Lopez Obrador asks Hispanics not to vote for DeSantis for US president
Mexico City, May 25 (EFE).- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday called on the Hispanic community in the United States not to vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president, one day after the Republican officially announced his candidacy.
Lopez Obrador, widely known as AMLO, said that DeSantis is pushing forward with policies that “do not respect” migrants.
“I hope that Florida Hispanics wake up and don’t give him a single vote,” said the Mexican leader during his morning press conference.
AMLO asked Hispanics not to vote “for those who persecute migrants, for those who don’t respect migrants, because a migrant – as it says in the Bible – deserves respect.”
In addition, he criticized DeSantis’s attitude, saying that US Republicans “are very hypocritical” and suggesting that they certainly have migrants working for and with them.
He also condemned the US policy proposal to close the US-Mexico border to prevent illegal drugs from entering Mexico’s northern neighbor.
“(DeSantis) also came out with the same thing, about fentanyl, thinking that he’d get votes with it. Let him start to see, because fentanyl is arriving via Florida (which does not border on Mexico) and we have to be informing people so that they don’t offend Mexico, so that they learn to respect us,” he said.
On Wednesday, DeSantis officially announced his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and promised – if elected – to lead the US in a “great American comeback.”
In a Twitter chat with magnate Elon Musk, the owner of the social network, DeSantis said that he will fight the fentanyl epidemic and drug cartels by closing the southern border with Mexico.
In addition, DeSantis emphasized that it was not possible to allow illegal migrants to continue to enter the US.
On May 8, AMLO had said at a news conference, as reported by Politico: “Why does (DeSantis) have to take advantage of people’s pain – of migrants’ pain, of people’s need – for political gain? This is immoral. This is politicking.”
“Now I found out that (DeSantis) – imagine, Florida, which is full of migrants – is taking repressive, inhumane measures against migrants in Florida because he wants to be a (presidential) candidate. Can he not make another proposal to convince people?” the Mexican leader rhetorically asked.
EFE –/bp
