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Haitian migrants didn’t kneel wearing ‘Biden please let us in’ t-shirts

A photo of people kneeling and wearing matching “Biden please let us in!” t-shirts is circulating with the claim that it shows a group of Haitian migrants, but that’s not true. It’s a photo of migrants at a border crossing in March 2021. Let’s take a look at the facts.

A tweet with a photo of people kneeling and wearing matching t-shirts that say “Biden please let us in.” The text “So, y’all telling me Haitians went and purchased shirts that says… ‘Biden Please Let Us In’” appears above the photo. The News Literacy Project added an “Out of Context” label.
The photo in this tweet does not show a group of Haitian migrants at the Texas-Mexico border wearing “Biden please let us in” t-shirts in September 2021.
It shows a group of migrants at a border crossing at Tijuana and San Diego wearing shirts with the same wording and was taken on March 2, 2021.

NewsLit takeaway

Controversial issues such as immigrationcommonlyengenderboth disinformation (e.g., photos intentionally taken out of context) and misinformation (e.g. photos mistakenly or inadvertently shared out of context) — though it’s often difficult or impossible to know the motivations behind such posts. In addition to presenting a photo in a false context, this post also appears to imply that migrants were given these shirts as part of a political tactic to damage President Joe Biden. The same conspiratorial questions previously circulated in March.

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