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Thursday 5 OcTOber 2023

Biden administration waives 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in South Texas

Continued from Front cate for the Center for Biological Diversity, said ern border in recent months, including thou-
Wednesday afternoon. sands who entered the U.S. through Eagle Pass
“The other concern that we have is that area During the Trump administration, about 450 at the end of September.
is highly erosive. There’s a lot of arroyos,” Eloy miles of barriers were built along the southwest “A border wall is a 14th century solution to a 21st
Vera, the county judge said, pointing out the border between 2017 and January 2021. Texas century problem. It will not bolster border secu-
creeks cutting through the ranchland and lead- Governor Greg Abbott renewed those efforts rity in Starr County,” U.S. Representative Henry
ing into the river. Concern is shared with envi- after the Biden administration halted them at Cuellar said in a statement. “I continue to stand
ronmental advocates who say structures will run the start of his presidency. against the wasteful spending of taxpayer dol-
through public lands, habitats of endangered The DHS decision on Wednesday contrasts the lars on an ineffective border wall.”
plants and species like the Ocelot, a spotted Biden administration's posturing when a procla- Political proponents of the border wall said the
wild cat. mation to end the construction on Jan. 20, 2021 waivers should be used as a launching pad for
“A plan to build a wall through will bulldoze stated, “building a massive wall that spans the a shift in policy.
an impermeable barrier straight through the entire southern border is not a serious policy so- “Having made that concession, the administra-
heart of that habitat. It will stop wildlife migra- lution.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection had tion needs to immediately begin construction
tions dead in their tracks. It will destroy a huge no immediate comment. of wall across the border to prevent the illegal
amount of wildlife refuge land. And it’s a hor- The announcement prompted political debate traffic from simply moving to other areas of the
rific step backwards for the borderlands,” Laik- by the Democratic administration facing an in- border.”q
en Jordahl, a southwest conservation advo- crease of migrants entering through the south-

Top Connecticut state police leaders retiring as investigators

probe fake traffic ticket data claims

By Dave Collins mitted false information on
Associated Press citations for at least 25,966
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — traffic stops, and possibly
The top two leaders of Con- more than 58,000 stops,
necticut State Police will be that may have never hap-
stepping down in the mid- pened from 2014 to 2021.
dle of multiple investiga- Auditors said information
tions into whether troopers on those stops could not be
submitted bogus data on found in the state's court
thousands of traffic stops system, which handles all
that may have never hap- traffic violations — leading
pened, Gov. Ned Lamont to the conclusion that data
said Wednesday. was likely falsified.
State public safety Com- Auditors said 130 troopers
missioner James Rovella had “significant disparities”
and Col. Stavros Mellekas, between the number of
commanding officer of citations that were sent to
state police, will be retiring the court system and high-
next month, the Democrat- er numbers entered into
ic governor said, adding the race and ethnicity da-
that they were not being Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner James tabase. They said a total of
forced out. Rovella, right, appears with Col. Stavros Mellekas, superintendent of the Connecticut State Police, 311 troopers had discrep-
At a state Capitol news center, and Lt. Col. Mark Davison for a hearing on state troopers providing false traffic stop ancies in at least one of the
conference, Lamont and information on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in Hartford, Conn. years audited.
Rovella denied the investi- (AP Photo/File File) The data analysts, howev-
gations played major roles former police chief at Yale and ethnicity of drivers Rovella was confirmed by er, cautioned that they did
in the retirements. Mellekas University who now serves stopped by police, under a state lawmakers in February not try to determine wheth-
did not attend and did as the school's associate Connecticut law aimed at 2019 to serve as commis- er the records were inten-
not immediately return an vice president for public preventing racial profiling. sioner of the Department tionally falsified or were
email message seeking safety and community en- Auditors said the alleged of Emergency Services and wrong due to carelessness
comment. gagement. Higgins must false data was more like- Public Protection, which or human error.
Rovella said he and Lamont be confirmed by state law- ly to identify motorists as oversees state police. He's The Connecticut State Po-
discussed his retirement makers. white, which skewed the been in law enforcement lice Union has cautioned
plans Tuesday as well as U.S. Department of Jus- race and ethnicity data for four decades, including against making any con-
the investigations into the tice investigators are look- collected to compile state- as a homicide detective clusions about troopers'
traffic stop data. ing into whether dozens of wide reports. The reports and the chief for Hartford conduct before the inves-
“That wasn’t the driving troopers falsified informa- have shown nonetheless police. tigations are complete. It
force behind this,” Rovella tion about traffic stops that that Black and Hispanic Mellekas joined the state says more than two dozen
said. were never made. There drivers are pulled over police as a trooper in 1994 troopers already have
Lamont, who began his also is an independent in- at disproportionate rates and worked his way up to been cleared of wrong-
second four-year term in vestigation ordered by compared with white mo- become commanding of- doing in connection with
January, said, “So every Lamont that is being led torists. ficer in 2019. He previously the traffic citation data,
four years I think it’s time by a former federal pros- In August, the state po- worked as a police officer and it expects more to be
to have a fresh start, and ecutor, as well as a U.S. De- lice union voted no confi- at the U.S. Capitol. cleared.
that’s what we’re going to partment of Transportation dence in both Rovella and An audit released by Uni- Union officials have said
do with public safety.” probe. Mellekas, accusing them versity of Connecticut data many discrepancies found
The governor announced The information in question of not defending troopers analysts in June found a in the audit could be due
his nominee to succeed was entered into a data- against allegations involv- “high degree of confi- to recordkeeping or data
Rovella is Ronnell Higgins, base that tracks the race ing the traffic stop data. dence” that troopers sub- entry errors.q