CV NEWS FEED // The left-wing president of Mexico threatened a continued surge of illegal migrants at the southern U.S. border if the Biden administration does not commit to a litany of policy proposals benefiting various Latin American countries.
During Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” on CBS, hostess Sharyn Alfonsi asked President Andrés Manuel López Obrador if he will take an active role in quelling the ongoing border crisis.
“Everybody thinks you have the power in this moment to slow down migration. Do you plan to?” she pressed him.
“We do,” Obrador said in his native Spanish. “And want to continue doing it. But we do want for the root causes to be attended to, for them to be seriously looked at.”
In a voiceover, Alfonsi noted that the Mexican president was referring to a string of demands he gave the Biden administration in January.
As FOX News reported at the time, Obrador “demand[ed] 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.”
In the “60 Minutes” interview, Alfonsi then asked Obrador: “If [the U.S. federal government doesn’t] do the things that you’ve said need to be done, then what?”
“The flow of migrants will continue,” the Mexican leader simply replied.
Alfonsi pointed out that some of Obrador’s critics consider this stance to be “diplomatic blackmail.”
The president responded: “I’m speaking frankly. We have to say things as they are.”
Many U.S. lawmakers were quick to blast Obrador’s remarks.
One day after the interview aired, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, called Mexico’s list of policy demands “absurd.”
“The truth is that we face a security and humanitarian catastrophe at the southern border that is killing Americans and destroying our communities,” Johnson wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“Meanwhile, the President of Mexico is coddling cartels and demanding the United States bankroll even more mass migration into our country,” he continued:
President [Joe] Biden needs to confront the fact that employing leverage, as President [Donald] Trump did, and not empty rhetoric, is the only way to compel Mexico to do its important part in securing the border.
We should be using every tool at our disposal to secure our border and stem the flow of aliens into the United States, including the Migrant Protection Protocols. And we should be bringing every bit of leverage to compel the Mexican government to cooperate.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-NE, indicated on X that he agreed with the characterization of Obrador’s demands as “diplomatic blackmail.”
“We shouldn’t bow down to Mexico’s demands,” wrote Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general. “We MUST secure our border.”
Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-TX, seemed to suggest that the Mexican leader’s comments have implications for the upcoming November presidential election between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
“When Trump was President, Mexico helped us fight the Mexican cartels and stop mass illegal immigration,” she wrote on X Monday. “But now, our country is held hostage and Mexico demands bribe money because Biden is all too happy to sell out American border security.”
“I’ve met with Obrador, he’s a fool and a bully,” added the congresswoman. “[W]e need a real leader in the White House to confront him.”
Also during his interview with Alfonsi, the Mexican president fired back at the suggestion that his country is responsible for the drug overdose epidemic that claimed over 112,000 American lives in 2023 alone.
“The [Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)] says that cartels are mass-producing fentanyl and the U.S. State Department has said most of it is coming out of Mexico,” Alfonsi said to Obrador. “Are they wrong?”
“Yes,” the president answered. “Or rather, they don’t have all the information because fentanyl is also produced in the United States.”
“The State Department says most of it is coming from Mexico,” the journalist challenged him.
“Fentanyl is produced in the United States, in Canada, and in Mexico,” Obrador said. “And the chemical precursors come from Asia.”
“Do you know why we don’t have the drug consumption that you have in the United States?” the Mexican president asked. “Because we have customs, traditions, and we don’t have the problem of the disintegration of the family.”
