In today’s upside down world, Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) delivered a list of demands that must be met before Mexico will help with stopping the flow of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
These demands were a part of a press conference on Friday. It was about a week after Secretary of State Blinken and DHS Secretary Mayorkas went to Mexico City to meet with AMLO. Must ado was made about the meeting because the Biden border crisis has been ignored by the administration. This was obviously a trip planned for photo ops and meaningless statements in an election year. Nothing came from the meeting, as expected, except some statements with flowery language implying that everyone is on the same page and will work together. No one who has been paying attention to the situation believed that.
While House Republicans are forcing Democrats to the bargaining table on a spending bill that ties border security to more money for Ukraine and Israel. Biden is particularly antsy about giving more billions to Ukraine to set on fire. In the meantime, Biden and Mayorkas want you to think they are doing something about the border crisis that has developed into a full-blown catastrophe.
Blinken and Mayorkas asked that Mexico increase it assistance in stopping illegal immigration. Was Mexico already helping? Color me skeptical. AMLO has not always been a partner in good faith. He always focuses on demanding more financial aid and more work permits for Mexicans crossing the border. He isn’t concerned about the law and order aspects of enforcing a sovereign border. He’s a socialist. He frequently voices his opposition to border security measures put in place by Texas Governor Abbott. (To be fair, Biden and his DOJ do the same.)
As it turns out, AMLO has responded. Then a Biden administration official responded.
Lopez Obrador responded by demanding the U.S. give $20 billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries, grant work visas to 10 million Hispanics who have worked in the U.S. for at least 10 years, end sanctions against Venezuela and halt the blockade of Cuba
A senior Biden administration official responded to those demands in a statement to NBC News, saying Lopez Obrador “has a very ambitious agenda. For some of these things, we would need Congress to act. We share the vision that we need to lift up the region.”
I guess AMLO is feeling emboldened to make U.S. foreign policy. Who is he to make demands about U.S. sanctions on Venezuela or a blockade of Cuba? He wants all the work permits so illegals will send more money back to Mexico and he wants blanket amnesty, too.
Texas passed a new immigration law that allows law enforcement – not solely Border Patrol – to arrest those suspected of being in Texas illegally. If they refuse to go back across the border, they will be jailed. It carries misdemeanor charges for illegal entry. AMLO is fighting this law, which doesn’t go into effect until March, as is the Biden administration.
AMLO got carried away and went into political analysis about the new law.
“The Texas governor acts that way because he wants to be the Republican vice presidential candidate and wants to win popularity with these measures,” Lopez Obrador said in late December. “He’s not going to win anything. On the contrary, he is going to lose support because there are a lot of Mexicans in Texas, a lot of migrants.”
Umm. “Migrants” implies they are not citizens or even here legally. They aren’t supposed to be voting in elections. Abbott is not losing support over the Biden border crisis because it has gotten so bad with historically high numbers that immigration is now a top election issue. That is why the Biden administration is suddenly pretending to be working on solutions after ignoring the situation for three years.
If Biden wanted to secure the border he would reverse everything he has done since day one in the White House. He deliberately tore up Trump’s executive orders and agreements with Mexico and other countries. Biden ended deportations and put a freeze on enforcing laws already on the books. The open border is intentional. A strong president would not be going hat-in-hand to plead with AMLO to do the right thing and stop the invasion of illegal immigrants.
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