Arizona sheriff says Biden 'should have apologized' to border agents accused of whipping migrants

An Arizona county sheriff said the Biden administration should have apologized to the Border Patrol agents for publicly accusing the officers of whipping migrants after an internal report last week found that no evidence supported such a claim.

Four Border Patrol agents face disciplinary proposals in response to the incident. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb told "Just the News, Not Noise" on Monday that "they were wrongfully accused." 

Despite the report finding no evidence that any agents struck migrants, the officers are being punished to please the "woke masses who don't understand how difficult of a job it is down there on the border," Lamb stated.

"Those people in Washington aren't doing their job. These men on the horses, they were doing their job," he said, criticizing the Biden administration's failure to secure the Southern Border as record numbers of illegal migrants enter the country.

"My take is they completely turned their backs on these guys. They should have apologized for slamming them in the media like they did or immediately rebuking their actions," Lamb stated.

The agents' punishment is a "copout," Lamb said as he invited Border Patrol officers to join his sheriff's department.

White House officials were quick to comment after photos appeared to show Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande River whipping Haitian migrants in September 2021.

At that time, President Joe Biden vowed that the responsible agents "would pay" and "there will be consequences." He said the situation was "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."

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas described the incident as "something that horrified us all."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, "I don’t think anyone could look at those photos and think that was appropriate action or behavior or something that should be accepted within our administration."