AMLO denies having toughened immigration measures due to pressure from the US.

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, He denied this Thursday that his government has toughened immigration actions due to pressure from the current president of the United States, Joe Biden, or the previous one, Donald Trump.

“No, it’s just that I don’t let myself be pressured by anyone, Mexico is an independent country and the president of Mexico acts freely, he is not a puppet of any foreign government.”That’s already happened, that’s also what’s gone and I hope it doesn’t come back,” the Mexican president responded to an express question in his morning conference.

His statements follow a joint statement issued on Monday with Biden, with whom he spoke on Sunday and agreed “work together to immediately implement concrete measures to significantly reduce irregular border crossings and at the same time protect human rights.”

Despite denying the pressure and celebrating that Biden “has never made a unilateral decision,” the president acknowledged that Mexico does “help” the United States because they are “neighboring countries” with 3,180 kilometers of border.

“We cannot detach ourselves, break up”he conceded.

Likewise, he pointed out that migration is an increasingly relevant issue at the political level because this year the presidential elections in Mexico and the United States coincide after a record migratory flow in 2023.

For this reason, he argued that there is “the problem that American politicians, of both parties, instead of addressing the causes, dedicate themselves to nothing more than politicking, to using the immigration issue for electoral purposes.”

“And since there are elections now, everyone there is talking about how they are going to build walls.that they are going to militarize the border, blaming themselves,” he expressed.

As an argument for the achievements of the new immigration policies, the president reiterated that irregular migration has fallen by more than 50% on the border of Mexico with the United States, which reported about 12,000 daily encounters of undocumented immigrants in December and now 5,812 in April, according to the data presented by López Obrador.

“However, We have to be very attentive because this is a political issue of the presidential campaign.“he commented.

Regarding sending the Armed Forces to the borders, where there are nearly 30,000 members dedicated to immigration tasks, he responded that “politics is also choosing between inconveniences.”

With information from EFE.

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