By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square
A California sheriff who has long been battling cartel and transnational crime in his county is pushing back against the Kamala Harris campaign after it used his image in a newly released political ad.
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux and other law enforcement officials were depicted in a new Harris campaign ad that included video from a decade-old event when she was the California attorney general.
When learning of their images being used in the video, he said, “We do not support Kamala Harris. She has a history of not supporting law enforcement.”
The new television ad, paid for by Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, states, “Kamala Harris has spent decades fighting violent crimes. As a border state prosecutor, she took on drug cartels and jailed gang members for smuggling weapons and drugs across the border.”
As vice president, the ad says “she backed the toughest border control bill in decades,” referring to a U.S. Senate bill that went nowhere under Democratic control. Senate Democrats refused to consider what Republicans argue is the strongest border bill in decades, which the House passed.
“And as president, she will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking. Fixing the border is tough, so is Kamala Harris,” the ad says.
Early in his term, President Joe Biden name Harris his “border czar,” but both have faced widespread criticism for the millions of foreign national who have illegally crossed the border since 2021.
Boudreaux, who has served for more than 37 years in the sheriff’s office and is president of the California State Sheriff’s Association, has openly criticized the policies of Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
After a mother and her 10-month-old baby were among six killed in an "execution-style," “cartel-style” murder spree last year, Boudreaux said 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 featuring former President Donald Trump supporting law enforcement. He also blasted Harris on campaign social media platforms. In one statement, he said he wanted “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.”
He told Fox News that Harris’ ad was “deceiving to say the least” because after law enforcement officers worked for years investigating a multinational drug trafficking organization operation with ties to Mexican cartels and prison gangs, Harris “showed up for a sound bite. She didn't shake anyone's hands and she quickly left the briefing room.”
The ad depicting him and his law enforcement counterparts “as standing alongside Kamala Harris was truly disheartening. We do not support Kamala Harris. She has a history of not supporting law enforcement,” he said. “I’m looking for someone who's 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 “undercut efforts by California law enforcement officials to stop criminals from flooding our state with guns and drugs across the border. She repeatedly defunded and shuttered task forces designed to protect our residents, leaving the Valley and our state vulnerable. Kamala’s sad attempt to paint herself as tough on the border by implying my support – and the support of neighbor and law enforcement leaders – is pathetic. A politician crowding the podium at a press conference clearly hasn't solved our border crisis. Neither has Kamala Harris.”
With the success of Texas' border security mission, Operation Lone Star, pushing transnational criminal activity west, California has become "the new epicenter” of the border crisis, The Center Square reported.
This is after Biden and Harris claimed for three years there was no border crisis. In the months leading up to the election, they claimed their efforts reduced the number of illegal border crossers to less than those under the Trump administration. Data reported by their administration tells a different story, with records being broken every month and year, The Center Square reported.
Among them include the California National Guard alone in one year seizing enough fentanyl to kill the entire world population twice over and Border Patrol agents testifying before Congress to increased security threats in California because of Biden-Harris policies.
The greatest number of Chinese nationals have illegally entered the country under Biden-Harris, with the majority apprehended in California. They included those who broke into U.S. military bases, were arrested months later in Texas for money laundering, or set up cartel-linked money laundering operations in California.
More than 500,000 foreign nationals were apprehended illegally entering California or reported evading capture in fiscal 2023, up from over 300,000 in fiscal 2022, the greatest numbers in recorded history, The Center Square exclusively reported.
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