Twitter community notes fact-checked a Democratic strategist who made false claims about migrant buoy deaths in Texas late Friday.
Sawyer Hackett, a Democratic strategist and consultant, called for Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to be prosecuted over the report of a 3-year-old migrant child dying on a bus en route to Chicago. The child’s death is the latest after officials reportedly found two deceased people, one being a child, in the Rio Grande.
Hackett falsely suggested that Abbott’s buoy barrier placed in the Rio Grande in July caused the migrants’ deaths.
“Greg Abbott is already responsible for a child dying in his razor wire buoy stunt. Now another child has died in his stunt to abduct and ship migrants out of state. He has blood on his hands. He shouldn’t be sued, he should be prosecuted,” Hackett wrote.
Greg Abbott is already responsible for a child dying in his razor wire buoy stunt. Now another child has died in his stunt to abduct and ship migrants out of state.
He has blood on his hands. He shouldn’t be sued, he should be prosecuted. https://t.co/EVPHcPhaJI
— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) August 12, 2023
Twitter included a fact-check below Hackett’s tweet that said no one had been killed by the buoys at the time Hackett posted his tweet. One person reportedly died upstream and floated into the buoys, and another had also not been caught by the buoys.
“At the time of this post no one had been killed by the buoys,” Twitter’s community notes said.
.@SawyerHackett, who lied about border patrol whipping migrants, was caught lying again about Gov. Abbott
Kudos to @CommunityNotes pic.twitter.com/XitdAfQnhp
— John Hasson (@SonofHas) August 12, 2023
In 2021, Hackett made a false claim about Border Patrol agents whipping Haitian migrants on horseback. In actuality, the so-called whips were the horse’s reins.
Border patrol is mounted on horseback rounding up Haitian refugees with whips.
This is unfathomable cruelty towards people fleeing disaster and political ruin. The administration must stop this. pic.twitter.com/BSjT91NSj0
— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) September 20, 2021
Drownings in the Rio Grande river have been highly common long before the buoy barrier had been put in place. In January, officials in Maverick County pulled 26 bodies from the river and buried them, according to The Texas Tribune. Some were buried with unmarked graves after the unsuccessful attempts to identify them. (RELATED: Lori Lightfoot Pleads With Texas Gov. Greg Abbott To Stop Busing Migrants To Chicago)
In 2022, agents in the Del Rio sector encountered one to two deceased migrants per day who died from drowning, dehydration or another cause. Thirteen migrants drowned in the Rio Grande in September, and a 3-year-old child drowned in the previous month.
Texas officials requested more refrigerators after morgues and funeral homes became overwhelmed by the number of migrant bodies filling up the facilities. Eagle Pass Fire Department Chief Manuel Mello III said authorities have been conducting daily body recoveries in the Rio Grande River and are on track to recover 300 bodies in 2022.