President Joe Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address on Tuesday in a security-locked Congress. The bars that surrounded the Capitol for months after the January 6, 2020 assault have been raised again “as a precaution”, according to the police, who are preparing for a possible demonstration by truckers against the mandatory health measures due to the pandemic. inspired by the Canadian case. While the scale of the protest is up in the air, the Pentagon has approved the deployment of 700 National Guard personnel and about 50 armored military vehicles to assist local officers in the event of an incident.
The self-proclaimed People’s Caravan is streaming its 4,000-mile journey from California to the capital on Facebook. In the show, a line of several trucks and people supporting them can be seen on the sidewalks with American flags. Activists are due to arrive on March 5 at the Beltway, a bypass that surrounds Washington. The deployment of the National Guard, which will help control traffic at designated posts and points leading to the Capitol, has been approved through March 8 inside and outside the city.
Kyle Sefcik, organizer of one of the main caravans that left California for the American capital, published on Monday that the line of vehicles was dissolved for lack of participants. “I have been interrogated, censured, detained and charged by federal government agencies,” Sefcik claimed without evidence at the Washington Monument, where he announced he would be there this Tuesday to demand that the Joe Biden administration end to the state of emergency declared by his predecessor to stop the coronavirus.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said the trailer situation was being closely monitored, with a critical incident response plan for the Capitol. “I have requested the support of outside law enforcement agencies, as well as the National Guard, to help us with our security precautions,” Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said Sunday. in a press release. The truckers, according to reports, come from different parts of the country, not just California. Participants include activists from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
American truckers decided to organize a caravan to the American capital when protests broke out in Canada three weeks ago. Since then, more states have lifted pandemic-related restrictions, and last Friday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed recommendations on mask use. Separately, the Supreme Court in January overturned the order signed by Biden that required workers in large corporations to be vaccinated against covid-19.
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