The weekly newsletter of the Mexico Solidarity Project

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February 11, 2026

A Mexican Conspiracy Against the US?

Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

A conspiracy of another kind. Jason Chavetz (resigned from House of Representatives, current Fox News commentator) with his idols Schweitzer and Trump: from Schweitzer's Instagram post

Trump and his evil cabal of fascists have openly proclaimed their intention to dominate — or replace — Latin American governments, to rip off their resources, and to channel massive profits into the overflowing money coffers of US billionaire investors and CEOs.

Mexico is the biggest prize, but it’s not enough to threaten economic strangulation through tariffs or even military invasion under the thin claim that “cartels run Mexico,” — not that “lovely” but weak woman, Claudia Sheinbaum. Trump’s strategy also includes a psychological battle for the hearts and minds of the US public to win support for a takeover of Mexico.

That’s where writers and “researchers” come in. Recently, Peter Schweizer published what purports to be an exposé of Mexico’s conspiracy to subvert the US government.

Schweizer names names. “Among those dispatched to the US is Alejandro Robles… the executive secretary of the party’s National Committee of Mexicans Abroad… he was making trips, ‘meeting with militants, supporters, and Morena committees,’ according to his party’s account...  Robles was sent to stoke resistance to Trump, meeting with migrants, both illegal and legal. ‘Our mission is to organize the militancy abroad’ [emphasis added by Schweizer], declared Robles.”

Schweizer also reports that Mexican Congressman “Cheto” Polanco, who lives in Los Angeles, “posted a video of Hispanic cops being harassed for doing their job and being disloyal to their ethnic heritage.”

Far from harassing “Hispanic cops,” Mexican Americans were defending themselves from the indiscriminate brutality of the ICE agents. In the MAGA blame-the-victim narrative, that makes them saboteurs threatening US sovereignty. Red alert! Mexicans are invading and boring from within!

Is Mexico plotting to overthrow the US government? Laughable, but Schweizer twists the facts to make the case. It’s business as usual: the pot calling the kettle black.

Books: Another MAGA Weapon Aimed at Mexico

Trump broadcast that The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon by Peter Schweizer is one of his new favorite books. What’s to like?

You are specifically mentioned in the book. What does he say about you?

I also criticized the Mexican government, which in the past failed to acknowledge its citizens living abroad. Many Mexicans in the US had no country to belong to — no welcome or rights in the US and ignored by Mexico.

But since the Morena government took office in 2018, that attitude has switched. We now publicly call migrants heroes and thank them for their enormous contributions to both the US and Mexican economies through their labor and remittances. Morena is the only party to have a Secretary for Mexicans Living Abroad. My job is to reconnect Mexicans to Mexico and to let them know we don’t forget their needs. But Schweizer portrays my trips across the border to meet with migrants as subversive, as if I am recruiting them to work against the US.

His accusation that I turn migrants into “militants” — people with revolutionary intentions — is based on a Spanish word I used,  “militancia.” He doesn’t understand Spanish! In Spanish, a party “militant” simply means someone active in a party.

Does Morena try to push its own agenda by operating in the US?

Francisco Cabeza de Vaca, former governor of the state of Tamaulipas, lives in the bordering US state of Texas. He was named PAN’s representative in the US.

You’d think the Trump administration would be concerned that Cabeza de Vaca has been accused of having ties to cartels, but no. Why? Because PAN’s agenda for Mexico is that it wants US intervention! It’s the only way the PAN party could ever return to the presidency. PAN is so unpopular that even its 2024 presidential candidate, Xochitl Galvez, has not signed up for membership in their recent party recruitment drive!

Sweizer alleges that the 53 Mexican consulates in the US conspire to undermine the US government. Is this credible?

Map of All 51 Mexican Consulates and Embassies in the USA: Reddit

Absolutely false! He says it’s suspicious that Mexico has so many consulates when the UK has eight and China has five, but Mexico’s population in the US of 40 million — 1 million born in Mexico — requires a lot more consulates than those other countries.

Working in a consulate is a career job, like a civil service job in the US. Consulate staff must take courses and pass an exam; only the head of the consulate, appointed by the Mexican government, is a political appointee.

And while the new hires since the 4T began have a different way of working, focusing on serving and defending migrants, they are not there to act like the CIA does in Mexico!

In Minneapolis, ICE agents forced their way into the Ecuadorian consulate. Will they attack the Mexican consulates?

The Geneva Convention of 1949 established the rules of international humanitarian law, and it’s entirely illegal to forcibly enter a consulate, an inviolable institution under the Consular Relations Convention. The ICE agents are ignorant of the law. They are bounty hunters — it’s said they get $1,000 per head, so they figured they could bag some game at the consulate.

Ironic that it was the Ecuadoran consulate because Ecuador itself broke the law when it entered the Mexican consulate and arrested a former official who had been given asylum there. What goes around comes around! But given that Ecuador is a good friend of the US, why was it targeted? Well, it wasn’t targeted! The ICE agents don’t know foreign affairs. Ecuador, Argentina, Honduras and Chile have presidents friendly to Trump — but that doesn’t matter to ICE agents. All brown people are Mexicans!

Does being named in the book put your own life in danger if you try to enter the US?

