Video shows buses for Florida race, not immigration

Published on March 6, 2024 at 21:10
2 min read
By Natalie WADE, AFP USA

Governors in southern states have dispatched thousands of newly arrived migrants to large US cities, but social media posts claiming a video shows a fleet of school buses transporting them across Florida is false. The clip depicts vehicles en route to the annual Skyway 10k race in Tampa Bay, according to government and race officials.

"I knew it. Under the cover of darkness, they're sending illegals to every state. Even our red ones," says a March 3, 2024 post on X, formerly Twitter. "@GovRonDeSantis want to answer this one?"

The post includes a TikTok video of buses driving on an interstate at night. Text over the clip says: "... What do you think Florida? Maybe going to pick up the migrants you all think your governor isn't allowing in."

Screenshot of an X post taken March 5, 2024

Similar posts have spread elsewhere on X and TikTok.

A surge of crossings at the US-Mexico border has made migration a defining and divisive issue in the 2024 presidential election, with Donald Trump and other Republicans blaming President Joe Biden for the uptick.

To protest what they claim are the federal government's failings, Republican governors in states such as Texas and Florida have bused newly arrived migrants to large Democratic-controlled cities.

However, the buses in the video shared online "were NOT transporting illegal immigrants in Florida," said Bryan Griffin, communications director for Governor Ron DeSantis, in a March 4 X post (archived here).

Instead, they were "coming in to bus runners" at the annual Skyway 10k, said Justin Clements, the public relations representative for the race.

The Skyway 10k, which raises money for the Armed Forces Families Foundation (archived here), took place March 3 -- the same day the video appeared on TikTok.

The first wave of buses took runners from Tropicana Field in St Petersburg to the starting line in Manatee County at 5:30 am, local media report.

"We did have 50 buses from Pasco County that came in to bus runners that had to stage at the Tropicana Field around 3:30-4 am," Clements told AFP on March 6. "So that would make sense with the timing of the video and also the route that some of those buses were taking."

AFP geolocated the clip to a stretch of Interstate 75 heading south from Pasco County toward Tampa Bay.

This screenshot taken March 6, 2024 from Google Maps shows a route from Pasco County to Tropicana Field in St Petersburg, Florida

AFP has debunked other claims about immigration here.

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Video shows buses for Florida race, not immigration

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