The father and daughter lie face down in the muddy water along the banks of the Rio Grand, her tiny head tucked inside his T-shirt, an arm draped over his neck. The image represents a poignant distillation of the perilous journey migrants face on their passage north to the United States, and the tragic consequences that often go unseen in the loud and caustic debate over border policy.
It recalled other powerful and sometimes disturbing photos that have galvanized public attention to the horrors of war and the acute suffering of individual refugees and migrants — personal stories that are often obscured by larger events. Like the iconic photo of a bleeding Syrian child pulled from the rubble in Aleppo after an airstrike or the 1993 shot of a starving toddler and a nearby vulture in Sudan, the image of a single father and his young child washed up on the Rio Grande's shore had the potential to prick the public conscience.
As the photo ricocheted around social media on Tuesday, Democrats in the House were moving toward approval of an emergency $4.5 billion humanitarian aid bill to address the plight of migrants at the border.
