Images surfaced of Border Patrol agents on horseback charging Haitian migrants, reins flying like whips. The government called it “misconduct.” The pictures said more: cruelty has been normalized at the border.
Democrats promised reform. Republicans demanded crackdowns. Migrants, meanwhile, lived under bridges, herded like cattle, treated as problems to be solved rather than people to be helped.
America’s immigration policy has always toggled between exploitation and exclusion. The horses in Del Rio were just the latest symbol.