El Paso (TX) County Sheriff Richard Wiles has prohibited his deputies from working off-duty at a temporary shelter housing immigrant children who “were forcibly separated from their families,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
Sheriff Wiles is among a growing list of law enforcement administrators and elected leaders who oppose the—now-discontinued—policy of separating children from adults at the U.S.-Mexico border.
In 2016, El Paso sheriff deputies agreed to moonlight at a shelter at Fort Bliss set up temporarily for hundreds of unaccompanied minors who had crossed the border.
“The purpose of that security was to protect those kids who had come over the border but were not with their parents,” Wiles said.
But the sheriff refused to help assist an encampment for children who were forcibly taken from their parents.