Over two years later, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas finally held a private meeting with the Border Patrol agents that he threw under the bus after they were falsely accused of whipping Haitain migrants near Del Rio, Texas.
There was reportedly no apology from Mayorkas.
We have discussed how Mayorkas was warned that the allegations were false, but still denounced them.
Mayorkas failed to protect the agents even after the President promised that they would be punished before any investigation. Mayorkas joined the chorus of critics in condemning the agents as an example of “systemic racism” in the government.
The media went into a frenzy despite a videotape showing that the story was clearly false.
A photographer captured the scene, which showed agents using bridle reins to guide their skittish horses. The entire videotape clearly shows the agents using the reins on their mounts, not on the migrants. Not only did the photographer quickly deny seeing any officers whip migrants, the videotape clearly refuted that allegation. However, for many in politics and the media it did not matter because it played into a racial-justice claim of the “whipping (of) Haitian asylum seekers.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) condemned “the inappropriate use of what appear to be whips by Border Patrol officers on horseback to intimidate migrants.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) decried “images of inhumane treatment of Haitian migrants by Border Patrol — including the use of whips.” Vice President Kamala Harris emoted on “The View” about how the brutality “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.” Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) described the incident as “worse than what we witnessed in slavery” and “white supremacist behavior.”
President Biden rushed to express his own revulsion and rage, too: “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.”
At the time, some of us objected that the president had, once again, declared the guilt of accused persons without evidence or investigation. The possible innocence of these officers simply did not matter to the president or to many in the press.
Now, with the passage of time, some of us had hoped that Mayorkas would apologize to the agents even if President Biden has refused to do so.
He didn’t. The agents after all were just props used by the media and politicians. They do not have families or careers that need to be considered. They whipped migrants on the water’s edge because the media and politicians needed them to be whipping migrants.
Yet, Mayorkas wanted to convey his love for the agents in finally meeting with the men that he previously portrayed as Bull Connors on horseback.
Jonathan: While the video doesn’t show that US border agents “whipping” the Haitian migrants, who were trying to cross the Rio Grande seeking asylum, it does document how the border agents using split reins to chase and herd the Haitians like “cattle”. One border was heard yelling: “This is why your country’s sh–…because you use women for this”. The behavior of the border agents was a clear violation of long established US Border Patrol policy re how migrants should be treated. Your column is simply a big distraction from the real issues.
What you missed in your column is why Mayorkas was called to testify. Firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene has turned border enforcement policy into a political witch hunt against the Secretary who she falsely claimed failed to prevent the so-called “invasion” along the Southern border. MTG introduced articles of impeachment against against Mayorkas. That failed to get any support from her fellow Republicans in the House or the Dems. So she has been forced to pull her resolution . Policy differences over border policy don’t amount to “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
The reason she didn’t have complete pub support is because plenty of pubs’ constituents are profiting from the abuse of illegal immigrants.
Policy differences do not amount to HC&M, but policy differences do not mean there aren’t HC&M afoot under mayorkas. The aiding and abetting of illegal immigration is the biggest whoring-out of the US in its history. MTG is correct that mayorkas isn’t doing his job, that is clear, but mayorkas is simply a figurehead for dems thinking they can get voters and dems and pubs getting cheap labor. There is plenty of cheap labor in the US, too bad we allow it to go fallow – otoh, they do provide a good market for all the fentanyl that rich people in the US are profiting from at the cost of 100k+ deaths and likely millions more lives wasted each year, so mayorkas has got that going for him.
The behavior of the border agents was a clear violation of long established US Border Patrol policy re how migrants should be treated.
Your retarded comments are one thing. but the constant lies are grating
The Border Patrol did a long extensive investigation. They cleared the men of all charges and made zero recomendation for punishment or additional training
What makes the lie worse, is, you have no idea about any of the facts. You just write fiction.
DM you are off in never never land.
What is the left wing equivalent of Qanon ?
Clearly you are drinking the coolaide.
No the agents did NOT violate clear policy – they were completely exhonerated.
The “split reigns were used ON THE HORSE, that is what they are for.
