It has emerged that the iconic image of the separations at the border didn’t involve a separation at the border. Jack Crowe noted this earlier.
Time magazine is standing by its cover image using the photo:
“The June 12 photograph of the 2-year-old Honduran girl became the most visible symbol of the ongoing immigration debate in America for a reason,” a Time spokesman said in a statement provided to CNN. “Under the policy enforced by the administration, prior to its reversal this week, those who crossed the border illegally were criminally prosecuted, which in turn resulted in the separation of children and parents. Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment.”
Although it has corrected its story:
Correction: The original version of this story misstated what happened to the girl in the photo after she taken from the scene. The girl was not carried away screaming by U.S. Border Patrol agents; her mother picked her up and the two were taken away together.
Earlier in the week, there was another story about a ten-year-old with Down Syndrome who was separated. It came to prominence because Corey Lewandowski, acting the malicious clown, mocked the idea of having sympathy for her plight. That was disgraceful, but it turns out that this story, too, was misleading. The separation was not a result of “zero tolerance,” but of a smuggling case.