“My son Joshua was 18 years old when he was murdered by an illegal alien. He was tortured, strangled to death and then set on fire. When I hear Kamala Harris making a joke about the border and just laughing it off, it’s painful. Kamala Harris was in charge of securing our border and she’s done nothing. If Kamala Harris is elected president, it’ll get worse. If it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours.”
— Laura Wilkerson, speaking in an ad by the pro-Trump group Preserve America PAC, released Aug. 21
Preserve America PAC is a pro-Trump group, largely funded by billionaire Miriam Adelson, that expects to spend $100 million in this election cycle, according to one news report. This ad, which comes in 30-second and 60-second versions, links the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, to the murder of a teenager nearly 14 years ago.
Harris at the time was the district attorney for San Francisco. The murder took place in Texas. But if viewers aren’t looking carefully at the date of the tombstone depicted at the start of the ad, they could easily conclude that this murder happened during the Biden administration as a result of its border policies.
The Facts
The ad packs a punch because the only voice is that of an aggrieved mother, Laura Wilkerson, who chokes up at points.
“Josh was 18 and he was the baby of our family,” she says in the longer version of the ad. “He went to school one day and never came home, and that’s where our nightmare began. He was murdered by an illegal alien. He was tortured, strangled to death and then set on fire. He didn’t deserve to be murdered by somebody that should not have been in this country. I don’t want sympathy from you. I want our leaders to change this.”
In 2016, when Donald Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, his campaign ran a similar ad featuring Wilkerson talking about the death of her son. “Hillary Clinton’s border policy is going to allow people into the country just like the one that murdered my son,” Wilkerson said in the 2016 ad.
Wilkerson, who has been politically active for some time, testified on Capitol Hill in 2015 for stronger policies at the southern border.
Hermilo Moralez, a Belizean who arrived in the United States as a 10-year-old, was convicted of murder in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison in the 2010 beating death of Joshua Wilkerson, his classmate at an alternative education school, according to news reports. News reports at the time also said that, according to the police, the two had known each other for about five years.
Moralez was 19 at the time of the murder, which took place before the Obama administration implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that permitted undocumented children to remain in the United States as adults. Less than five months before the murder, Moralez was arrested on charges of stalking his girlfriend, but officials said it was unclear why Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) failed to identify him as an undocumented immigrant and deport him at that time.
After the introduction, both versions of the ad shift to attacking Harris on two false pretenses — that she was the “border czar” and that she made a joke about the border situation.
“When I hear Kamala Harris making a joke about the border and just laughing it off, it’s painful,” Laura Wilkerson says in the short version. “Kamala Harris was in charge of securing our border and she’s done nothing. If Kamala Harris is elected president, it’ll get worse.”
“Kamala Harris was given that charge and she didn’t do one thing about it,” Wilkerson says in the long version. “She thinks it’s a joke. It’s like a kick in the gut to my family.”
But Harris was not in charge of immigration issues, though she was given a role, and she certainly wasn’t a czar. Moreover, it’s false to claim she had “done nothing” or “didn’t do one thing about it.”
In 2021, President Joe Biden assigned Harris to manage the “root causes” strategy — essentially a diplomatic effort with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to stem migration from those countries. The efforts appear to have had some impact — border arrests from those countries dropped from 700,000 in the 2021 fiscal year to fewer than 500,000 in 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. The downward trend has continued in 2024. For instance, nearly 77,000 migrants from those countries crossed the border in June 2021 — and the figure dropped to 17,000 in July of this year.
But the problem shifted. Migrants surged from countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti — countries that were not part of the “root causes” strategy. In July, about 88,000 people from countries other than the three Harris oversaw were arrested at the border — though that is down from a peak of 239,000 in December. On June 4, Biden issued an emergency order to curb asylum access, and illegal crossings have dropped significantly since then.
As for the supposed joke, a Preserve America PAC source pointed to an exchange Harris had with NBC’s Lester Holt in June 2021 during a visit to Guatemala as part of her root-causes work. Holt twice asked her if she planned to visit the border. Harris offered a peevish response, with a bit of a scornful laugh, but it’s not really a joke — and she’s certainly not joking about the situation at the border, as the ad implies.
Harris: “I’m here in Guatemala today. At some point, we are going to the border; we’ve been to the border …”
Holt interjects: “You haven’t been to the border.”
She answers: “And I haven’t been to Europe. I don’t understand the point that you are making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border. … I care about what’s happened at the border. I’m in Guatemala because my focus is dealing with the root causes of migration.”
Asked why the ad would feature a murder that Harris was not associated with, the Preserve America PAC source pointed to this line in Wilkerson’s monologue: “I want our leaders to change this.”
The PAC did not provide an on-the-record statement or respond to a request to make Wilkerson available for an interview.
The Pinocchio Test
Wilkerson, having suffered the anguish of losing a child, is an advocate for tough policies on the southern border. But this is a highly misleading ad, especially the closing line: “If Kamala Harris is elected president, it’ll get worse. If it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours.”
The ad flashes an image of the tombstone at the start — and the longer version cites a 2010 news report — but Harris had no role in immigration when the tragedy happened. It also falsely claims she was responsible for border security and made a “joke” about it. The ad also ignores the fact that the border surge has all but ended in recent months as a result of tougher policies implemented by the Biden administration.
The tragic story of Joshua Wilkerson is recounted accurately, but the rest of the ad is mostly false, so it earns Three Pinocchios.
Three Pinocchios
(About our rating scale)
Send us facts to check by filling out this form
Sign up for The Fact Checker weekly newsletter
The Fact Checker is a verified signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network code of principles
