US President Joe Biden repeated an unproven claim on Friday that Border Patrol agents on horseback had “whipped” Haitian migrants, angering border agents by promising to make them "pay" in his comments.
According to a Fox News report, Biden was speaking about a controversial claim that began to circulate after photos emerged on Sunday of agents on horses blocking Haitian migrants from entering the US.
The claim was that the agents were not using their reigns to steer their horses but as “whips” against the migrants.
The allegations were quickly discredited by border officials and other government sources. However, migrant activists and some Democrats continued to peddle the false claims throughout the week.
The photographer who took the images said that he did not see any agents engaging in violent behavior toward anyone, reported Fox News.
"To see people treated like they did, horses barely running over, people being strapped – it's outrageous," Biden said, while making a whipping motion with his hand. "I promise you, those people will pay. There will be an investigation underway now and there will be consequences. There will be consequences."
The president’s comments reportedly outraged Border Patrol agents, who were shocked that Biden would make such claims without any evidence that migrants were whipped or run over by horses.
"Would you go to work and do your best knowing that if you do your boss is going to ‘make you pay’?" an agent told Fox News. "I'm dumbfounded and don't know what to say."
The agent wondered if Biden was “threatening to throw us in prison.”
The head of the National Border Patrol Council accused the president of “playing politics with Border Patrol agents' lives” and wondered how an impartial investigation could take place with Biden publicly chastising the agents as guilty.
"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?" Brandon Judd told Fox News. "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?”
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)