US Presidential candidate Donald Trump has released his campaign's first ad, and it's pretty much exactly as you expect—a gruff narrator talks immigration, a border wall and the threat of Islamic extremism as various images like the San Bernadino shooters and migrants crossing a border flash across the screen.
But there appears to be a small problem. The clip allegedly showing migrants running across the southern border of the US, is actually in Morocco.
According to fact checking website Politifact, the video clip, which pops up about halfway through the ad and shows dozens of people running across a border, is footage from a small Spanish enclave in Morocco, some 5,000 miles away from America's southern border.
Polotifact reports the clip first appeared on an Italian television network called RepubblicaTV on May 3, 2014 during a report about Moroccans fleeing across the border to Melilla, one of two Spanish-held enclaves off the country's coast. Mogrants in this zone use the crossing to enter territory technically under the authority of the European Union.
The network said the clip was released by the Interior Ministry in Madrid and aired a description of the footage along with a timestamp of May 1, 2014. Translated by Politifact, it said the clip showed an "onslaught of hundreds of migrants to the wall that separates the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco. About 800 tried to cross the border on May 1st. Those who failed to escape the control of the Civil Guard were hanging on the barriers for six hours before being rejected."
Of course, by the time the clip made it to Trump's campaign trail, the timestamp, the description and the network name were removed. But luckily there's a version readily available on YouTube. See it below, along with Trump's ad.
