‘We don’t support her’: California sheriff pushes back against Harris border claims

By Bethany Blankley | Employee at The Center Square

(Worthy News) – A California sheriff who has long fought cartels and transnational crime in his county is opposing Kamala Harris’ campaign after his likeness was used in a recently released political ad.

Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux and other law enforcement officials were featured in a new Harris campaign ad that also featured video footage of an event that occurred a decade ago, when she was California’s attorney general.

When he learned that their images were used in the video, he said, “We do not support Kamala Harris. She has a history of not supporting law enforcement.”

The new TV ad, paid for by Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, states: “Kamala Harris has spent decades fighting violent crime. As a border state prosecutor, she took on drug cartels and jailed gang members for smuggling guns and drugs across the border.”

As vice president, the ad says she “supported the toughest border law in decades,” referring to a U.S. Senate bill that went nowhere under Democratic control. Senate Democrats refused to consider what Republicans say is the toughest border law in decades, which passed the House of Representatives.

“And as president, she’ll hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking. Fixing the border is tough, just like Kamala Harris,” the ad reads.

Early in his term, President Joe Biden appointed Harris as his “border czar,” but both have faced widespread criticism over the millions of foreigners who have crossed the border illegally since 2021.

Boudreaux, who has worked for the sheriff’s office for more than 37 years and is president of the California State Sheriff’s Association, has been openly critical of the policies of Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

After a mother and her 10-month-old baby were among six people killed in an “execution-style” and “cartel-style” massacre last year, Boudreaux said the gang and cartel violence was a result of California’s “soft-on-crime” approach, The Center Square reported.

Boudreaux, who recently ran for Congress and lost in a special election, ran a campaign ad supporting former President Donald Trump’s law enforcement. He also lashed out at Harris on campaign platforms on social media. In a statement, he said he wanted to “make it abundantly clear that his image is being used without his permission and that he does NOT endorse Harris for president or any other political office.”

He told Fox News that Harris’ ad was “misleading, to say the least,” because after law enforcement spent years investigating a multinational drug trafficking organization with ties to Mexican cartels and prison gangs, Harris “appeared for a sound bite. She didn’t shake anyone’s hand and quickly left the briefing room.”

The ad that depicted him and his law enforcement colleagues “as being next to Kamala Harris was really disheartening. We do not support Kamala Harris. She has a history of not supporting law enforcement,” he said. “I’m looking for someone who is going to support criminal justice and law enforcement. That is best represented by Donald Trump and not Kamala Harris.”

In another statement, he said that as attorney general, Harris “undermined the efforts of California law enforcement to stop criminals from flooding our state with guns and drugs across the border. She repeatedly defunded and shut down task forces designed to protect our residents, leaving the Valley and our state vulnerable. Kamala’s sad attempt to portray herself as a tough guy on the border by implying that I support her — and the support of her neighbors and law enforcement — is pathetic. A politician filling the podium at a press conference clearly did not solve our border crisis. Neither did Kamala Harris.”

With the success of Texas’ border security mission, Operation Lone Star, which drove transnational criminal activity westward, California has become the “new epicenter” of the border crisis, The Center Square reported.

This comes after Biden and Harris spent three years claiming there was no border crisis. In the months leading up to the election, they claimed their efforts were reducing the number of illegal border crossers to less than under the Trump administration. Data reported by their administration tells a different story, with records being broken every month and every year, The Center Square reported.

This includes the California National Guard seizing enough fentanyl in one year to kill the entire world population twice over, and Border Patrol testifying before Congress about increased security threats in California due to Biden and Harris’ policies.

The largest number of Chinese nationals have entered the country illegally under Biden-Harris, most of whom have been apprehended in California. This includes those who infiltrated U.S. military bases, were arrested months later in Texas for money laundering, or set up cartel-related money laundering operations in California.

In fiscal year 2023, more than 500,000 foreigners were apprehended entering California illegally or evading arrest, up from more than 300,000 in fiscal year 2022. These are the highest numbers in history, The Center Square reported exclusively.

Reprinted with permission from The Center Square.

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