No, this picture does not show indigenous children taken away from their parents in 2018

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 19, 2019 at 20:02
1 min read
By AFP Canada

A Facebook post shared more than 2,000 times claims to show a picture of indigenous children supposedly taken away from their parents and kept in cages in 2018. The picture, which has been used out of context more than once, actually depicts Central American migrant children detained in a US detention camp in Arizona in 2014.

“Indigenous children taken away from their parents”: a composite photograph, posted by a woman claiming to be a resident of Canada and shared by thousands of Facebook users, juxtaposes two pictures with the same caption, alleging the children pictured were taken in the 1900s and in 2018.

Screenshot of a Facebook post taken on February 18, 2019

While the top picture, taken around 1900, does show students from the Carlisle Indian School, a boarding school located in Pennsylvania which aimed to assimilate Native American youth into mainstream American culture, the lower photograph was not taken in 2018 and does not show indigenous children taken away from their parents. It actually depicts Central American migrant children held in a detention center in the US state of Arizona in 2014.

This picture was also used out of context in May 2018 to criticize US President Donald Trump’s migration policy at the southern border and was debunked by the president himself.

Screenshot of a tweet taken on February 18, 2019

The actual photo can be found on the website of the Associated Press and is credited to photographer Ross D. Franklin.

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No, this picture does not show indigenous children taken away from their parents in 2018

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