Border Patrol proposes disciplinary action for horse-mounted agents who clashed with Haitians

The U.S. Border Patrol is proposing disciplinary action for several agents who confronted Haitian migrants while on horseback on the Texas-Mexico border last year.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus, which oversees Border Patrol, would not reveal what the disciplinary action may be, citing privacy concerns for its agents. But he stressed that some of the actions by the agents on horseback and verbal epithets yelled by at least one agent led to the recommendations and were result of a 10-month investigation into the incident.

The disciplinary process is ongoing and the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility will finalize the recommendations, which the agents could later appeal, he said.

"There is no room in our agency for discrimination or intolerance," Magnus said at a press conference Friday. "CBP is dedicated to ensuring the fair and just treatment of all people."

Images of Border Patrol agents on horseback in September repelling Haitian families as they waded across the Rio Grande into the United States circulated through newscasts and social media sites, sparking a sharp backlash against the agency.

Immigrant rights and civil rights groups protested the clashes. In Miami, 200 Haitian-Americans protesting outside the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office forced road closures.

At the time, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ordered an investigation into the incident. Mayorkas in a statement Friday said CBP is implementing the needed reforms after the investigation that will "proceed with the urgency and commitment."

“The misconduct of several individuals does not reflect the brave and distinguished service of the agents of the United States Border Patrol," Mayorkas said in the 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."

CBP investigators interviewed more than 30 eye-witnesses, including news media members at the scene, as well as Border Patrol agents and officials to compile the 500-page report, Magnus said.

"The primary goal of this investigation was to establish the facts of what happened," he said. "It was thorough and independent. And despite any comments or criticisms - not everyone's gonna like all the findings - but the investigation was comprehensive and fair."

Following a devastating earthquake in 2010, thousands of Haitians emigrated to South America to find work in Brazil and other countries. But as the COVID-19 pandemic and other economic forces dried up many of those prospects, thousands of Haitians began the long trek north in hopes of finding jobs in the United States.

In July 2021, mercenaries also assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, adding to the country's instability and propelling more Haitians to seek opportunities outside the island nation. Many of them funneled into Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, and crossed the Rio Grande into Del Rio, Texas, to seek asylum in the United States.

By September, nearly 15,000 Haitians had gathered in a makeshift encampment on the riverbanks in Del Rio. Border officials attempted to expel the migrants under Title 42, a Trump administration policy that removed migrants without processing them to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. But since they were Haitian, U.S. agents couldn't simply return them to Mexico and had to instead place them on flights back to Haiti.

This took several days of processing and, as the encampment ran out of food, many of the Haitians wandered back across the border to buy food and other provisions in Mexico. On their return to the United States, they were confronted by the horse-mounted Border Patrol agents, said Adam Isacson, of the Washington Office on Latin America, a U.S.-based research and advocacy organization.

The confrontation — captured in still and video images by news photographers and immigrant advocates — was just one in a long list of complaints against Border Patrol that includes physical and verbal abuse against migrants, as well as rape and shootings, Isacson said.

His group has documented 273 cases of Border Patrol abuses since 2020. But often occurring in remote border regions or at night, those incidents are almost never documented, he said.

"Almost every day there’s someone who gets beaten or their papers taken away by Border Patrol," Isacson said. "What's rare for Border Patrol is that it's caught on camera."

A key part of the investigation was to determine whether the horse-mounted agents used their reins as whips to strike the migrants. In some images, it appeared as if agents were twirling their horses' reins in a threatening fashion.

Magnus said investigators found no evidence that agents struck migrants with their reins "intentionally or otherwise." One agent, he said, acted in an unprofessional manner by yelling inappropriate slurs at the migrants. He also said no migrants were forced back to Mexico or denied entry into the United States as a result of the horse-mounted confrontations.

The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to file charges in the case, meaning criminal charges do not seem likely.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, whose troopers have been deployed to help secure the border, also played a prominent role in the investigation. Texas troopers had blocked off a popular unauthorized border crossing over a dam, forcing the migrants to cross the river, according to the report. Then, on Sept. 18, members of the state agency asked the Border Patrol's horse-mounted unit on the scene for help in preventing the Haitian migrants from crossing into Del Rio, sparking the confrontations, the report said.

"Horse patrol unit personnel carried out an operation at the request of the Texas Department of Public Safety that directly conflicted with Border Patrol operational objectives," Magnus said.

DPS' involvement in Del Rio underscores Texas' ongoing, controversial efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, a task delegated to federal agencies. On Thursday, Gov. Greg Abbott authorized the National Guard and state police to return apprehended migrants to the border, setting up a potential clash with the federal government over the authority to enforce immigration law.

"We stand ready to work with Texas to achieve these goals but the challenge is when any state, such as Texas, takes unilateral action it just makes it harder for us to do this," Magnus said.

The Del Rio confrontations occurred as migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border hit historic highs. Last fiscal year, which ended in September, border officials encountered 1.72 million migrants at the Southwest border, a two-decade high.

Immigration advocates have been critical over the Biden administration's treatment of migrants, especially Haitian migrants, who have been consistently expelled on flights back to their home country.

As Border Patrol scrambled to detain and process waves of asylum-seekers, the system became overwhelmed, said Tony Payan, director of the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston.

Payan said the agents in question should be held accountable but the incident was also a revealing look at the dysfunction of the U.S. immigration system along the border.

"The system is broken," he said. "I don’t exonerate the agency but it's an agency overwhelmed by policy failure."

Follow Jervis and Morin on Twitter: @MrRJervis, @RebeccaMorin_. 

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Border Patrol agents on horses punished for confronting Haitians