Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador criticized an American governor last week and encouraged voters to oppose his re-election, raising questions of election interference by foreign governments.
Lopez Obrador took aim at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in a Friday news conference, according to the New York Post.
He objected to an executive order Abbott signed Thursday on returning illegal aliens to the U.S-Mexico border when they’re apprehended by state law enforcement or the Texas National Guard.
Lopez Obrador called for Mexicans who live in the United States to vote against Abbott for his immigration policies — describing American citizens of Mexican heritage as his “countrymen.”
“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,” said the socialist president.
By “mistreats” he apparently meant officials who work to make sure illegal immigrants can’t break the law with impunity.
Lopez Obrador also said he was “absolutely sure” that President Joe Biden would oppose Abbott’s plan to combat transnational human and drug smuggling in his own state, according to the Post.
Biden and Obrador are expected to discuss illegal migration in a Tuesday White House meeting.
“Even though we are respectful of the sovereignty of other countries, we see that there are anti-immigrant campaigns for electoral purposes,” Lopez Obrador claimed.
Is this election interference?
“I consider it immoral, political.”
In 2019, then-President Donald Trump secured a deal with Lopez Obrador in which the Mexican government would work to stem illegal immigrants from Central America heading north to the U.S. border through Mexico.
Texas’ plan has followed a dramatic reduction in immigration enforcement and deportations on the part of the federal government.
Abbott’s plan does not amount to the deportations of illegal immigrants. The migrants are being dropped off at a port of entry on the American side of the border, where theoretically they’ll be detained by the federal Border Patrol.
The Texas Department of Public Safety began loading large groups of illegal aliens on buses on Monday, with the plan to drive them to a federal port of entry.
Fox News’ Bill Melugin shows a group of illegal migrants being put onto a bus to be returned to the border in accordance with an executive order from Gov. Abbott. pic.twitter.com/a9K6Y93u6K
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 11, 2022
Abbott’s executive order followed instances where Border Patrol declined to take custody of illegal aliens who were arrested by Texas law enforcement.
