illegDuring her morning news conference, Sheinbaum pointed to a graph that showed the number of deportations of Mexican nationals by the U.S. presidents.
“The largest period of deportations from the United States to Mexico was with Bill Clinton, from 1993 to 2001,” she said. “There was one year, 2000, with 1,150,906 Mexicans deported.”
Sheinbaum then pointed to the term of U.S. President Barack Obama, who deported 601,356 Mexicans in his first year. During Trump’s second term, Mexico has only seen 86,017 deportations.
“We have to say that there are fewer migrants entering,” she said. “There was a very important reduction in persons from Mexico and other nationalities after President Trump’s decision to close … to close the asylums.”
The question came after a journalist asked Sheinbaum about the number of Mexican nationals in U.S. detention centers.
Sheinbaum’s comments indicate a shift in rhetoric on the part of the Mexican politician, who had been a harsh critic before Trump took office. As Breitbart Texas reported, Sheinbaum sparked controversy in June when she said that she and her government were condemning immigration raids.
“We did not agree with the use of raids to detain people who work honestly in the United States,” she said at the time.
Sheinbaum’s criticism of U.S. immigration policy and other prior comments sparked a harsh response from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated that Sheinbaum’s rhetoric had promoted a series of violent protests in California, where rioters had been targeting ICE agents, Breitbart Texas reported at the time.