Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador revealed on Thursday his hope that Hispanic Americans will vote against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in the 2024 presidential election over his lack of respect for immigrants. He further accused the newly announced candidate of "politicking over migrants" in order to gain favor with Republicans.
"Hopefully Hispanics in Florida will wake up and not give him one single vote, to not vote for those who persecute migrants, those who don’t respect migrants,” he said during a daily press conference.
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Referring to the current state of the U.S.'s southern border as the "regrettable phenomenon of necessary migration," he claimed that it is "used with political ends in the United States."
“As you can see, I wasn’t wrong that all his politicking over migrants was because he wanted to be the Republican Party’s candidate,” Lopez Obrador said the day after DeSantis's campaign announcement.
The president also took aim at Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) and his policies regarding the border and illegal immigration. “The governor of Texas, campaigning, [saying] he will militarize the border and that he will continue building [the] wall," he said. "And the governor of Florida, the same, because he wants to be the Republican Party candidate and he’s politicking.”
According to him, legislation in the U.S. to stop illegal drugs such as fentanyl from coming into the country over the border is misguided because "fentanyl is arriving via Florida."
“(DeSantis) also came out with the same thing, about fentanyl, thinking that he’d get votes with it. Let him start to see," he said.
"We have to be informing people so that they don’t offend Mexico, so that they learn to respect us,” Lopez Obrador explained.
The Washington Examiner reached out to DeSantis's campaign for comment.
Florida, which DeSantis governs, is roughly 27% Hispanic. Miami-Dade County, which flipped to red in the 2022 midterm elections, is nearly 73% Hispanic. Despite the relatively large Hispanic population, DeSantis soared to reelection in 2022, winning Miami-Dade and beating out his Democratic challenger.
After his Wednesday evening campaign announcement, the Florida governor joined Fox News's Trey Gowdy, to whom he detailed what border security policies would look like under a DeSantis administration.
"Day one it is a national emergency," he said. "We'll mobilize all resources to construct the border wall — shut the border down. We are not going to be entertaining asylum claims for people who cross the border illegally, and we will make very clear about that."
He specifically called out the drug cartels in Mexico as well, saying, "We do need to hold these Mexican drug cartels accountable, and we will be looking at levers that we can pull to be able to do that."
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DeSantis further confirmed to Gowdy that he will construct a full border wall and not just a portion of it. Former President Donald Trump had been criticized for running on the promise of a border wall in 2016 but never finishing its construction while in office.
Earlier this month, DeSantis signed a Florida bill to enhance the E-Verify system, strengthen punishments for human smuggling, and provide funds to continue transporting illegal immigrants to "sanctuary jurisdictions," among other things.