No, viral video doesn’t show border crossings after Title 42 expired

On May 11, a pandemic-era immigration policy called Title 42 expired. The policy allowed American border authorities to more quickly turn back migrants, forcing them to return to Mexico on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19, instead of staying in the U.S. while their case is processed as was typical for asylum-seekers prior to the pandemic.

On May 13, Congressman Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) posted a video on Twitter, appearing to show hundreds of people rushing past turnstiles and onto a bridge.

Crane suggested the clip showed migrants entering the U.S. following Title 42’s end, calling it an “invasion of the American homeland” and blaming the Biden administration, saying it “knew this was coming and did nothing.”

The video gained more than 180 thousand views.

THE QUESTION

Does this video show migrants entering the United States after the expiration of Title 42?

THE SOURCES

THE ANSWER

No, the video does not show migrants entering the United States after the expiration of Title 42. It was recorded months before Title 42 expired, and the people shown were stopped at the border by American authorities.

WHAT WE FOUND

Crane did not explain in his tweet where or when the video was recorded. Using image and video forensics tools, VERIFY identified a video from the same event shared by the Associated Press on March 13.

This video shows the same group of migrants on the same bridge. Six seconds into the video, a man in a tan hooded jacket and green-and-white hat appears in the bottom left corner. In the video posted two months later by Crane, the same man is visible ten seconds in, jumping over some sort of barricade.

This confirms the video shared by the congressman was from March 13, nearly two months before Title 42 expired.

Furthermore, the video doesn’t show migrants crossing the border and entering the United States. The Associated Press report published alongside the video explained that the migrants depicted were on the Paso Del Norte bridge over the Rio Grande – which connects Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua to El Paso, Texas – entering the bridge from the Mexican side. 

However, they didn’t make it to America that day. American police and border agents erected barricades on the bridge, preventing anyone from completely crossing. The crowd eventually returned to Mexico.

Two days after posting the video, Crane himself replied to his original post to clarify, “This specific surge was filmed before the end of Title 42.”