President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) closed one of the most disgraceful chapters in its history as it finally concluded an investigation into false accusations that Border Patrol agents were whipping Haitian migrants.
The nearly ten-month long investigation found that Border Patrol agents did not use whips after viral and misleading photos and videos purportedly showed the horseback-riding agents using their reigns as whips to corral Haitian migrants at the border. While the investigation found that the agents were not carrying whips, and that Border Patrol does not even have whips as part of its equipment, the agents will face internal punishment anyway.
The investigation concluded that several of the agents used excessive force, although the final report was vague on the details. Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Chris Magnus said some of the agents’ demonstrated “discrimination,” and “intolerance,” but did not provide any specifics. The desperation to punish these agents who had clearly done nothing wrong seems likely to be a result of Biden’s vow to fulfill his promise to make the agents “pay.”
"To see people treated like they did? Horses running them over? People being strapped? It's outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay,” Biden said after the deceptive images surfaced.
But, instead of admitting they were wrong and apologizing to the agents, the Biden Administration is doubling down on their attacks against patriotic law enforcement agents. The motivations for punishing these agents appears to be politically and ideologically-motivated. To understand why these agents are being punished for simply doing their jobs, one has to remember the inflammatory rhetoric displayed by leading administration officials and their allies in Congress after the manufactured scandal broke.
Kamala Harris said the photos “invoked” images of slavery. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, after initially defending the agents, said he was “horrified” by the images, and vowed swift punishment. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus called the images “deeply disturbing and unacceptable,” while the president of the NAACP compared the incident to “some of the darkest moments in America’s history,” and demanded a meeting with Biden.
The smear campaign against the agents simply became too big to fail. The cabal of special interest groups, politicians, and anti-border advocates that hold heavy sway over this White House demanded that these agents be punished, and Biden was happy to acquiesce. But, this investigation has had a deep cost for the agents in question.
Once hysteria over the non-event reached critical mass, the agents were taken out of the field and assigned to desk duty. They have been subjected to an intensive 10-month investigation that Mayorkas had promised would only take days. For an administration that claims to fight for the common man, it was quick to bring the full power of the federal government down on hardworking agents who were manipulated for political agendas.
“Because of what the president said, these investigators had no choice but to find some sort of wrongdoing,” National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd said. “We know that they did nothing wrong. We know that it was a powder keg. We know that they were sent there to do a specific job, and they did that job. Now they're coming back to be vilified.”
At the time this was all unfolding, tens of thousands of Haitian migrants were gathering at the southern border attempting to enter the U.S. Our border was being completely overwhelmed, and the Biden Administration needed a red herring to distract the American public from their failure to secure the border. So, the White House and their allies concocted a moral panic, and as a result may have done great damage to the lives and careers of these Border Patrol agents.
This entire investigation was a farce meant to distract from the carnage Biden has unleashed at our border. It represents a shameful chapter in American history, and another lowlight in this administration’s epic destruction of our nation’s sovereignty.
William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.