Yes. We all fear the immigration interview when we enter the US. I could be in front of a racist agent, complete with these prejudices, and if they googled me and found the Schweizer accusations against me, they could deny me entrance or maybe confiscate my visa. Not being able to travel to the US will definitely make it harder for me to do my job.

The US has many Morena chapters, and Schweizer mentions this too. They also will be more at risk of an ICE raid if they have a meeting.

Pressure on Mexico is building. What does Trump want from Mexico?

How can those of us in the US support Mexico at this moment?

Resist!

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Compañeros is the weekly newsletter of Mexico Solidarity Media, delivering all of our news stories, analyses, interviews and episodes of the podcasts Soberanía and El Taller, the Mexico Solidarity Bulletin, translations from Mexican media, photos and more!

The Power of Thanks:  Vilchis Family Retablos

Giving thanks for luck, past or future, assures the best possible outcomes in life.

The religious tradition of making milagros (miracles), ex-votos (votive offerings to saints or divinities), retablos (devotional paintings) and other icons of supplication and thanks has been traced way back, from present day through 16th-century Europe, down to  the fifth to first centuries BCE in indigenous, Greek, Iberian and other European cultures.

Retablos, often painted to give thanks to the Virgen de Guadalupe, were not originally decoration or “art pieces” to be bought and sold. But today, artists are commissioned to make them, often working collaboratively, and families pass this art form down the generations.

Alfredo tells tales of his family and culture. Some horrific, some so human. This is the story of the migrants’ train, with people riding dangerously on top and the women (Las Patronas) who help them.

"Amátlan, Veracruz, México, 2014. God bless these women, “Las Patronas,” and help them because they are helping the migrants who cross our county searching for the American dream, surviving the danger with the illusion they will arrive at their destiny. Protect them. I ask this with all my heart, this humble painter of the barrio, A Vilchis."

Las Patronas, Alfredo Vilchis, El Pintor del Barrio

Hugo's River, Hugo Vilchis

A mother commissioned “Hugo’s River,” thankful that her sons made it across the Rio Bravo (Grande) River. We see compassion, fear, motion and a clear sense of place and time in this piece by Hugo Vilchis.

"Holy Virgin of San Juan, I dedicate this retablo to you for letting my sons, Juan and Pedro, cross the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) and get to USA, in spite of one of them being nearly drowned. A grateful mother, Jalisco, 1983"

So that’s life, as told by a family of men unafraid to talk good and bad luck, our sins and the sins of others, and the beginning and end of life. And so it goes…

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 Drop a line to meizhului@gmail.com

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Compiled by Jay Watts.

Raúl Antonio Capote, Washington’s strategy to recolonize America Resumen. The new  National Security Strategy explicitly revives the Monroe Doctrine, adding a “Trump Corollary” that seeks to restore US preeminence in the hemisphere and deny China and Russia control of any strategic assets.

Alejandro I. López, Las claves de la reforma para reducir la jornada laboral a 40 horas El País. La iniciativa, lista para discutirse en el Senado de México, plantea la disminución gradual de la jornada lectiva hasta 2030 y evita incluir de forma explícita los dos días de descanso semanales.

María del Pilar Martínez, SITRABICS logra acuerdo histórico en transporte transfronterizo bajo el T-MEC El Economista. Tras un prolongado conflicto laboral que inició en 2021, el Sindicato de Transportistas alcanzó un acuerdo de implementación con la empresa Kamu, marcando un precedente en la resolución de controversias mediante el Mecanismo Laboral de Respuesta Rápida del T-MEC.

Sandra Dibble, Cross-Border Truckers Win Fight to Unionize Voice of San Diego. A union hoping to represent long-haul truckers who transport goods between Mexico and the United States announced a deal on Tuesday.

Nora Gaspar Reséndiz, Fobaproa, corrupción poblana y opacidad abollan el auto de Mier... antes de arrancar Sin Embargo. Ignacio Mier es un expriista cuya trayectoria ha tenido varias polémicas, entre ellas destaca su voto a favor del Fobaproa, una deuda que los mexicanos pagarán hasta 2050.

Ivan Evair Saldaña, Mexico City protest demands Mexico continue sending oil to Cuba MR Online. “Mexican oil for the Cubans!” they chanted.

Dahlia de la Cerda, Claudia Sheinbaum no es ‘presirvienta’, es tu patrona El País. Los ataques machistas contra la presidenta de México nos recuerdan que no todos los insultos son equivalentes: algunos humillan, otros ordenan el mundo.

Ana Isabel Martinez and Raul Cortes, Mexico's Pemex supplied $496 million of oil to Cuba in 2025 Reuters. And it must not stop.

Carlos Carabaña, Andrés Lajous: “Con el Tren Maya y El Insurgente estamos recuperando una industria que dejó de existir” El País. El político, que lleva ya más de un año como jefe de los ferrocarriles de México, lidera una ambiciosa expansión de los trenes de pasajeros en un momento complejo tras el primer accidente mortal de esta nueva era.

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice. We see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of Mexico as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and Mexico’s national sovereignty.

 

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Agatha Hinman, Victoria Hamlin, Courtney Childs, Pedro Gellert.  To give feedback or get involved yourself, please email us!

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