The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, denied this Thursday, May 2, that his government has toughened immigration actions due to pressure from the current president of the United States, Joe Biden, or the previous one, Donald Trump (2017-2021).
“Is not that I do not allow myself to be pressured by anyone, Mexico is an independent country and the president of Mexico acts freely, “He is not a puppet of any foreign government, that has already happened, that is also what has gone away and I hope he does not return,” the Mexican president responded to an express question in his morning conference.
His statements come following a joint statement issued on Monday, April 29, with Biden, with whom he spoke on Sunday, April 28, and agreed to “work together to immediately implement concrete measures in order to significantly reduce irregular border crossings and at the same time protect human rights.
Despite denying the pressure and celebrating that Biden “has never made a unilateral decision,” the president acknowledged that Mexico does “help” the United States because they are “neighboring countries” with 3,180 kilometers of border.
“We cannot detach ourselves, break up,” he conceded.
Likewise, he pointed out that Migration is an increasingly relevant issue at the political level because this year the presidential elections of Mexico and the United States coincide following a record migratory flow in 2023.
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For this reason, he argued that there is “the problem that American politicians, of both parties, instead of addressing the causes, dedicate themselves to nothing more than politicking, to using the immigration issue for electoral purposes.”
“And since there are elections now, everyone there is talking regarding how they are going to build walls, that they are going to militarize the border, blaming each other,” he said.
As an argument for the achievements of the new immigration policies, the president reiterated that irregular migration has fallen by more than 50% on the border of Mexico with the United States, which reported regarding 12 thousand daily encounters of undocumented immigrants in December and now in April 5 1,812, according to the data presented by López Obrador.
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“However, we have to be very attentive because this is a political issue of the presidential campaign,” he commented.
Regarding sending the Armed Forces to the borders, where there are nearly 30,000 members dedicated to immigration tasks, he responded that “politics is also choosing between inconveniences.”
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