Fake news photos and stories of illegal kids have been all over the place in the past few weeks as the left pushes the narrative of illegal kids in cages. In fact, a viral photo of a small child crying with his hands gripping the side of a cage sparked outrage on social media but IS NOT from a detention shelter.

Posted on Twitter last week by filmmaker and journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, the photo is captioned: “This is what happens when a government believes people are “illegal.” Kids in cages.” It has more over 24,000 retweets and over 38,000 likes.

Below the photo, Vargas writes that he was still trying to find the source of the photo and that he had pulled it from a friend’s Facebook timeline.

As the heart-wrenching photo made its way across the internet, many began to link its origins to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), drawing a parallel to the almost 2,000 migrant children who have been separated from their parents or guardians, the Department of Homeland Security reported last week.

However, the photo of the young boy was actually taken on June 10, 2018 at an event protesting the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy. The boy is not a detainee. The protest featured signs reading: “If you were separated from your child, what would you do?” and “Hey Trump, what if it were your grandchildren in those dog cages? What would you do then?”

The protest was hosted by the Texas chapter of the Brown Berets de Cemanahuac, an indigenous advocacy organization. The group posted on Facebook a photo gallery of the protest, with the little boy noticeably in the background. The viral image, however, was not featured.

https://www.facebook.com/Brownberetsofdfw/photos/a.1158719984170757.1073741831.1154379917938097/2064282006947879/?type=3&theater

“We demand the release of the children being held in a jail and being treated like animals. We will not go away until we have answers!” the Facebook post read.

The original photographer, Leroy Peña, said in an interview that the boy had spotted his mother outside the space and began crying and that he was only in the cage for about 30 seconds.

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