There’s a lot to say about the rioting and mayhem underway in Los Angeles right now, including the striking prevalence of Mexican flags among the rioters. Iconic images have been circulating online for days of masked men waving Mexico’s flag amid burning vehicles and wreckage, giving the riots a decidedly sinister flavor, as though all this is at least partly the work of foreign powers attempting to undermine the sovereignty of the United States.
In fact, that’s partially true, and it deserves some unpacking. Much of the debate and commentary in recent days has centered on the Trump administration’s response to the crisis, deploying the National Guard and the Marines to restore order in parts of L.A., and the reactions of California Democratic leaders like Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. mayor Karen Bass, who are essentially arguing that law enforcement itself is the problem. Others have speculated on various leftists groups that are in all likelihood funding and organizing these riots, similar to how BLM organized in the summer of 2020, in hopes they will spread to every major city.
But there’s another political player in this drama that’s gotten much less attention: the Mexican government’s ruling MORENA Party under the leadership of President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The first thing to understand about MORENA and the Mexican political establishment is that it’s essentially a criminal enterprise that has, over the past decade, merged with the country’s major cartels. Mexico essentially lost the drug war that began in 2006, and since at least 2013 the state has been so thoroughly infiltrated by the cartels, particularly Sinaloa, that today it’s difficult to tell where one stops and the other begins.
The cartels of course are not just drug-trafficking organizations anymore. During the Biden administration they figured out how to monetize illegal immigration, which became a major source of income for their organizations and networks. Those networks now include elements of the Guardia Nacional and Instituto Nacional de Migración, the country’s federal immigration authority, both of which were key players in the cartels’ migrant-trafficking operations.
All of that is by way of brief background. On Sunday afternoon, responding to the riots over the weekend, Sheinbaum said Mexican nationals living in the U.S. are “heroes” and denounced President Trump’s attempts to enforce federal immigration law.
“We disagree with this approach to the migration phenomenon,” Sheinbaum said Sunday during a press conference, as reported by the Daily Mail. “It’s not about raids or violence, but rather working on a comprehensive reform that takes into account the Mexicans on the other side of the border,” she added. “That is our position, always a call for peace, to not exacerbate any form of violent protest.”
Sheinbaum added that Mexican nationals in the U.S. are “not criminals” but “good, honest men and women who left to seek a better life for themselves and to support their families.”
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