GOP Congressional Candidate Mistakes YMCA Campers for Migrant Kids


Arizona congressional candidate Adam Kwasman was at a protest of a new shelter for migrant children when he got word that a busload of kids was headed in the protesters’ direction. Kwasman, a Republican state lawmaker, raced toward the small yellow school bus. He gave a breathless account of what he saw to a local news crew: “I was able to actually see some of the children in the buses, and the fear on their faces. This is not compassion.”

But the local news crew had bad news for Kwasman: the kids on the bus weren’t migrants. They belonged to the Marana school district and were headed to the YMCA’s Triangle Y Camp. Reporter Will Pitts said he could see the children laughing and taking photos of the news crews with their iPhones. “Do you know that was a bus with YMCA kids?” Brahm Resnick, of the Arizona Republic asked Kwasman. Kwasman replied, “They were sad too.”

Kwasman is one of three Republican candidates running for the nomination in Arizona’s first district. Watch the full video of his interview with Resnick here.

They want to control the story. Our readers don’t let them.

Powerful forces are working to control the narrative, rewrite history, and keep you in the dark. That’s why the Mother Jones newsroom is fiercely independent, not backed by billionaires or bending to political whims.

But we can’t do this work without you.

Our nonprofit newsroom is funded by our readers. Each donation helps strengthen our work, so we can continue to investigate and publish, no matter what an authoritarian-minded administration wants the media to say.

Stand with us. Make a gift today.

They want to control the story. Our readers don’t let them.

Powerful forces are working to control the narrative, rewrite history, and keep you in the dark. That’s why the Mother Jones newsroom is fiercely independent, not backed by billionaires or bending to political whims.

But we can’t do this work without you.

Our nonprofit newsroom is funded by our readers. Each donation helps strengthen our work, so we can continue to investigate and publish, no matter what an authoritarian-minded administration wants the media to say.

Stand with us. Make a gift today.

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate