At a Southern California school bus stop in August, a woman met a group of border-crossers. Soon, a totally different story swept the internet. The woman told the migrants that the road "can be dangerous for you. Watch out for the buses.” The migrants mistakenly thought they could board an arriving school bus, but the mother warned them, "This isn't a public bus. This is a school bus. It's not for you." Hearing this, the group stopped advancing, the woman told USA Today. The group never got close to the vehicle, and never attempted to board. On the internet, the story soon took on a life of its own. The local school superintendent, Liz Bystedt, heard about what happened from the district’s maintenance and transportation director, who had learned about it from the driver of the school bus.
She emailed parents that, "If there is a group of migrants at a bus stop, we will drive right by to the next stop.”
Freelance journalist Amy Reichert posted a screenshot of the message to her almost 10,000 followers on X with the siren emoji and a message: “URGENT.” Another X user then posted, "The migrants are trying to force their way onto school buses in San Diego.” Far-right MAGA influencer George Behizy then tweeted, "BREAKING: A group of illegal migrants in San Diego County, California tried to hijack TWO school buses full of Elementary & Middle school kids from the Jamul-Dulzura Union District on Highway 94. Border Czar Kamala is RESPONSIBLE.” Behizy’s post was quickly picked up by other far-right accounts, which repeated the false hijacking claim to their millions of followers. From there, it was a quick jump to the owner of X himself: Elon Musk. At 10:43 a.m. on Aug. 29, the morning after the incident, Musk reposted an @EndWokeness post claiming to his almost 200 million followers that there had been a hijacking by “illegal aliens.” “When is enough enough?” he asked.