The Invisible Coup: True Story on How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon
Author: Peter S. Schweizer
Date: 2026-02-12 18:36:56+00:00
Keywords: Biography & Autobiography; Political; Humor; Topic; Politics; Philosophy; Political Science; Political Economy; American Government; General; Terrorism; History; Civilization
Description: What if the greatest threat to America’s future isn’t a foreign adversary, but an invisible force from within?In The Invisible Coup, best-selling author Peter S. Schweizer reveals the shocking truth behind how political elites and foreign powers have turned immigration into a powerful tool for manipulating U.S. policy, economy, and national identity. Through meticulous research and insider analysis, this eye-opening guide uncovers the hidden agendas driving America’s immigration crisis, exposing how unchecked migration undermines the very fabric of the nation. As millions of migrants flood int
Publisher: BookRix

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Dedication

To Kerstin G. Schweizer

1934–2025

Loving mother, immigrant, proud American

Epigraph

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.

—M. Tullii Ciceronis, Orationum Pars I.[–III]

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Note to Readers

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction

Chapter 1: Proof of Concept

Chapter 2: Mexico’s Reconquista of the US Is Real

Chapter 3: Mexico: Organizing Militancy in the US

Chapter 4: Voter Mills

Chapter 5: China: The Manchurian Generation

Chapter 6: Importing the Revolution

Chapter 7: Progressives and Drug Cartels

Chapter 8: Transforming America

Chapter 9: The Surge

Chapter 10: Fighting Back

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

About the Author

Also by Peter Schweizer

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

A haze of smoke drifted across the street, where masses of protesters inciting violence waved foreign flags in the breeze. This was not a battle scene from a distant war, but Alameda Street in downtown Los Angeles, and the defiant crowd waving Mexican, Salvadoran, and Palestinian flags was confronting a line of local and federal law enforcement officers.[1] Similar scenes had been playing out across the United States, from Texas to New York, in recent months, as organized activist groups confronted not just the flesh-and-blood US officers called in to enforce immigration law, but, in fact, the American system of law and order itself, under foreign colors, for personal political purposes.

On the surface, these scenes painted a jarring picture of the consequences of an open-border policy. However, a deeper look exposes something far more alarming: the weaponization of mass migration as a tool of subversion against the United States by foreign governments and organizations, as well as their domestic allies. As we will see, the LA and other violent protests were encouraged by foreign governments.

According to the US Census Bureau, the United States set a record in 2024 when the foreign-born population reached an all-time high of 15.2 percent. This statistic itself is not the problem. After all, E Pluribus Unum is the American way. Out of many nationalities and ethnicities, we are one nation and stronger for it. But other countries are using immigration to the US to destabilize our democratic republic.

Tens of millions of immigrants, my parents included, have come to the United States, proud of their cultural heritage, but also proud to respect American laws, work hard, and adopt American values, culture, and language. Many recent immigrants continue this honorable tradition.

The problem is that foreign entities, both hostile and so-called friendly governments, as well as radical overseas movements and terrorist groups, are using the American tradition of welcoming immigrants against us to subvert our country. They are aided and abetted by domestic forces who help them either because they share their goals or seek an expedient political benefit. Half a century ago, people immigrated here to seek the freedom and opportunity that only America could provide. Today, mass migration is increasingly engineered to promote malevolent agendas against the United States, including the creation of powerful political networks inside our country designed to undermine us.

Let me be clear: This is no “Great Replacement Theory,” a Marxist rehash of class warfare theology, which posits that domestic elites import migrants to replace native populations in Europe and the United States, all in the name of cheaper labor. The creator of this theory, French leftist Renaud Camus, calls this “genocide by Great Replacement” and blames American capitalism. His central villain is a nineteenth-century American efficiency expert named Frederick Winslow Taylor, who, according to Camus, “is to Replacism what Marx is to Communism.”[2] For Camus, it is capitalists, namely, “Davos, cybernetics, banks, hedge funds, pension funds, Big Tech, etc.,” who are engineering an invasion of migrants.

Camus, it should be noted, dislikes not only migrants but all population growth, deriding “pro-natalist” politicians who encourage citizens to have more children. After all, he claims, “demographic growth is a disaster everywhere it is found.”[3]

While Renaud Camus is an atheist and socialist on the political left, his ideas have been amplified by some across the political spectrum to promote racist and xenophobic ideas. In this way, Camus has become useful to the political left, who have found in him the perfect straw man used to dampen any debate about mass migration as racist.

Acknowledging migration with deleterious intent is not racist but rather calling attention to a vulnerability unique to our country’s heritage of welcoming people of all races and cultures. We can only maintain that heritage if we preserve it from manipulation. The pessimistic Mr. Camus is wrong. The manipulation or weaponization of mass migration is not being conducted by a cabal of capitalists, as Camus would have us believe. It is being carried out by foreign governments and political movements operating inside the United States, aided and abetted by domestic political actors who seek partisan political gains.

The mass migration problem is not just a border crisis. It is a weapon deployed by our adversaries with devastating effect long after the border crisis seems “solved.” Its aim, only dimly understood by our leadership class, is subversion. And it is succeeding.

If demography is destiny, then weaponization of mass migration is a result of what the late Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington called a “Clash of Civilizations.” Western, Latin American, Muslim, and Sinic (Chinese) nations, among others, have distinctly different cultures and thus distinctly different political structures. Some are more individualistic, others more collectivist oriented. Nations may value profoundly different things, says Huntington, hence “the clash.”[4]

Huntington was mostly concerned that the clash would inevitably lead to wars between these powerful civilizations and only touched on the dynamics of mass migration. What is now occurring is a clash of civilizations manifest inside the United States itself. In this book, we will expose the clash of civilizations occurring within our borders, a clash designed to displace American democratic civilizational values. Ironically, it is these values that uniquely bind Americans together—respect for individual life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, not a single ethnicity—that is at stake.

Over the past few years, we have witnessed masses of migrants on our screens, streaming across the southern border, and read the accounts of illegal migrants clogging America’s shelters, all while criminal gangs wreak havoc on America’s streets. Our digital platforms captured the largest mass migration in US history for all to see. The issue played a central role in the 2024 election of Donald Trump as president. And as promised, he and his new administration dramatically reduced the deluge of humanity to a trickle.

Case closed—or not?

Certainly, controlling the border is a constructive first step. Deporting illegal criminals is another. However, as we will reveal, there is much more to the story than people simply crossing the border illegally. Something more profoundly troubling is taking place that has escaped even the most informed news consumer or policymaker. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, reducing the flow at the border is not the end of the problem. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning phase of solving the ongoing and largely unrecognized existential threat that we face.

