Hours Before Decrying “Horrifying Images”, Biden DHS Head Was Told Border Agents Did Not Whip Haitian Migrants

Remember when the Biden administration fabricated a story that Border Patrol agents had ‘whipped’ Haitian migrants with horse reins – which the president promising that the agents involved ‘will pay’ and VP Kamala Harris calling for “consequences and accountability?”

The lie was spread by leftist Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, among others.

It doesn’t matter if a Democrat or Republican is President, our immigration system is designed for cruelty towards and dehumanization of immigrants.

Immigration should not be a crime, and its criminalization is a relatively recent invention. This is a stain on our country. https://t.co/PZKYN4WLyj

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 20, 2021

Then, actual footage emerged that revealed there was zero whipping – and the photographer who captured the scene even called bullshit?

New video from @StorytellerSBM shows a shirt grab and absolutely zero whipping. https://t.co/YVOZiPfeje

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) September 24, 2021

It turns out that Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, was told that there was no whipping – yet hours later, pretended he wasn’t aware, calling the incident “horrifying” while failing to challenge the false narrative.

The Sept. 24, 2021 email, obtained by the Heritage Foundation via a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), shines light onto internal deliberations surrounding the controversy in Del Rio, Texas, where Democrats and the White House pushed a narrative that migrants had been “whipped” or “strapped” by Border Patrol agents despite it being quickly debunked.

…

The investigation is still ongoing more than a year later, but findings by the Office of Professional Responsibility in July found that no whips were in their possession and no migrant was struck by the reins — although it did find other alleged infractions.

But just hours after Biden made his inflammatory remarks to cameras, Marsha Espinosa, assistant secretary of DHS public affairs, emailed Mayorkas and cc’d other DHS leadership, alerting them to a news article that showed that the photographer who took the images did not see any whipping. In the email, Espinosa highlighted the comments from the photographer where he directly says he did not witness any whipping. –Fox News

“Our nation saw horrifying images that do not reflect who we are. We know that those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism,” Mayorkas said at a White House press conference 2.5 hours after he was notified that the whipping had been debunked.

“The images horrified us in terms of what they suggest and what they conjure up,” he added.

Secretary Mayorkas knew the smears against the agents were a lie. Yet he still threw them under the bus.

Where is your integrity, @SecMayorkas? https://t.co/JDdxGrcn9M

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) October 12, 2022

“It clearly shows they are willing to lie to the American people for their self interests,” National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told Fox News, adding “They withheld facts and anytime you withhold facts from the American people.. you should step down from your job. Better men step down. This clearly shows they are not better men.”