And Yes CBP agents are supposed to HERD immigrants. Do you have the slightest understanding of the job ?
The event was caught on multiple videos – do you have one where the remarks you claim were made can be heard ?
Do you have the testimony under oath of someone that those remarks were made ?
And finally – SO WHAT ? While I have little doubt that the remarks you claim were never made – WHAT IF THEY WERE ?
These people were crossing the border illegally.
It is CBP’s job to catch them.
It is not their job to coddle them or baby sit them or provide them with a safe space.
About 1/3 of the men, and nearly 100% of the women crossing have been Raped by the Cartels along the way.
I can’t get bent out of shape because CBP did not welcome them with hugs and teddy bears.
MTG was ahead of the curve. Now she is not. She recognized the problem with Mayorkas before the rest of the country.
And for THAT you are attacking her.
Pollicy differences do not amount to high crimes and misdemenors – but failure to uphold the law and the constitution is more than a mere policy difference.
The law is actually clear – These people are NOT entitled to entry into the US. PERIOD.
Gaming the law by letting them in , releasing them and then pretending to hold a hearing 8 years from now are NONSENSE,
and failure to uphold your oath to uphold the law.
That is not a policy difference.
I would note – we elected people who advocate for different policies. But with very few exceptions elections does not allow them to ACT on those policies. It allows ADVOCATING to make those policies law so that they can be acted on.
If someone on the right runs on a law an order policy of giving drug dealers the death penalty – can they start executing people convicted of drug dealing ?
Mayokas is free to get his prefered immigration policies converted to law.
In the meantime he SWORE to follow the law as it is, not how he would prefer it.
Absolutely, Trump should apologize to the Capitol Police officers, DC Metro Police officers and Secret Service officers for inciting a coup attempt.
For the police officers that later died due to Trump’s dereliction of duty, he should apologize to their family members.
Anonymous, any comment about your party supporting rioters that actually BURNED DOWN POLICE STATIONS?
Once Pelosi’s crew releases the names of all the Fed agent plants there, I’m sure he will.
Cold-blooded murder, officers assaulting visitors and other officers forcing a riot (i.e. disorder) , progressive medical conditions, and probable Whitmer conspiracy.
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
– Real President Donald J. Trump
How can you apologize if you don’t regret an offense or fault. After how many years have you heard one of them apologize to the American people for Russia Russia Russia?
If ever there was an “insurrection” against our Constitutional Republic, the Russia Hoax was it. Every one of those hoaxers, from Hillary down to the Shiffhead, should be tried for it.
“Love is…
…Never having to say you lied.” (attributed to Joe Biden, et al.)
…Never knowingly taken classified material to your residence(s)/adjunct offices.” (Joe Biden)
…Never having to say you exaggerated.” (Trump)
…Never having to pay back ill-gotten money.” (Hunter)
…Never having to admit that “Doctor” Biden only applies in an academic periphery.” (Jill)
…Never having to explain a misleading, cherry-picked, selective-fact report.” (Jonathan Karl, Geo Stephanopoulos, Chuck Todd, MSM et al)
…Never having to censor those you insult and criticize you on your own blog.” (Jonathan Turley)
(It’s raining outside, I’m on a roll…thanks for tolerating me.)
Correction: “….those who insult you and criticize you on your own blog.”
The agents after all were just props …. They do not have families or careers that need to be considered. They whipped migrants on the water’s edge because the media and politicians needed them to be whipping migrants.
We are all props for the Left. They are the culture of death, as Saint Pope John Paul II stated many many times during his pontificate. It does not matter that they defend abortion right after the baby is born so as to decapitate her as ex-Governor Ralph Northam (Dem-Virginia supported), nor “mercy killing” of the elderly. Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels articulated an effective propaganda paradigm in the Communist Manifesto of depicting the “oppressed” (proletariat = producing offspring / wage-earners) as victims of “oppressors” (bourgeoisie / wealth, political power). The oppressors today, if they exist, are truly the Democrats with their wealth and political power with Mayorkas being the prototype.
It’s not just Biden’s handlers who malign people and then fail to apologize when shown they were lying. The New York Times has pulled another Walter Duranty lie in promoting the bullsheet that the people in Gaza are victims and Israel their oppressor.
