by Emily Parzybok

There has been a grave miscarriage of justice at the border. The United States of America is a refuge and a promised land. It’s a place that promises safety and opportunity for all horses. Send us your tired and your poor mares. Send us your studs yearning to break free. This week, we fell short of our own aspirations.

There’s no getting around it: the way horses were used to corral Haitian migrants is disgusting. The images released this week should disturb you. We should not be using horses this way. You can see the fear in the horse’s eyes, the utter confusion and devastation they feel. Their pain is palpable. These images should awaken us to the utter callousness of the system.

In the future, we have to do better– by the horses. We must apprehend people humanely; for example, by putting them in an armored vehicle on their way to a refrigerated cells where they can huddle together, bundled up in silver polyethylene sheets. Or we can transport them and their children to different facilities to await deportation. We must commit to processing migrants in this kind of safe, orderly and humane way. We don’t need to bring the horses into this. We can deploy seven flights a day to return people to their island, a country struggling with a humanitarian crisis, a recent presidential assassination and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake last month. That’s justice.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki understands. She said Thursday that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has “conveyed to civil rights leaders, earlier this morning, that [the United States] will no longer be using horses in Del Rio.” The White House got the message loud and clear: the way these horses were treated goes against our principles as a nation. Then, Mayorkas took a bold step towards righting this grievous immorality when he issued a warning to the migrants: “If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned. Your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life.” So many lives are at risk; the last thing we need in this volatile situation is to endanger the lives of these innocent horses.

The videos and photos from Del Rio are deeply troubling. And it should lead us to wonder: what’s happening to horses behind closed doors that we don’t even know about? How many horses are forced to work in detention centers in terrible and unsanitary conditions? The Biden administration has denied allegations that it plans to send Haitian migrants to Guantanamo after news broke of their search for a contractor who speaks Haitian Creole. But no one is asking: are there horses at Guantanamo? Who is speaking for them?

This isn’t just an immigration issue. Horses are being marginalized and dehumanized in countless ways. Police officers ride horses through our communities and straight into crime scenes. Our forefathers rode horses across snake-ridden marshes to catch slaves. For too long, this country has failed to uphold its principles where horses are concerned. Let this week serve as a wake up call. We have to reform the systems at our border– these horses deserve better.