15-07-2025
Fact Check: Texas sheriff didn't promise to help Mexican rescuers get green cards
Claim:
In mid-July 2025, Kerr County Sheriff Larry L. Leitha said he would apply for a green card for the Mexican rescue team that saved his family during deadly Texas flooding..
Rating:
In mid-July 2025, numerous videos spread on social media claiming that Kerr County Sheriff Larry L. Leitha announced that he would apply for green cards — a step toward becoming naturalized U.S. citizens — for a Mexican rescue team that saved his family during the Texas floods.
One such video appeared on X (archived) in the style of a breaking news bulletin. It had amassed more than 824,000 views as of this writing.
The text on the footage read, "BREAKING NEWS," and stated: "Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leda said he would apply for a green card for the Mexican rescue team that saved his family." The X post's caption read:
Maybe, just maybe, all is not lost…
Kerr County Sheriff Leda—best known for targeting immigrants—just announced he's applying for green cards for the Mexican rescue team that saved his family.
The irony writes itself. Maybe the regime should take notes: immigrants save lives. Your cruelty doesn't.
Similar versions of the video appeared on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, often showing clips of Leitha speaking at a news conference (see screenshot below).
(Google search results)
However, there was no evidence that Leitha ever made such a statement. No official press releases from the Kerr County Sheriff's Office mention any such promise and no reputable news outlets reported on Leitha making such an announcement. Recordings and transcripts of his public appearances do not reference green cards and Mexican rescue teams. Additionally, the narration and voice-over in the videos sharing the claim appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence software. Therefore, we have rated this claim as false.
There were several indicators that the videos were spreading a false narrative. One sign was the repeated misnaming of the sheriff, which would likely not happen on a bulletin by a reputable news media outlet. Leitha was incorrectly referred to as "Leda" and "Lida" in all of the above videos, whereas his actual name is Larry L. Leitha.
The narration, which was also used in all the videos but in some instances featured the start being cut off, also displayed signs of being AI-generated. The pacing was often unnatural and the speaker's intonation was inconsistent. When analyzed with Resemble AI, a deepfake detection tool, the narration was identified as "Fake."
(Resemble AI)
Most videos started with a sentence that did not make sense: "Kerr County Sheriff Larry Lyda says to apply for a green card for the Mexican rescue team that rescued his family and that they will not be restricted from entering or exiting the U.S. border in the future."
Likewise, the videos all featured a sentence near the end that was incoherent: "Sheriff Lida could no longer look at his neighbors across the river the way that he used to that human life has no nationality about a people the Mexican people."
The videos also repeated a claim that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum personally sent specialized rescue teams to Texas (emphasis ours):
The sheriff's daughter and two young grandchildren were tragically trapped, and when the local rescue effort was overwhelmed, a specialized rescue team, sent by the president of Mexico, marched across the border to help.
Snopes previously addressed that specific rumor, explaining that there was no evidence such an intervention occurred. During a July 7 news conference, Sheinbaum clarified that the aid came from volunteer firefighters in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, who traveled to Texas independently.
Additionally, Google search results produced no credible evidence that Leitha made any public statements about issuing Mexican rescuers green cards in connection to the floods or his family being affected (archived).
Neither of the July 5 and July 9 news conferences, nor other briefings published online, contained any statements resembling the claim in the social media videos. Likewise, the C-SPAN transcript of the July 9 news briefing also showed that Leitha did not discuss green cards and Mexican nationals or any related topics. Similarly, the Kerr County Sheriff's Office website contained no evidence suggesting the claim was true.
If Leitha had publicly announced such an unprecedented promise to help a Mexican rescue team obtain green cards, it would have been widely reported by credible news outlets. However, this was not the case (archived).
Fact-checking outlets Lead Stories and PolitiFact also debunked this rumor. Lead Stories noted that the narration said the Mexican rescue team "marched across the border to help" and that Leitha described them as "his neighbors across the river," despite Kerr County being more than 80 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, which would have required a multiday march.
Snopes has fact-checked numerous claims about the Texas floods. For example, we looked into a video that allegedly showed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott saying: "I support ICE deporting the Mexicans who helped during the floods." We also debunked a rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump said that he hoped "the dead are immigrants, not Americans."
- YouTube. Accessed 15 Jul. 2025.
---. Accessed 15 Jul. 2025.
---. Accessed 15 Jul. 2025.
About the Kerr County Sheriff's Office. Accessed 15 Jul. 2025.
Briceño, Maria. "No, Texas Sheriff Is Not Giving Green Cards to Mexican Rescu." @politifact, Accessed 15 Jul. 2025.
Fact Check: FAKE "Sheriff Larry Leda Applying For Green Card For Mexican Rescue Team" Video Misspells Name -- No Media Reports | Lead Stories. 13 Jul. 2025,
Ibrahim, Nur. "Trump Didn't Say He Hoped Texas Flood Victims Were Immigrants." Snopes, 14 Jul. 2025,
Latest News. Accessed 15 Jul. 2025.
Texas Officials Brief on Flooding in Kerrville | Video | Accessed 15 Jul. 2025.
Wrona, Aleksandra. "Clarifying Claim ICE Deported Mexican Rescue Workers Who Helped in Texas Floods." Snopes, 14 Jul. 2025,
---. "Did Mexican President Send Rescue Teams to Texas after Deadly Flooding?" Snopes, 9 Jul. 2025,
