Immigrants support ending dual citizenship for Mexico’s President or Governor

We, as immigrants in the United States, support President Claudia Sheinbaum in her effort to eliminate any potential divided loyalty among those holding public office by requiring candidates for the presidency or a state governorship to renounce their dual citizenship before assuming office.

For us Mexicans, identity has always been a sensitive topic, since modern Mexican culture is an imperfect mosaic of ‘mestizaje,’ ‘conquista,’ ‘victoria,’ y ‘derrota,’ all mixed into a chronological narrative that defines us.

The objective, then and now, is to ensure that anyone seeking to represent the Mexican people at the state or national level does not have a second country to which he or she owes allegiance and therefore governs solely for the benefit and in the interests of the Mexican people, because, with what is perceived as an expansive American foreign policy, Mexico wants to avoid real or perceived dual loyalties in the presidency. ‘Puro mexicano, pues.’

President Sheinbaum has said the measure seeks to ensure that the supreme interest of anyone governing Mexico is Mexico itself, not another country, thereby preventing potential conflicts of interest. “A governor who holds dual citizenship has two interests,” she has said, arguing the law should guarantee exclusive loyalty to the nation.

But the debate is not new; it began with José Córdoba Montoya, the French-born naturalized Mexican citizen who many felt governed Mexico under the presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari. They tried to change the Mexican Constitution to allow him, or any foreign-born dual citizen, to govern the Aztec nation. It was immediately defeated.

Mexico doesn’t kneel for any foreign power.

This echoes a deeply ingrained, for good reason, Mexican nationalism that, under AMLO, has come out of the closet with a force not seen since the time of Emperor Agustín de Iturbide, who defeated Spaniards, declared himself emperor and was executed by firing squad on July 19, 1824.

The new constitutional measure to prevent dual citizens from becoming president of Mexico is expected to be approved and signed by President Sheinbaum in September, Mexico’s patriotic month. A patriotic move just in time for Mexican Independence celebrations that usually color the nation in red, green and white – colors of the Mexican flag – sending a not-subliminal message to the leader up North that Mexico ‘no se arrodilla ante ningún poder extranjero’ (that Mexico doesn’t kneel for any foreign power). Wink, wink, Trump.

Three Very Specific Cases

Recently in Latin America, two presidents hold both U.S. citizenship and citizenship in their respective countries: Daniel Noboa in Ecuador and Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia. Unfortunately, both leaders have already allowed the U.S. military to operate in their territories, and both appear more accountable to President Trump than to their own people.

Furthermore, the Colombian and Ecuadorian armed forces operate under U.S. military direction. It’s no surprise that, under de la Espriella, Colombia is talking about sharing a national military base on the border with Venezuela with the U.S.

Yet, these American dual-citizen Latin American presidents often win by large margins in the overseas vote, with those who want closer, not distant, ties with the U.S, where many currently reside.

Washington’s Double Standard

At the same time, we know of Trump’s intentions to control and plunder Latin America, just as the United States has done to a significant degree since the establishment of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823—”America for the Americans.” That doctrine has now been rechristened the “Donroe Doctrine,” after Donald Trump, but this time with undisguised interference and unprecedented brazenness. And, surprisingly, with the blind support of presidents like Javier Milei in Argentina, who, like de la Espriella in Colombia, is planning to open a military base down south to share with the U.S.

The clearest and most controversial example of this new U.S. interventionist policy is Venezuela. The Donald Trump administration justified the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Caracas as a law-enforcement operation connected to the criminal charges he faces in the United States. Maduro remains charged in federal court in the Southern District of New York with offenses involving narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, and weapons-related crimes. Maduro has pleaded not guilty and is currently seeking dismissal of the case, arguing, among other things, that he was entitled to immunity as a head of state.

Since when does the United States have the right to enter the territory of a Latin American nation militarily, capture its leader, and take him to New York to be prosecuted under U.S. law?

That precedent should concern not only those who sympathize with Maduro, but every Latin American who believes in national sovereignty. Because if Washington claims the unilateral right to decide when it may use its military power to capture a foreign leader accused of violating U.S. laws, tomorrow the same argument could be used against another country and another government in our region.

This is not, therefore, about defending Maduro or determining in an opinion column whether he is guilty or innocent of the serious crimes alleged against him by the U.S. Department of Justice. That determination belongs to a court of law. This is about defending a much larger principle: no great power should claim the right to treat Latin America as territory it can intervene in militarily at will, capture national leaders, and then justify those actions by invoking its own domestic laws.

Or the Trump administration’s decision in 2020 to drop U.S. drug-trafficking charges against Mexican General Cienfuegos after his arrest in Los Angeles, sending him back to Mexico, where prosecutors cleared him as well. Trump has pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, held in the U.S. for drug charges that Trump decided were a bogus vendetta for political reasons. How long will Maduro and the first lady be held in prison before they can join their nephews in Caracas? Only time will tell.

The longstanding U.S. rhetoric of democracy, freedom, and respect for national sovereignty is profoundly called into question when Washington claims powers it would never accept another country exercising within the territory of the United States.

A person does not need dual citizenship to betray their homeland.

Mexican Sellouts

Nevertheless, we know that a person does not need dual citizenship to betray their homeland or to serve foreign interests over Mexican interests. That is a negative trait not exclusive to Mexicans. At the very least, however, this measure serves as a reminder to future candidates. María Corina Machado in Venezuela is the perfect example. She holds no dual citizenship, only to discover that Trump decided to deal with the current interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, instead. ‘¡Ay, ay, ay, cómo me duele!’ Selena would say.

Indeed, in Mexico, from the arrival of neoliberalism in 1982 through 2018, every president served private and foreign interests more than those of the Mexican people. Those policies resulted in 52.4 million people in poverty in 2018, with millions of Mexicans migrating to the United States, countless acts of repression and disappearances, and unprecedented levels of violence—particularly during the so-called War on Drugs under the illegitimate presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012)—all in complicity between Mexico and the U.S.

Moreover, as a result of the neoliberal period, Mexico lost much of its self-sufficiency in energy, food production, technology, and other strategic areas. Even today, Mexico remains compelled to import genetically modified corn and gasoline despite being an oil-producing nation.

Currently, members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the National Action Party (PAN) have traveled to Washington seeking U.S. intervention in Mexico.

We should not forget that the PAN was founded in 1939, after Mexico’s 1938 oil expropriation. Meanwhile, the PRI abandoned its nationalist orientation, beginning with former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who rose to power through obvious electoral fraud and, according to many, with U.S. support. When Salinas de Gortari was losing the popular vote, the electoral computer system collapsed. The next morning, Mexicans woke up to news that Salinas de Gortari had won the presidency.

Unfortunately, despite all this history, there are Mexican immigrants in the United States who were effectively driven from their country during the neoliberal period but who continue to support Mexico’s political right—the PRIAN and Movimiento Ciudadano.

Whether out of ignorance or convenience, these pseudo-leaders call themselves Democrats in the United States but invariably end up supporting the political right in Mexico. Coincidentally, they are the same people who are now complaining about eliminating dual citizenship for those seeking to hold public office in Mexico.

Fortunately, they are not the majority, and probably never will be.

That is why, from our political trench here in Los Angeles—the city with the largest Mexican population outside Mexico—we send a clear message to our president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo:

We agree that dual citizenship should be eliminated for those seeking to hold the high office of President or Governor in Mexico.

Thank you, President Sheinbaum.