Is a viral video a real news report about a "Sheriff Larry Leda" saying he'd apply for a green card for the Mexican rescue team that saved his family? No, that's not true: The footage in the viral video came from a press conference during which the phrase "green card" was not said and the caption in the video spelled Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha's name wrong. There are no media reports about any of the events involving a daughter and two young grandchildren mentioned in the video.
One example of the viral video (archived here) was uploaded on TikTok on July 12, 2025 with following description:
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leda he would apply for a green card for the Mexican rescue team that saved his family #tiktok #usa🇺🇸 #fouyou #breakingnews #news
This is what the video looked like
@motherp086 Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leda he would apply for a green card for the Mexican rescue team that saved his family #tiktok #usa🇺🇸 #fouyou #breakingnews #news ♬ original sound - user4665034028368
And this was the thumbnail of the video:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Sun Jul 13 08:08:16 2025 UTC)
A transcript of the voiceover in the video reads:
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leda 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 US border in the future.
This statement caused a public outcry because Sheriff Leda, who was known for being tough on immigrants, has finally broken his silence by standing in front of the camera with a solemn look on his face and saying I owe them my family's life. No one would have expected that to come from Sheriff Leda and Kerr County was one of the hardest hit areas.
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. Relying on extraordinary courage, the team managed to reach the isolated farmhouse and safely rescued all those trapped, including the sheriff's family.
Sheriff Leda could no longer look at his neighbors across the river the way he used to, that human life has no nationality about a people, the Mexican people, They showed the world once again that when it all falls apart, they're the first ones to start rebuilding.
Besides the odd phrasing there are a number of errors and inconsistencies in the story. The most obvious one is that the Sheriff of Kerr County, Texas is not named "Larry Leda" but "Larry L. Leitha" (source, archived here).
A second oddity is that the story says the Mexican rescue team "marched across the border to help" and that the Sheriff described them as "his neighbors across the river". However, Kerr County, TX is over 80 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, which would imply a multi-day march and quite a stretch of the term "neighbor".
(Image source: Google Maps)
The video opened with footage from a July 5 press conference (archived here) that was mirrored, likely in an attempt to avoid copyright claims, but the transcript of that press conference on YouTube did not contain the phrase "green card".
Searches of Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) did not bring up any stories mentioning "Sheriff Larry Leitha", "green card" and "Mexican" either.
Lead Stories has reached out to the Kerr County Sheriff's office and will update this story when a reply is received.
