The border was effectively turned into a militarized zone. Barbed wire, spotlights, tanks, machine guns, and airplanes were brought in to surveil Mexican residents and maintain “order” in the borderlands. Around sixty-five hundred U.S. troops were stationed in El Paso, where they were ordered to keep Villistas from entering the city and keep watch over the Mexican refugees and Mexican Americans in the city. U.S. consular agent George Carothers wrote, “A large portion the Mexican population of El Paso have arms... which will create dangerous situation here… The possibility exists of them starting something serious.” In January 1916, white Americans took matters into their hands and started a "race riot" in the majority-Mexican neighborhood of Chihuahuita, attacking every Mexican refugee and Mexican American they found in the streets.