Michael Aboud, chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party, says he thought he was sitting for a serious documentary about undocumented immigrants crossing the border. Instead, he turned up on screen in Sacha Baron Cohen's new mockumentary comedy, caught up in a fictional storyline involving a drone, a pregnant woman and a lifelike prosthetic baby. Aboud says he plans to sue.
The film, Ali G: Who Iz I?, was written and directed by Cohen and was scheduled for release in theaters on Oct. 23 by Amazon MGM Studios, according to Apple TV, which lists the film's runtime at one hour and 29 minutes with an R rating. Cohen is known for playing fictional characters like Borat and Ali G in satirical mockumentaries that use real people, sometimes without the subjects' knowledge of how the footage will ultimately be used, as reported by KVIA.
According to the Guardian, Aboud is shown taking part in a training program with Cohen's character Col Erran Morad, who, per the Guardian's report, recruits Aboud to help stop a fictional South American drug kingpin's baby from being born on U.S. soil. In the film, Aboud and Joshua Loudermilk are depicted abducting the kingpin's pregnant girlfriend and taking her to a remote medical facility, where she gives birth to what the Guardian describes as a lifelike prosthetic. Per that same report, Aboud then takes the decision to drop the baby from a drone at a substantial height so it never touches American ground.
He Says He Thought It Was a Documentary
Aboud told the Guardian he received an email from a production company in the summer of 2025 inviting him to a gathering about immigration and its effects on communities. He said he flew to California believing he was heading into a serious discussion about the border, according to the El Paso Times. “They claimed that this would be a documentary about the illegals crossing the border,” Aboud told the Guardian.
Per the Guardian's report, Aboud was unaware he was participating in anything other than a nonfiction film, and he reportedly only learned it was a comedy after the Guardian contacted him. The El Paso Times reports that as the day's activities grew stranger, Aboud declined to wear a prop resembling underwear with a pistol attached. “When I was asked to put it on, I said, 'hell no, I'm not going to wear that,'” he told the outlet. The newspaper's report also notes he began moving away from the camera as things escalated.
Aboud Says He Walked Away and Now Plans to Sue
The El Paso Times reports that Aboud refused to take part in any further filming after that day in California and flew back home to El Paso. He maintains he never signed an agreement authorizing his participation before filming began, and he has publicly called Cohen “a liar and a pervert,” according to the Guardian. “I plan to sue him,” Aboud told the outlet.
KVIA reports that ABC-7 reached out to Aboud for an interview about his reaction to being involved in the film and also contacted the Republican Party of Texas for comment. The El Paso Times notes that NewsCord launched a campaign urging movie theaters worldwide not to screen the film, saying more than 56,000 emails had been sent or were set to be sent to major theater chains as of Wednesday. The film's world premiere was held Oct. 14, per the Guardian.
Not the First Time Cohen's Targets Have Spoken Out
Aboud's complaints echo a pattern that followed Cohen's earlier films. A 2020 Variety report examined how unsuspecting participants in Borat 2 felt afterward about having appeared in that film, a dynamic that has resurfaced with Who Iz I? CBS News reported that in the new film, Cohen plays Ali G alongside a former Mossad agent character, with both interacting with unsuspecting members of the public caught on camera.
