One of the Border Patrol agents falsely accused by the Biden administration of whipping migrants at the Texas border was arrested by the agency Thursday morning, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told The Post. Received an award from.
The agent, whose name has been withheld since the September 2021 incident to protect his identity, was awarded a medal for his intelligence work related to the human smuggling case. Border Security Achievement Award.
The Border Patrol agent, who was one of five people photographed on horseback in the incident, was seen attempting to subdue members of a crowd of about 14,000 people illegally entering the United States at the border in Del Rio, Texas. He was accused of whipping a Haitian immigrant.
The photos were widely misunderstood, with President Biden calling them “outrageous” and saying of the operatives, “I promise you, those guys will pay.” Now his government is awarding one of them.
A DHS official told the Post: “Nearly three years later, a Border Patrol agent accused of being racist and much maligned by the Biden administration is about to receive a lifetime achievement award for his anti-smuggling efforts. I think it’s ridiculous and ridiculous that he’s receiving a lifetime achievement award.”He will receive a public apology. ”
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) conducted a thorough internal investigation into the incident, concluding that no one harmed the Haitian nationals during the altercation, and that the officers did not have whips or horses. He pointed out that he did not hit anyone with the reins.
But the investigation found the agents used “unnecessary” force against the migrants, with one agent using “derogatory and inappropriate language” and operating a horse in a “dangerous” manner at the time. Was.
Days after the incident, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas hastily retracted a statement criticizing the actions of the horsemen.
“I made the statement without seeing the images,” he said in the White House Press Briefing Room on September 24, 2021.
“The horse had a long rein and the photographic images that we all saw and that horrified the public raised serious questions about what happened. As I have clearly stated , it evoked images of things that happened in the past,” Mayorkas added, referring to slavery in the United States.
DHS did not respond to The Post’s request for comment. Border Patrol Achievement Awards are awarded internally within the agency and are not publicly announced.
After the September 2021 incident, the operatives were removed from front-line duty on the southern border and prohibited from contacting illegal immigrants.
The agent who received the award Thursday was reassigned to intelligence work on smuggling cases, which earned him recognition from his superiors.
He was eventually allowed to return to work along the border and to interact with migrants, DHS officials said.
