(NewsNation) — A new campaign ad touting Vice President Kamala Harris’ border security credentials has potentially misleading claims about her record.
The ad, which aims to bolster Harris’ image on immigration issues, depicts her as a tough prosecutor who took on drug cartels and cross-border smuggling.
However, our NewsNation fact-check reveals several exaggerations and mischaracterizations.
While the ad portrays Harris as a “border state prosecutor,” her role as California’s Attorney General from 2011 to 2017 primarily involved state-level criminal justice matters. The ad’s implication that she was directly involved in border cartel cases appears to stretch the truth.
Claims about Harris jailing gang members for cross-border smuggling also seem inflated. While she did prosecute gang members, these cases mostly involved local drug offenses rather than international smuggling operations.
The ad touts Harris’ support for “the toughest border control bill in decades.”
While she backed a bipartisan bill to increase border security funding, it was rejected by most Senate Republicans.
The hiring of additional border agents, mentioned in the ad, is part of the broader Biden administration strategy rather than a specific Harris initiative.
Harris’ efforts against fentanyl trafficking and human smuggling, highlighted in the ad, are part of a larger government strategy involving multiple agencies, not solely driven by the Vice President.
The commercial’s portrayal of Harris as a central figure in border security management is misleading.
While she was assigned a diplomatic role focusing on migration’s root causes in Central America in 2021, direct oversight of border security falls under the Department of Homeland Security, not the Vice President’s office.