Amid an influx of Haitian migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in September 2021, circulating images and footage that appeared to show agents using their horse reins against migrants drew fierce condemnation from Democrats and Biden administration officials. At a September 24 briefing alongside former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Mayorkas called the photos “horrifying” and announced that an investigation had been opened into the situation.
“We know that those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism,” he said.
Mayorkas also stated that he would “not prejudge the facts” of the situation and didn’t want to “impair the integrity of the investigative process,” while touting the overall DHS response to the border situation.
But Mayorkas was reportedly sent an email by a DHS public affairs official prior to this briefing flagging an article in which the photographer who took the photos said that he and his colleagues didn’t witness Border Patrol agents using whips on any of the migrants. The photographer, Paul Ratje, told KTSM that what was happening in his photos could be misconstrued.
Republicans strongly criticized Mayorkas on Wednesday over his comments about the images in light of reportedly being sent the article just hours before.
Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona accused Mayorkas of defaming his employees “in order to score political points” and lying to Americans.
“His career should be over,” Biggs tweeted.
Biggs filed articles of impeachment against Mayorkas in August for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” including allegedly “failing to maintain operational control” of the U.S. border." In another tweet on Wednesday, Biggs said that a Mayorkas impeachment was especially imperative in light of the emergence of the DHS email.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas also took to Twitter to call the news “disgraceful.”
“Mayorkas knowingly sold out the honorable men a women of Border Patrol… all to curry favor with the Biden White House,” he tweeted. “I’m [sic] just a few months, Mayorkas will—rightly—be impeached.”
Representative Michael Cloud of Texas tweeted that Mayorkas “knew the facts, yet still chose to smear our brave border patrol.”
“If only he had an ounce of the @CBP’s courage he purports to lead,” Cloud continued. “He should be impeached.”
The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project obtained DHS emails about the whipping dispute through a Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuit, Fox News reported. The investigation into the incident, conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Office of Professional Responsibility, ultimately found no evidence that Border Patrol agents used their horse reins to whip or strike migrants.
The probe did conclude that “there were failures at multiple levels of the agency, a lack of appropriate policies and training, and unprofessional and dangerous behavior by several individual Agents.” This included an instance in which an agent “used denigrating and offensive language,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a statement.
Updated 10/12/22, 4:15 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.
