A California sheriff who was featured in a new ad touting Kamala Harris’s alleged toughness on illegal immigrants while serving as a prosecutor and state attorney general is lashing out at the vice president, claiming she used his likeness without his permission and completely out of context.
“In light of a recent political ad put out by Kamala Harris featuring Sheriff [Mike] Boudreaux, as well as other local law enforcement, the Sheriff wants to make it abundantly clear that his image is being used without his permission, and he does NOT endorse Harris for President or any other political office,” said Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux in a statement sent to Fox News Digital.
Boudreaux has dedicated 37 years to the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office and currently holds the position of president of the California State Sheriffs’ Association. The video footage featured in the political ad was recorded in 2013 in California’s Central Valley during Harris’s tenure as the California attorney general. The ad attempts to portray Harris as a hawk, claiming that, “as Vice President, she backed the toughest border control bill in decades.”
Boudreaux called the day Harris visited in 2013 “smoke and mirrors.” “We were in the green room. She never came in and said hello to any of us. She walked up front, gave her presser, literally walked out, never said hi to any of us,” said Boudreaux. “I’m disgusted because, you know, she didn’t shake hands. She didn’t say hello. And she’s taken credit for all this work that the locals did.”
“As Attorney General, Kamala Harris undercut efforts by California law enforcement officials to stop criminals from flooding our state with guns and drugs across the border,” the sheriff wrote. “She repeatedly defunded and shuttered task forces designed to protect our residents, leaving the Valley and our state vulnerable,” he continued. “Kamala’s sad attempt to paint herself as tough on the border by implying my support – and the support of neighboring law enforcement leaders – is pathetic.”
“When you see that advertisement, if you do a little research, you’ll find that what she’s (Harris) touting goes completely against what was happening at the time,” Boudreaux reportedly said. “I do not support her. A politician crowding the podium at a press conference clearly hasn’t solved our border crisis,” Boudreaux added in his GSJ statement. “Neither has Kamala Harris.”
Harris has been getting hammered over policies she supported or implemented as Joe Biden’s second-in-command, especially over her role as the de facto “border czar” following years of record illegal immigration that has flooded American cities and led to an increase in crime. That includes a retired Border Patrol chief who confirmed last week that Harris never spoke to him, even after she was tasked to lead a major facet of the immigration crisis.
Retired chief Rodney Scott, who headed the agency during the final year of the Trump administration and the first seven months of the Biden administration, reported that policy briefings with the White House ceased entirely when the current administration took office. This lack of communication persisted despite Harris’s appointment by the White House to tackle the “root causes” of illegal immigration from Central America, the Daily Caller reports.
“Absolutely not,” Scott said to the Daily Caller when asked if Harris ever personally spoke with him during his time leading the Border Patrol. “As soon as the [Biden-Harris] administration came in, we were basically told in no uncertain terms that if they wanted our opinions, they would ask, but they never asked. At no time did Biden or Harris ever ask to meet with or get briefed by U.S. Border Patrol,” Scott continued. “No meetings at all.”
Scott also confirmed that the lack of communication continued even after the White House appointed Harris in March 2021 to address the “root causes” of illegal migration from Central America, which constitutes a significant portion of illegal border crossings. Although Harris and her allies have recently dismissed the “border czar” title given to her by the media, Scott argues that she was still assigned a clear mandate to tackle a major aspect of the immigration crisis—an effort he believes she has failed to deliver on.
“It was very clear to us and everyone else that she was appointed to actually take the lead and spearhead an initiative on border security,” Scott said. “One of the facets was on the root causes. So if you only focus on the root causes, she went down to Central America, and the countries that she talked about on her one and only trip, the illegal immigration from those countries like doubled or tripled,” the retired chief explained. “She still failed miserably, and there was no follow-up.”