It’s just as well. Given the tenor of bad-faith progressive criticism of Del Rio this week, testing Haitian migrants for COVID would have had them accusing Biden of racism.

“What, because they’re The Other you think they’re carrying disease?”

I think we’re going to be okay here, though. According to this site, as many as, uh, 0.16 percent of Haitians are fully vaccinated.

Biden DHS Secretary Mayorkas: “We did not test” the 15,000 illegal immigrants under the Del Rio, Texas bridge. pic.twitter.com/UyTw3drwFu

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 24, 2021

Yes, yes, I know, most of the Haitians arriving at the border have been living in South America for the past decade, not in Haiti. Even so, what’s the rationale for not testing them? America’s rich and famous needed a negative COVID test to get into the Emmys last week despite vaccination being mandatory to attend. Travelers from abroad will also need to show proof of vaccination upon arriving at U.S. airports.

Not so much as routine testing at the border for asylum-seekers, though? I repeat what I said a few days ago: There’s bizarro class discrimination going on by the Biden administration in deciding who does and doesn’t need to prove they’re disease-free before entering the United States.

Remember that Jen Psaki was asked recently why migrants don’t need to show evidence of vaccination at the border. It’s because they’ll only be here briefly, she said. Oh really?

DHS Secretary Mayorkas: 12,400 of 15K illegal immigrants could be "permitted to remain" in the U.S. while their cases are heard. pic.twitter.com/W5ui1uesR7

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 24, 2021

Mayorkas told reporters today that the Border Patrol had encountered some 30,000 people at the Del Rio camp. Some will be or have been deported, some will remain in Mexico, but many thousands — untested for COVID and almost certainly unvaccinated — have been released into the U.S. to await an asylum hearing that may be months away.

If a wealthy international tourist arriving by jet has to prove that he’s taken steps not to infect Americans with a deadly virus, why doesn’t a migrant surrendering at the Del Rio bridge?

Mayorkas was also asked about this week’s progressive obsession, the specter of the Border Patrol mounted on horseback and supposedly using whips to control the crowds of migrants. There were no whips and there’s nothing novel or sinister about cops riding horses but the left is looking for ways to pressure Biden on immigration out of fear that he’ll tack right before the midterms and start enforcing the border to help House centrists in their elections. After watching Biden, then Kamala Harris, and now Mayorkas at this afternoon’s briefing pander to them about the supposedly unacceptable “optics” of the mounted patrol, increasingly I’m wondering if the White House isn’t turning their tactic back on them. Watch Mayorkas:

.@SecMayorkas: "We know that those images painfully conjured up the worst elements of our nation's ongoing battle against systemic racism."https://t.co/gh6hDGgLs6 pic.twitter.com/Prm63ylMOJ

— CSPAN (@cspan) September 24, 2021

Maybe Team Biden is being conciliatory to the left on its dumb hobbyhorse about “whips” and “echoes of slavery” because they know they’re going to have to get a little stricter on enforcement before next November.

The cascading criticisms and calls for policy reversals underscored what the White House has long feared — that the issue of immigration is, for Biden, the equivalent of political quicksand. The president faces pressure from the left to grant asylum to immigrants at the border and reverse Trump-era policies over expulsions. But Republicans immediately characterized a spike in asylum seekers as Biden’s failure to secure the border…

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said his colleagues who are calling for an end to deportations “don’t understand the border, don’t understand the frustration that my communities are going through.”

“Is there a frustration — and I don’t want to get into politics — among Democratic voters? Hell yeah,” Cuellar said, referring to Democratic voters in Texas. The dramatic increase this year in migrants crossing the border is “not normal for us,” he said. “And we live at the border.”

They’re throwing liberals a bone by asking the Border Patrol to stop using horses down there. Maybe they expect liberals to throw a bone back by being a little more muted in their outrage when the administration tightens up enforcement.

*If* they tighten up enforcement, I should say. It’s conceivable that the Biden White House values porous borders even over control of Congress.

I’ll leave you with this as a reminder that police riding horses wasn’t seen as an intolerable vestige of Jim Crow until about three days ago.

The photographer who captured images of @CBP on horseback this week confirmed the agents DID NOT use their reins as whips.

Now it's time for @SecMayorkas to STOP HORSING AROUND WITH BORDER SECURITY and reverse his ridiculous suspension of this historic program. pic.twitter.com/JFWoqIDjFh

— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) September 24, 2021