Afghanistan photo misrepresented as deportation flight under Trump
- Published on February 5, 2025 at 18:15
- 3 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"This is a US deportation flight," says a January 27, 2025 Facebook post sharing the picture.
Similar posts have spread across Facebook and other platforms, including X.
The posts come amid Trump's efforts in the first month of his presidency to crack down on illegal immigration, with US military planes repatriating expelled migrants to Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, India and other countries. Trump has vowed to deport millions. The United States has also begun sending migrants to Guantanamo, the notorious military base in Cuba primarily known as a detention center for suspects accused of terrorism-related offenses.
But the picture of a packed flight is unrelated to Trump's deportation flights.
Reverse image searches revealed the US Air Force captured the photo on August 15, 2021 as a cargo aircraft transported 823 Afghan citizens out of their country.
"A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III safely transported 823 Afghan citizens from Hamid Karzai International Airport, Aug. 15, 2021," says the caption from the Pentagon's Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, which published the shot on its website (archived here).
The photo was widely broadcast at the time by news agencies, including AFP.
The evacuations followed the Taliban's takeover of Kabul on August 15, 2021, when insurgents stormed back to power as the US military under former president Joe Biden was completing its withdrawal of troops.
Trump brokered a deal with the Taliban during his first term in the White House that would have seen all US troops out by May 2021 in return for security guarantees from the insurgents. But it was his successor Biden who carried out the withdrawal, moving the date back to August 31 but lifting all conditions.
The US had maintained a military presence in Afghanistan since late 2001, when it intervened after Al-Qaeda's September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about immigration here.
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