Rumor Review
Fact-check this tweet
President Donald Trump visited a newly replaced section of the Otay Mesa border wall near San Diego on Sept. 18 and praised its “anti-climb” features. The image shown here implies those features do not work. But it requires a closer look.
The border wall shown in this tweet is not the Otay Mesa wall. It is a section of border fencing in Imperial Beach’s Border Field State Park, about 10 miles to the west of Otay Mesa. The image does not show people crossing into the U.S. It does show recently arrived members of a caravan of migrants who climbed and sat atop the fence before returning to the Mexican side of the border in November 2018.
For teachers
Use this viral rumor to teach students how to do a reverse image search and use Google Street View. Using Google’s Chrome browser, right-click the image in this archived version of the tweet and select “Search Google for Image” from the menu. Use the image search results to find a credible source and debunk the tweet’s claim. Then challenge students to locate that section of fence using Google Street View.
Border wall timeline
Show students how to use the Google Street View timeline to see when the section of fence in the photo might have been constructed. Ask them if it appears to have been updated or otherwise changed any time in the last few years? (Hint: The lighter colored section of fence appears in the December 2015 capture of the fence, but was not there in April 2009.)
