Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the Lone Star State will hire any Border Patrol agents who fear being fired after President Biden said they “will pay” for their treatment of Haitians at the border, amid false claims they used their horses’ reins as whips.
”You have a job in the state of Texas. I will hire you to help Texas secure our border,” Abbott, a Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
He said the Biden administration put the Border Patrol agents in a difficult situation because it failed to enforce the country’s immigration laws and secure the border.
“The person who took those pictures said that the characterization that the Democrats have made about the Border Patrol using them as whips, whipping people who were coming across the border is false. They were simply maneuvering horses,” Abbott continued.
He said if the agents are at risk of losing their jobs because of a “president who is abandoning his duty to secure the border, you have a job in Texas.”
Images released last week showed mounted Border Patrol agents guiding their horses to prevent Haitian migrants from crossing the Rio Grande River near Del Rio, Texas, and Democrats seized on the photos to accuse the agents of using the reins like whips.
The photographer, Paul Ratije, acknowledged that the agents were “swinging” the reins, but said “it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”
“I didn’t ever see them whip anybody with the thing,” he said.
Biden called their use of the reins an “embarrassment” and said an investigation was underway.
“It was horrible what you see, what you saw — to see people treated like they did, with horses nearly running them over and people being strapped. It’s outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay,” he said last Friday.
Abbott said the administration’s inability to control the border leaves him with no option.
“I am going to step up and do whatever I have to do to make sure that I protect the people of Del Rio, as well as all these other communities in the state of Texas that the Biden administration is ignoring,” he said on Fox News.
“The Biden administration cares far more about people who are not in this country than he does for the people — American citizens who live in this country. And I’m going to step up and support the citizens of the United States of America,” Abbott said.
