President Biden was adamant after images of tense confrontations between horse-mounted Border Patrol agents and Haitian migrants emerged in September, vowing that the agents “will pay.”
One image showed a mounted agent with reins in his hand while a Haitian dodged around the horse, which led some to speculate that the migrant was being whipped. A video caught another agent insulting a migrant and calling Haiti “s—-.”
Vice President Kamala Harris likened the agents’ treatment of the Haitians to the oppression of plantation slavery. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas initially defended the agents but then rushed to Capitol Hill to condemn them and promised lawmakers results from his investigation within “days.”
That was six months ago.
Now, with the investigation dragging on, several agents remain sidelined from field duty and fellow agents fear the department is setting them up as fall guys to fulfill Mr. Biden’s demand for someone “to pay.”
“Why would it be taking six months if they’re not trying to dot their i’s and cross their t’s to find some wrongdoing?” said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. “Biden, Harris and Mayorkas already convicted them. If this investigation comes back that there is no wrongdoing, then they are going to look completely and totally incompetent. Therefore, these investigators have one choice, and that is to trump up some finding of wrongdoing.”
The agents were deployed amid an unprecedented situation in September, when thousands of migrants — almost all of them Haitian — rushed across the Rio Grande to reach Del Rio, Texas. They captured a beachhead on the U.S. side of the river, set up a migrant camp and waited for agents to process them. They hoped to be caught and released into the country.
Border Patrol agents tried to help maintain the camp, but the migrants weren’t in custody. Many made their way back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico at will. They would cross the border for food and return to wait their turn for processing.
Trying to keep some order, agents handed out tickets with numbers to mark places in line.
Images of the camp went viral, adding another stain to the troubled Biden border policies. The Homeland Security Department responded by pouring in resources. Border Patrol highway checkpoints were shut down and agents shifted to Del Rio, which also had the effect of giving smugglers a clear shot into the interior through previously guarded routes.
Among those deployed was the Border Patrol’s mounted unit.
Mr. Judd said supervisors gave them the “impossible” task of trying to block the river to prevent even more Haitians from reaching the camp.
That was what was happening on Sept. 19, when photographers captured images of the confrontations.
The agents were caught between a camp of thousands of migrants, seething with tension, and hundreds more people desperate to get inside, Mr. Judd said.
“Everybody knew it was a powder keg,” he said. “You never put people in a situation where they’re caught between two large groups.”
He said the agents were acting within policy and procedure to deter crossings while trying to keep control of their mounts to avoid injuring anyone.
“The agents were giving them lawful commands. They were approaching the horses. The agents had to keep them away for their own protection,” Mr. Judd said.
As agents tried to block off the route, one photographer captured a video of an agent yelling at migrants: “This is why your country’s s—-, because you use your women for this.”
A freelance photographer, Paul Ratje, captured the image of a mounted agent grabbing the shirt of a migrant as a cord dangled in the air. The photo went viral and came to define the encounter.
Some saw the cord as a whip, and a narrative emerged that the agent was beating the migrant.
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, who had duty on horseback earlier in his career, told reporters that the cord was the horse’s reins, which were long enough to swing as the agent tried to maintain control of his mount with migrants dashing around the horse’s legs.
Mr. Ratje backed up that account.
“I asked other colleagues, ‘Did you see him whipping?’ No,” the photographer told PolitiFact. “That stuff got misconstrued.”
Still, the photographer was bothered by the encounter.
“If there were only one question I’d wish for you to ask when looking at this image, and looking at any image of what’s happening with the Haitians in Del Rio/Acuna, or to migrants on the border in general, it would be this: Who is this country, this United States of America? —And the answer to that question is for you to decide,” he wrote on Instagram.
Mr. Mayorkas stood alongside Chief Ortiz when he defended the agents’ actions. At the time, Mr. Mayorkas seemed to back the agents.
A day later, after the vice president’s office said she called Mr. Mayorkas to express her displeasure, the secretary’s tone changed.
Testifying to Congress, he said he was “horrified” by the images, and he vowed an investigation with results in “days, not weeks.”
Mr. Biden sided with those who believed the agents were whipping people.
“To see people like they did, with horses, running them over, people being strapped, it’s outrageous,” he said.
“I promise you, those people will pay,” he said. “There is an investigation underway right now, and there will be consequences.”
Mr. Judd said those comments tainted the probe from the start and left investigators with no option other than to find something — anything — to hang on an agent.
“They boxed themselves into a corner. Biden came out, and he made statements that were completely and totally premature,” Mr. Judd said. “Because he made those statements, they’re now boxed into an impossible situation.”
He said two agents who seem to be under scrutiny are the one photographed by Mr. Ratje with the reins dangling and the one caught on video insulting migrants and their home country.
Mr. Judd defended that agent. He said the agent was squaring off with a Haitian man who was pushing women and children in front of him to shield himself from the mounted patrol.
“You’ve got this extremely volatile, high-stress situation, and you have a male putting a female and a child in front of him. If that child or female had fallen into the river, that agent would have had to go into the river and try to save those people,” Mr. Judd said. “It was a very stressful situation, yet they’re saying he was unprofessional? Anybody in that situation would have made those same comments.”
Homeland Security said in a statement that officials are still working on the review.
“We will share the results of the investigation once it is complete and provide updates, as available, consistent with the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and individuals’ privacy,” the department said.
It referred a reporter back to a November statement that said the inspector general declined to investigate so CBP’s office of professional responsibility took the lead.
“OPR has followed customary process in its investigation of this matter,” Homeland Security said.
The department detailed the lengthy consultation process with prosecutors, disciplinary recommendations and appeals available. The department has not said why Mr. Mayorkas promised results in “days.”
During Mr. Mayorkas’ September appearance on Capitol Hill, members of Congress demanded fast answers.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey Democrat, told Mr. Mayorkas that the agents should never “be able to interact with other human beings ever again. They need to be released, and they need to be held accountable.”
Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, said the images she saw were “worse than what we witnessed in slavery.”
“I’m pissed. I’m unhappy, and I’m not just unhappy with the cowboys who were running down Haitians and using their reins to whip them,” she said. “I’m unhappy with the administration.”
Spokespeople for the two congresswomen didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article.
The Washington Times also reached out to several groups advocating for Haitian migrants, but received no responses.
Homeland Security didn’t respond to questions about the status of the horse patrol unit or agents under investigation, nor whether any supervisors were being investigated or disciplined.
Mr. Judd said the two agents in question have been kept out of the field, but they are still in uniform and on duty.
He said any bungles happened at the management level, with whoever thought it a good idea to deploy mounted agents to block routes to the camp. Still, he said no supervisors had been disciplined. Mr. Judd said that is “a complete and total farce.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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