In the late 1980s and early ’90s, when the US government was trying to contain Mexican border crossers, agents in El Paso responded by racially profiling residents. Because they couldn’t catch everyone who entered the US, the patrolmen stopped anyone they could within the city limits, from grandmothers to high schoolers, demanding to see their papers. This posed a special problem in a county that was 75 percent Hispanic. There was a lawsuit; the controversial local head of the Border Patrol retired; and his replacement, Silvestre Reyes, brought an idea that would revolutionize border policy
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