One of the most prominent figures in Mexican politics, a former president’s son, says that the United States has revoked his visa, inflaming tensions between the Trump administration and Mexico’s governing party.
On Thursday night, the politician, Andrés Manuel López Beltrán, released an angry, three-page letter to President Trump asking him if he knew about the decision to revoke his visa. He called the move “a crude and perverse dirty trick,” carried out by officials who target people like him for refusing to “submit to their authoritarian, divisive ambitions.”
The White House and the U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The State Department has increasingly revoked visas of officials in Latin America, including some whom U.S. officials have later accused of corruption. Mr. López Beltrán has been accused of corruption by his political opponents, but he has denied the allegations and the authorities have never made formal accusations against him.
In his letter, Mr. López Beltrán said that there were no grounds to revoke his visa because he was honest. But he added that he didn’t mind, because he had no desire to visit the United States “during these decadent and lamentable times of hatred, racism, drug addiction, family breakdown, social discontent and sorrow.” He called Mr. Trump “arrogant” if he was aware of the decision to revoke his visa, and called on him to fire Secretary of State Marco Rubio if he was not.
The developments put President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico in a bind.
Mr. López Beltrán is the son of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is Ms. Sheinbaum’s political mentor and still a key leader of Morena, Mexico’s dominant political party. Mr. López Beltrán was a top party official until May, when he stepped down to run for Mexico’s Congress.
On Friday, Ms. Sheinbaum called such visa cancellations politically motivated.
“They are not applied consistently across all countries, as they would be if the intent were truly related to crime,” she said in her daily news conference. “This is clearly an act of interference in Mexican politics; I see no other reason.” When asked about Mr. López Beltrán’s letter, she said he has a right to speak out.
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Ms. Sheinbaum has attempted to walk a political tightrope amid an intensifying pressure campaign from Washington. The Trump administration has called on her government to do more against cartels and corrupt politicians, while many officials in her party have called on her to stand up to Mr. Trump. She has forged a positive personal relationship with Mr. Trump, while publicly criticizing his administration and quietly increasing cooperation with the U.S. government on security.
The State Department said on Monday that under the Trump administration it had revoked more than 175,000 visas granted to foreign citizens. It said it had rescinded most over criminal accusations, including for drugs, assault and fraud.
Yet many visa cancellations have also had a political backdrop. The State Department has said it had revoked visas of people who participated in pro-Palestinian protests or who celebrated the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, for instance.
The U.S. government has also revoked visas to target foreign leaders, ambassadors and other officials, as well as judges and journalists — while reinstating visas for some like-minded allies. The State Department has explicitly said it was using the threat of canceling visas as part of its strategy to exert more control over Latin America.
The State Department has canceled the visas of Mexican governors, federal and state legislators, and mayors in states along the northern border.
Because of the confidentiality of visa records, the State Department rarely discusses details. But of the known cases in Mexico, a majority of those with visa restrictions are members of Morena. Several of those affected have said publicly that their visa restrictions stem from administrative issues, not direct accusations against them.
In the past, the U.S. government had pulled the visas of former Mexican governors, but only after they had left office. Those measures usually followed — or preceded — sanctions for cartel corruption or federal indictments for racketeering and money laundering.
Chantal Flores contributed reporting.
The post A Prominent Mexican Politician Says U.S. Revoked His Visa appeared first on New York Times.
