Commentary: It’s Time to End Mexican Cartels’ Reign of Terror

Walking down long, ornate hallways, across a grand central courtyard adorned with a Pegasus-topped fountain, and through yet more corridors, our bipartisan delegation was guided to the offices of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for what we hoped would be a timely and useful meeting for our nations. Since the enactment of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), ongoing trade issues continue to flare up, and since the beginning of the Biden Administration our southern border with Mexico has deteriorated into a chaotic, dangerous, and lawless morass.

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Mexican Leaders Mount ‘Deception Campaign’ to Deny Fentanyl Involvement as GOP Seeks Cartel Crackdown

Mexico is running a “deception campaign” to deflect blame for America’s fentanyl epidemic as Republican lawmakers ramp up calls to target cartels, former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Operations Division chief Derek Maltz told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Top Mexican officials, including the country’s president Andres Manuel López Obrador, have in recent days attempted to shift the blame for fentanyl production in their country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported seizing 11,000 pounds of fentanyl between October 2022 and February 2023 at the southern border.

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Commentary: Mexico Is Not Really an American Friend

Left-wing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently praised a visiting Joe Biden: “Just imagine: There are 40 million Mexicans in the United States—40 million who were born here in Mexico, [or] who are the children of people who were born in Mexico!” 

Why wouldn’t Obrador be delighted? Since Biden took office in January 2021, America has allowed some 5-6 million illegal entries across its southern border. 

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Mexican Government Uses Footage of Philadelphia Streets in Anti-Drug PSA

An anti-drug public service announcement in Mexico is deploying footage of homelessness and drug abuse on the streets of Philadelphia in order to illustrate its message.

The video, posted to Twitter by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador spokesman Jesús Ramírez, urges viewers to be aware of the “damage caused to health by the consumption of chemical drugs,” Ramírez wrote on Twitter.

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Kamala Harris Meets with Mexican President to Talk About Everything But the Border

Andres Manuel López Obrador and Kamala Harris meeting about policy

Vice President Kamala Harris met with Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador to discuss everything but the border, according to a Thursday press release.

Harris and Obrador didn’t appear to discuss the Biden administration’s pending implementation of former President Donald Trump’s Remain in Mexico program or other issues overwhelming U.S. border officials, such as increased migration to the country, according to the statement.

“Vice President Harris and President López Obrador agreed to continue working together to address the root causes of migration from Central America and the need for a regional approach to migration in the Western Hemisphere,” according to the press release.

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At Least 20 People Killed After Cartel Shootout Near Southern Border

A caravan of gunmen in pickup trucks launched a military-style attack on Saturday in the northern Mexican town of Villa Unión, less than 50 miles away from Eagle Pass, Texas, Mexican government officials said. The gunmen shot at government municipal offices and other buildings, and footage from the attack showed smoke rising from the city amid the hour-long firefight.

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Trump Confident New Migrant Pact with Mexico Will Succeed

  President Donald Trump claimed Sunday that Mexico “for many years” has not been cooperative to curb the surge of migrants traveling through it to reach the United States, but believes a new agreement will alleviate the problem. The president warned, however, that “if for some unknown reason” Mexico does not stanch the flow of Central American migrants heading north to the U.S., “we can always go back to our previous, very profitable” imposition of tariffs on Mexican exports sent to the United States. “But I don’t believe that will be necessary,” he added. A deal announced Friday calls for Mexico to dispatch 6,000 troops to its border with Guatemala to halt the flow of migrants, while the U.S. gained new authority to force asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their legal cases in the U.S. are pending. Trump said there is one particular provision of the pact that has yet to be disclosed but will be announced “at the appropriate time.” “There is now going to be great cooperation between Mexico & the USA, something that didn’t exist for decades,” he said on Twitter. “Now I have full confidence, especially after speaking to their President (Andrés Manuel López…

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Mexico Closes Migrant Shelter Near US Border