That threat is subversion.

Subversion is an effort by which the values and principles of a system are reversed or contradicted to undermine and sabotage an established social order.

It is a word that we associate with the Cold War and Senator Joe McCarthy, or with the milieu of spies and Third World revolutionaries. Today, it is happening on a grand scale in the United States using stealth weapons. The flow of people across the US border is not just a matter of immigration, economics, and crime. It is organized political subversion, with people being wielded as tools to undermine our country’s sovereignty.

Traditionally, immigrants come to a new country to live and worship as they choose while embracing the norms of their host country. But now migrants are being steered to unravel the fabric of society and the culture that has welcomed them.

As we will see, this is neither a fantasy nor a conspiracy theory. The culprits themselves tell us this is so.

Throughout the following chapters, I will be exposing a range of actors and the weapons they employ to engineer their subversive mission.

To succeed, they use a mass infusion of people and work aggressively to prevent these masses from assimilating so that American values are destabilized.

This subversive mission exploits American openness and generosity, but also requires willing collaborators in the United States who share the vision or at least see it as a means to power. They also seek to use migrants as radical agents of change.

The strategy itself of weaponizing migration has modern precedents.

In 1974, Algerian president Houari Boumediene stood in front of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and threatened that migration would be weaponized to conquer the West. “One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere of this planet to burst into the northern one,” he declared. “But not as friends. Because they will burst in to conquer, and they will conquer by populating it with their children. Victory will come to us from the wombs of our women.”[5] Now, as we will see, Mexican and other leaders are doing their best to make this strategy a reality.

In 1977, the communist Chinese threatened President Jimmy Carter with a mass exodus of millions. Carter was meeting with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, pressing him on the communist government’s human rights record.

“Okay,” Deng had replied impatiently. “Well then, exactly how many Chinese would you like, Mr. President? One million? Ten million? Thirty million?” It was a not-so-veiled threat to deploy a migrant weapon. Carter certainly saw it as such.[6] As we will see, China currently has a subversive migration program directed against the United States that is unmatched in its sophistication.

In 1997, Malaysian prime minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, attending a meeting of the Southern African International Dialogue, threatened that if the West did not give the developing world what they wanted, “We should migrate North in the millions, legally or illegally. . . . Masses of Asians and Africans should inundate Europe and America.”[7]

Today, we are no longer dealing with rhetorical threats but with the consequences of migration warfare.

As US federal Immigration Judge Aaron Petty puts it, “International population movements are often impelled, encouraged, or prevented by governments or political forces.”

Judge Petty adds, “[Mass migrations] do not merely happen; more often they are made to happen.”

Petty likens these recent mass migrations to “living warheads” being fired at America.[8]

Even those who have characterized mass migration as an invasion may not appreciate how accurate that term is. Foreign governments and domestic actors inside the United States see migration as a strategic force to transform American government, culture, and values. As we will see, their strategy is intentional, openly expressed, well developed, and has been adopted by so-called friendly governments like Mexico, as well as hostile powers like China. Aided by partisan political actors inside the United States, the goal is to transform America and trigger a cultural revolution.

Facilitating migration to the United States is only the first step, and the one that receives all the attention. Once migrants are in the US, foreign governments, political movements, and their domestic allies here work hard to keep them from assimilating and craft them into radical political change agents.

Does that sound extreme? Wait until you hear them in their own words.

While President Trump has dramatically reduced migration traffic across the southern border during his second term in office, little notice has been paid to the weaponization of those already in the country. That problem has scarcely been recognized.

In Texas, California, and New York, a senior Mexican official huddles with illegal migrants. The purpose of the meetings? To “organize militancy” (his words) inside the United States.

Across America, the Mexican government, through its more than fifty consulates, is blatantly interfering in our domestic politics, working with American political advisors to turn legal and illegal migrants inside the US into a political force to wield for their benefit.

In Mexico City, the country’s president candidly and calmly explains the purpose of mass migration into the United States—the reconquering of the American Southwest (Reconquista), the territories lost to the United States in the nineteenth century. The Mexican government works to make this a reality.

From California to New York, radical foreign political movements are using migrants quietly and systematically to take over important US political institutions, motivated and driven by foreign ideologies.

In America’s heartland, a foreign organization instrumental in the 9/11 terror attacks is helping to fund and elect members of Congress.

In China, up to one million “Americans” raised inside the communist country will be of age to vote in US elections—even though they have never lived here. This “Manchurian Generation” is further augmented by the efforts of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials using surrogacy to raise a horde of IVF American children.

In California and Arizona, a clandestine scheme to train thousands of Chinese military pilots in the United States every year is ongoing, boosting Beijing’s military power.

In Washington, DC, an American immigration visa program, developed by a Chinese spy, allows Chinese-based individuals to funnel tens of millions of dollars into American political campaigns legally.

Also in Washington, politicians quietly rake in tens of millions from foreign nationals who can’t vote in our elections—but can legally donate to their campaigns.

In the corridors of American power, prominent American progressives cooperate with individuals directly tied to the drug cartels, who profit from the subversive goals of mass migration.

In the White House, American presidents manipulate and ignore the US citizenship process on a massive scale for personal political benefit, minting new citizens who have not been properly vetted and have criminal records.

As you will read in the chapters that follow, evidence of engineered mass migration and its use as a subversive tool abounds in government documents, statements by foreign leaders, hacked emails, and internal documents from organizations in the United States.

Today, the clash of civilizations is more than a useful theory for foreign policy experts to use when playing their moves out on the global chessboard. It is occurring in real time within the borders of the United States. What is at stake is not about race, but about the corruption of the American Experiment itself and with it the liberties that allow people of all ethnicities to thrive together.

Chapter 1

Proof of Concept

Thousands of people crowded into small boats and were illuminated by carbon-arc searchlights scanning the perimeter of Mariel Harbor in Cuba. The shoreline teemed with men, women, and children, carrying little more than the clothes on their backs, hoping to escape the Fidel Castro regime on trawlers, yachts, commercial ships, and sailboats. They used anything that could survive the trip across the open ocean to Miami.

Patrol boats and armed guards kept a careful watch as the crafts assembled for the journey.[1]

The president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, had assured “an open heart and open arms.”[2]

Probably puffing on a Cohiba and countering, Bien, entonces, Fidel Castro promised, “I’ll fill his arms with sh*t!”[3]

During the late spring of 1980, the brutal communist dictator of Cuba engineered an export of close to one hundred and twenty-five thousand of his countrymen to the United States. It began with Cubans in America calling for people to flee to US waters, but it ended with Castro seeing an opportunity to choose who to send.

