In September 2021, border agents were falsely accused of whipping Haitian migrants at the southern border. Now, the Department of Homeland Security granted one of those agents a Border Patrol achievement award on Thursday, May 2. The agency commended the agent, whose identity has been kept confidential since the incident, for his intelligence work on human smuggling cases.
Five agents were photographed on horseback during an incident at the border in Del Rio, Texas, in September 2021. At the time, accusations claimed agents used whips on migrants.
The photographer who took the pictures said they did not witness any whipping. The information was relayed to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. However, Mayorkas did not include the information in his public statements on the incidents.
Mayorkas initially criticized the actions of the agents. However, he later walked back his statements, acknowledging that he had not seen the images before making the remarks. Mayorkas did not specifically apologize to the individual agent, who received the award.
President Joe Biden condemned the images, which sparked widespread outrage. Following the incident, the agents were reassigned from the front lines and barred from interacting with migrants.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection investigation found while the agents did use unnecessary force and inappropriate language, they did not harm migrants and agents did not use whips nor the reins on their horses as weapons.
Despite the ordeal, the agent in question continued his job, focusing on intelligence work to combat smuggling. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recognized his efforts with the award during the week of April 29.
“I find it hilarious and ridiculous that almost three years, a Border Patrol agent who was accused of being racist and so vilified by this Biden administration now wins an achievement award for his efforts to prevent smuggling, before he gets an apology,” a DHS source told the New York Post.