Fact Check: Viral image claiming emigration from Texas not recent

A picture showing thousands of migrants crossing a bridge is being shared with a claim that it shows emigration from Texas to other cities in the USA.

The image is going viral with the caption: “I suspect Texas is going to be sending a lot of buses to NYC, DC, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Get ready for the flood in those cities. You voted for it.”

The image is viral on all platforms of social media.

Fact Check:

The claim is false. The image is not recent.

When we performed Google reverse image search, we found a few results from 2018. We came across a website named Guillermo Arias.com, which shared several other pictures along with the viral image. The website states that the image shows the Central American migrants travelling to the United States.

It also states that among the migrants, there were people fleeing from extreme violence, insecurity, and poverty coming from the Northern Triangle of Central America – Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

According to an AFP report published in September 2019, Guillermo Arias won the top prize at photojournalism’s biggest annual festival, the “Visa Pour L’Image” for covering Central American migrants trying to get to the US.

He stated that he captured the shot using a drone on October 27, 2018.

According to dw.com, throughout 2018 and 2019, migrant caravans with thousands of people made their way northward from Central America. Most were heading to the US border in a bid to escape poverty and violence in their home countries. In response, the US sent troops to secure the border.

Therefore, the image seen is not recent, it is from 2018 and was shot in Mexico by a photojournalist named Guillermo Arias showing the plight of migrants, and won a prestigious award for his images.