It would become the first successful deployment of a weapon of mass migration against the United States. It has since been regarded as the third most damaging foreign attack in US history after Pearl Harbor and 9/11.

We now know what seemed like a chaotic and spontaneous exodus of people in small boats from Cuba to Florida became an intentional, well-planned attack. Dubbed “the Attila Plan,” the head of Sector 5 of the Cuban intelligence agency launched the operation. The benefits to Cuba and the costs to its chief enemy, the United States, were clear. Castro could rid his country of discontented and often poor inhabitants who did not support his government while using the flood of legitimate refugees as human camouflage for the strategic export of violent criminals, psychopaths, intelligence agents, and drug dealers to trouble the American homeland. Violence and chaos in the US would follow, along with profits from the drug trade.[4]

The beauty of migration as a weapon was that it twisted the reputation of America as a champion of human rights around the country’s neck, and America would not see the noose until it was too late.

It started simply enough. In April 1980, in the pages of the official government newspaper Granma, amid growing discontent, Fidel Castro publicly invited Cuban exiles in the United States to sail to Cuba and pick up anyone who wanted to leave the country.

Cuban Ministry of the Interior officials visited the island’s prisons. “Either you leave or you’ll rot here!” they threatened prisoners.[5]

By April 24, one thousand boats had set sail from Florida to Cuba to gather refugees. Within a month, seventy-five thousand Cubans had been transported to the United States. By late September, the number had risen to one hundred twenty-five thousand.[6]

The Americans who participated in the boatlift thought it was a rescue mission. But it was, in fact, an invasion.

Soon after the first refugees arrived, people on the ground knew something was not quite right. Mariano Faget, a federal immigration officer, had been ordered to go to Key West, Florida, to help with the influx. After he arrived, he called the White House. “I am Cuban,” he recalls telling them, “but I never met the kind of people who are arriving on some of these boats.” The White House dismissed his concerns, convinced that this was a simple migration. Faget noted that the White House did not want to hear about “the low-life that was arriving. They did not want to believe me.” In Key West, he saw increasingly more evidence to confirm his theory that Cubans had been “taken from prison cells, insane asylums, or street corners,” forced on boats and exported to America.[7]

Tossing violent psychopaths into the flood of migrants was a key part of the Attila Plan to strain the American health care system and generally sow chaos. Cuban intelligence even had an agent working at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, which handled psychiatric cases in the Miami area.[8]

American officials should have seen it coming. They had received early warnings that this was no spontaneous migration. Cuban sources told officials in the Miami Police Department that Castro “was going to launch a major offensive against the United States” by sending a wave of migrants to America. A memo made its way to the State Department, the FBI, and the CIA, but they dismissed its concerns. “You have no proof,” was the reply.[9]

The source of that memo was Genaro Pérez, a former intelligence officer for the Cuban government now working for the Miami Police Department. “About two or three weeks later, they found the first leprosy case among the refugees and they said, ‘What is going on?’,” he recalled. “They found the first cuckoo man and then people with tuberculosis, hepatitis, and the criminals. And then is when the government of the US realized what was going on.”[10]

Violent criminals, some mentally unstable, were an integral part of the plan. Estimates were that sixteen to twenty thousand criminals were seeded among the migrants. Even five years after the invasion, Dade County jails had between three hundred fifty and four hundred Mariel Cubans on a typical day.[11] Murder and violent crime rates jumped in Miami as the new arrivals fanned out into the general public. “Given the group’s unique composition and the absence of rigorous screening,” one academic study later found, “it likely constitutes the worst observed migration event in terms of public safety in US history.”[12]

Castro’s weaponization of migration went even further.

Among the refugees who stepped off the boat in Key West that summer of 1980 was Armando Romero Rivas. Fortunately, a volunteer who had previously escaped from Cuba recognized him. Rivas had been allegedly involved in Cuba’s bacteriological warfare plans against the United States and had been trained to harm the American population by “introducing poison into the Mississippi River.” US authorities detained Rivas but he later disappeared—or he was disappeared.[13]

Rivas was only one of an estimated three thousand intelligence agents placed within the migration. In addition, three to four hundred other operatives posing as refugees arrived to set up drug distribution operations in the United States, mostly heroin and cocaine. The drugs would contribute to social decay in America while generating revenue for the Cuban government.[14]

Tensions mounted in Miami as the tide of migrants continued to rise. The new arrivals packed into the Orange Bowl, home of the Miami Dolphins, or were simply dumped on street corners.

Castro’s plan finally became apparent.

“[Castro] is using people like bullets aimed at this country,” complained Jack Watson, a former Marine Corps Recon officer who was now serving as White House chief of staff.

Victor Palmieri, the US coordinator of refugee affairs under Carter, characterized the influx as “a form of guerrilla warfare.”[15]

The US National Guard was deployed, but the realization that the rescue mission was in fact an invasion came too late for anything but damage control.

Jimmy Carter had been duped. Decades later, when the immigration weapon was redeployed against the United States, American leaders would not be naïve bystanders, but instead active participants in its deployment.

Castro was enormously pleased with his gambit. In July 1980, the dictator traveled to Nicaragua to celebrate the seizure of power by the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN), a Marxist movement that he had backed. Castro was greeted at the airport by Sandinista leaders. As we will see, forty years later, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega deployed a migration attack against the United States on an even grander scale than Castro’s. Also at the airport was a Brazilian revolutionary named Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had recently been released from prison. Miguel d’Escoto, a radical priest who was now serving in the Sandinista government, introduced Lula to Fidel, “kicking off a friendship that would last until the death of the Cuban leader in 2016.”[16] Like Ortega, Lula, as president of Brazil, would also weaponize millions of migrants to the United States. Castro bragged a year later that thanks to the boatlift invasion, he was extending his reach through the migrant community in the United States and could “instigate a race riot at any time of his choosing.”[17]

A US Department of Defense study later concluded that after the migrant invasion known as the Mariel Boatlift, “Castro reveled in the inability of the United States to control its border.”[18] For Castro, it was an opportunity seized; for his revolutionary descendants, as this book will show, it was a lesson learned.

