During Wednesday’s lengthy debate over the impeachment of President Donald Trump, Representative Al Green (D-TX), who has been at the forefront of calls for impeachment since Trump’s inauguration in 2017, made yet another case for impeaching the president before the House floor — albeit this time, with the blessing of congressional Democrats.
But while presenting his case, Green stood in front of a notoriously misleading prop: A large version of the child-separation photo that went viral last summer, featuring a lonely two-year-old Honduran girl crying next to U.S. Border Patrol agents.
“We cannot allow any person to be beyond justice in this country. In the name of democracy, on behalf of the republic, and for the sake of the many who are suffering,” declared Green, while gesturing to the photo, which is adorned with the words “IMPEACH NOW” in bright-red capital letters. “I will vote to impeach and I encourage my colleagues to do so as well.”
As The Daily Wire reported last year, the little girl in the photo quite literally became the poster child for the Trump administration’s “family separation policy” — a policy that actually had been enacted years before Trump assumed office.
However, after Time Magazine put the girl on its front cover alongside the caption “Welcome To America,” the Border Patrol agents involved in the photo went to CBS News and revealed that the child was never actually separated from her mother.
“They’re using it to symbolize a policy and that was not the case in this picture,” Border Patrol agent Carlos Ruiz told CBS News. “It took less than two minutes. As soon as the search was finished, she immediately picked the girl up, and the girl immediately stopped crying.”
The news agency confirmed that the mother and daughter had not been separated, and the Border Patrol agents emphasized that the agency treats people “as humanely and as best as we possibly can.”
The Washington Post, which had published the photo under a headline that referenced how the little girl “broke” the “photographer’s heart,” issued a correction to the piece several days later after speaking with the girl’s father and correctly noted that she was never separated from her mother.
Time Magazine itself was forced to issue a correction over an article about the photo, saying “the original version of this story misstated what happened,” and that “the girl was not carried away screaming by U.S. Border Patrol agents,” the Post reports, in a different article explaining the matter. Nonetheless, Time Magazine maintained that placing the little girl on the cover of the magazine was appropriate.
“The June 12 photograph of the two-year-old Honduran girl became the most visible symbol of the ongoing immigration debate in America for a reason,” reads Time Magazine’s statement justifying the cover. “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 coverage and our reporting captures the stakes of this moment.”
