GOP Senator John Kennedy sparks diplomatic row over ‘racist’ migrant comments
- Kennedy made the explosive remarks in a Senate hearing on the border crisis
- The Republican lawmaker sparked outrage in Mexico, with both the country’s president and foreign minister calling him a racist
- The Louisiana senator wanted to know why the U.S. had not deployed troops to smash the drug and people-trafficking cartels
A top Republican has sparked a diplomatic row with Mexico after he said their citizens would be ‘eating cat food’ without the United States.
GOP Senator John Kennedy was labelled as a ‘racist’ by the Mexican government after his explosive remarks on how to crack down on drug trafficking.
The Louisiana lawmaker said Wednesday during a hearing on Capitol Hill that the Biden administration could use troops to swoop in and break up the cartels because Mexico was so dependent on U.S. trade.
‘Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent,’ Kennedy said.
‘Our economy is $23 trillion. Mexico’s economy is 1.3 trillion. Ours is 18 times bigger. We buy $400 billion every year from Mexico,’ he added.
The 71-year-old was grilling Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Chief Anne Milgram on her efforts to stop deadly fentanyl doses entering the U.S. on Wednesday.
‘So why don’t you and the president get on the phone and call President (Andres Manuel) López Obrador and make him a deal he can’t refuse to allow our military and our law enforcement officials to go into Mexico and work with his to stop the cartels,’ he asked Milgram.
Kennedy’s comments to a Senate committee on federal spending sparked outrage in Mexico, with both the country’s president and foreign minister lashing out.
Mexico’s top diplomat Marcelo Ebrard said Republicans were deliberately stirring up hatred before the presidential election in 2024.
‘What is behind these ideas and those who promote them,’ Ebrard said. ‘Racism against Mexicans, and in general all Spanish-speakers.’
Meanwhile, the country’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador told Mexicans in the U.S. to vote out members of Congress with such views.
‘Tell our countrymen, Hispanics, our American friends, not to vote for people with this very arrogant, very offensive and very foolish mentality,’ he said.
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The spat blew up as Republicans in the House of Representatives signed off on a bill that would revive Donald Trump’s now-axed border wall.
The bill, narrowly passed by lawmakers on Thursday, also calls for the hiring of 22,000 new border patrol agents to stop migrants sneaking into the U.S.
The so-called ‘Secure the Border of Act,’ which makes it more difficult for them to claim asylum, stands little chance of becoming law.
Democrats control the Senate, the upper house of Congress, where it is almost certain to be voted down.
The White House also warned that Joe Biden will wield his presidential veto to kill the bill it manages to squeeze through.
It is a response to the expiry Thursday at midnight of a Covid-era emergency rule, known as Title 42, that made it easier to boot out asylum-seekers without even hearing their case.
Title 42 had been used by ex-president Donald Trump to expel migrants at the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic on public health grounds.
It lapsed because Joe Biden had decided to end the Covid-19 emergency.
Border union officials say detention facilities are already overcrowded, piling more pressure on the Biden administration.
Although a deal has already been struck with Mexico to take back Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who see their asylum claims rejected.
Border shelters in El Paso, Texas, are already being overwhelmed by the vast numbers of migrants coming in with some being forced to sleep on the streets.
The frontier town is one of many that has declared a state of emergency.