These liars deserve to be in Dante’s Inferno 9th Circle of Hell. Hillary will be holding the gate open for them.
The Gray Lady Quietly Retracts Yet Another Slander Against Israel
A headline on the front page of the Sunday New York Times told readers “Israel has killed more women and children than have been killed in Ukraine.”
Alas, the story was too good (or bad) to be true. By noon on Sunday, the headline in question disappeared from the digital version of the Times’s story. By late afternoon, the Times added substantial information that contradicted its initial claim and suggested the death toll in Ukraine has been an order of magnitude greater than in Gaza. The only indication of these changes was a small note beneath the author’s byline indicating the story had been “updated.”
https://freebeacon.com/columns/the-gray-lady-quietly-retracts-yet-another-slander-against-israel/
“We are all props for the Left. They are the culture of death”
Estovir, you enhanced the words of John Paul.
LOL. he would be amused with your comment. I attended 2 Masses with Pope JPII celebrating: once in Miami, another in New Orleans, 1980s. Never met him face/face, admire him a great deal, and see him as an intellectual titan. However, he also caused injury by overlooking the predators within the clergy. Lesson here: no one is perfect. No one
His error does not alter the meaning of those words said at another time.
I don’t know the reason he would be amused at my statement. Is there something deeper I am missing?
Speaking of props, “All the world’s a stage…” says Shakespeare in ‘As You Like It.’
Maybe we Plebes, when the media/orchestra are not looking, can move from stage left to stage right so the audience can understand the difference.
Or maybe get a job writing the libretto, -substituting the words said to what was not said….or what was really meant….
Can the border agents sue for defamation or some other theory?
No Mayorkas is immune.
Those on the left wish to pretend that Trump alone is not immune for conduct associated with his role in government.
Republicans need to stop asking obvious questions of this Regime’s capos. “Secretary Mayorkas, is the border secure?” Come on, that question is begging for someone to ask him how he and the regime define secure or success? Without definitions and measures of success, any answer can be true.
Perhaps if anyone had bothered to ask Obama what he envisioned “a fundamental transformation” would look like, we might have avoided this disaster.
Olly: Yours is an excellent comment. Thank you. (Perhaps if someone, ANY one, had bothered to ask Joe Biden to clarify what he meant, with “definitions and measures,” when he stated, “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period.”
(“Fresh revelations contradict Joe Biden’s sweeping denials on Hunter,” https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/05/hunter-joe-biden-business-testimony-00125056 )
Yes lin, that would have been a reasonable question. The best example of an attempt to clearly define a position was asking Judge Jackson: Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” Her answer should have been a warning to anyone concerned about the security of rights. Every right we have desperately needs a fixed and understood definition. When definitions are fluid, then nothing is secure.
Another example is the Biden corruption scandal. We’ve gone from alleging a Russian disinformation operation, to Republicans have nothing and then everything in between. The reason the goalposts move is because they are moveable. Republicans believe that it’s only a matter of time, if enough evidence is shown, Democrats and Biden supporters will finally agree with Republicans. That’ll never happen IF they never ask the Democrats to provide their operational definition of both enough and evidence. We should be asking the same questions here on this blog. Something like this:
What evidence would have to exist to convince you that the allegations about the Biden family corruption are true and they should be prosecuted? If they can’t or won’t answer that question with some measurable definition, then there is absolutely no purpose to engage them further.
As a former Border Patrol Agent, I find Alejandro Mayorkas’ actions on the southern border conspiracy to violate federal immigration law. And yet, little Alejandro smiles for the cameras in Washington and tries to convince Americans that everything is fine. Lunch Box Joe should change his title to “Executive Director” for brilliantly managing the largest taxpayer-funded Democratic Voter Drive in American history. I’m sure that our old INS Commissioner Leonard Chapman is rolling in his grave seeing all of this. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article.
Turls, don’t do Ali and Ryan like that, homes.
And yeah, blah, blah, blah…, I’m sure you’ll make sure to apologize to Hunter for all the tabloid hit pieces you’ve tossed his way over the years you raving hypocrite.
