Did you see the AMLO 60 Minutes interview? No worries we have the details for you. This is real news and big news, too, if you have any interest in Puerto Peñasco. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador rarely grants access to foreign media outlets outside of Mexico. After all, he is not fond of reporters. Perhaps you remember him publicly sharing the phone number of a New York Times reporter. However, for reasons only he really knows, the 65th Mexican President sat down with CBS News Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi inside the National Palace in Mexico City.
During the AMLO 60 Minutes interview, the president spoke in Spanish and said he was being frank and speaking freely. He can clearly do that because there is only one year left in his term in office. Nonetheless, AMLO comes across as candid in the wide-ranging discussion covering a number of key topics which greatly impact the countries of North America and Latin America.
AMLO on Illegal Immigration
The president took a strong stand in the interview on illegal immigration. He is tired of Mexico being blamed for the problem on the border his country shares with the United States. Furthermore, he threw doubt to the north by blaming American politicians for the mess. “What do they do?” he asked. “Instead of seeking dialogue, reaching agreements, and addressing the causes, they use Mexico, to say, ‘the fault lies with Mexico, the migration problem is caused by Mexico.”
Mexican President on Immigration
Mexico is the country geographically in the middle of the illegal immigration corridor to the U.S. southern border. The AMLO 60 Minutes interviews confirms no one knows this position better than the Mexican president. López Obrador said the Biden administration begged him in late December to “control the flow of migration” north. That month there was a rush of some 250,000 migrants on the Mexico-U.S. border. The onslaught was so bad it shut down the Lukeville Port of Entry between Arizona and Sonoyta, Sonora.
The Mexican president stepped up. He worked with the presidents of Latin America countries to crack down on the illegal immigration crossings on the southern border of Mexico. The results show it cut the problem in half in a month. However, according to AMLO, “that is a short-term solution, not a long-term one.”
The AMLO 60 Minutes interview was publicly stating his demands. Instead of doing favors, he wants the United States to send $20 billion a year to Latin America and the Caribbean. He thinks that funding will fight the crime, corruption, and poverty which he called the “root causes” of migration. AMLO also wants the U.S. Government to grant amnesty to “millions of law-abiding Mexicans living in the US.” And if congress doesn’t comply, the Mexican president calmly declared, “The flow of migrants will continue.”
Texas Governor Border Politics
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was more cautious and respectful specifically about President Biden and former President Trump. He described Mexico’s relationship with the United States as one of cooperation not subordination. This is basically saying, The United States does not have the right to tell Mexico what to do. AMLO firmly declared, “We are a free, sovereign country; we are not a colony.”
In the AMLO 60 Minutes interview, Mexico’s President accused Texas Governor Greg Abbott of political grandstanding. He believes Abbott is making a spectacle of the migration matter because he wants to be Vice-President of the United States. “The Governor of Texas, to make propaganda, goes to the Rio Grande and puts up wire fences and makes a spectacle. That is opportunism, that with all due respect, is politicking. That’s not serious.”
