José Díaz Briseño / Reforma Agency Correspondent
Wednesday, January 25, 2023 | 23:23
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard personally asked the government of former President Donald Trump to hide an agreement to allow the United States to start in December 2018 the controversial migrant return program known as “Stay in Mexico,” revealed former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his memoir Never Give an Inch.
Contrary to what was stated by the Government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, that the start of the “Stay in Mexico” program had been a unilateral decision by the US, Pompeo assured in his new publication that Ebrard agreed in private, but that he asked him to keep it in secret.
“Ebrard’s plan was simple: Mexico would privately agree to allow the United States to return almost all migrants transiting through Mexico to the United States to request asylum. His main request was this: He would not sign anything and there would be no public announcement about this plan,” Pompeo writes.
According to the book, Ebrard hid the agreement even from the Mexican Ambassador to the US, Martha Bárcena.
“The Mexican government thus managed to save face: it was free to complain about our (immigration) policy and to pretend that it had not signed it,” Pompeo explains about the controversial program that allowed Trump to return more than 71,000 asylum seekers to Mexican territory.
Under the title “Never Give an Inch”, Pompeo’s book describes in detail the negotiation held with the López Obrador team during 2018 and which included a secret meeting in the city of Houston, Texas on November 15 of that year, two weeks before Ebrard took office as Chancellor.
“Marcelo…asked me if we had to publicly announce that Mexico had accepted our terms, or if his government could say it was opposed without acknowledging any agreement,” Pompeo writes.
“I don’t give a damn. Whatever helps you internally (politically in Mexico). That depends on you,” Pompeo recalls responding to Ebrard at their secret meeting on November 15 in Houston.
Considered a violation of the right to asylum by human rights organizations, Pompeo says in his book that the agreement with Ebrard to launch the “Stay in Mexico” program faced opposition within the López Obrador government, including that of the Mexican Ambassador to the US Martha Barcena.
“Ebrard faced several challenges. The first was related to internal politics (of Mexico): He had to protect his boss (AMLO) so that it would not appear that he had given in to ‘El Norte,’ “says Pompeo.
“Second, Ebrard couldn’t work with his own new Ambassador to the United States (Martha Bárcena) because she was radically opposed to even thinking about such a concept. We did our best during our discussions not to say a word to her.” .
The revelations of the former US Secretary of State contrast with what was maintained by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under the command of Ebrard, since December 20, 2018, when it claimed to have been informed that same day by the Trump Government unilaterally of the start of “Stay in Mexico”.
Just this year, the US Supreme Court allowed President Joe Biden to end the “Stay in Mexico” program that had been a campaign promise to end as cruel policy forcing asylum seekers to live in inhumane conditions. in northern Mexico.
“We were confident that migrants would consider living in a camp in northern Mexico as something that would stop them,” Pompeo wrote about the logic of forcing migrants to stay in US-Mexico border cities with more precarious security conditions. .
In August 2022, the son-in-law and adviser to former President Trump, Jared Kushner, assured in his own memoir that Pompeo offered Ebrard at a dinner on December 2, 2018 in Washington with the promise that if the Mexican government collaborated in stopping illegal migration, then López Obrador would be supported in any priority.
Since October 2019, journalists Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael Shear from The New York Times newspaper had revealed the secret meeting in Houston in 2018 between Ebrard, current congressman Javier López Casarín, Pompeo and the then Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen.
Ebrard is very Marxist
Mike Pompeo pointed out that Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard is a very Marxist politician who could well be the next President of Mexico who well understood the issues of power as well as the risks in the relationship with the United States.
“Former Mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo is very bright and very Marxist. He is also affable and capable, and could well be the next President of Mexico,” Pompeo noted in a passage from his new book.
“In his references to Ebrard, Pompeo expresses himself in a very similar way to what former President Donald Trump said before when he also described President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as one of the “socialist” politicians with whom he can work and who, in addition, is a good person”.