The 1980 invasion of the United States finally ended when the Carter administration negotiated an agreement with Castro that offered him some important concessions.[19] Beyond the concessions, the real lasting benefit was that Castro had successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of migration as munition. Cuban intelligence officials huddled in their embassy in Mexico City to plan more acts of migrant warfare on the United States.[20]

Washington’s complete misreading of what Castro was up to put the mighty United States in the position of begging Havana to take back the criminals and psychopaths that he had embedded in the exodus. As The Washington Post stated: “The matter could be settled quickly if these men could be deported, but Cuba refuses to take them back; the United States has tried to initiate negotiations on this subject, in vain, four times. . . . They belong in Cuban jails, not in American jails. Certainly, they do not belong on American streets.”[21]

Castro relished the fact that he had discovered a weapon that would force the Yanquis to beg for help. By 1984, the Ronald Reagan administration in Washington was still trying to negotiate with Castro to take back some of the “criminals and social misfits” that had arrived during the boatlift.[22]

Castro was the first modern leader to deploy migration effectively against a superpower; and win.

It was an act of strategic genius in terms of mass effect on the United States. As an attack on the US, the Mariel Boatlift has “no parallel in the history of the American nation outside of Pearl Harbor and 9/11,” explain historians and government officials in their definitive history of the event.[23] And yet, while America responded to both the Japanese and radical Islamic terrorists with fierce and punitive military counterattacks, it responded weakly to Castro’s migration weapon. After all, exactly what would the US military attack and destroy?

From the first explorers to World War II, immigrants viewed what is now the United States as a land of opportunity where the enterprising and courageous could forge a brighter future than in their homeland. They integrated as quickly as they could because that was the only path to success. Starting after World War II, immigrants were coming to the world’s preeminent superpower and integrating. Most Americans failed to notice that this time, starting with Mariel, it would be different.

Castro’s success inspired his political heirs in Central and South America to deploy migration similarly against the Americans. In Mexico City, the country’s leadership would view millions of their countrymen streaming into the United States not as a problem, but as a means to settle historic scores and extend their sovereignty into the heart of the United States. In Beijing, Chinese officials would develop a more sophisticated brand of migration warfare. In both cases, rather than just foment disorder, their goals were more ambitious: to transform the United States, politically and culturally. Even worse, as we will see, unlike Castro in 1980, these interests have found powerful allies inside the United States who share their ambitions.

* * *

Ten summers after Castro first weaponized migration, a secretive group gathered in São Paulo, Brazil. It was July 1990, and dozens of communists, radicals, guerrillas, and even drug traffickers from across Latin America and the Caribbean were attending “the Meeting of Political Parties and Movements.”[24] As the Soviet Union was collapsing, they hoped to answer an existential question: How do we proceed now in the battle against the West?

The driving force behind what would come to be called the São Paulo Forum (SPF) was the same bearded, left-wing Brazilian politician, Lula da Silva, who had first met Castro on the airport tarmac in Nicaragua a decade earlier. Lula and Castro bonded over the idea of creating an international organization that could work on many fronts against the United States. Lula later recalled that the SPF emerged after deep conversations “with comrades from the Communist Party of Cuba and Comrade Fidel Castro.”[25] In the decades ahead, it would prove its effectiveness as a centralized engineer of the migrant weapon against the US.

Soon after its formation, the São Paulo Forum welcomed radical elements within the Catholic Church into the fold. The leading voices of liberation theology fused Marxism and the rejection of Western culture into Catholic social teaching. Frei Betto, friend of Fidel and later Pope Francis, served as the editorial director of the Forum’s flagship publication, America Libre. Miguel D’Escoto, a member of the Sandinista government who was later brought back into the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Francis after his expulsion, served on the editorial board.

The São Paulo Forum also advanced its interests into the United States itself. South American members of the SPF would start to influence the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The DSA counts among its members Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Bernie Sanders, and several other members of Congress, and has developed long, deep ties to the Forum. Eventually, DSA applied for formal membership.[26]

Within a couple of decades of its founding, members of the SPF would take over many governments in South America.

Hugo Chavez, an SPF member, took over Venezuela in 1998.

In 2003, Argentina and Brazil succumbed as SPF leaders took power.

In 2006, Bolivia and Honduras followed in kind.

In 2007, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

In 2008, Paraguay.

In 2010, Uruguay.

In 2018, Mexico.[27]

The days of armed revolution were numbered and not practical against large, prosperous adversaries like the United States. But migration offered a different way. During a 1993 SPF meeting in Cuba, Castro called for a change in tactics away from armed fighting and focused instead on other forms of struggle through subversion. “It is clear to us now that at this moment in time, under the current circumstances,” Castro noted, “armed struggle is not the most promising way. Take it from someone who, as you all well know, was involved in an armed struggle and backed armed revolutionary movements, and who does not regret it.”[28]

Weaponization of mass migration would become a mainstay of the SPF, leading to its declaration, “A world without borders and with universal citizenship is what guides our struggle for emancipation.”[29]

Increasingly, as SPF members took power in Latin American countries, those countries have served as staging grounds for a weaponized mass migration. And as the SPF extended its political network into the United States itself, it forged common cause alliances with powerful figures in Washington, left-wing nonprofits, and even more benign—or naïve—open borders advocates. As we will see in chapter 9, the member governments of the Forum actively orchestrated the march of migrants north toward the United States, effectively replaying the Mariel Boatlift on a thermonuclear scale.

There were others at the table too. Namely, the drug cartels, who were keenly motivated to foster mass migration into the US. Drug lords liked the idea of porous borders, especially into the United States, their largest market. Permeable borders make it easier to move their products—cocaine, heroin, and humans.

As we all know, drug traffickers are often also human traffickers. The flood of migrants has provided cover for cartel members engaged in illegal-at-best, horrific-at-worst commerce in and out of the United States. And the flood of money that migrants send back to their relatives in their home countries provides a cover for laundering drug profits out of the United States to Latin America.[30]

While the financing of the São Paulo Forum is shrouded in mystery, the drug cartels appear to play a role. Publicly, the Forum has said that member parties fund its activities. But several of the most influential member parties are involved in drug trafficking. As a result, “there are repeated reports of drug money flowing into the São Paulo Forum,” according to a major investigation published by the well-regarded German foundation, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.[31]

The direct involvement of officials with the drug cartels is not only a Latin American phenomenon. It also implicates powerful political organizations in the United States and prominent American politicians.

