Mexico Renews Demand for $20 Billion to Slow the Flow of Migrants. Biden Thinks They Should Get It.

In January, Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) first floated the idea of extorting $20 billion in U.S. aid in return for vague promises that he would slow the unprecedented stream of migrants who are transiting his country on their way to our border. AMLO repeated that demand – along with the allocation of 10 million work visas for Hispanics living illegally in the United States – in a late-March interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes. 

AMLO’s steep asking price for a vague set of deliverables is directly related to the latest polling on the Biden administration’s handling of border and immigration policy. Immigration now ranks as the top issue of concern for American voters, and polls consistently show that more than two-thirds of them disapprove of the administration’s policies. Worse yet for President Biden is that in seven swing states that will likely determine the outcome of the November elections, 72 percent of respondents in a recent poll said that they see immigration and border issues getting worse. 

Just two weeks after AMLO doubled-down on his demand for cash and visas, President Biden sat down for a lengthy interview with Univision. During that interview, President Biden was asked about AMLO’s request, one that was framed as money to “address the root causes” of mass migration. AMLO’s “idea is consistent with what I’ve been pushing. I think we should be doing something like that,” Biden responded. Back in 2021 he tapped Vice President Harris for the task of addressing the “root causes” of the crisis that has only gotten worse. 

AMLO’s shakedown is a recognition that he has his American counterpart between a rock and a hard place. Biden’s open-borders policies are wildly unpopular with the broader electorate, but sacrosanct to his far-left base that is already angry with him over his handling of foreign policy. Thus, he needs AMLO to slow the flow for him. However, it is not even clear if AMLO has the ability to stanch the flow of migrants making their way through Mexico en route to the U.S. border. He would have to contend with some very powerful criminal cartels in Mexico that are reaping staggering profits smuggling and trafficking people (and drugs) across our border. 

Others have held out the possibility that if AMLO’s demands are not met, he might do precisely the opposite and open the valve of illegal migration even wider ahead of the U.S. elections. Washington Post columnist Eduardo Porter cautioned that there might be an “October surprise,” in which Mexico facilitates as many as “400,000 migrants running into Border Patrol agents…which would be very bad for the Biden administration.” 

Even as President Biden was publicly contemplating accommodating AMLO’s demands, his FBI director, Christopher Wray, was bemoaning Mexico’s lack of cooperation on another key border issue: stemming the flow of lethal narcotics into the United States. In testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, Wray described Mexico’s efforts as “uneven.” While acknowledging some limited assistance, Wray said Mexico could be providing “much, much more” help in stemming the flow of fentanyl which was responsible for 76,000 U.S. deaths last year. 

AMLO’s blatant attempt to extort the United States is yet another in a long, long list of vulnerabilities that are a direct result of our own failures and refusals to secure our borders and enforce our laws. The president has all the authority he needs to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws and the ability to restore effective policies that were in place when he came to office if he chooses to use it.