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Hurricane Hanna likely did not knock down Trump border wall, official says. Here's what we know
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A spokesman from U.S. Customs and Border Protection said he was looking into the report, but expressed skepticism over its authenticity.
AUSTIN — A video gone viral said to show a section of the border fence being blown down by Hurricane Hanna has caught the attention of federal immigration authorities late Sunday who were scrambling to find out if it was true.
Roderick Kise, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Rio Grande Valley, said he had received “seven or eight” media inquiries about the tweet from a journalist in Mexico showing a 39-second clip of workers in vests and hard hats watching a section of the fence being knocked over by high winds.
Kise said he was checking with authorities in Washington, but at first glance did not believe the footage was from South Texas.
“The hurricane hit us at nighttime, but looks like it was shot during the day,” Kise said in an interview.
He also said the terrain did not look like the lower Rio Grande Valley.
The tweet from Yadith Valdez, whose Muck Rack page shows her affiliated with a news organization called Multosmedia.com, had been retweeted about 10,300 times and had amassed some 19,300 likes by 8 p.m. CDT Sunday.
“And so, ‘Hanna’ knocked down part of the border wall that is being built between the United States and Mexico,” the tweet’s caption, translated from Spanish to English said. “For the fury of nature, there are no borders.”
Valdez did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the USA TODAY Network.
But some Twitter users pointed to a CNN report in January showing a section of border fencing in California being blown down by high winds, suggesting the video in the tweet was months old.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.
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