So what began as a small gathering in São Paulo in 1990 soon mushroomed into a massive organization. By 1996, ten thousand members of 112 leftist political parties from throughout Latin America joined the SPF meeting in San Salvador.[32] By 2009, SPF members were in charge of fourteen countries in Latin America.[33] As Lula later reflected: “When we [created] the São Paulo Forum, none of us imagined that in just two decades we would get to where we are.”[34]

In 2014, the SPF noted that “the political situation is unquestionably favorable” to them and proclaimed their “solidarity with the migrant movement in the USA.”[35]

The mass migration of sympathetic adults to the United States would enable SPF radical parties to establish a deep foothold in America’s political institutions.

The São Paulo Forum considered its razão de ser the direct rejection of Western culture. Western values, including Enlightenment philosophies of human rights, property, and individual dignity, were dismissed as vestiges of colonialism. Instead, they promoted indigenous ideas and values. Once in office, SPF leaders like Lula leaned heavily into racial rhetoric to explain political and economic matters. Of the 2008 financial crisis, Lula explained, “This crisis was caused by the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing.” While factually incorrect, the rhetoric provides helpful clarity in understanding Lula and the SPF.[36]

When the São Paulo Forum gathered in Havana, Cuba, in 2018, activists from California and Washington, DC, sent them warm greetings, invoking skin color, not human rights, as their common cause. “We salute, in solidarity and commitment, the continental struggle of the peoples of our Brown America!” The document was signed by members from the United Workers of Washington, the Democratic Socialists of America, and “diplomatic brothers from sister countries of Brown America.”[37]

Let us now turn to Mexico’s Reconquista.

Chapter 2

Mexico’s Reconquista of the US Is Real

President Donald Trump sat at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office with pen in hand. It was January 20, 2025, and just hours earlier, he had been sworn in as president. During his inaugural speech, he made many promises. Among them was renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Now, he was doing just that, signing an executive order to make the change official.

In response to his earlier promise to make this change, President Claudia Sheinbaum responded with a proposal to rename North America “Mexican America.” After all, she explained, the American states of California, Arizona, and Colorado were historically part of Mexico.

“It sounds pretty, doesn’t it?” Sheinbaum added.

Most American observers dismissed Sheinbaum’s remark as a clever and sarcastic retort to Trump’s promise. However, her words reflected the deeper reality: Below the surface, Mexico’s political elite have a profound cultural resentment toward the United States and a vision for radically changing American civilization through mass migration.

If deep cultural resentment sounds like an exaggeration, consider the litany of comments and concerted actions undertaken by Mexico’s leaders over the course of the last several decades.

In February 2023, José Gerardo Rodolfo Fernández Noroña, a member of parliament for Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena party, stood on the floor of the Congreso de la Union and calmly declared that California, Texas, and New Mexico were, among other parcels, “occupied territories.” He went on to say that Mexico “should review this dispossession and once again demand the recovery of these territories” from America. These outlandish statements certainly did not hurt his career. In fact, they helped him. A year and a half later, he was elected president of the Mexican Senate.[1]

Noroña is not alone.

Many pillars of the Mexican elite embrace the notion of Reconquista—the “reconquest” of the land ceded to the United States by Mexico during the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, achieved through mass migration and political action. There are many in positions of power who share some version of that vision. While they may or may not mean the literal territorial rejoining of those territories with Mexico, they very much mean the cultural and political detachment of the American Southwest from the US and transforming it to resemble Mexican civilization. They hope to accomplish this task by mass migration, preventing the assimilation of migrants in the United States to the American way of life, and organizing them into a political force for Mexico’s benefit. With the help of powerful forces inside the United States, they are well on their way.

Mexico’s political elite are shockingly open about it.

In 2021, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (popularly known as AMLO), then Mexico’s president (and Sheinbaum’s mentor), was walking outside one night surrounded by a cluster of reporters. They were furiously peppering him with questions. One asked him about the mass of migrants who were heading north. AMLO declared that Mexicans living in the United States “are not alone, that we will support you. We will always support each other.”

“Do you think that the Mexicans are reconquering our lands again?” one reporter shouted from the scrum.

“We Mexicans are reconquering our lands again,” AMLO responded with a smile. “Yes, especially because the human rights of migrant workers must be respected.”[2]

For Mexico’s elite, mass migration is not just an economic reality. And the United States is not just a friendly neighbor with which it occasionally clashes. Instead, the US is a rival civilization with opposing values that must be subverted. As Jorge Nuño Jiménez, a prominent Mexican academic who regularly attends the United Nations Conference, stated in 2024, mass migration is “causing the demographic reconquest in areas that the Americans had forcibly taken from Mexico.”[3]

President Sheinbaum followed in the footsteps of her mentor AMLO during a morning news briefing in 2024. The subject of migration came up. The president cued up a bilingual hymn she had commissioned for the gathered news reporters titled “Himno del Migrante” (Migrant Hymn). A live band performed the song, which says, “Cambiamos de lugar, no del bandera,” a pledge of loyalty to Mexico:

And though my birth certificate says American

I am pure Mexican

We change places but not flags

I carry green, white and red in my veins

Like the eagle we fly without borders

We break through the fence that separates lands.[4]

Shortly after the song’s debut, Mexico’s Parliamentary News Agency distributed an article by Mario A. Medina explaining that the song represents “an act of gratitude, of recognition of what they [migrants] represent, I say, the reconquest of our territory.”[5]

In December 2024, the head of the Mexican government’s National Population Council (CONAPO), Gabriela Rodriguez, wrote an official report. “We already know that the Mexican population in the United States reaches 39.9 million,” it read. “We Mexicans are reclaiming our territory. I won’t be able to see it when we fully recover it. It’s size has been growing for 30 years.”[6]

In 2019, Mexican Senator Felix Salgado Macedonio of the ruling Morena party wrote on Twitter: “Mexicans are in our territory (California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wyoming). We’re going to take back the territory that was stolen from us.” Senator Macedonio sits on the Senate’s powerful National Defense Committee.[7]

The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was a scar on Mexican honor—one that never quite healed for the Mexican elite. The active strategy to fix that wound is mass migration, fomenting resistance to assimilation, and organizing those now living in the United States to serve Mexico’s ends. The Mexican government is manifesting this, as we will see, by directly involving itself in American politics in shocking ways.

Of course, for decades countless migrants from Mexico have wholeheartedly embraced America, fighting for her on the battlefield, pledging their allegiance to her, and adopting our values and principles. But assimilation is not the preferred path of the Mexican government, which works diligently to ensure other countless migrants don’t follow suit.

