Speaking to his Trump-hating base on June 19, Mexico’s leading presidential candidate, the populist-leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO), said all the migrants of the world have a human right to seek life in the United States and vowed to defend that right, Mexican newspaper El Universal reports.
[Google translated] “And soon, very soon, to the triumph of our movement we are going to defend the migrants of the entire American continent and all the migrants of the world who, by necessity, have to leave their villages to seek life in the United States, it is a human right that we are going to defend.”
Alt-Right, and conservative publications picked up on the story and ran it with hyped headlines declaring that Orbrador wants to flood the U.S. border with migrants or is calling for an migrant invasion. This, of course, led to a backlash by the liberal press, which called such stories a hoax or declared “pants on fire.” You decide.
What we did find notable — aside from Obrador’s statement — is the way USA Today handled the quote. Spoiler: It just flat out lied. We’ve underlined the parts of the quote USA Today changed. Note that we didn’t add the ellipses. USA Today did that to deliberately omit six-words in AMLO’s statement about “the migrants of the world.” And it took the phrase “to seek life in the United States” and changed it to “earn their livelihoods in the United States.” This is blatant propaganda.
“After our movement wins, we are going to defend migrants from Mexico, from Central America, from all the American continent … who have to abandon their homes to earn their livelihoods in the United States. It’s a human right that we are going to defend.”
El Universal reported that during AMLO’s same speech, he said if he is elected president he would launch three “urgent actions to stop the arrogant, racist and inhumane attitude” of the U.S. president. First, he said he would write a “note of protest against the government of Donald Trump.” Second, he would request an urgent intervention of the high commissioner of the United Nations “to stop this prepotent [elitist], racist, inhumane attitude of deporting children into cages and separating from their parents.” And, third, AMLO said he would send “a team of professionals to the border, lawyers, psychologists, social workers to support the children and their families.”
For Obrador, this isn’t just campaign rhetoric. In February of last year, AMLO held a rally in Los Angeles, California, during which he criticized America’s newly elected president, Reuters reports. For a moment, imagine if you will that within weeks of Obrador’s electoral win, Trump appears in a Mexico City plaza, holds a rally of American expats, grabs a microphone and takes a pulpit to denounce the Mexican people’s newly elected leader for his immigration policies and vows to fight their laws.
Calling California “a refuge and blessing for immigrants,” Lopez Obrador declared “Long live California” as hundreds of supporters at Plaza Olvera cheered.
“When they want to build a wall to segregate populations, or when the word ‘foreigner’ is used to insult, denigrate and discriminate against our fellow human beings, it goes against humanity, it goes against intelligence and against history,” the veteran politician added.
His visit to Los Angeles came as thousands of people took to the streets in cities across Mexico to protest against Trump.
California’s population is 40 million. Forty percent of Californians are Hispanic. An estimated additional 2.2 million are illegal immigrants from Mexico, though some place the number as high as 4 million. Migrant figures in California usually only include those from Spanish-speaking countries even though there are significant numbers from elsewhere — especially Japan, China, Russia, the Middle East and a huge tech population from India.
For a glimpse of the the future, just look to Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest school district in California and the second largest in the nation. In 2011-2012 — before the massive immigration wave of 2014 — it reported that its student body was 73% Hispanic, 10% African American, 9% non-Hispanic Caucasian, 6% Asian, 0.5% Native American and 0.4% Pacific Islander. Among that 9% in L.A. — the home of Hollywood — how many are really “white people“? One has to wonder.
Meanwhile, an extensive search for Obrador’s financial backers produced little to no results. Some writers called him Soros’ candidate but didn’t back it up with any real info. This little discovery in Mexican newspaper El Pais about AMLO’s political “coalition” is interesting, however.
[Google translated] “The coalition, which has been built at the gates of one of the most competitive elections in recent years, has surprised to unite the two extremes of the political spectrum in Mexico. On one side is the PES , a grouping related to the evangelical right and that defends the family as the pillar of society . On the other side there is a block of nationalist left that declares a discourse against a regime of corruption and privileges.
Readers of The New Nationalist understand the power, influence and philosophy of the (((evangelical right.)))
Oh, the Humanity!
After seeing the way AMLO virtue signals his base, it will be interesting to see if he “really cares” about Central Americans or if he, like most liberals, merely plays the “humanity” card when it’s opportunistic to emotionally trigger the gente.
Keep in mind that Trump is calling for a renegotiation of NAFTA, and Mexicans in the United States sent a record $28.8 billion back to Mexico during 2017, which represents nearly 3 percent of Mexico’s GDP. (Mexico has the 15th highest GDP in the world, by the way.) And, if by some cartoon-world miracle Trump affects policies that lead to actual U.S. border security, Mexico may be forced to keep its Mexican vagabundos as well as “all the migrants of the world” who seek a better life. Oh, the humanity!
Currently, Mexico itself is under increasing scrutiny for deporting Central Americans seeking asylum from Mexico, with estimates ranging from 14,000 to well over 165,000. Oh, the hypocrisy!
Trump vs Obrador- looks like the latest round of Bagelian dialetic.
Yes, Obrador is correct in certain aspects. But it needs to be followed that if these bastards refuse to swear an allegiance to the United States and defend the Constitution & Bill of Rights, against all enemies foreign and domestic, they only deserve to catapulted right back to where they came from.
In other words, if you refuse to become an America and assimilate, get the heck out!