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The camp underneath the Del Rio International bridge along the southern border is now completely clear less than a week after 15,000 migrants were camped there, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Friday — as he also ripped into the Biden administration’s own border agents, calling images of them on horseback to corral migrants trying to rein in the chaos “horrifying.”
Since Sept. 9, Border Patrol officials in Del Rio encountered nearly 30,000 migrants, many of which hailed from Haiti, Mayorkas said, with the highest number at one time being around 15,000. The migrants were not tested for COVID-19, the secretary said. As of Friday morning, the area where they camped was cleared.
“This was the result of an unprecedented movement of a very large number of people traveling to a single point of the border within a matter of a few days,” he added.
Out of the migrants apprehended, approximately 2,000 have been returned to Haiti on deportation flights, around 8,000 returned to Mexico voluntarily, and over 5,000 are being processed by DHS to determine whether they will be deported under the CDC’s Title 42 order or “placed into removal proceedings,” meaning they will be given a notice to appear at an immigration office within the next 60 days.
Additionally, around 12,400 migrants will have their cases heard by immigration judges to determine whether or not they will be permitted to remain in the US.
As the department continues to process these individuals, DHS is investigating multiple federal agents who were pictured using horses to keep Haitian migrants from entering the US. The agents have been accused of whipping the migrants, and have been placed on administrative duty as a result.
The images of the situation drew immediate and harsh backlash from Democrats and activists after they emerged this week, although it has not been made clear what precisely the agents did wrong. Some interpreted their movements with ropes as whipping migrants while the agents union and others have insisted that they are simply handling the long reins they use in such situations to control their horses.
On Friday, President Biden seemed to have made up his mind, saying the federal agents involved “will pay” for their actions.
“It was horrible what you see, what you saw — to see people treated like they did, with horses barely running them over and people being strapped. It’s outrageous, I promise you, those people will pay,” Biden said at the White House in response to a reporter’s question.
“There’s an investigation underway now and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment. It’s beyond an embarrassment. It’s dangerous. It’s wrong, it sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It’s simply not who we are.”
When pressed on Biden’s promise for harsh consequences, Mayorkas did not reveal whether or not he agreed similar consequences would be given to the agents, but said the president’s comments echo “the sentiments of the American public.”
“This investigation will be based on the facts that the investigators learn, and the results of the investigation will be driven by those facts, and nothing less than,” Mayorkas said.
Some have questioned whether or not the investigation can be fair now that the president has weighed in, with Fox News reporter Peter Doocy pressing Mayorkas on Biden’s “inflammatory language,” as even the secretary had said on Monday the agents did not whip migrants but were using long reins.
“Let me just be very clear, and repeat what I’ve said, I am not concerned with respect to the integrity of the investigation, we know how to conduct an investigation with integrity,” Mayorkas said.
Brandon Judd, head of the National Border Patrol Council, told Fox News that the president’s comments were “completely and totally outrageous,” insisting they will hinder the investigation.
“Now that the president of the United States has already said they did wrong, how is an investigator supposed to do a true and honest investigation?” he said. “Because if that investigator finds they did nothing wrong — and they didn’t do anything wrong — but if that investigator finds they didn’t do anything wrong, how is that investigator’s job going to go?
Since the images were released to Democratic backlash, the use of horses by Border Patrol in Del Rio has been suspended.
But evidence of the federal agents using the reins as whips has not been brought forward, and the photographer who took the images said he did not see the agents whip the migrants.
“I didn’t ever see them whip anybody, with the thing” photographer Paul Ratije told KTSM. “He was swinging it. But I didn’t see him actually take – whip someone with it. That’s something that can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”
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