The city government of Tijuana announced Saturday that it has closed a migrant shelter at a sports complex close to the U.S. border that once held about 6,000 Central Americans who hope to get into the U.S. Officials said all the migrants were being moved to a former concert venue much farther from the border. The city said in a statement the sports complex shelter was closed because of unsanitary conditions. Experts had expressed concerns about unsanitary conditions that had developed at the partly flooded sports complex, where the migrants had been packed into a space adequate for half their numbers. Mud, lice infestations and respiratory infections were rampant. Farther from the border The remaining migrants were taken by bus to the new shelter about 10 miles (15 kilometers) from the border crossing at Otay Mesa and 14 miles (22 kilometers) from San Ysidro, near where people line up to file applications for asylum in the United States. Tijuana officials had said earlier that nobody would be forced to move to the new facility, a large building and concrete patio known as El Barretal that was used for concerts and other events until about six years ago. But they also…

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Mexico President-Elect Writes to Trump About Migration, NAFTA

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

Mexico’s President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking to initiate “a new stage in the relationship” of the two countries and to make progress in the areas of “trade, migration, development and security.” Lopez Obrador handed the seven-page letter to a U.S. delegation that visited the country on July 13. Marcelo Ebrard, foreign minister-designate, read the letter to reporters on Sunday, and said Trump had received the letter. In the letter, Lopez Obrador said Mexico is home to the largest number of Americans living outside the U.S. and “the United States is the largest home for Mexicans outside of our borders.” “I believe that the understanding that I propose in this letter should lead us to a worthy and respectful treatment of these communities,” he said. Lopez Obrador suggested creating a development plan that included other Central American countries, where migrants also live in poverty and lack job opportunities. He suggested that if the U.S., Mexico and other Central American countries, “each one contributing according to the size of its economy. … We could gather a considerable amount of resources for the development of the region.” The plan, according to the president-elect, would spend…

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Mexican President-Elect Lopez Obrador Proposes Border Force To Contain Illegal Immigration Into Mexico

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

by Will Racke   Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is planning to create a specialized border force to combat illegal immigration across Mexico’s borders, according to his hand-picked security chief. The new force is aimed at stanching the flow of illegal immigrants and contraband from Central America and will also be deployed to Mexico’s northern border, Alfonso Durazo said, according to Bloomberg. It is part of Lopez Obrador’s broader strategy against regional violence, corruption and poverty. “We’re going to create a border police force that will be highly specialized,” Durazo, who is set to become Mexico’s public security minister when Lopez Obrador takes office in December, told Bloomberg in an interview. “They need to apply the law” against illicit migration and human trafficking, he added. A left-wing populist, Lopez Obrador won the presidency on July 1 on the strength of a campaign against the Mexican political establishment, which he blamed for Mexico’s seemingly intractable cartel violence and public corruption. Though he sparred with President Donald Trump over the U.S. government’s treatment of Mexican migrants, he has promised to contain illegal immigration in his own country by using a combination of tighter enforcement and humanitarian aid. In a meeting of Lopez Obrador’s…

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Mexico Begins Its Own Road to Perdition with the Election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador

ALMO

by Victor Mata   All Latin-Americans at some point ask themselves: Why is no Latin American country as well-developed as the United States? The answer is probably not related to our weather or a lesser disposition to work, as many have tried to claim. The answer is probably simpler: A socialist culture and a strong attachment to the left. Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina are all countries that suffered or are suffering devastating economic, political, and social crises. They are all examples of countries that built their own road to the hell through socialism. This past Sunday was a chance for Mexico to change that trend. Mexico is a country where many people don’t have access to school, where the public health system is extremely deficient, and where it is not safe to walk in the street after 10 p.m. because drug cartels have taken control of some cities. It seems that their citizens took the worst option available to change that reality; they decided to have as a president for the next six years a socialist with damaging populist appeal. His name is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and is known as AMLO. He is usually described as a nationalist and revolutionary linked with the Party…

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