A photo that conservatives are spreading on social media depicting a surge of migrants crossing the U.S. border along with messaging blaming President Joe Biden for the crisis was taken during the Trump administration, Newsweek reports.
A reverse-image search on the TinEye application determined that the photo showing what appears to be thousands of Honduran migrants walking on a highway in southern Mexico was taken Oct. 27, 2018 by Guillermo Arias, a Tijuana-based photojournalist, according to the report.
Newsweek’s Nick Reynolds writes the photo has been circulated by conservatives including some former candidates and cryptocurrency influencers to describe the border crisis “in apocalyptic terms, characterizing the group pictured as an invading force that had only grown increasingly emboldened by the perception of weakness in President Joe Biden's immigration policies.”
The migrant crisis is being closely watched as Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allows asylum seekers to be denied entry amid the pandemic, is set to expire.
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Several Twitter users used the Trump-era photo to blast Biden’s border policies, according to the report.
Conservative commentator Miles Cheong tweeted with the photo: There are more migrants on the way to the US-Mexico border than there are troops involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Let that sink in.
Prager University’s CJ Pearson in a since-deleted tweet along with the photo wrote: "What's happening on our Southern Border isn't a crisis. It's an invasion."
