Border Patrol agents have complained that the agency's leadership is throwing them under the bus, Fox News reported on Monday, citing a prominent union representative in Del Rio, Texas.
"The agents feel like – at all levels of management, from [Customs and Border Protection] to [the Department of Homeland Security] and to the White House – that they've been thrown under the bus because no investigation has been completed, yet you're hearing the president say these people will pay," Jon Anfinsen, National Border Patrol Council Vice President is quoted as saying. "The secretary echoed those sentiments. And then Friday, of course, CBP's commissioner basically said the same thing."
Last week, the Biden administration temporarily halted the use of horse patrols in the Del Rio sector of the border, with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claiming that the pictures "troubled him profoundly." And President Joe Biden along with Vice President Kamala Harris heavily criticized the incident, calling it an "embarrassment" while pledging that "those people will pay."
"It's insane that this is where the narrative has gone," Anfinsen commented on the remarks. "In the situation, they were doing their job. There are allegations they were whipping people. We don't carry whips."
The union official additionally stated that "those were reins, and no reins were used to whip anybody."
Despite the fact that around 15,000 people were present, Anfinsen stated "DC was largely not paying attention" to what was going on in the bridge area.
"Now there's an incident where they can detract from the fact that they weren't paying attention," Anfinsen said. "They can point the blame at these agents on the ground and deflect any blame … onto these agents who were doing their job."
Border Patrol deploys horses in difficult-to-reach locations, according to the report. Anfinsen suggested that they may be used to transverse ranches where a 10-mile walk to a patrol location would be required.
Some thousands of migrants take shelter as they await to be processed near the Del Rio International Bridge after crossing the Rio Grande river into the U.S. from Ciudad Acuna in Del Rio, Texas, U.S. September 18, 2021.
© REUTERS / ADREES LATIF
Furthermore, rather than fighting with agents, migrant groups are more likely to give up upon viewing the large animals, he reportedly said, adding that the use of horses "leads to fewer uses of force, which obviously we would all prefer."
On Sunday, Mayorkas indicated that over 12,000 migrants who arrived in Del Rio were let into the US. And if the vast majority of the latest batch is released, Anfinsen believes that even more migrants will be encouraged to come.
"People are going to think ‘I stand a very good chance of staying,’" he claimed. "So of course they'll cross because the message to them is ‘if you cross in this manner, you will get to stay.’"
Anfinsen maintained in the interview that in order to make the border safer, Congress or the White House must reform the laws and policies.
"If Congress wants to make it easier for people to immigrate to the United States, fine, change the laws," he explained. "The way it is set up right now, we can't keep doing this."
In recent weeks, a heavy influx of mostly Haitian illegal immigrants at the US-Mexico border caused the government to proclaim a state of emergency and deploy border agents, even on horseback, in order to contain the waves of those trying to break through to the other side.
Mayorkas stated last week that the Biden administration flew 17 aircraft to Haiti to evacuate almost 2,000 migrants. He further stated that the US law enforcement officers who engaged in the alleged whipping of Haitian migrants have been assigned administrative jobs and are no longer working with migrants.