(The Center Square) – Under the Biden-Harris administration and the Mexican Obrador administration, the greatest number of Mexican nationals illegally entering or attempting to illegally enter the U.S. have been reported of nearly 3 million.
Nationwide, they total 2,826,457, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
The majority, 2,761,454, were apprehended or encountered at the southwest border, followed by 42,974 in other areas nationwide, and 22,029 at the northern border.
They total more than the individual populations of 15 U.S. states. Combined, they’d be the 36th largest U.S. state behind Mississippi’s estimated 2.9 million population and more than New Mexico’s 2.1 million. They’d be the third most populous city in America, behind New York City and Los Angeles, more than Chicago’s 2.6 million and Houston’s 2.3 million.
The data excludes gotaways, those who illegally entered and evaded capture. Nationwide, federal encounters and apprehensions occur where CBP agents are stationed, including in every U.S. state, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Mexican nationals have historically been restricted entry without lawful permits and been removed under Title 8 of U.S. immigration law under all presidential administrations, according to CBP data. Because of policy changes implemented in January 2021 when President Joe Biden took office, foreign nationals deemed inadmissible under federal law have been allowed to enter and remain in the U.S., The Center Square has reported. Multiple states have sued, including Texas and Florida, arguing the policies are illegal and harming Americans.
Under Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Biden, the greatest volume of fentanyl and its precursors has been smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico, U.S. authorities have reported. Federal, state and local authorities have seized enough fentanyl since fiscal 2021 to kill billions of people, The Center Square has reported.
Several congressional reports have identified Mexican cartels as facilitating the U.S. illicit fentanyl crisis by working with the Chinese Communist Party to wage nonconventional warfare against the U.S., The Center Square reported.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has argued that both the Obrador and Biden administrations have a “Mexico first” policy. Congress has failed to hold accountable the Biden and Obrador administrations for the fentanyl and border crises, critics argue.
Obrador has argued that the U.S. “drug problem” is not Mexico’s problem. “We are not going to act as policemen for any foreign government. Mexico First. Our home comes first,” Obrador said earlier this year, The Associated Press reported. He’s also claimed that crime has been going down in Mexico and isn’t a problem.
Multiple news reports refute these claims, pointing to lime growers reportedly paying drug cartel protection payments and “receiving threats at levels not seen since 2013;” Mexico’s government statistics agency reportedly paying gangs to enter towns to perform census work; and cartel violence erupting to levels Mexico “hadn’t seen since the darkest days of the 2006-2012 drug war,” The Associated Press reported.
Several news outlets have also reported that law enforcement officers and Mexican soldiers are being targeted by cartels with car and roadside bombs and drones dropping bombs.
Obrador has also demanded that Mexico receive U.S. funds to advance a Biden-Harris “legal pathways” policy, fast-tracking foreign nationals processing into the U.S. instead of deporting them after illegally entering the U.S. through Mexico. He also called on Americans not to vote for Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas because of their commitment to border security, The Center Square has reported.
Despite Obrador’s claims, “Mexico faces a crisis of kidnappings, disappearances, and other criminal violence that has left over thirty-thousand people dead each year since 2018 … largely perpetrated by gangs and drug cartels,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Conflict Tracker. “Drugs from the cartels also flow over the border, fueling a drug overdose epidemic in the United States,” it says, reiterating the claims of federal, state and local law enforcement in the U.S.
Since Obrador took office in 2018, “gangs affiliated with Mexico’s two largest drug cartels – battling to the death over market share – have grown in number and influence,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
In June, Obrador’s protégé, far-left “climate scientist” Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling Morena party, was elected as Mexico’s next president. Her term begins Oct. 1. The former Mexico City mayor has vowed to continue many of his policies.
She was elected after 30 local candidates were killed in what has been described as cartel orchestrated “bullets before ballots” violence sweeping the country, The Center Square reported.
Eschewing Mexican cartel violence and Obrador policies that they argue are hurting and killing Americans, an international coalition, led by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, has called on U.S. policy makers in Washington, D.C., to alter U.S. policy with Mexico.
“The old policy consensus that undergirded NAFTA, USMCA, and a generation of cooperative and friendly U.S.-Mexico relations has collapsed. The Mexican government is not an ally to the United States and can no longer properly be described as a partner,” The Conservative U.S.-Mexico Policy Coalition argues.
