Photo That Symbolized Immigration Crisis Not All That It Seems
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MCCALLEN, TX (CBSMiami) - A picture of a Honduran girl crying as she and her mother are detained in Texas, came to symbolize for many the immigration crisis of children being ripped away from their families as they crossed the border.
Time magazine used the photo of the girl on this week's cover, but some are now calling it misleading.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has confirmed that the girl and her mother were never separated and they are being housed together at a facility in Texas as their immigration proceedings are ongoing.
"We were patrolling the border, it was after 10 o clock at night," recalled Border Patrol agent Carlos Ruiz who was the first to encounter Sandra Sanchez and her young daughter as they crossed the Rio Grande into Texas.
"We asked her to set the kid down in front of her, not away from her, she was right in front of her, so we can properly search the mother," he said.
As soon as Sanchez put down her daughter, the little girl burst into tears.
"I personally went up to the mother and asked her 'Are you doing okay? Is the kid okay?' and she said 'yes'," said Ruiz. "She said 'she's tired and thirsty. It's 11 o' clock at night'."
"When I took this picture, I knew it would be important. I had no way of knowing that it would touch people quite on the level that it has," said John Moore, a photographer for Getty.
Moore had joined Ruiz for a nearly nine-hour ride-along on the border. He was just feet away from Sanchez and the little girl.
"I asked her how long she'd been traveling and she gave me this very weary look. She said she'd been on the road with her daughter for a month," said Moore. "Imagine doing that with children. It's almost impossible to imagine, actually."
Moore's image now graces the cover of Time magazine next to a picture of President Donald Trump.
"They're using it to symbolize a policy and that was not the case in this picture," said Ruiz. "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."
Moore says Ruiz and other agents acted professionally that night. He added he's happy with the cover and the response to the image.
"Oftentimes, immigration is talked about in terms of statistics. When you put a human face and humanize an issue, you make people feel. When you make people feel, they have compassion. If I've done just a little bit of that, then that's okay," he said.
"We are also fathers, we are also sons, we also have families and we do care and we do our jobs and we treat these people as humanely and as best as we possibly can," said Ruiz.
