Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday condemned a Texas law that would give state authorities broad powers to arrest foreigners suspected of crossing illegally from Mexico into Texas.
After a day of reversed court decisions that left the law in effect for only hours, the Mexican president called the Texas law “dehumanizing” and “anti-Christian.”
He declared that Mexico would not accommodate Texas officials for the return of any immigrants to Mexican territory – a position that calls into question how the state law would be enforced if approved by the courts.
“We will not accept deportations… from the Texas government,” Lopez Obrador said at his regular morning news conference, endorsing a similar statement issued by the Mexican Foreign Ministry the previous day.
The Texas law would make illegal entry into Texas a state crime, and direct judges to order illegal immigrants to return to Mexico.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Texas to enforce the law while its constitutionality is challenged, but hours later a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an order preventing the law from being enforced. impact.
A different panel of the same court heard arguments Wednesday on whether the law known as SB 4 should be allowed to take effect, even temporarily.
The Mexican president declined to provide details about how Mexico would react if the law was implemented, but said: “We will not sit idly by.”
He did not expect any deterioration in relations with Washington, noting that the Biden administration is defying the Texas law.
Mexico has said international migration should remain a purely federal matter — something the Justice Department argues in its effort to have the Texas law declared unconstitutional.
“Mexico will not conduct state-level negotiations on a clear federal issue,” said Eunice Rendon, a columnist for El Universal newspaper in Mexico City who follows immigration issues.
She noted that the law may cause future conflicts with Texas, but it is unclear how the controversy will develop – especially since the future of the law remains in the hands of the courts.
Lopez Obrador described the GOP-backed measure as the product of “anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican” sentiment and criticized Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott, without mentioning his name.
The president compared the situation to the idea of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas — on the other side of the Rio Grande Valley region of Texas — targeting Texans.
“It is as if the governor of Tamaulipas implemented a law against Texans who were visiting Mexico or passing through Tamaulipas,” López Obrador said. “Under our Constitution, anything related to foreign policy is not the responsibility of state governments.”
The president's comments were the latest in a series of condemnations from Mexican officials. Many noted that the law would harm the millions of people of Mexican descent — whether citizens, legal or illegal residents — who reside in Texas, where about 40% of the population is Latino, most of whom are of Mexican origin.
The State Department said the law could “lead to hostile environments in which the immigrant community is exposed to hate speech, discrimination, and racial profiling.”
Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena criticized it as “anti-immigrant, xenophobic and discriminatory.”
The state law and widespread Republican support for it were viewed by some in Mexico as a harbinger of how tensions between the United States and Mexico could escalate if Donald Trump is elected to a second term as US president.
“This is an indication of what will come in November if Trump and the Republican Party win the election,” Arturo Sarukhan, the former Mexican ambassador to Washington, previously wrote on Twitter.
Both major presidential candidates competing in Mexico's June 2 election — Claudia Sheinbaum of the president's Morena party, and Xochitl Galvez Ruiz of the opposition coalition — went to “X” to denounce the Texas law.
“We always raise our voice in defense of Mexicans on the other side of the border, who largely support the Texas economy,” Sheinbaum wrote.
“The Mexican government must act decisively in defense of our citizens and push for the repeal of this law that attacks our immigrant brothers and sisters,” Galvez said.
The Mexican government had already issued a strong condemnation of the law on Tuesday, after a divided Supreme Court said Texas could begin enforcing the law.
Mexico said it would not “under any circumstances” allow Texas officials to return any migrants to its territory.
Under current law, the US Border Patrol daily detains thousands of migrants, including Mexicans and others, and returns many of them to Mexico. But Mexico is only legally obligated to accept Mexican citizens.
Migrants detained after crossing the US-Mexico border now come from a wide range of countries, including countries in Central and South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In the past, Mexico voluntarily accepted some “third-country” immigrants expelled from the United States. But it is not obligated to do so.
Times special correspondent Cecilia Sanchez Vidal contributed to this report.
