It's a truly shocking, gut-wrenching photograph: a furious mounted US Border Patrol agent on horseback wrestling with a desperate Haitian migrant trying to get into an encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande in Del Rio, Texas.
The white agent is wielding his horse's long reins in an aggressive way that some believe was akin to whipping the black migrant, conjuring vile memories of the horrific days of American slavery.
But the agents involved later angrily denied this, saying that anyone with 'two brain cells' would know they were using their split reins to control their horses in the melee.
Either way, it's a deeply distressing snapshot of a major new immigration crisis on the southern border.
And nobody was more appalled than President Biden whose press secretary Jen Psaki described the footage as 'horrific', 'horrible' and 'devastating to watch'.
The migrant, clutching plastic bags of food, is one of many thousands of refugees who've sought asylum in America since Haiti was thrown into turmoil by the assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse, in July, and a massive earthquake that followed in August.
At least 15,000 have gathered at the Del Rio camp.
It's a truly shocking, gut-wrenching photograph: a furious mounted US Border Patrol agent on horseback wrestling with a desperate Haitian migrant trying to get into an encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande in Del Rio, Texas
The white agent is wielding his horse's long reins in an aggressive way that some believe was akin to whipping the black migrant, conjuring vile memories of the horrific days of American slavery
But the agents involved later angrily denied this, saying that anyone with 'two brain cells' would know they were using their split reins to control their horses in the melee. Either way, it's a deeply distressing snapshot of a major new immigration crisis on the southern border
Paul Ratje, a photographer from Associated Press who took the extraordinarily powerful picture, described what he witnessed to the Washington Post:
'I get to the scene, and everybody is crossing there. We get in the water - a few other colleagues were in the water - and all of a sudden, some police showed up and they started trying to get people to leave. Then the Border Patrol agents on horseback arrived and they started trying to get people to leave. They had gotten a lot of people to start leaving the banks, but then people just kept coming across the river. There was a continuous flow and [the agents] were like: 'No, you can't come in. Go back to Mexico.' But people were like, 'but my family's over there.'
Ratje watched as many of the migrants then tried to run past the Border Patrol, and aimed his camera.
'That's when one of the agents grabbed a guy and kind of swung him around,' he told the Post.
What he captured is undeniably a very ugly photo of a very ugly confrontation.
(Interestingly, Ratje's own take on it, based on what he saw with his own eyes, was not entirely unsympathetic to the agents who he sensed feel 'overwhelmed' and deeply frustrated) that has shocked America, and the wider world, and enraged Democrats as much as Republicans.
'The humanitarian crisis happening under this administration on the southern border disgustingly mirrors some of the darkest moments in America's history,' said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. 'If we were to close our eyes and this was occurring under the Trump administration, what would we do? The inhumane treatment of the Haitian refugees is utterly sickening.'
He's right: if these scenes had happened on Trump's watch, the liberal screaming about what a monster he is, would have echoed around the globe.
As always, Biden gets a less censorious pass from the liberal-dominated media, just as he has done
