Harris under pressure from both sides of the aisle over devolving Haitian migrant crisis

HAITIAN MIGRANTS REVOLT IN CUSTODY AND SEIZE CONTROL OF PRIVATELY CONTRACTED BUS

“What I saw depicted about those individuals on horseback treating human beings the way they were, was horrible,” Harris said when asked about images and videos showing Customs and Border Protection agents rounding up migrants on horseback. “I fully support what is happening right now, which is a thorough investigation into exactly what is going on there, but human beings should never be treated that way, and I’m deeply troubled about it.”

Harris said she planned to speak with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the investigation and border situation Tuesday, but that conversation appears not to have happened by press time.

Mayorkas, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, and now Harris have all focused the administration’s response to the Del Rio situation around border agents alleged use of “whips” to round up migrants, yet law enforcement officials have disputed the first media reports characterizing the alleged action.

One senior law enforcement official told the Washington Examiner that what reporters originally characterized as “whipping” was actually a “twirl of the reins,” a tactic commonly used by law enforcement officers in crowd control situations to keep people from getting too close to horses and potentially trampled.

The National Fraternal Order of Police also scolded reporters for mistaking reins for whips.

“These are not whips. And no, Border Patrol agents are not ‘whipping’ people,” FOP tweeted on Monday. “They are reins… Stay with us here, like a steering wheel is used to drive a car, the reins are used to ‘drive’ the horse.”

The vice president was tapped by President Joe Biden earlier this year to lead the government’s efforts to address the root causes of and eventually stem the flow of migrants into the U.S. at the southern border. She also suggested Tuesday that the U.S. should be doing more to address the economic and humanitarian concerns in Haiti.

“The whole point is that we have to understand Haiti,” she added. “I mean, talk about a country that has just experienced so much tragedy that has been about natural disasters, the head of state assassinated, and we really have to do a lot more to recognize that as a member of the Western Hemisphere, we’ve got to support some very basic needs that the people of Haiti have to get back up and to do what folks naturally want to do, be them from Haiti or in the countries in Central America. People want to stay home, they don’t want to leave home, but they leave when they cannot satisfy their basic needs.”

Harris also didn’t directly address, however, a number of public questions raised by groups on both the right and left sides of the aisle in recent days.

Conservative politicians and media outlets have painted the situation as evidence that the Biden administration’s immigration policies have failed and are creating a lawless situation the Department of Homeland Security cannot control.

Some on the right have also used the situation at the border to question the administration’s increasingly strict coronavirus vaccination mandates, a topic Fox News’s Peter Doocy and Psaki clashed over at a briefing earlier this week.

Doocy pressed Psaki over why, given the administration’s vaccine protocols for American citizens and incoming foreign nationals traveling by plane, migrants at the southern border are not required to show proof of vaccination or negative tests.

“As individuals come across the border, they are both assessed for whether they have any symptoms. If they have symptoms, the intention is for them to be quarantined. That is our process,” Psaki responded. “They’re not intending to stay here for a lengthy period of time. It’s not the same thing.”

What’s potentially even more troubling for the administration than the typical Republican response to the border disaster is the response from the Left, who have heartily criticized the administration for the “inhumane” conditions migrants are facing under the Del Rio bridge and for quickly deporting Haitian migrants rounded up in Del Rio.

High-profile Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, are joining advocacy groups’ calls to immediately stop the deportations, and 12 progressive Democratic House representatives, including Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Joyce Beatty of Ohio, and Veronica Escobar of Texas, will hold a press conference Wednesday demanding the administration change its policies.

Meanwhile, border patrol agents feel “vilified” by the administration for trying to operate in what some view as an avoidable situation.

Politico reported Wednesday morning that National Border Patrol Council Brandon Judd and other border officials warned the administration in June of the pending Del Rio migrant surge and proposed new procedures to keep the system in check. Judd says the administration ignored those warnings.

“They knew this was coming, and they didn’t take the steps to mitigate this, so now you’ve got a bunch of people that are sitting under a bridge in conditions — these are little tiny kids sitting under this bridge in deplorable conditions,” Judd explained. “It looks like a warzone but in the United States. I’m completely, totally floored.”

Judd also defended the actions of horse-borne agents, criticized by Harris, Mayorkas, Psaki, and other administration officials.

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“We’re outnumbered by 200 to one. We’re put into a situation where we’re in between people — there’s a propensity for violence when there’s large crowds. We’re expected to control that,” he continued. “We don’t strike anybody. We used the tactic we were trained with — and the White House vilified us.”