The little girl shown in a viral photo crying while U.S. Border Patrol agents detained her mother who later became part of TIME magazine’s cover in an image meant to symbolize the Trump administration’s family separation policy was never actually separated from her mother, according to a Fox News report.
The girl, a Honduran immigrant named Yanela Sanchez, is shown on the magazine cover next to an image of President Donald Trump, who appears to be towering over her.
TIME defended the image in light of the new information, which came to light when several news outlets interviewed the 2-year-old girl’s father, who said his daughter and her mother were detained at a facility in Texas and were not separated.
The Honduran government confirmed the information to Reuters.
“The June 12 photograph of the 2-year-old Honduran girl became the most visible symbol of the ongoing immigration debate in America for a reason: Under the policy enforced by the administration, prior to its reversal this week, those who crossed the border illegally were criminally prosecuted, which in turn resulted in the separation of children and parents,” TIME editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said in a statement defending the cover. “Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment.”
The girl’s father said her mother, Sandra Sanchez, left Honduras without telling him.
“You can imagine how I felt when I saw that photo of my daughter. It broke my heart. It’s difficult as a father to see that, but I know now that they are not in danger. They are safer now than when they were making that journey to the border,” Denis Javier Varela Hernandez told The Daily Mail.
“I didn’t support (her decision to leave). I asked her, why? Why would she want to put our little girl through that? But it was her decision at the end of the day.”
