Border Officials Weighed Deploying Migrant ‘Heat Ray’ Ahead of Midterms
Even as the Republican convention tries to soften President Trump’s image, he has made it clear that the extreme immigration policies of his first four years will be central to his re-election pitch.
By Michael D. Shear
Aug. 26, 2020
Updated 4:05 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — Fifteen days before the 2018 midterm elections, as President Trump sought to motivate Republicans with dark warnings about caravans heading to the U.S. border, he gathered his Homeland Security secretary and White House staff to deliver a message: “extreme action” was needed to stop the migrants.
That afternoon, at a separate meeting with top leaders of the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection officials suggested deploying a microwave weapon — a “heat ray” designed by the military to make people’s skin feel like it is burning when they get within range of its invisible beams.
Developed by the military as a crowd dispersal tool two decades ago, the Active Denial System had been largely abandoned amid doubts over its effectiveness and morality. Two former officials who attended the afternoon meeting at the Homeland Security Department on Oct. 22, 2018, said the suggestion that the device be installed at the border shocked attendees, even if it would have satisfied the president.
Kirstjen Nielsen, then the secretary of Homeland Security told an aide after the meeting that she would not authorize the use of such a device, and it should never be brought up again in her presence, the officials said.
more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/politics/trump-campaign-immigration.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20200826&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=headline®i_id=16112385&segment_id=36966&user_id=75ee940ebe2fd3e9d0a6bb93cf283302
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