The former leading U.S. Border Patrol officials from the past three presidential administrations are warning Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas against disciplining agents over the alleged "whipping" of migrants last September.
According to the Washington Examiner, four national Border Patrol chiefs joined with five other high-ranking officials from the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations to send a letter to Mayorkas warning him against "stating outright that there will be consequences" for the alleged "whipping" of Haitian migrants in Texas last year.
"We collectively believe and point out that the statements made by the President and Vice President predictively prejudged the desired outcome of the investigation and may therefore influence the case. Stating outright that there will be consequences presumes the result of an investigation," they wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the Examiner. "We ask that you and the deciding official ensure a fair and impartial review of the facts as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) moves through this process."
President Joe Biden said last September, after the incident: “It was horrible what — to see, as you saw — to see people treated like they did: horses nearly running them over and people being strapped. It’s outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay. They will be — an investigation is underway now, and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It's an embarrassment. But beyond an embarrassment, it's dangerous; it's wrong. It sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It's simply not who we are."
Harris said in an interview the following day that photographs of the incident "invoked images of some of the worst moments of our history, where that kind of behavior has been used against the indigenous people of our country, it has been used against African Americans during times of slavery."
The photographer who took the photos said that they had been "misconstrued" following the incident and that he hadn't seen Border Patrol agents using the whips on people.