Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas backed up the Biden administration's narrative last year that Border Patrol agents whipped Haitian migrants even after he knew the narrative was false, according to emails obtained by the Heritage Foundation and reported by Fox News.
DHS assistant secretary Marsha Espinosa alerted Mayorkas on Sept. 24, 2021, to a news article that said the photographer who took the images did not see any whips. "Espinosa highlighted the comments from the photographer where he directly says he did not witness any whipping," Fox noted.
Mayorkas that same day nevertheless decided to join a Biden administration press conference that pushed the debunked narrative, and he even went so far as to call the images "horrifying" and an example of "systemic racism." President Joe Biden, meanwhile, made a whipping motion with his hand as he said the photographs depicted "people being strapped."
Biden and Mayorkas pushed the false narrative as the country faced a still-ongoing crisis at the border. One month after the press conference, the number of migrant encounters soared to a record 1.7 million. That number has only risen higher, reaching more than two million this year, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is ostensibly in charge of dealing with the crisis, has been to the border only once.
While the Department of Homeland Security's investigation into the "whipping" incident is ongoing, an internal memo found "no evidence any agent struck—intentionally or otherwise—any migrant with their reins," the Free Beacon reported.
National Border Patrol Council president Brandon Judd told Fox that Espinosa's email "clearly shows" that Biden administration officials are "willing to lie to the American people for their self-interests." Judd said the officials who lied about the incident should resign.