A video of thousands of migrants camping at the Texas-Mexico border with claims it’s “right now” in 2024 is being shared online amid a row over immigration control.
This is false. The video was taken in 2021 when thousands of mostly Haitian migrants were camped on the US border.
The Instagram video (archived here) has also been shared by other users (here and here), on X (here, here, and here), TikTok, and YouTube during January and February 2024.
The footage is a panning shot of thousands of people in a makeshift camp with overlay text saying “Texas border right now” and “What the media won’t show you”.
The text overlay in one TikTok video says “refugies frontiere Texas 2024” in French, which translates as “Texas border refugees 2024”.
However, the footage being used in the posts was filmed by Bill Melugin of Fox News at the Del Rio International Bridge in 2021.
American TV presenter Preston Phillips posted the video, accrediting it to Fox News reporter Bill Melugin, on his Facebook page on September 19, 2021.
The footage shows some of the 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants who tried to enter the US after the Biden administration extended protections for Haitians living in the US before July 29, 2021.
Misleading online posts led many Haitians living outside the US to believe they were eligible.
The migrants reportedly shared routes with each other to the area on WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube. Many had been living in Latin America since the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
The false claims come as tensions rise between the US government and the Texas governor about border control.
Migrant encounters – apprehensions, inadmissible and expulsions – have increased sharply since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, reaching a record high of 302,034 in December 2023, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
The agency reported that encounters fell by almost 42 per cent in January 2024.
Texas authorities blocked US Border Patrol agents in January from an area in the city of Eagle Pass migrant crossings had surged.
They also installed razor wire fencing that prevented federal agents from patrolling parts of the border.
The Supreme Court ruled in late January that federal agents can remove the razor wire, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott has unveiled plans to build a new state National Guard base at Eagle Pass and more border barriers.
The Verdict
The claim that a video shows the current state of migrant numbers on the Texas-Mexico border is false.
The video is from September 2021 and shows a group of mainly Haitian migrants at the border after the US extended protections for citizens of the Caribbean nation.
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