Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is meddling in the Texas gubernatorial election and telling Mexicans in America not to vote for “anti-immigrant” Governor Greg Abbott for re-election.
The Mexican president was slamming Gov. Abbott for signing an order that allows state troopers and National Guard members to arrest and return migrants when they attempt to illegally cross the border — which Lopez Obrador called “immoral.”
“It is not his legal responsibility to make that decision, it is something that corresponds to the federal government in the United States,” Lopez Obrador said during a press briefing on Friday. “Even though we are respectful of the sovereignty of other countries, we see that there are anti-immigrant campaigns for electoral purposes. I consider it immoral, political.”
“If there’s a candidate from a party that mistreats immigrants and Mexicans, we’re going to ask our countrymen there that they don’t vote for that candidate or party,” Lopez Obrador said.
Governor Abbott’s ruling is being challenged by supporters of illegal immigration, claiming that it is illegal because only the federal government can deport people.
“While President Biden refuses to do his job and enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress, the State of Texas is once again stepping up and taking unprecedented action to protect Americans and secure our southern border,” Abbott said in a statement announcing the order.
Abbott is currently leading the race against Democrat challenger Beto O’Rourke.
Lopez Obrador will be meeting with Joe Biden in the US on Tuesday. He told reporters that he is “absolutely sure” the White House would not approve of Governor Abbott’s policy.
Bloomberg reports that “migrant encounters at the border hit a record in May. The US Supreme Court last week ruled that the Biden administration could end the ‘remain-in-Mexico’ program that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their cases to be processed. The administration is also moving to lift Title 42, a pandemic-era measure that expedited the removal of migrants from the US.”
“The number of times the US Customs and Border Protection encountered migrants jumped to 1.7 million in the 2021 fiscal year, a 77% increase from 2019, though more of these encounters than before are of people attempting to cross multiple times,” the report added. “In the first seven months of fiscal 2022, encounters surged another 73% over the same period last year and have already easily topped all of 2019.”