Border Patrol to conduct a crowd control exercise in El Paso on Election Day
Border Patrol to conduct a crowd control exercise in El Paso on Election Day
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/border-patrol-to-conduct-a-crowd-control-exercise-in-el-paso-on-election-day/2018/11/06/147dd678-e18f-11e8-8f5f-a55347f48762_story.html?utm_term=.4315c63ebef7
EL PASO — The Border Patrol is planning what it calls a “crowd control exercise” on Election Day near a Hispanic neighborhood in El Paso.
The agency announced plans for the exercise, scheduled for 10 a.m. Mountain time Tuesday, in a news release Monday afternoon.
The “mobile field force demonstration” will take place west of the Paso del Norte port of entry and next to the Chihuahuita neighborhood, an enclave of about 100 homes adjacent to a border fence that’s being strengthened.
Customs and Border Protection spokesman Roger Maier, when asked about the timing of the exercise occurring on Election Day, said, “Our preparations are ongoing. There is no link to the election date.”
However, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Texas, Terri Burke, criticized the timing.
“The location, next to a totally Hispanic neighborhood, is suspicious. The timing of this — Election Day — is suspicious. This administration, and by extension the Abbott administration, have done quite enough to intimidate voters without staging military rehearsals on the day our nation exercises our most important democratic obligation: voting. Instead of practicing to handle nonexistent crowds, the Border Patrol could practice something useful and timely: how to properly interview and process refugee asylum seekers,” Burke said.
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