MEXICO CITY — The motion could also be on the streets of Los Angeles, however fallout from the immigrant protests is roiling politics in Mexico at a fragile second — days earlier than Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is predicted to satisfy President Trump of their much-anticipated inaugural face-to-face encounter.
Sheinbaum has been on the defensive since Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem — at an Oval Workplace occasion in Trump’s presence — accused the Mexican president on Tuesday of “encouraging violent protests.”
Whereas Sheinbaum has assailed the U.S. immigration raids and backed immigrants’ rights to protest, there isn’t any public report of her ever having backed violence. A day earlier than Noem’s accusation, she stated the precise reverse and known as on Mexicans in Southern California to behave peacefully.
Nonetheless, Mexican opposition figures have embraced Noem’s fees and enthusiastically sought to amplify them. Critics even have seized upon Sheinbaum’s feedback final month — weeks earlier than the L.A. protests — calling on Mexicans in the US to “mobilize” in opposition to a deliberate U.S. tax on money transfers to Mexico.
An opposition senator, Lily Téllez, posted a video on X final week accusing Sheinbaum of emboldening compatriots within the U.S. to “violate the regulation with out penalties, as if it had been Mexico,” an assertion echoed by different critics.
The barrage of accusations has put Sheinbaum in a fragile place: She is obliged to defend immigrants in the US, as Mexican leaders have all the time completed, however can’t be seen as inflaming bilateral tensions. Nonetheless, she has lashed out at her home critics as “anti-patriotic.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum attends her morning information convention on the Nationwide Palace in Mexico Metropolis in April.
(Marco Ugarte / Related Press)
“How is it that Mexicans dare to say I promoted violence in the US? With what goal?” the president requested Friday. “In order that there’s not a superb relationship between Mexico and the US? Or, worse, that the US does one thing to Mexico? They’re keen to have one thing dangerous occur to the nation simply to indulge their hypocrisy or hate.”
Information protection of the protests has transfixed Mexico, the place studies have closely sided with the immigrants in opposition to U.S. efforts to detain and deport them. Commentators have largely condemned the Trump administration actions, whereas the airwaves and social media are stuffed with largely sympathetic accounts and video from immigrants and advocates on the bottom in Southern California.
Sheinbaum, elected to a six-year time period a yr in the past in a landslide vote, has a 70% public approval score, polls indicated. Her ruling Morena bloc dominates state legislatures and the Mexican Congress. She has little to concern politically from the ire of reeling opposition events.
However, within the period of social media, the Sheinbaum-as-agitator narrative has gained traction amongst some U.S. conservative commentators. They’ve depicted her as a type of grasp manipulator scheming violent resistance from her perch in Mexico Metropolis.
“This girl, the president of Mexico, is speaking about main an rebellion within the inside of America,” Charlie Kirk, a far-right talk-show host, declared June 9 in a video posted on X, the place he has greater than 5 million followers. “And he or she has loads to work with as a result of she has numerous sleeper cells right here.”
In feedback final week, Sheinbaum has embraced nonviolence as a each day mantra, citing the legacies of Mahatma Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Cesar Chavez.
“Any demonstration must be peaceable,” she advised reporters Friday. “We’re all the time looking for, diplomatically, the protection of Mexicans exterior the nation.”
And, whereas Sheinbaum is a daily on X — the place she has 4.3 million followers — she urged folks to not “make politics” on the social media discussion board, the place a lot of the polemics about her purported position within the immigrant protests has performed out.
Serving to to gas the controversy are the proliferation of Mexican flags on the Los Angeles protests. Sheinbaum has neither endorsed nor criticized the flag-waving, however she has expressed dismay at one extensively distributed picture — of a shirtless L.A. protester brandishing a Mexican flag as he stands atop a burned-out automotive. She has known as the picture a “provocation,” hinting of darkish motives, however has didn’t make clear her suspicions.
A protester is fired upon with non-lethal weapons by the L.A. Sheriff’s eputies on Saturday in downtown Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Instances)
The picture, Sheinbaum stated Friday, “doesn’t match with the thousands and thousands of Mexicans who contribute to the financial system of the US and are the very best of individuals.”
Of their broadsides in opposition to Sheinbaum, her opponents even have cited the president’s animated requires Mexicans in the US to “mobilize” in opposition to a totally separate problem — the Trump administration’s plans to impose a 3.5% tax on overseas remittances, a part of the huge White Home spending invoice pending in Congress.
That proposed levy has met common condemnation in Mexico, the place the money transfers help tens of 1000’s of poor households and are a $64-billion-a-year financial linchpin.
In an deal with final month within the northeastern state of San Luis Potosí, Sheinbaum known as on U.S. residents of Mexican ancestry — each immigrants and people born in the US — to ship letters, emails and social media messages to Congress urging lawmakers to vote in opposition to the remittance tax.
“If crucial, we’re going to mobilize,” declared an animated Sheinbaum, elevating her proper fist, the picture recalling her youthful days as a left-wing scholar demonstrator.
Sheinbaum by no means known as for road protests, a lot much less violence. However she additionally by no means clarified whether or not “mobilize” referred to organizing rallies, bolstering diplomatic strain or another technique to assist thwart the remittance tax.
The clip of Sheinbaum urging folks to “mobilize” has bounded throughout the web. It’s Exhibit A for these accusing her of fomenting violent protests. Some on-line variations have been dubbed in order that Sheinbaum speaks in a closely accented English.
Since Trump took workplace, Sheinbaum has received extensive popularity of deftly dealing with delicate bilateral points reminiscent of tariffs and drug trafficking. Because the immigrant protests unfold throughout the US, the Mexican president can be once more strolling a advantageous line along with her U.S. counterpart of their first assembly on the Group of Seven summit, which began Sunday in Canada.
Sheinbaum confirmed Saturday that she deliberate to satisfy with Trump in coming days and would increase the latest remedy of Mexicans within the U.S.
“We’re going to defend Mexicans with dignity,” she advised a crowd exterior Mexico Metropolis.
The Mexican chief has made it clear that she disputes the administration’s view of immigrants as “invaders” and of L.A. demonstrators as insurrectionists.
“We don’t agree with the remedy of trustworthy Mexicans who work each day for the nice of the US and pay their taxes,” Sheinbaum stated on Friday. “Eighty p.c of their earnings stay in the US, in consumption, in taxes. And they’re people who find themselves built-in into life there.”
And Sheinbaum, who did doctoral research for 4 years at Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory, added: “California wouldn’t be what it’s with out Mexicans.”
Instances workers author Kate Linthicum and particular correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
