On Monday, the Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) urged not to vote for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States and promoter of the new anti-immigrant law that came into effect on Saturday.
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“We are against the reform of DeSantis, who is against immigrants. Not a single vote for DeSantis. Those who do not love their homeland do not love their mother. Not a single vote for those who despise immigrants,” he said, referring to SB 1718, a law that imposes restrictions on undocumented individuals and could lead to racial profiling.
The new legislation requires companies with over 25 employees to use a program to verify the immigration status of their workers. It also classifies traveling in a car across state borders with an undocumented person as a serious offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The SB 1718 law hinders undocumented individuals’ access to healthcare and disregards driver’s licenses issued by other states to people without legal immigration status.
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Hundreds of migrants and their supporters in the agricultural Miami suburb of Homestead, Florida took to the streets on Saturday in protest of a recently enacted law that targets undocumented immigrants… pic.twitter.com/hETSuRtBsE— Zhang Heqing (@zhang_heqing)
July 3, 2023
“We cannot remain silent. If the United States is a great nation, it is thanks to immigrants. And he supports the wall and mistreatment of immigrants,” AMLO said, referring to the Republican politician.
The reform promoted by DeSantis, who ranks second in the Republican party polls, just below former President Donald Trump, creates a new division between Mexico and the United States, two countries whose presidential elections will coincide in 2024. AMLO accused DeSantis of enacting anti-immigrant reforms solely for “political purposes.”
“He wants to appear as the good one by deceiving people into believing that immigrants are the cause of unhappiness in the United States, which is false,” AMLO said, promising to defend immigrants in the United States, where nearly 38 million people of Mexican origin reside.
“We must protect them… migrants must be respected. They go to the United States to work and earn an honest living. They are not criminals,” emphasized the Mexican president.
