NYT Corrects Story on Border Agents, Admits No Evidence for Claim They Attacked Haitian Illegals

When the leftist Twitter mob spread photos of mounted U.S. Border Patrol agents “whipping” Haitian illegal aliens to herd them back across the Rio Grande into Mexico, President Biden reacted quickly.

“It was horrible to see” images of “people being strapped,” he lamented.

Of course, Biden didn’t see “people being strapped” because border agents did not use “whips” or their reins to “strap” them.

Nothing of the kind happened, as the New York Times admitted after it, too, spread the lie. Yet even in correcting its original story, the Times suggested that some evidence of crazed border agents “strapping” illegals might turn up.

The Times’s Error

The original story in the Times, “Biden Condemns Border Patrol Treatment of Haitian Migrants as Expulsions Continue” on September 24, put it this way: 

The images of agents on horseback chasing, and in some cases using the reins of their horses to strike at running migrants, came as Mr. Biden’s administration moved to forcefully round up and deport more than 2,000 of the 15,000 migrants who gathered in a makeshift camp in Del Rio, Texas.

Biden let 12,000 of the “migrants” in the country to bring in who knows how many diseases and how much crime, but anyway, the Times also reported Biden’s imprudent, precipitous commentary about the matter.

“Of course I take responsibility. I’m president,” he began. Biden might well “take responsibility,” a risible remark that means precisely nothing.

Biden continued:

But it was horrible what to see — as you saw — to see people treated like they did, horses nearly running them over, people being strapped. It’s outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay. They will be, an investigation underway now, and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment, but it’s beyond an embarrassment. It’s dangerous. It’s wrong. It sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It’s simply not who we are.

Of course, Homeland Security Chief Alejandro Mayorkas suspended the agents and said the images “painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation’s ongoing battle against systemic racism.”

Then he risibly said “this investigation will be based upon the facts.”

That’s doubtful. 

Vice President Kamala Harris joined the sisterhood of cackling harpies on The View to say the photos “evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history, where that kind of behavior has been used against the Indigenous people of our country, has been used against African Americans during times of slavery.”

Except that the Haitians weren’t slaves. They were crossing the border illegally. 

The Correction

After all that, the Times published a correction that wasn’t as much a correction as a hedging statement that the paper might be wrong —  but, then again, might have been right:

An earlier version of this article overstated what is known about the behavior of some Border Patrol agents on horseback. While the agents waved their reins while pushing migrants back into the Rio Grande, The Times has not seen conclusive evidence that migrants were struck with the reins.

The story now puts it this way:

Images of Border Patrol agents on horseback waving their reins while pushing migrants back into the Rio Grande have prompted a torrent of criticism from Democrats and civil rights groups who have accused Mr. Biden of continuing some of the most aggressive approaches to immigration put in place by President Donald J. Trump.

And just as the photos showed no such thing, video from a reporter from the Associated Press showed no such thing.

In other words, the Times did not “overstate” the matter. It was flat wrong. 

“Correction” aside, the narrative was established. The damage was done. Days later, we learned from Fox News’s Lara Logan that the border-jumping drug cartels told smugglers to confront U.S. Border agents to provoke a reaction that the leftist media would dutifully misrepresent.

That, in turn, would provoke another unhinged reaction from Biden and Mayorkas, who would relieve border agents of duty and thus weaken it.

Tweeted Logan:

Acc to law enfcmt in RGV Texas, BP agents advised latest Intel from cartels: after Biden response to horse patrol, cartels ordered their smugglers to force BP to react/appear to use excessive force & record. Cartels will push to media to force more agents off the line.

H/T: Leo Terrell, The Daily Caller