.

Brnovich also urged the governor to provide direct financial interest to cities and towns that are dealing with an influx of migrants. There is nothing in Ducey’s new order addressing that.

But Yvette Borja, a border litigation attorney for the ACLU of Arizona, called the move a “political ploy to depict a border ‘crisis’ when there is none.”

“Let’s be clear: The governor’s actions do nothing more than further militarize our border communities and stoke unnecessary and unjustified fear,” she said in a prepared statement.

But gubernatorial press aide C.J. Karamargin said the soldiers will not be armed.

This story has been revised to include more information. 

 

Ducey: Troops needed for more than grocery help, state ‘catastrophically affected’ by COVID-19

Arizona governor Doug Ducey, center, talks to Matt Heckard, left, assistant director of preparedness, with the State of Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs (DEMA) as members of DEMA work responding to the coronavirus pandemic, in the DEMA operations center at the Arizona National Guard Papago Park Military Reservation in Phoenix on Wednesday, March 18, 2020. Major General Michael T. McGuire (background right) the director of DEMA, looks on. (David Wallace/The Arizona Republic via AP, Pool)
Arizona governor Doug Ducey, center, talks to Matt Heckard, left, assistant director of preparedness, with the State of Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs (DEMA) as members of DEMA work responding to the coronavirus pandemic, in the DEMA operations center at the Arizona National Guard Papago Park Military Reservation in Phoenix on Wednesday, March 18, 2020. Major General Michael T. McGuire (background right) the director of DEMA, looks on. (David Wallace/The Arizona Republic via AP, Pool)

Gov. Doug Ducey wants federal dollars and an expanded role for the Arizona National Guard, saying the citizens, economy and infrastructure of the state have been “catastrophically affected” by COVID-19.

“The State of Arizona resources are being overwhelmed and additional federal funding is critical,” Ducey wrote in a letter Friday to Defense Secretary Mark Esper. “This event has caused and continues to cause widespread effects (both known and unknown).”

The governor’s letter went out the same day that he and Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire had a press conference to explain the role that Guard troops, called out by Ducey the day before, would play.

Both emphasized that they were there for logistical support, largely to help restock the shelves of grocery stores that had been stripped bare of many items by people who were hoarding.

“We can do big-scale logistics,” said McGuire, the adjutant general of the Arizona National Guard. He said that particularly means moving large quantities of food “that final mile” between warehouses and grocery stores.

What was not mentioned at the time was that Ducey was telling Esper that he foresees the need for up to 5,500 troops and an even larger role for the Guard, including:

▪ providing hazmat protective equipment to hospitals which now have “inadequate and uni-sized protective gear;”

▪ assembly and preparation of field hospitals to treat those with non-COVID-19 conditions to allow hospitals to focus on those with the novel coronavirus;

▪ provide a reserve of medical providers.

But Ducey said it may not stop there, saying troops could provide “additional assistance (which) may also include future support to local law enforcement.

The governor said, though, duties would include those “not impeded by Posse Comitatus.

That 1878 law prohibits the use of the military to enforce the law or suppress civil disorder unless expressly ordered to do so by the president. But the governor said that those limitations do not apply when Guard troops are “under state command and control.”

Ducey did not explain what role he wants them to play but only that they are needed — and the federal government should come up with some cash.

“The citizens, economy and infrastructure of the state of Arizona catastrophically affected by COVID-19 ultimately affects the citizens, economy and infrastructure of the nation,” the governor wrote. And he said that without federal funding “Arizona will be incapable of quelling the risk to the state and nation.”

Gubernatorial press aide Patrick Ptak denied late Sunday that his boss was withholding information from the public about conditions in Arizona or the role Ducey wants the Guard to play.

“This letter is intended to secure an offset from the federal government for National Guard activity here in the state,” he said. And Ptak denied that his boss is either not telling the whole story to Arizona residents or to the Pentagon whose dollars he is seeking.

“We’ve been straightforward about what we expect them to do,” he said, calling the letter and the verbiage “something we have to do” to draw down federal dollars.

“The governor has been very transparent about Arizona’s COVID-19 response, including daily press briefings last week,” Ptak said.

When Ducey wrote the letter to Esper he told the Pentagon chief that Arizona had 44 confirmed cases and no known deaths. As of Sunday afternoon that number had reached 152 with two deaths.

Retired Gen. McGuire jumps into Arizona Senate race

FILE - In this May 20, 2020, file photo, then-Arizona National Guard Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire, director of the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, answers a question at a news conference in Phoenix. McGuire, the former head of the Arizona National Guard, has filed papers to run for the U.S. Senate, joining what's likely to be a crowded field of candidates seeking the Republican nomination. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool, File)
 In this May 20, 2020, file photo, then-Arizona National Guard Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire, director of the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, answers a question at a news conference in Phoenix. McGuire, the former head of the Arizona National Guard, has filed papers to run for the U.S. Senate, joining what’s likely to be a crowded field of candidates seeking the Republican nomination. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool, File)

Retired Maj. Gen. Michael “Mick” McGuire, who led the Arizona National Guard through the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, formally began his campaign for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, becoming the second major Republican looking to unseat Democrat Mark Kelly.  

McGuire introduced himself with an online video highlighting his military career and presenting himself as a political outsider tired of “weak leaders” and “politicians who sit on the sidelines.”  

In his video, McGuire describes himself as a “constitutional conservative” and calls for securing the border. He says he opposes abortion, will protect 1st and 2nd Amendment rights and “will walk shoulder to shoulder with law enforcement.”  

McGuire, who retired earlier this year from the military and from his post as head of Arizona’s emergency management agency, was a visible presence and a booming voice beside Gov. Doug Ducey during televised briefings about the pandemic. The guard helped deliver goods and stock shelves at food banks and grocery stores as supply chains froze up and panicked shoppers snapped up food and paper products last year.  

The Guard also built temporary medical facilities and flew supplies to the remote and underserved Navajo Nation as the outbreak hit the reservation hard. Guardsmen also responded to racial justice protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  

About 85% of the Guard has been called up in the last year, more than have ever responded to domestic needs, McGuire said in April at a news conference where Ducey introduced his successor at the National Guard.  

McGuire also oversaw the deployment of Guardsmen to the southern border.  

McGuire, an Air Force Academy graduate, flew F-16 fighters before joining the Arizona National Guard in 2001, where he continued as an F-16 instructor pilot and flew MQ-1B Predator drones. Gov. Jan Brewer appointed him adjutant general, the Guard’s top leader, and head of the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs in 2013. Ducey kept him in the job when he took office in 2015.  

Solar energy entrepreneur Jim Lamon was the first major Republican candidate to jump in the race. Other Republicans considering a Senate run include U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs and Attorney General Mark Brnovich. 

Kelly, a retired astronaut, won a special election last year to finish the late John McCain’s last Senate term. He is now running for a full six-year term. The race is one of the most high-profile contests in 2022 and will help determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.