California dreamin'

Mexico reacts to anti-deportation protests, plus a high-profile defection from the PAN

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

In today’s edition, I cover reactions in Mexico to the L.A. protests, and an ex-governor of Guanajuato who is leaving the PAN for México Republicano.

I’ll be back in your inbox tomorrow with more updates from the national conversation. If you’d like to support my work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

The ICE raids in Los Angeles last week resulted in 118 arrests. (Photo: ICE/X)

Mexico reacts to Los Angeles protests

California: the world’s fourth-largest economy, the “Golden State” of “blue” cities, site of both the sleek Liquid Glass of Silicon Valley and the “fuck ICE” protests on the streets of downtown Los Angeles in the same week. Formerly, Mexico.

With Trump’s decision to mobilize 4,000 National Guard and 700 Marines to the streets of a city that is nearly half Latino—a center of the Mexican diaspora where 38% of residents are foreign-born—he clearly wanted a big, beautiful battle. As has been widely reported, this is the first time the National Guard was deployed by a U.S. president without a governor’s request since 1965.

The LAPD issued a statement describing the protests as “peaceful” on Saturday, but as of writing, 338 arrests have been made and the county sheriff, Robert Luna (himself from a family of immigrants) said in an interview on Sunday that “the level of violence from some protesters is becoming more extreme.” Mayor Karen Bass announced a curfew that went into effect downtown Tuesday night, and said it would likely continue for several days. The protests have started to spread to other U.S. cities in what may become the first significant groundswell of civil disobedience under Trump 2.0.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and the White House have been publicly duking it out, with Newsom accusing the president of “manufacturing a crisis” and telling him “it’s time to grow up.” He dared the administration to arrest him, and filed an emergency motion to block the “unlawful militarization of Los Angeles” (which was denied by a federal judge on Tuesday). Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller accused Newsom of allowing “insurrectionist migrant mobs” to assault ICE officers and Trump called the governor “grossly incompetent.” In an address on Tuesday night, flanked by the California and U.S. flags, Newsom warned “democracy is under assault right before our eyes” and that “other states are next.”

I can smell 2028 from here.

While Los Angeles county was solidly blue in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris won neighboring Orange County by only a narrow margin, and Trump conquered Riverside County—which is 51.9% Hispanic and includes the greater metro area of Los Angeles—by one percentage point.

The protests erupted following ICE raids in workplaces across the city last week, which led to 118 arrests (42 of them Mexican citizens). Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs, said on Monday that four of them had been deported back to Mexico already.

President Sheinbaum called for the protesters to avoid violence in her Monday mañanera, asserting her government’s “unbreakable commitment to protecting and defending the human rights of Mexicans abroad” and thanking Los Angeles for “being generous…and we Mexicans have in turn been generous to the city.” She also asked the U.S. government to respect due process, though refrained from commenting directly on the federal show of force. It’s tricky for her to throw stones at militarized policing and migrant detentions.

On Tuesday afternoon, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem spoke to reporters in the Oval Office, and claimed that the Marines deployed to L.A. were “specifically trained to meet the need we have on the ground right now.” Does she mean they’re expecting Baghdad?

She also chastised Sheinbaum, saying she “encouraged more protests in L.A. and I condemn her for that.” Sheinbaum hit back on X that Noem’s statement was “completely false” and reiterated her condemnation of violent protests. U.S. Ambassador Ronald Johnson quietly backed Mexico’s president, posting on X that he joined Trump and Sheinbaum in “condemning the violent protests that are occurring in the U.S.”

Meanwhile, Sheinbaum’s political opponents at home have repeatedly shared a video clip from May 24 where she says “if necessary we will mobilize”—but she was referring to the proposed tax on remittances, not ICE raids. Alejandro Moreno, leader of the PRI, posted to X that “the ineptitude of this government continues to put at risk the political, economic and social stability of this and future generations. ENOUGH!” The president of the PAN, Jorge Romero, instead chose the route of solidarity, calling for “prudence” and for the U.S. government to “respect” the rights of Mexican immigrants. A statement signed by Mexico’s governors expressed support for Sheinbaum, saying she “never called for violent protests.”

As journalist Ioan Grillo noted in his analysis of the protests:

“Sheinbaum has so far been an effective ally of Trump in a crackdown south of the border. Yet conflict in Los Angeles makes her position trickier, and if the flames rise higher, it adds more stress to the relationship.”

From the PAN to Make Mexico Great Again?

Juan Manuel Oliva was the governor of Guanajuato, stronghold of the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN), from 2006-2012. But news broke yesterday that not only has he resigned from the PAN after 37 years, he is joining a Trump-inspired rightwing organization called México Republicano. The state chapter of the PAN said on Monday that “the process of expulsion” of Oliva—who said he presented his resignation to local party president Aldo Márquez back in December—is underway.

“Guanajuato is a blue bastion in the country,” wrote Márquez in a press release, also encouraging unity in the party to “affirm the triumph of the PAN in the 2027 elections.” Oliva told La Jornada newspaper, “I respect the institution [PAN] and will follow my path.”

Oliva’s term as governor was tainted by accusations of corruption and nepotism, but his departure from the party is seen as a blow by panistas.

“The history of Guanajuato cannot be read without the participation of Juan Manuel Oliva, particularly the history of panismo in Guanajuato,” said Eduardo Trujillo, former state president of the party. Oliva held the same position in the early days of the party’s entry into state politics.

“It’s an institutional and personal loss…it hurt me a lot,” said another ex-governor, Juan Carlos Romero Hicks in an AM newspaper article headlined “Panistas ‘cry’ over Oliva’s exit…México Republicano rebukes their ‘woke’ agenda.”

So who are these Mexican Republicans?

The organization backed Eduardo Verástegui (I wrote about his welcome dinner for Ambassador Ronald Johnson here) in his presidential aspirations in 2024, but seems to have its own agenda now. First, becoming an INE-registered party, then winning 70 federal deputy seats in the 2027 elections, according to the organization’s leader, Juan Iván Peña Neder, who was quoted in the above AM article:

“There are a lot of people we’ve encountered across the country who no longer feel ideologically identified with many of the positions coming from the new PAN leadership, especially the ‘woke agenda’ that accepts abortion, marriage equality, these things that have been imposed and have left behind the generations that defended the values of the Christian West in the PAN.”

The red, white, blue and green México Republicano website uses an eagle and an elephant in its imagery, and states its belief in “a strong state that provides order and guarantees the security and liberty of Mexicans,” with the objective of “the development of Mexico.”

Meanwhile, the supposedly “woke” PAN managed to defeat legislation to decriminalize abortion in Guanajuato last week, with the help of a green party (PVEM) lawmaker who tipped the vote to 19-17.

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