Photojournalistic images shape our understanding of sociopolitical events. The ways in which humans are depicted in images may have far-reaching consequences for our attitudes towards them, their well-being and our sociopolitical systems. Here, we focus on the refugee crisis to understand how exposure to the dominant visual framing, which depicts refugees in large groups, affects their dehumanization and the resulting political consequences. Across nine studies (N-total: 3,072), exposure to images of large groups of refugees, especially when depicted in a sea context, resulted in greater implicit dehumanization, as compared with exposure to images depicting small groups. This visual framing was also explicitly evaluated as more dehumanizing independently from textual information. Importantly, after viewing images of large groups, participants showed increased preference for a more dominant and less trustworthy political leader and reduced support for pro-refugees policies, highlighting the political consequences of such visual exposure.