Four border agents face discipline over ‘dangerous’ horseback behavior in Del Rio
Investigators found “no evidence” that Border Patrol agents on horseback used their reins to strike or whip Haitian migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas last September, according to an internal review at U.S. Customs and Border Protection published Friday.
The final report scrutinized the behavior of Border Patrol horse units last year at the Texan town of Del Rio, where they were deployed as thousands of migrants, mostly Haitian, tried to cross the border through the Rio Grande.
The review did find that several agents acted “inappropriately” during the high-profile incident. Four agents could be disciplined over their roles in the event, although the department said in a statement that the disciplinary process is still underway and that proposed actions are “pre-decisional.”
“The misconduct of several individuals does not reflect the brave and distinguished service of the Agents of the United States Border Patrol,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “The organizational failures of policy, procedures, and training that the investigation identified were a disservice to the agents and the public they serve. CBP must and will do better.”
The agency will not suspend its horse patrols, whose use Haitian activists and immigrant advocates condemned during the crisis at the border last year. But the agency did say Friday it was evaluating its horse patrol unit policies.
“Corrective actions include ... reviewing and revising horse patrol procedures and training. That includes prohibiting the use of twirling or spinning reins as a distancing or crowd control technique,” said U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus at a press conference announcing the findings.
The incident led to outcry across the country as images emerged from Del Rio of white Border Patrol agents, mounted on horses, appearing to use their reins to control the movement of Haitian migrants seeking to get into the U.S. to ask for asylum. One of the photographs that triggered debate was a photo of an agent on horseback looming over a Haitian migrant crossing with plastic bags of food. The migrant has since been identified as Mirard Joseph. Expelled back to Haiti, Joseph is suing the U.S. government, accusing it of abuse, denial of due process and inhumane treatment.
While the report found that “there were failures at multiple levels of the agency” during the episode, “the investigation found no evidence that agents struck any person with horse reins.”
“The investigative findings show that the agency failed to appropriately task, supervise, and exercise command and control over the Horse Patrol Units in Del Rio,” the report concluded. “Several Border Patrol agents used force or the threat of force to attempt to drive migrants back into the Rio Grande River towards the U.S.-Mexico border, though there is no evidence that any migrants were forced to return to Mexico or denied entry to the United States.”
The Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Homeland Security “found multiple instances in which Agents acted inappropriately during the incident, including one Border Patrol Agent who was found to have used denigrating and inappropriate language and to have maneuvered his horse unsafely near a child,” the report added.
Magnus told reporters that Homeland Security had examined photo, video and agency documents, as well as collected testimony from eyewitnesses, journalists, and CBP personnel and leadership. Investigators were not able to find the migrants involved due to the “challenging nature of the scene,” he added, although details from a lawsuit that migrants filed against the agency were used for the review.
Magnus recognized that “not everyone’s going to like all the findings” of the review made public, but defended the investigation as “comprehensive and fair” at the Friday press conference.
Guerline Jozef, co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, described the report’s findings as “one-sided” and said they lacked “any credibility.” Her organization is part of the class-action lawsuit that Mirard and other Haitian asylum seekers are involved in against the Biden administration over the treatment of Haitian migrants at Del Rio.
She told the Miami Herald that their legal team had repeatedly offered to put the Office of Professional Responsibility in touch with victims and witnesses from the Del Rio incident.
“Only to be ghosted,” she said.
Jozef told the Miami Herald that until anti-Blackness in the immigration and border enforcement system is addressed, “we will continue to see more systematic abuse of Black migrants with impunity, like we saw in Del Río.”
“They must prioritize justice for the victims just as much as they’ve prioritized protections for their own — the perpetrators — and [we] will continue to fight for this justice with our lawsuit,” she said.
Haitian community activist Marleine Bastien, who runs the Miami-based Family Action Network Movement, said hopefully those who were victimized will see justice. She said her organization is reiterating its demand for the migrants, quickly expelled to Haiti, to be brought back to the U.S.
“They suffered irreparable harm when they were victimized and treated like animals in front of the whole world. They should have never been deported to Haiti! It is about time to right this wrong,” she said.
Bastien also did not agree totally with the findings.
“These horrific images of them being chased and whipped will be forever etched in people’s minds,” she said. “I beg to differ. They were victimized.”
