A Texas sheriff has stopped his deputies from working off-duty security at a facility holding immigrant children separated from their parents as part of President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy.
El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles told CBS 19 the controversy over the child detention site in Tornillo would damage community relations with his law enforcement staff.
"On Friday, I got a call that they were going to house kids there, but eventually it would house kids being separated from their parents being prosecuted for immigration violations. I said, 'Absolutely not,'" Wiles said.
"A couple of years ago, we were approached by a private company looking for security officers for a facility in Doña Ana [County] under the Obama administration. The same company called last week [and told us] that they were moving equipment and needed us to guard equipment."
“[But] this one [in Tornillo) is a totally different … these are children forcibly taken from their parents or relatives. That’s not a policy we support. Clearly, the outcry from the community would affect our ability to maintain the confidence and respect [of the] community we serve. It would impact our community policing efforts that we worked so many years to build."
On Wednesday under mounting pressure, Trump on signed an executive order to stop more migrant children from being separated from their parents at the southern border.
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