Navy SEAL Challenges Iconic Image of Teargassed Migrants at Mexico Border

The former U.S. Navy SEAL who fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden has weighed in on an iconic photograph of a migrant mother with two barefoot children against a backdrop of a smoking tear gas canister.

“A good rule for parenting: Don’t bum-rush the border of a sovereign nation with your toddlers,” wrote former special warfare operator Robert J. O'Neill, in a post on Twitter, referring to the Nov. 25 photo taken moments after a group of Central American migrants rushed the border crossing into San Diego and were forced back by tear gas.

O'Neill’s post sparked a flurry of comments.

One of these, by Twitter user Ali Alexander, shows a series of screenshots of news coverage of the incident by CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS This Morning, and NBC News.

‘Choking on Tear Gas’

“If journalism is filled with honorable pursuers of the truth,” Alexander writes, “why haven’t any of them called out their colleagues for scribing the news instead of objectively reporting it?”

He captioned the collage, “You’re allowed to think just this one thing,” in an apparent reference to the single-minded framing of the story.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents fired tear gas at a group of migrants at a major U.S.-Mexico border crossing in San Diego, after they rushed the border area on the Mexican side,” reads the CNN caption.

“These children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas,” the Washington Post wrote.

A comment to Alexander’s post is a meme showing a group of men tearing down what appears to be a border fence in one panel, while a second panel shows the same group transformed into a group of innocent children, after the observer had donned a pair of eyeglasses with a filter labeled “CNN.”

Questionable Parenting

Conservative commentator Stefan Molyneux echoed O'Neill’s critical take on the woman’s decision to bring her children to the attempted forced border crossing and expose them to harm.

“You can get in serious trouble in America for letting your 10-year-old child walk home from a park unaccompanied—or ride a bike without a helmet,” wrote Molyneux, “but if you drag a helpless toddler to a very dangerous border invasion, you are a hero.”

The Canadian media personality later tweeted emphatically, “Children are not to be carried as photo-op props into the war zone of an illegal border attack!”

“What is WRONG with these parents?” he added.

‘Fake Tears’ vs ’Real Tear Gas’

In a later tweet, Molyneux suggested coverage of the incident was unfairly biased against President Donald Trump.

“Obama administration used tear gas at border once a month—Washington Times,” the Canadian media personality wrote.

The Washington Times article cited by Molyneux referred to Homeland security data showing that the same tear-gas agent that the Trump administration is being criticized for deploying is used routinely, and during the later years of President Barack Obama’s administration, as frequently as about once a month.

Minimum Force Necessary

Trump defended the use of tear gas by border officials, saying, “They had to use it because they were being rushed by some very tough people. Here’s the bottom line. Nobody’s coming into our country unless they come in legally.”

Border agent and National Border Patrol Council President Hector Garza told Fox’s Laura Ingraham that on the day in question all manner of projectiles were thrown at U.S. border agents, yet they responded with minimal force.

“Our agents were actually under attack, they were assaulted. These migrants were throwing rocks, they were throwing glass bottles, and they were also throwing other debris that was in the area,” Garza said.

“Some of our agents were hit on their head, on their helmets, with these rocks, and there were minor injuries. There was also damage to government vehicles and windows were broken, so this was an assault, this was an invasion on our agents, on our country, and our agents had to respond with a very low-level force, which is the tear gas,” he continued.

‘People Were Screaming’

Reuters photojournalist Kim Kyung-Hoon, who took the photograph, told NBC he started shooting after hearing screams and seeing a commotion.

“When the tear gas started, some people were screaming and everybody started running away,” Kim told NBC News on Monday. ”I saw the woman and two children running away. One girl was barefoot from the beginning. The other was wearing beach sandals and lost them in the chaos.”

“One canister fell by the family and they started running away,” he added.

NBC News tracked down the woman, identified as Maria Meza, a 39-year-old mother of five from Honduras, inside a tent at the Benito Juarez Shelter in Tijuana.

“I grabbed my children and ran,” Mesa said of her 5-year-old twin daughters Saira and Sheilly.

Maria Meza (2nd R), runs away from tear gas with her daughters Jamie Jisel Mejia Meza, aged 13 and her 5-year-old twin daughters Saira Nalleli Mejia Meza and Cheili Nalleli Mejia Meza (L-R) in front of the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, in Tijuana, Mexico, Nov. 25, 2018. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Kim told NBC that after photographing Meza and her children near the border, he stayed with them as they fled back to the migrant encampment.

Asked if he was rattled by what he witnessed, Kim said, “My job is to document what is happening.”

“I try not to let my emotions get involved in my work,” he said, according to the report.

Meza and her children told Reuters they had already spent a week at a Tijuana shelter, but they will likely have to wait longer for a chance to plead their case before U.S. Customs officials.

She said she hopes to be granted asylum in the United States due to rampant crime back home, and if successful will travel to Louisiana, where the girls’ father lives.