Alberto Vieyra Gómez, the founding director of the Mexican News Agency (Agencia Mexicana de Noticias), opined in a 2023 article that migrants are “quietly carrying out a reconquest of the territories the US took from us in 1848.” He warned that once the Americans figured out what was going on, migrants should watch out for “Yankee fundamentalism,” noting that “the reconquest of the Aztec territory is silent, and the day the gringos realize this, this diabolical fundamentalism will become macabre.”[8]

In 2025, Octavio Paredes López, the former president of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, cheered on subversive migration to the United States. “We are witnessing the greatest peaceful and silent reconquest of our identity that history has ever recorded,” he proclaimed.[9]

That same year, celebrated Mexican poet José Jaime Ruiz (winner of Mexico’s national poetry prize) issued his manifesto: “America is Ours.” He explained: “We declare that we have historical rights to those territories, to Mexican America. Let’s start by convincing Alta California. Our cultural, political, and even religious invasion and reconquest has already begun and is irreversible.” He concludes: “Donald Trump, don’t dream, it’s over.”[10]

As unusual as it may sound to Americans, these views are not just an impulse that Mexico’s elites have adopted as a reaction to Donald Trump. The notion of “reconquering” the American Southwest has been a long-held ambition in Mexico.

And they are confident that mass migration is working.

In 1982, in an article entitled “The Great Invasion: Mexico Recovers Its Own,” one of Mexico’s most influential newspapers, Excelsior, laid out the case for mass migration as an opportunity to reconquer the American Southwest. According to the author, the region is “slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without the firing of a single shot, nor requiring the least diplomatic action, by means of a steady, spontaneous, and uninterrupted occupation.” A crank did not write these words—rather, they were written by the former governor of one of Mexico’s most important states, Yucatán. The author, Carlos Loret de Mola, was then a prominent member of the ruling party.[11]

Few in Mexico’s upper echelon believe that the territory will officially revert to Mexico or that the maps will be redrawn. But Reconquista does not necessitate a change in governance or ownership. In the minds of many Mexican leaders, the cultural and political weapon presented by mass migration into the United States is enough to fundamentally transform it.

In July 1997, Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo traveled to Chicago to address the National Council of La Raza, a nonprofit Hispanic organization in the US with considerable political power. Founded in 1968, La Raza (The Race) began as a militant organization committed to Latino liberation. In 2017, the name was changed to UnidosUS. Domestic activist organizations like this loom large in Mexico’s subversive strategy.

“I have proudly proclaimed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders,” Zedillo told La Raza members to cheers in the American heartland, “and that Mexican migrants are an important, a very important part of it.”[12]

And Zedillo meant it. The Mexican government amended the constitution that year to allow Mexicans in the United States who had received their American citizenship to remain Mexican citizens. As one Mexican congressman explained, “It signifies the recognition that nations are more than concrete, special territorial resources. . . . Belonging to Mexico is fixed in bonds of a cultural and spiritual order, in customs, aspirations and convictions that today are the essence of a universally recognized civilization.”[13]

With millions of Mexicans having migrated to the US before the turn of the millennium, the pro-Mexican ethos was now a growing force inside the United States. After the US passed a law in 1996 to limit illegal immigration, President Zedillo expressed his belief that the US government does not actually have full sovereignty over Mexicans living in the country. “We will not tolerate foreign forces dictating and enacting laws on Mexicans,” he said, the “foreign forces” being the US federal government.[14]

His successor as president, Vicente Fox, pledged that he was a president who would “govern for 118 million Mexicans,” a number that included eighteen million Mexicans living in the United States.[15]

In 2014, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto traveled to Los Angeles, and before a group of his compatriots, declared, “This is the other Mexico.”[16]

President AMLO echoed that same sentiment in 2022 when he described the country of Mexico as including the forty million people of Mexican ancestry living in the United States.[17]

Several months after Zedillo made his speech in Chicago, José Angel Pescador Osuna, the Mexican consul general in Los Angeles, spoke at a symposium held by the Southwestern School of Law about the 1848 treaty. Mass migration was changing California, he said. “And even though I am saying this part serious, part joking, I think we are practicing la Reconquista in California.”[18] Osuna was no mere diplomat speaking out of turn. He had been the minister of education in Mexico before taking the diplomatic post. After he made these comments, he assumed the role of undersecretary of population and immigration services for the Mexican Ministry of the Interior: an opportunity to make cultural and political Reconquista a greater reality.

It was not just Mexico’s politicos who had latched on to this idea of demographic Reconquista.

The Mexican people were not far behind their country’s politicians. In 2002, according to polls, a majority of Mexicans (58 percent) believed that “the territory of the United States’ Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico.” Another 57 percent also believed that “Mexicans should have the right to enter the US without US permission.”[19]

“In the United States, almost no one remembers the war that Americans fought against Mexico more than 150 years ago,” wrote Tim Weiner in the New York Times. “In Mexico, almost no one has forgotten.”[20] Liberal journalist Mickey Kaus reports that if you talk to Mexicans, “if you get them drunk in a bar, they’ll say we’re taking it back, sorry. That’s not an uncommon sentiment in Mexico.”[21]

Journalist Antonio Friedl Zapata reported the same in 2023, writing, it is “common in meetings with Mexican friends and colleagues” for them to discuss returning “the lost territories of Mexico.” They confidently explain, “We’re taking it back, sorry.” He went on: “So what we are witnessing with this massive legal or illegal immigration of Hispanics, mainly Mexicans, it is a silent, persistent reconquest of vast territories in the US American Southwest, with a strong Mexican population, a reconquest that would have important geopolitical consequences for the future of the United States.”[22]

The widespread appeal to many Mexicans of a Reconquista was demonstrated when Absolut vodka launched a marketing campaign to get more Mexicans to drink their vodka. The company developed a “Reconquista” ad as part of their “In an Absolut World” series. In this case, they peddled their liquor while showing a redrawn map of the United States. They placed the ads on billboards and in magazines. Latino marketers raved that it was genius, given its popular appeal to the target audience. “Mexicans talk about how the Americans stole their land, so this is their way of reclaiming it,” explained Favio Ucedo, creative director of the Latin ad agency Grupo Gallegos. “It’s very relevant and the Mexicans will love the idea.” Mexican consumers might have loved the idea, but enough other consumers hated it. The company pulled the ad after a widespread outcry.[23]

One popular Mexican YouTube channel called Vladi & Marta, which boasts two million subscribers and nearly five billion views since its 2019 launch, explained in 2024 that Mexican migrants coming to the United States were “Aztec warriors,” who are “recovering that territory that has always been Mexican, because it was stolen.”[24]

It is not only Mexico’s political class that believes having millions of Mexicans residing in the United States illegally is a covert opportunity to extend Mexican political and cultural power. Many of Mexico’s best-known media and cultural figures also espouse it.

