Photo of Crying Migrant Mother and Mexican Soldier

As they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words.  NPR reports on a picture that tells us quite a lot about the current Central American immigration humanitarian crisis.

The above picture of an armed soldier impeding a crying migrant mother and her child from getting to the United States is spreading on social media and making headlines in Mexico.

Critics of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s tighter border enforcement have seized on the image to decry Mexico’s new security plan, implemented after intense pressure from the Trump administration. In the photo, the soldier stands on a dry riverbed between the Mexican city of Juárez and El Paso, Texas. He holds a firearm pointed toward the ground. The woman weeps and clutches her young son.

In a video of the scene published Wednesday by Mexico’s El Universal newspaper, the woman pleads with the National Guard to let her and her boy pass into the United States.

KJ