Hysteria continues over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, while America’s Political Class seems to not care about the Mexican meddling which has gone on for years. It's almost as if our political class doesn't see Mexico as a real country, just as a source of cheap labor—and votes. And recent developments show that meddling would continue under a “conservative” Mexican President.

Mexico has a presidential election on July 1, although according to Mexican campaign law the campaign doesn’t officially start until March 30^th . There are three major candidates, each representing a coalition of parties:

1. The PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), of the current president Enrique Pena Nieto, is running Jose Antonio Meade.
2. The PAN (National Action Party) and allies are running Ricardo Anaya (pictured right)about as white a guy as you could find.The nominally conservative PAN is in a coalition with the left-wing PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution).
3. MORENA, the party started by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known from his initials as AMLO), who was the runner-up under the PRD banner in the two previous, hotly-contested, elections. Now AMLO has left the PRD and his new party is already one of the biggest. AMLO leads in the polls and just might pull it off this time.

U.S. Conservatism Inc. commentators have an exaggerated view of the importance of Mexican elections. (Remember the Vicente Fox fan club?).Trump has already been blamed for AMLO’s possible victory. But whatever differences the Mexican candidates have among themselves, when it comes to U.S. immigration, they are all for Open Borders. I don’t think it matters a hill of beans who wins in Mexico—if we have good, effective and patriotic leadership here

Thus AMLO has already pledged to get the United Nations to stop us building a wall:

If he [Trump] insists on building the wall, we’re going to turn to the United Nations to defend the rights of Mexicans. I’m conscious of my historic responsibility.

Mexican opposition candidates slam Trump wall ahead of campaign, by Michael O’Boyle, Reuters, Feb. 18, 2018

But AMLO’s “conservative” opponent Ricardo Anaya recently visited California to address the “Mexican community” there.

This should have been a major issue, and really something Trump could run with. But it was mostly ignored in the American MSM. [Meet the Mexican presidential hopeful who campaigned in California by Luis Gomez, San Diego Union-Tribune, March 9, 2018)

Anaya went to San Francisco and visited Janet Napolitano, currently president of the University of California. Both agreed that “the DREAMers must be protected”. ['Se debe proteger a los dreamers' coinciden Anaya y Napolitano [“The Dreamers Must Be Protected”] by Ernesto Mendez, Excelsior, March 3, 2018]

Excelsior reported that in a press release about the encounter, “Ricardo Anaya emphasized that the Mexican migrants deserve respect and their children [i.e. young illegals, brought by their parents] protection.”

What the candidate means by “respect:” illegals should not be deported, nor even made to feel uncomfortable.

The press release estimated that “in the United States there are 35 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, a figure equivalent to the entire population of Canada, and that of the total of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, 4 out of 5 are U.S. citizens or legal residents.”

In other words, Anaya, like other Mexicans, sees Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as one group. Does Russia have 35 million co-ethnics on U.S. soil that it is trying to mobilize?

Of course, Anaya complained about Trump.

The candidate...expressed his concern about the policies which the current president Donald Trump seeks to solidify, with the more than 600,000 DREAMers who could be deported to Mexico. He [Anaya] also considered it reprehensible that the future of these young people, who know no other home than the United States, is being threatened and used as a bargaining chip in political negotiations.

Wait a minute. Anaya says the DREAMERs “know no other home than the United States”—but they’re also included in his 35 million Mexicans figure.

In Los Angeles, Anaya spoke to an audience of Mexican immigrants, members of Mexican clubs and federations. [Anaya se reúne con migrantes mexicanos en Los Ángeles , By Víctor Cordero, Excelsior, March 3, 2018] Let’s look at what Anaya said.

Remember the visit that Candidate Trump made to Mexico during the campaign? Well, Anaya is still griping about that:

After Donald Trump had been insulting the best that Mexico has in the United States, they dared to put out the red carpet so he could be received in Los Pinos, as if he were a chief of state. …the humiliation of the Mexican people was consummated.

Dialoga Ricardo Anaya con migrantes mexicanos en Los Ángeles, California

[“Ricardo Anaya dialogues with Mexican migrants in Los Angeles, California”]

Ricardo Anaya Campaign Website March 3, 2018

So Trump insulted “the best that Mexico has in the United States”—an obvious reference to Trump’s comment in his famous announcement speech that Mexico is not sending us its best. But if Trump was “insulting” any Mexicans in that speech, it was criminals. Is Anaya saying that rapists and other criminals are the best Mexico has to offer to the United States?

Anaya is also slamming the Mexican government of President Pena Nieto, for inviting Trump. That backfired on the Mexican government, but wasn’t the Mexican president looking for a way to dialogue? Is that in itself bad?

But as an opponent of the PRI, Anaya wants the public to associate the PRI with Trump.

In speaking to the immigrants in LA, Anaya really laid it on thick, in singing the praises of Mexicans in the United States:

For us, in Mexico, you all are heroes, you are the ones who dared to dream and who have made that dream a reality.

Anaya listed the virtues possessed by the Mexican migrants:

…the coward does not migrate…. Whoever migrates is by definition an extremely brave person. Whoever is lazy does not migrate either. He who migrates is, by definition, a hard worker, with a strong desire to get ahead.

But today’s Mexican immigrants certainly aren’t pioneers, they are following trails laid by others and mostly migrate to already-existing Mexican communities stateside. Anaya continued:

He who is egotistical cannot be a migrant. The migrant is generous, generous with himself and with the others, with his family.

Including migrants who abandon their families back in Mexico? Including migrants who rob and steal? Including migrants who kill?

Anaya also affirmed that the Mexicans who go to the United States

….don’t do it to hurt anybody, but to get themselves and their families ahead , to work in an honorable, honest and intense manner.

Wow, these are such great people, why would you want them to leave Mexico?

Anaya offered words of comfort for Mexicans in the U.S. who’ve had their feelings hurt:

I want to ask you all, with my heart in my hand, that each time you hear an aggressive or denigrating expression, that you remember that in Mexico, you all are heroes of the fatherland, the courageous, the entrepreneurs, the generous, those who dared to cross the border to give a better future to your family. Do not forget that you are not alone, that you are not alone, that all Mexico is with you and that when I am president, I will always be on your side.

So there you have it—the words of the standard bearer of Mexico’s “right wing,” “pro-American” party. He’s telling his countrymen it’s OK to break American immigration law and that Mexico will defend them against Americans once they get into the U.S.

How much more meddlesome can you get?

True, we might find out if AMLO wins.

But, to paraphrase VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow’s comment on the U.S. immigration debate, one good tweet could blow this Mexican Meddling sky-high.

American citizen Allan Wall (email him) moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008 after many years residing in Mexico. Allan's wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here ; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.