A much-reported story about American spring breakers chanting "Build the Wall" while vacationing in Cancun lacks any concrete proof, according to a reporter on Wednesday who looked into the incident.
Anaximandro Amable Burga, a Peruvian man honeymooning at the popular Mexican tourist destination, made the allegation in a March Facebook post. Amable claimed that while he was on a cruise in Cancun a group of inebriated Americans got on the boat and began to chant the popular anti-immigration phrase "build the wall."
From there, the local English-language Yucatan Times discovered the story and denounced the Americans in question on March 17. The story got even more legs when it was picked up by the Drudge Report, amongst other outlets like Yahoo, Fox News, and the Huffington Post.
But left-leaning UK paper The Guardian did what other outlets didn't: they sent a reporter to Cancun to look into Amable's claims. Their man on the ground Rory Carroll found there was no evidence it ever happened.
Carroll reports that in general, locals disputed the notion that there was a rash of boorish Trump supporters following the election.
"Trump? The breakers don’t really mention him," said one nightclub promoter. "If they do it’s usually to say ‘F*** Trump’."
"Interviews with almost two dozen bouncers, barmen, cleaners, waiters and other service staff yielded similar responses: none had encountered Trump-tinged sentiments, spotted Make America Great caps or heard chants about the wall," Carroll writes.
The Guardian tracked down the tourist pirate ship the incident supposedly took place on, and could find no one who could remember the wall chant. Of the eleven workers interviewed, eight said they had heard nothing about the chant, and three said they had heard about the incident but didn't actually see it.
The best the staff could suggest was that the chant was brief and happened when not of them were around. "I’d have thrown them to the sharks," joked one.
Amable did not answer any questions about the incident.