Feckless White House Throws Border Patrol Under Bus Instead of Correcting Reporter
White House press secretary Jen Psaki had the opportunity to refute an egregiously false claim made against the Biden administration’s own Border Patrol in the form of a question from a reporter — but, without batting an eye — or busting the claim — she punted it right on over to the slandered law enforcement agency.
During her Tuesday briefing, Psaki was asked about the notorious “whipping” of Haitian illegal immigrants at the hands of mounted Border Patrol agents last year in Texas.
“Patrol agents that were seen whipping Haitian migrants were not charged and held accountable for actions. Even the president early on talked about how it was outrageous,” said Ebony McMorris of the American Urban Radio Networks.
“How does he — what’s his reaction to that response and to those who saw this … horrific video go viral, and then, at the end of the day, nothing happens — there’s no accountability?” McMorris said.
Psaki, who at this point had every opportunity to clarify that, contrary to the assumption implied in the reporter’s question that something horrific irrefutably took place, simply passed the buck and moved on.
“Well, there was an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security, so I’d have you — point you to them for any further comment on it,” she replied before immediately taking another reporter’s question.
What she didn’t say about this incident speaks far louder than words — that is, that the Border Patrol agent depicted in the viral images was by no means guilty of whipping anyone.
As you may recall, the since-debunked story was based on a photograph that was passed off to public eyes, untrained in Western-style riding tack, as a shocking case of white federal border agents fiercely whipping black Haitian migrants in a manner reminiscent of antebellum slave drivers.
In reality, the agent’s split-reins were simply flaring out as the camera captured the hectic moments during which migrants had rushed toward the agents who — as The Washington Post reported at the time — were futilely trying to prevent the crush as thousands of Haitians were flooding into border communities and overwhelming an already strained border security infrastructure.
Those are clearly reins.
Whips, nooses, “this is MAGA country.” Do you see the pattern? https://t.co/aW1Egd7Jvf
— Ian Haworth (@ighaworth) September 20, 2021
From a Border Patrol source: “Agents use their reins for a lot of reasons. Primarily it’s used to steer the horse, but agents will also spin them sometimes to deter people from getting too close to the horse…We are not aware of anyone being struck with the reins.” https://t.co/yxxyoAuklh pic.twitter.com/t3o3h9dJbL
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) September 20, 2021
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas explained at the time that “to ensure control of the horse, long reins are used” but said the agency planned to “investigate the facts to ensure that the situation is as we understand it to be and if it’s anything different, we will respond accordingly.”
Even the photographer behind the images noted that it was clear that the agents had been overwhelmed, according to the Post.
Of course, when given every opportunity to clarify these facts to reporters, the Biden White House instead just threw Border Patrol under the bus, as this is what it is wont to do. The bus is probably filled with illegal migrants being transported under the dead of night deep into the U.S. interior. Just saying.
After all, these are the boots on the ground coping with the surging humanitarian crisis that is the administration’s homeland security policy on the border.
President Joe Biden and his officials are perfectly willing to place these public servants on the front lines of a criminally dangerous, disastrous situation of unprecedented magnitude, so why wouldn’t they be equally willing to let the agency’s name go utterly tarnished to prop up the pathetically flimsy narrative that border security is somehow deeply racist?
That’s the sick truth of this whole absurd, abhorrent claim — the narrative pushers like Psaki and the breathless, sensationalistic media find it far more convenient to go on letting the public think the images giving the unsettling yet false impression that Border Patrol agents doing their job to cope with a flood of refugees were akin to the behavior of whip-wielding Southern slave drivers were real.
If Psaki refuted the premise of the question, she would have been defending her administration — but she also would have given up the game in a much broader sense than simply exposing one debunked internet story.
She would have exposed the whole mechanism through which the American leftist establishment weaves false stories of deeply grievous human suffering and harm for the sake of gaining political points and getting its hysterical base all riled up and distracted with emotion and indignation, so they don’t notice the details in this devilish manipulation scheme.
That is, the real-world facts, data and logic behind, say, border policy that empowers criminal human smuggling cartels and drives millions of people to illegally cross our border, which then necessitates a vast network of overwhelmed public services to cope with it.
You know. Those pesky little practical aspects that so inconveniently dot our most active culture war battlefields.
If Psaki admitted the truth about this precious piece of “evidence” that border security and our entire system at large are deeply embedded with white supremacist ideology harkening back to the days of Jim Crow and slavery, it would have been akin to admitting that the emperor might not have any clothes on after all — and, well, we just can’t have that, can we?
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