The U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) issued a statement on Friday indicating there will be extra security during President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address, noting their awareness of plans for a trucker convoy protest into Washington, D.C., around that time.
"Law enforcement agencies across the National Capital Region are aware of plans for a series of truck convoys arriving in Washington, DC around the time of the State of the Union," the agency wrote.
"As with any demonstration, the USCP will facilitate lawful First Amendment activity. The USCP is closely coordinating with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including DC's Metropolitan Police Department, the United States Park Police, the United States Secret Service and other allied agencies to include the DC National Guard."
The USCP later issued an update clarifying that a temporary fence may be reinstated around the Capitol.
"The temporary inner-perimeter fence is part of those ongoing discussions and remains an option, however at this time no decision has been made," the update read.
An organizer for the cross-country trucker protest in the U.S. told Newsmax on Friday that she expects "well over 1,000 truckers" to join the trek from California to the nation's capital starting on Feb. 23.
"Our support staff is enormous. We have the Unity Project, and they have hundreds of nonprofits that are under them, so they literally have thousands of people helping pull this event off. So, it's a huge undertaking, as you can imagine, getting all these trucks and all these people across the country and managing safety and logistics and comms. It's an enormous group of people. I know Canada had hundreds. We have thousands," "People's Convoy" organizer Maureen Steele said.
The news comes amid government crackdown in the Canadian "Freedom Convoy" protest. Since Friday night, over 100 people had been arrested and 21 vehicles were towed in Ottawa, CNN reported.
"You must leave. You must cease further unlawful activity and immediately remove your vehicle and/or property from all unlawful protest sites," Ottawa police tweeted on Friday. "Anyone within the unlawful protest site may be arrested."
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