With his well-coiffed hair and smoothly authoritative presence, Carlos Loret de Mola has been the face of Mexican television for decades. He was the morning anchor on Televisa, Mexico’s largest television news network, and shared the belief that mass migration was an opportunity for the Reconquista, culturally and politically, but also jurisdictionally. “A peaceful mass of people, hardworking, carries out slowly and patiently an unstoppable invasion, the most important in human history,” he wrote in Mexico’s leading newspaper. “You cannot give me a similar example of such a large migrator, wave by an ant-like multitude. Stubborn, unarmed, and carried on in the face of the most powerful and best-armed nation on earth. The result of this migration is to return the land to the jurisdiction of Mexico without the firing of a single shot.”[25]

In 2023, a well-known Mexican journalist and historian named Armando Fuentes Aguirre (who writes under the pen name Catón), penned a column that appeared in half a dozen prominent Mexican newspapers. “There’s a kind of poetic justice in what’s happening in the country to the north: the United States took from us . . . vast territories. . . . Now it seems there’s a kind of silent but effective ‘reconquest,’ which means the territories that were taken from us once again have their populations of Mexican descent. . . . The powerful neighboring country will have to pay for the sins of Manifest Destiny by learning the language and practicing the customs of the ‘illustrious, fertile races, blood of fertile Hispania.’”[26]

Subversion. Is there any other way to characterize such views of mass migration?

In 2017, a left-wing icon in Mexico named Cuauhtémoc (after the last Aztec emperor) Cárdenas announced his plans to sue the United States in international court to declare the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo null and void, and to reclaim portions of the United States for Mexico.[27] Given Cárdenas’s ambitions, it might be easy to dismiss him as a crackpot until one realizes how deeply he is part of the Mexican establishment. His father was the president of Mexico. Cárdenas himself ran for president and is the cofounder of a major political party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution. He is regarded as an “elder statesman of Mexico’s left,” and his son was appointed chief of staff to the current president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum.[28]

Interestingly, China’s official news agency favorably covered his effort with a headline: “Legal expert says Mexico has strong case to sue US for lost territories.”[29]

Cárdenas will admit that he doesn’t necessarily expect to win in court. But that is not really the point. He believes that the lawsuit could provide leverage to accomplish his true goal: some type of amnesty for illegals already in the United States, which is the mechanism by which Reconquista could fully succeed.

“This treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is null and void; therefore, migrants cannot be expelled,” declared a lawyer working with him on the case, Guillermo Hamdan.[30]

The enthralling idea that by exporting its people, Mexico could reshape the US and extend its sovereignty is embraced by the leaders of Mexico’s intelligentsia, too. Elena Poniatowska, the founder of one of Mexico’s most influential newspapers, is regarded as the “grand dame of letters” in Mexico. She is a major cultural force, having also directed the country’s National Film Institute. “Mexico is recovering the territories ceded to the United States with migratory tactics,” she explained.[31] In a speech that same year, she was more specific, saying, “The common people—the poor, the dirty, the lice-ridden, the cockroaches are advancing on the United States, a country that needs to speak Spanish because it has 33.5 million Hispanics who are imposing their culture [emphasis added].”[32] Enrique Krauze, a prominent Mexican writer and member of the board of directors for two of Mexico’s more prominent corporations, Televisa and Grupo Financiero Santander México (Mexican Bank), opined that Mexican immigrants in the US were “a powerful weapon that could decisively influence the political life of the United States.”[33]

Perhaps Mexico’s best-known writer, Carlos Fuentes, concurred, cheering on the “silent reconquest of the United States” through mass migration.[34] He saw mass migration as an opportunity to right the US-Mexico border, which he considered is “not really a border but a scar.”[35]

Our political leaders in Washington never talk about Mexico’s subversive policy, choosing instead to characterize the Mexican government as a well-intentioned, somewhat hapless neighbor. But Mexico, along with other hostile powers, has latched on to this notion of subverting the United States via cultural Reconquista.

In 2023, the second most powerful man in Russia behind Vladimir Putin, made a trip to Latin America. Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, was a former head of the notorious FSB intelligence service. He ventured to Cuba before heading to Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela. Patrushev and Putin regularly use migration as a weapon against their neighbors, bringing Muslim migrants to Moscow and giving them Russian visas before shipping them to the Polish border. The Polish government called it a “hybrid attack.” Moscow also pushed migrants into Finland.[36] So, they know what subversive migration looks like. During Patrushev’s Latin American visit, a Russian-controlled media group broadcast a map of the southern US border. But it was markedly different from the real map. The US-Mexico border was moved north—placing “Arizona, half of Texas, and two-thirds of California” under Mexican rule. “There can be no doubt that sooner or later the southern neighbors of the United States will regain the territories stolen from them,” Patrushev told the government-controlled Russian News Agency. The United States, he added, is “a patchwork quilt that can easily come apart along the seams.”[37] This Russian applause for reconquest was published in the prominent Mexican newspaper La Jornada.[38]

Make no mistake, the Reconquista narrative is meant to be a seam ripper. It allows senior Mexican government officials to talk and operate as if, in fact, the border does not exist.

While the geopolitical border has not yet shifted, cultural and political allegiance boundaries have, and this thinking has also seeped into American politics.

Firebrand progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez embraces the notion of Reconquista—at least in some form. Echoing the Mexican reconquistas, she explains that US immigration laws should not apply to Indigenous people because they descended from Mesoamerican cultures here before the United States. “We are standing on native land,” she told a crowd at a 2019 rally, “and Latino people are descendants of native people. And we cannot be told, and criminalized, simply for our identity or our status. Period.”[39]

Dolores Huerta, a longtime Mexican-American labor leader and cochair of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, explained the issue of American sovereignty this way: “And so when they say to us, ‘Go back where you came from’—hey, we are where we came from. We didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us.”[40]

Other American politicians have embraced the notion of Reconquista, having been leaders of the radical student group MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) while in college. MEChA is a fringe organization that advocates for the Reconquista of the American Southwest, even adopting the mythical land of Aztlán as a native homeland. Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa once served as president of a MEChA chapter at UCLA; Cruz Bustamante, the former lieutenant governor of California, was a member of MEChA as a student at Fresno State College; and Congressman Raul Grijalva belonged to the University of Arizona’s MEChA chapter during his student days.[41]

People often later regret or reconsider some of the views that they adopted in their college years, but Villaraigosa continued to embrace the notion of Reconquista well into his political career, at least when speaking before certain groups at particular times. Villaraigosa, in 1997, before he was mayor of Los Angeles and Chairman of the 2012 Democratic National Convention, told a crowd: “Somos Mexicanos! The question is not whether Reconquista will take place, but how and with what consequences?” At that time, he was not a fired-up student, but the speaker of the California Assembly.[42]

* * *

Pushing masses of people into the United States is a start. The number of migrants coming may ebb and flow. The count dropped after the 2008 financial crisis and then exploded under the Biden administration. But for the Reconquista to succeed, migrants who come to the United States must be prevented from assimilating. They must remain bonded to Mexico. Here, the Mexican government and allied American political organizations work aggressively to subvert whatever allegiance new migrants might form once residing in America.

