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Riders leaving a subway station in Brooklyn, N.Y., pass by a pop-up art installation on June 12, 2019. The project featured mannequins as part of the #NOKIDSINCAGES campaign to support Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. (AP) Riders leaving a subway station in Brooklyn, N.Y., pass by a pop-up art installation on June 12, 2019. The project featured mannequins as part of the #NOKIDSINCAGES campaign to support Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. (AP)

Riders leaving a subway station in Brooklyn, N.Y., pass by a pop-up art installation on June 12, 2019. The project featured mannequins as part of the #NOKIDSINCAGES campaign to support Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. (AP)

Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke September 23, 2020

These photos show an art installation, not real children in cages

If Your Time is short

  • These photos show an art installation protesting child separation policies in the United States. 
 

Images being shared on social media show metal cages with what look like people curled up inside under space blankets. 

"If you justify these photos you are not human," a description of the photos says. "This is literally inhumane."

One user who posted the pictures on Facebook wrote, "DO all lives matter? Asking for kids in a cage."  

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) 

Featured Fact-check

That’s because those aren’t people in the cages — they’re child-sized mannequins, part of a public art installation protesting family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The #NoKidsInCages campaign by Raices, a Texas nonprofit aimed at helping refugees and immigrants, arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, in February as people arrived to caucus for their Democratic presidential candidate. 

Each of the cages included a red sign that said "#DontLookAway," visible although not legible in the photos on Facebook. CNN reported at the time that the mannequins played recordings of children who have been detained

We rate this Facebook post False.

 

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These photos show an art installation, not real children in cages

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