MIDLAND COUNTY, Texas — At a press conference held before his meet and greet at The Rusty Bucket BBQ and Tavern, Midland County Sheriff candidate Rory McKinney claimed that an ad run by the current Midland County Sheriff, David Criner, was misleading and construed his words.
According to the ad, Criner claims that McKinney was in favor of turning Midland into a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants, using a sound clip from a podcast interview conducted on January 8th to support the argument.
McKinney claims that his words were taken out of context.
“I urge people to go and look at that; look at the entirety of the interview," McKinney said. "Mr. Criner just took bits and pieces of that interview and used that to create the commercial.”
McKinney says that he doesn't have time to partake in mudslinging, as he is more focused on his own campaign and vision.
“We're more concerned about getting our vision out and how we're going to run the Midland County Sheriff's Office for the employees," McKinney said. "We're more concerned about getting our vision out for the public and how we're going to lower crime rate. So, we don't have we don't have time to play dirty politics, nor would we anyway. We're not politicians, we’re lawmen.”
McKinney affirmed that his vision for the city does not include turning Midland into a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants.
“Sanctuary cities are definitely not for Midland County or any other city throughout the whole United States, I don't think that we should have sanctuary cities," McKinney said. "If people come over here legally, then that's different, but if we find people that are illegal, then they need to be deported."
McKinney also described his plan for dealing with human trafficking and illegal immigration, which includes seeing the problem himself and creating a plan of action.
“That's one thing I want to do when I'm elected is actually go to the border and get with the sheriff's there and actually see it firsthand so that I can get a vision of what's really going on and then bring that back here to the employees within the county," McKinney said.
Sheriff Criner was unable to return NewsWest 9's request for comment regarding the ad and its content.