Mexican head of state Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Tuesday that no United States president has shown as deep of a commitment to migrants as Joe Biden.
He also vowed to call out U.S. legislators who oppose a bill supported by the Democratic leader to provide a path to American citizenship for these people.
“No president has shown a deeper commitment to migrants than Biden. He is committed to regularizing the situation of 11 million migrants,” the Mexican leader, popularly known as AMLO, said in his daily press conference, adding that his administration is supportive of those plans.
AMLO made his remarks before his trip on Thursday (Nov. 18) to Washington, where he will participate in the North American Leaders’ Summit along with Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“I’m doing this here because I can’t (talk about the subject) so openly in the United States out of respect for that country’s sovereignty,” the Mexican president said.
During a trip to New York last week, AMLO said he would ask Biden for assurances that Mexican migrants in the U.S. will not be mistreated and for a commitment to regularize the status of Mexicans who live and work honestly in that country.
The president said the nearly 38 million Mexicans who live in the U.S. – an estimated 5 million of whom are undocumented – “deserve justice.”
He, therefore, expressed the Mexican government’s support for a plan – long-sought by Democrats – to regularize the status of the nearly 11 million undocumented migrants estimated to live in the US.
Many Republicans, however, oppose those plans and see the opposing party’s immigration proposals as merely a strategy to accelerate changes to the country’s demographic makeup and create more Democratic voters.
“If President Biden presents an initiative to regularize the 11 million (undocumented) migrants, we’re going to be attentive, aware, seeing what happens, taking note of the stance by lawmakers of one party or another,” AMLO said.