I don’t care if you are an inner city street thug or a rural red neck or a federal official like Mr. Mayorkas. People will keep breaking the law until there are repercussions. Punishment. Until that happens they will keep on doing whatever they please.
You want to know why government workers have attitude problems? Here it is in a nutshell. You expect professionals to perform at the best of their ability with not enough resources and without vision from the top. Then they get castigated publicly for an incident that did not happen and called racists because they were doing their jobs to the best of their ability.
While I am for punishing bad behavior, there was none here and these good people still get dragged through the much because it serves a purpose for politicians. They are owed a massive apology that will never arrive from all concerned.
And one wonders why the cynicism is abundant.
So here we have two stories (“The Irish Government . . .” and “Politics is Never Having . . .”) with a common moral-political theme.
From the first: “We are restricting freedom, but we’re doing it for the common good.”
And the second: “Mayorkas failed to protect the agents . . .”
That theme is the wicked notion of sacrificing an innocent individual, of usurping individual rights, to satisfy an agenda (an alleged “good”) chosen by those in power. On this view, individuals are merely farm animals waiting to be slaughtered.
Human sacrifice in the name of a collective “good” is barbaric. And should have died with the Aztec civilization.
Narcissists never see a reason to apologize to the people they con. All con men revel in their successes not their obvious lies. No wonder so many left wing youth believe Ben Ladin is right about America. Biden and his cons are their models.
And – until we recapture our control of our media/education industries, the prog/left will continue to control the near braindead minds of their duped tools. We allowed these progressives to tacitly convert our culture and now we have a long hard slog to recapture control if it is at all possible at this point.
To apologize is to admit that you knowingly continued a fabricated story. For a prog/left apparatchik to admit a lie is impossible because their status depends on their notion of infalibility to their duped tools. Sentient adults know the truth, in part due to the honest reporting of a few remaining newspersons but the fake story of whipping Haitians must be maintained by the prog/left in order to continue their fabrications – it’s virtually all that they have left. The ability of the prog/left to maintain such deceptions is astounding and perilous because of the “dumbed-down nature of the majority of our citizenry and, if allowed to continue, will insure our cultural and societal collapse.
Well, in order to apologize one must have a sense of ethics, both personally and publicly, an ability to discern right from wrong and act upon that. And some empathy that tells this individual that their error has resulted in real pain and injury to the people it affected and by having that empathy, one seeks to mitigate the injury by an act of self criticism and admonishment and then have the ability, intent, and actual to means to remove the injury of their act.
First of all this Secy has no ethics, no sense of right and wrong, no sense of legality or illegality, and no empathy. I’m not even sure if he is aware that there are human beings that are affected by his actions or those of his dept. I think he just sees little mindless ants scurrying around in his dept carrying widgets and edicts yet they have no minds or are even souls. He likely thinks of them as unthinking bots that exist solely to carry forth his exhortations and proclomations .
I’m not even sure he knows what an apology is.
You may be correct in your analysis of his behavior. I, frankly, find that explanation far more comforting than to have to deal with an ideological zealot. The first one you can understand and deal with. The other notion – of fanatic zealotry – places him along side of Islamic jihadists who are impervious to logic. Those types fly planes in to towers and put babies in ovens. I wonder just what is the mental state of our prog/left fanatics at this point.
Well said!!
Mayorkas, Biden, Harris, Swalwell all huge liars. And last night at the DeSantis-Newsome Debate we saw the true colors of the Democrat party and their ability to lie endlessly and breathlessly even when the facts are staring them in the face. Newsome proved that the standard bearers for liberals, the Left, and the Dems are truly slimy liars. It was pitiful to watch – but of course the US press will continue to act as the Squealer for these liars while the American public is left ignorant.
and the GOP republicans KEEP funding the criminal fascist Democrats…why?
Fascist don’t apologize….they are lucky they weren’t sent to JAIL!
The Democrats HATE America…that is clear!
if you vote Democrat you are either ill informed or evil..or both
Disgusting piece of sh*t..
Ali MacGraw was a babe.