Ads with volunteer as border agent are criticized
AUSTIN — Tony Gonzales, the Republican candidate in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, enlisted a volunteer to dress as a Border Patrol agent in campaign ads during his primary race — a move some experts called unethical and possibly illegal.
In two videos circulated by the Gonzales campaign as recently as mid-July, and one in June sponsored by U.S. Rep. Will Hurd’s political action committee, Gonzales was shown walking along the Texas-Mexico border with a man who appears to be in the agency’s familiar green uniform, complete with regulation ball cap and “U.S. Border Patrol” legible on a shoulder patch. The pair shake hands.
In one ad, the scenes played as Gonzales pledged to “secure our borders, finish the wall and end sanctuary city policies.” They were designed to appeal to Republican voters in a hard-fought primary and subsequent runoff in the race to replace Hurd, R-San Antonio, who did not seek another term. Gonzales faces Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones in the Nov. 3 election.
The website for the Border Pa
trol’s parent agency notes that a federal law bans the use of any symbols, emblems, seals or badges associated with it “in connection with any advertisement … where such use could reasonably be interpreted as conveying the false impression that such advertisement, solicitation, business activity or product is in any manner approved, endorsed, sponsored or authorized by, or associated with, U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”
The Supreme Court has created broad protections for political speech, so any attempt to enforce this provision against the Gonzales ad would face a high hurdle. Gonzales campaign officials say the provision applies only to commercial speech.
Questioning the ads as problematic “rests on a statute prohibiting people from using government emblems and symbols to sell goods and services,” Gonzales campaign counsel Chris Gober said in an email. “It does not, however, prohibit the use of government emblems and symbols for political debate — a fact supported by Supreme Court precedents — which is why the campaign remains confident that its advertisement complies with all legal and ethical standards.”
Legal or not, experts say
the imagery in the ad wrongly implied that the agency supports Gonzales’ candidacy.
“Any time you make an agency appear to be an arm of one party or another, it makes it harder for that agency to do their job,” said Peter Loge, the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University.
Past ads from others
Gonzales campaign officials said a volunteer played the part of the officer. They pointed to other candidates who have featured law enforcement officials in political ads.
A 2010 John McCain ad shows the late U.S. senator walking along the ArizonaMexico border with a sheriff, and a 2006 ad from former Gov. Rick Perry depicts him touring the Rio Grande with local law enforcement officers.
Loge said Gonzales’ appearance with the fake officer is “obviously something he shouldn’t have done.” Such ads can politicize public servants, he said, and can give voters the wrong impression that an agency has a political affiliation.
Similar appearances have likely landed in political ads before, Loge said, especially as lines between politics and public office continue to blur under President Donald Trump’s administration. Trump’s use of the White House as a setting to accept the Republican
Party’s nomination for another term as president prompted criticism last week.
Trump also has run at least one political ad featuring Border Patrol officers, though the clips in that 2019 video feature real agents. The officers participated in a public event with the president in 2018, when he inspected prototypes for U.S.-Mexico border barriers in San Diego.
The words “Customs and Border Protection” do not appear in the Gonzales videos, but the Border Patrol patch on the actor’s shoulder is similar to one that real CBP agents wear.
“It certainly appears to be an official uniform, but even creating the impression is, from an ethical viewpoint, highly problematic for Gonzales,” said Cris Feldman, a longtime political attorney based in Houston who represents the Harris County Democratic Party.
“This appears to be an attempt to unlawfully use CBP as a prop in a campaign ad,” and the agency and the Federal Elections Commission should examine it, he added.
Austin attorney Roger
Borgelt, a former vice chair of the Travis County Republican Party, said the Gonzales campaign “is trying to imply some kind of approval by the Border Patrol by having him shaking hands with this guy in his official uniform.”
Any potential violation would have to be enforced by the federal agency, he said, adding, “It looks like the Border Patrol could go after that.”
Some ads taken down
Shortly after Hearst Newspapers asked the campaign about the ads, the videos were no longer available on Gonzales’ official campaign website, and the YouTube account housing them was closed. The advertisements are still accessible on the candidate’s Facebook page and on other YouTube channels.
Matt Mackowiak, Gonzales’ campaign spokesman, said the campaign has not taken the ads down and that he is “not sure what is going on with YouTube.”
CBP officials did not respond to requests for comment beginning Monday but said the agency’s legal team was reviewing the matter. The FEC declined to comment, citing a federal provision requiring confidentiality “in light of the possibility that this issue may come before the agency in an enforcement capacity.”
Conservatives on social media also have called out Gonzales’ use of the faux border agent in political ads. In February, El Conservador asked whether the portrayal was deceptive or illegal and called on Gonzales to explain.
Gonzales’ Republican primary opponent, Raul Reyes, also questioned the ads in a short campaign video.
“Mr. Gonzales wants you to believe he has some leverage with Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Border Patrol when he truly does not,” Reyes said in the ad. “Folks, Mr. Gonzales is staging the impersonation of a federal officer. This is a serious crime.”
Gonzales, who was endorsed by Trump, narrowly beat Reyes in the July runoff. Reyes lost by roughly 40 votes and paid for a recount but called it off in mid-August after seeing his opponent’s lead hold.
A competitive district not dominated by either party — rare among U.S. House seats — the 23rd Congressional District stretches from San Antonio to El Paso and covers 800 miles of the border.
Hurd’s PAC, the Future Leaders Fund, featured a screenshot of the fake agent in an ad promoting Gonzales.
“After over three years of running for Congress, the voters in Texas’ 23rd District are still looking for any kind of image that shows Gina Jones and the radical left are willing to stop illegal immigration and secure our border, which is what Tony Gonzales is displaying in this public image,” said Justin Hollis, the PAC’s executive director.
Jones’ campaign deferred comment to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whose spokesman, Avery Jaffe, said the use of the fake border patrol agent “isn’t surprising.” Jaffe pointed to another run-in Gonzales had with federal law last year when he refunded two corporate donations to his campaign. (Campaigns are prohibited from accepting contributions from corporations.)
“He’ll do anything to embrace President Trump and his wasteful, ineffective border wall that is stealing private land from families and raiding money from Texas military bases,” Jaffe said in an email.
“(The statute in question) does not, however, prohibit the use of government emblems and symbols for political debate — a fact supported by Supreme Court precedents — which is why the campaign remains confident that its advertisement complies with all legal and ethical standards.”
Chris Gober, campaign counsel for Tony Gonzales