The former U.S. Navy SEAL who fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden has weighed in on an iconic photograph of a migrant mother with two barefoot children against a backdrop of a smoking tear gas canister.
“A good rule for parenting: Don’t bum-rush the border of a sovereign nation with your toddlers,” wrote former special warfare operator Robert J. O'Neill, in a post on Twitter, referring to the Nov. 25 photo taken moments after a group of Central American migrants rushed the border crossing into San Diego and were forced back by tear gas.
O'Neill’s post sparked a flurry of comments.
‘Choking on Tear Gas’
“If journalism is filled with honorable pursuers of the truth,” Alexander writes, “why haven’t any of them called out their colleagues for scribing the news instead of objectively reporting it?”He captioned the collage, “You’re allowed to think just this one thing,” in an apparent reference to the single-minded framing of the story.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents fired tear gas at a group of migrants at a major U.S.-Mexico border crossing in San Diego, after they rushed the border area on the Mexican side,” reads the CNN caption.
“These children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas,” the Washington Post wrote.
A comment to Alexander’s post is a meme showing a group of men tearing down what appears to be a border fence in one panel, while a second panel shows the same group transformed into a group of innocent children, after the observer had donned a pair of eyeglasses with a filter labeled “CNN.”
Questionable Parenting
Conservative commentator Stefan Molyneux echoed O'Neill’s critical take on the woman’s decision to bring her children to the attempted forced border crossing and expose them to harm.“You can get in serious trouble in America for letting your 10-year-old child walk home from a park unaccompanied—or ride a bike without a helmet,” wrote Molyneux, “but if you drag a helpless toddler to a very dangerous border invasion, you are a hero.”
The Canadian media personality later tweeted emphatically, “Children are not to be carried as photo-op props into the war zone of an illegal border attack!”
“What is WRONG with these parents?” he added.
‘Fake Tears’ vs ’Real Tear Gas’
In a later tweet, Molyneux suggested coverage of the incident was unfairly biased against President Donald Trump.“Obama administration used tear gas at border once a month—Washington Times,” the Canadian media personality wrote.
Minimum Force Necessary
Trump defended the use of tear gas by border officials, saying, “They had to use it because they were being rushed by some very tough people. Here’s the bottom line. Nobody’s coming into our country unless they come in legally.”“Our agents were actually under attack, they were assaulted. These migrants were throwing rocks, they were throwing glass bottles, and they were also throwing other debris that was in the area,” Garza said.
‘People Were Screaming’
Reuters photojournalist Kim Kyung-Hoon, who took the photograph, told NBC he started shooting after hearing screams and seeing a commotion.“When the tear gas started, some people were screaming and everybody started running away,” Kim told NBC News on Monday. ”I saw the woman and two children running away. One girl was barefoot from the beginning. The other was wearing beach sandals and lost them in the chaos.”
“One canister fell by the family and they started running away,” he added.
NBC News tracked down the woman, identified as Maria Meza, a 39-year-old mother of five from Honduras, inside a tent at the Benito Juarez Shelter in Tijuana.
“I grabbed my children and ran,” Mesa said of her 5-year-old twin daughters Saira and Sheilly.
Kim told NBC that after photographing Meza and her children near the border, he stayed with them as they fled back to the migrant encampment.
Asked if he was rattled by what he witnessed, Kim said, “My job is to document what is happening.”
“I try not to let my emotions get involved in my work,” he said, according to the report.
Meza and her children told Reuters they had already spent a week at a Tijuana shelter, but they will likely have to wait longer for a chance to plead their case before U.S. Customs officials.
She said she hopes to be granted asylum in the United States due to rampant crime back home, and if successful will travel to Louisiana, where the girls’ father lives.