Fox News host John Roberts corrected a Democratic congressman who repeated a debunked claim that Border Patrol agents whipped Haitian migrants on Tuesday.
The incident in question occurred in September 2021, when CBP agents tried to prevent Haitian migrants from making their way to an encampment in Del Rio, Texas, and prompted a media firestorm. Democratic Rep. Jonathan Jackson of Illinois claimed that migrants were met with “whips and chains” from the horseback-riding Border Patrol agents.
“We saw that when Haitians tried to come to the United States, they were met with whips and chains from a bygone era,” Jackson told Roberts, a co-host of “America Reports.”
“You are talking about the reins and the Border Patrol?” Roberts asked.
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The incident prompted many Democratic politicians, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, to demand the agents be punished, and the Biden administration ended the use of horses by CBP in Del Rio.
Emails obtained by the Heritage Foundation and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation revealed that Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas knew that the photographer who took photos of the incident disputed claims that the mounted Border Patrol agents whipped Haitian migrants.
“It looked like they were chaining people,” Jackson claimed.
“They were twirling their reins to keep folks away,” Roberts said.
Jackson also said he had called for the Department of Homeland Security to investigate Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas over busing migrants to Chicago, New York City and other so-called “sanctuary” cities in 2022.
“He did not seek or choose people, they were shipped and I would put a letter into the Department of Homeland Security also to the Department of Justice asking them to investigate Governor Greg Abbott on child smuggling,” Jackson told Roberts. “You cannot put the children on buses that are unaccompanied by an adult and move them across state lines. So those persons and their many children have come, that is simply wrong. You cannot do that.”
“I need an ID to get on a plane, a train, a bus you cannot move people across state lines and dump them, 90,000 people have been dumped in Chicago,” Jackson claimed.
