TEXAS – The U.S. Customs and Border Protection hierarchy has been inept at clearing the horse mounted agents accused of “whipping” Haitian migrants entering the country illegally last year. Now Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday that if any Border Patrol officials face “adverse action” over the false claims that he would offer them jobs, Fox News reported.
Agents on horseback were accused of whipping migrants in September, after President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and several Democratic lawmakers who saw images of the encounters misidentified the agents’ split reins and claimed they were whipping people.
“To see people treated like they did, horses barely running over, people being strapped – it’s outrageous,” Biden said on Sept. 24, making a whipping motion with his hand. “I promise you, those people will pay. There will be an investigation underway now and there will be consequences. There will be consequences.”
The “whipping” narrative was quickly debunked by the star witness, the man who snapped the controversial photographs, Paul Ratije. As soon as the false narrative began to spread, he immediately said the pictures were “misconstrued” and that agents NEVER whipped anyone, Law Officer reported.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in September that the investigation of the agents would “be completed in days, if not weeks,” yet it lingers on more than six months later.
As a result, Gov. Abbott has taken note and appears prepared to offer employment to agents if they are unjustly punished.
“If any adverse action is taken against these border patrol agents who were doing their job to secure the border then Texas will offer them a job,” Abbott tweeted, adding that they “should be praised not persecuted.”
The controversy began on September 19, 2021, when mounted Border Patrol agents conducting routine protection duties were photographed intercepting illegal aliens attempting to cross into the United States. Some of those photographs captured the agents using their reins in a twirling motion to direct the horses and to keep the migrants at a distance. Some photos showed the agents taking hold of the migrants to push them away from the horses to protect the migrants from being stepped on.
At the time, there were more than 10,000 migrants in Del Rio, Texas beneath the area’s International Bridge. As the situation worsened, horse mounted agents were deployed.
Upon publication of the photos, the agents were falsely accused of “whipping” the migrants. This despite the freelance reporter who took the photos stating no such thing happened. The official investigation came immediately. It was followed just as quickly with false and defamatory attacks against the reputations of the agents from the highest levels of government.
Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Fox News Digital in an interview that the situation on the ground in Del Rio was a “powder keg” as migrants had just discovered that they were in fact likely to be removed rather than allowed into the U.S.
“These agents were specifically sent to that location to stop more people from crossing, that was what they were sent there to do,” Judd said. “This was under the orders of their management which of course is under the control of Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas.”
Photographer Ratije said that “nobody saw a Border Patrol agent whipping,” and Mayorkas initially backed the agents alongside Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz.
“Some of the Haitian men started running, trying to go around the horses, and that’s kind of when the whole thing happened.” Ratije said, according to the New York Post.
“I didn’t ever see them whip anybody, with the thing,” the photographer said of the reins. “He was swinging it. But I didn’t see him actually take — whip someone with it. That’s something that can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”
Still, Biden put pressure on the besieged agents by repeating the false claims of whipping and previewed what he hoped would be the outcome of the investigation.
The parroting talking points of the left continued to malign the Border Patrol agents, Law Officer reported.
Not missing an opportunity to appear virtuous, Biden’s veep was one of the first to dog pile on the hard working agents.
“What I saw depicted about those individuals on horseback treating human beings the way they were, was horrible,” Harris told reporters on Sept. 21. “And I fully support what is happening right now, which is a thorough investigation into exactly what is going on there. But human beings should never be treated that way. And I’m deeply troubled about it. And I’ll also be talking to [DHS] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas about it today.”
