Mother in iconic photo at the border tells BuzzFeed why she's really there

Greg P. | 9:12 AM on November 27, 2018

By now you’ve seen this photo from Reuters’ Kim Kyung-Hoon showing a mother from Honduras, identified as Maria Meza, fleeing with her two (of 5) kids from tear gas that was fired at hundreds of migrants who had rushed the border on Sunday:

.@ReutersPictures captured the moment Maria Meza fled with her children to escape tear gas on the U.S.-Mexican border. This is the story behind the photo: https://t.co/rzpyIly57V pic.twitter.com/p9IPWmiJKa

— Reuters TV (@ReutersTV) November 27, 2018

But, SURPRISE! She’s not an asylum seeker, or at least she didn’t once mention seeking asylum in this interview with BuzzFeed. According to that interview, Meza said she’s just a “single mother who wants to provide for my children” and that she “needs a job”

Full clip here:

This mother caught in a photo fleeing tear gas at the US-Mexico border with her kids says she thought they were going to die. pic.twitter.com/tUkDdQptYo

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) November 27, 2018

She did change her story in a second interview with Reuters and say she fled Honduras because of violence and had come to the border to claim asylum:

“I came here for one reason, and that’s because there is a lot of violence in Honduras,” said Meza, as her children played with empty tear gas canisters shot by the Border Patrol.

Reuters photojournalist Kim Kyung-Hoon said he previously spotted this Honduran family at a migrant shelter. But he wasn’t able to speak with them much. The photojournalist’s colleagues at Reuters later learned that the woman was trying to bring her children to the US to be reunited with their father, who lives in Louisiana.

Exit question: Are there any legit asylum seekers in the group?

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‘Oops’! MSNBC reporter in Tijuana accidentally ‘shoots down the media’s narrative’ about ‘asylum seekers’ https://t.co/1Z6nyvueZV

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 26, 2018