Remember the Border Patrol whipping controversy back in 2021? Mounted Border Patrol agents were photographed “whipping” poor illegal immigrants at the southern border. Photographs of the agents corralling Haitian illegals, their “whips” flying saturated the media. And despite the photographer saying, in essence: “What? Whipping? The Border Patrol didn’t whip anybody. That was just their reins flying around,” the imagery and political implications were too good to check. The imagery was perfect: white agents on  horseback whipping poor, black undocumented immigrants and Joe Biden’s handlers gleefully ran with it: 

Graphic: YouTube Screenshot 

President Joe Biden said Border Patrol agents who whipped at Haitian migrants with horse reins as they attempted to cross the Rio Grande in Del Rio, Texas this week will face punishment for their "outrageous" actions.

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"I promise you those people will pay," Biden said of the agents during a White House press conference on Friday morning. "There will be consequences ... 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."

The DHS, in high dudgeon, announced an investigation, and a 511-page report was eventually produced, but not with the results the Harris/Biden Administration expected: 

The Biden administration admitted Friday that Border Patrol agents were falsely accused of “whipping” Haitian migrants in Texas last year — but still referred four agents for discipline in connection with the viral clash. 

In a 511-page report, US Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Personal Responsibility said it had found “no evidence that [Border Patrol agents] involved in this incident struck, intentionally or otherwise, any migrant with their reins.” 

Even so, the Administration demanded a pound of flesh and the agents were found culpable, in ridiculously hyperbolic language, of lesser, made-up offenses. But as Barack Obama infamously noted, elections have consequences:

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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem completed her first trip to the southwest border as the leader of the department on Sunday. Noem visited the Del Rio, Texas Port of Entry where she sat for a news interview before joining the Border Patrol agents for a border tour on horseback through an area that once saw more than 30,000 mostly Haitian migrants camped out under the same Port of Entry in 2021.

It wasn’t just a photo op. Noem is a genuine South Dakota ranch girl. She grew up waking up at the crack of dawn to feed and tend her family’s animals. She spent much of her life tossing hay bales and doing ranch chores. She’s a life-long hunter, and unlike Tim Walz, knows how to load her hunting weapons. She’s been riding and caring for horses her entire life. Real horse people know the difference between a politician and a horsewoman sitting and riding a horse and Noem is the real deal. Border Patrol horsemen know, and appreciate, the difference too. They also know virtually all politicians who don cowboy hats are “all hat and no cattle.” Noem’s hat wasn’t handed to her out of the box by an aide just before she showed up. She has a few. She wasn’t handed a new belt buckle, new, starched jeans or new boots either.

After November 5, illegals began to self-deport, and others turned around and went back south. Trump began cleaning up the border even before he took office.

After January 20, illegal immigration dropped by about 40% in the infamous Rio Grande Sector in Trump’s first week in office. In the Del Rio Sector, it dropped more than 60%. Border-wide they dropped 55% that first week. Apparently, it was possible to dramatically reduce illegal immigration all along. Who could have imagined it?

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Noem’s visit to the border was more than political posturing. The agents with whom she rode know her promise to let them do their jobs and to give them what they need, like her, is real. Unlike Alejandro Mayorkas, she’s going to actually ensure federal immigration law is enforced. If she eventually announces the border is secure, Americans can believe it. The border is already closed.

What a difference an election, and a few weeks, makes.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.