Mexico has established a vast network of over fifty consulates in the United States that have become beacons for political activism and resisting assimilation, as will be more fully discussed in the next chapter. The scale here is enormous—China has but five consulates in the US; Great Britain has eight. With this massive network in place, the Mexican government began “creating consulate programs to bolster migrants’ political, cultural, and economic loyalty” to Mexico, according to a sympathetic study.[43]

Indoctrination begins with children.

Mexico does not want young migrants in the United States to be loyal to the United States; it wants them instead to cling to Mexico’s resentments about its northern neighbor. It accomplishes this by invading our classrooms. Local US school administrators, either out of ignorance or sympathy for the cause, are happy to oblige.

The Mexican government has shipped millions of textbooks to American schools for instructing young Mexicans residing here. In 2005, they gave nearly one hundred thousand textbooks to the Los Angeles Unified School District alone. Over the next decade, the numbers grew quickly. “From San Diego to Orlando, from Chicago to Las Vegas, the Mexican government, through its . . . consulates throughout the United States, is accelerating its ambitious ‘foreign aid’ program designed to deliver millions of Spanish-language textbooks to American schools this decade,” explained one approving reporter.[44]

About one million textbooks are sent to the United States every year by the Mexican government to teach its version of American history and other subjects.[45] These are the same controversial textbooks that students in Mexico use.

The textbooks are written and produced under the control of the Mexican government, with the explicit purpose of offering a “decolonial” perspective on all topics. They are inspired by the work of a Brazilian Marxist named Paulo Freire, who penned a book called Pedagogy of the Oppressed.[46]

“There is little doubt that the officials in charge of compiling the textbooks do wax nostalgic for the old Soviet Union,” notes the Associated Press. “One of the two officials [in charge] proudly bears the first name ‘Marx,’ and the other previously worked for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.” (Maduro is universally recognized as a Marxist dictator.) The introduction to the seventh-grade language arts book confirms: “The Rabfak, the schools for workers in the former Soviet Union, were considered spaces of knowledge. The dream is that Mexican middle schools and their textbooks can achieve that quality.” The Associated Press adds that “you can find plenty of references to capitalism being bad in the textbooks, as early as the fourth grade.” Even a chapter in a fourth-grade sciences-math-history textbook is entitled “The deterioration of nature and society under capitalist Culture.”[47]

In one secondary-level book, children are taught that “a fundamental cause of the origin of inequality [is] neoliberal socio-economic models [capitalism]” and that “in modern capitalist societies, a small group ‘exploits’ the majority.”[48]

Clearly, distributing such books to American schools to teach Mexican migrants in the United States is meant to foster Mexican, not American, patriotism. One Mexican history book explains, “We love our country because it is ours.” Another sixth-grade book “celebrates the troops who fought the Americans during the Mexican-American War.” But “all the sacrifices and heroism of the Mexican people were useless,” the book explains. The “Mexican people saw the enemy [US] flag wave at the National Palace.”[49]

The Mexican government especially likes to keep its version of the Mexican-American War alive in the minds of young migrants. “The historical memory of the humiliating Mexican-American war (called La invasión norteamericana in official Mexican textbooks) is kept fresh for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the Mexican media and popular culture,” explains Professor Dennis Gilbert.[50]

Other advocates cheer the textbook program as promoting “‘Greater Mexico’—one textbook at a time.”[51]

For their part, Mexican diplomats speak poetically of “strengthen[ing] the identity of Mexican children and youth living in the United States.”[52]

For Mexican-American adults living in the United States, the situation is the same. They can attend classes in adult education organized by the Mexican consulates around the country, but none are designed to promote integration and assimilation in the US.[53]

According to Raquel Romero, director of Mesoamerica Foundation, a nonprofit that helps distribute the Mexican government schoolbooks in the US, the effort is about transforming America. “This is more than an outreach program,” she said approvingly. “This is part of a concerted program to educate Hispanic children in the United States, and to help the United States make the transition into a bicultural society this century. It is a way of understanding that Mexican culture is expanding across the border, that it is in ascendance, and that Hispanic and Latino children in the United States will never be blond, blue-eyed Anglos.”[54]

Mexico has another reason to keep Mexicans in the United States from assimilating: money. Mexicans living in the United States send more than $60 billion annually to their home country in the form of remittances. Much of that, of course, goes to their families. But they also send money home to their local regions where the funds are supposed to be used for development. Mexicans living in the United States who adopt an affinity for America would be much less likely to send money back to their home country.[55]

Some people look at Mexico and see a failed state: chronic corruption, rampant poverty, and an estimated one-third of the country controlled by drug cartels. Yet others see Mexico as having a superior civilization compared to the United States’, and they justify waging civilizational war against America. “When you talk about developing countries, what do you talk about?” asks UCLA professor Steven Loza. “Technology, economics? Or culture? Because in many ways, Mexico is more advanced than the United States. Culturally, there is more development.”[56]

Just as Brazil’s president Lula blamed the 2008 financial crisis on the “blue-eyed bankers,” many Mexican elites would treat anything “Anglo” as negative and dangerous.[57] This is rarely discussed by the media and our politicians, but it is profoundly important to understand how the Mexican political class tends to view gringos. José Vasconcelos, author of The Cosmic Race (La Raza Cósmica), famously popularized the idea. First published in 1925 and later reissued in 1948, The Cosmic Race posits that the American continent is the arena for a fight between Anglo-Saxons in North America and the Iberian-Latin indigenous cultures of Central and South America. According to Vasconcelos, it was once a global battle, but “now the conflict is set entirely in the New World.”

The Anglo-Saxons were winning, Vasconcelos argued. “Not only were we defeated in combat; ideologically, the Anglos continue to conquer us,” because Latin America was adopting Western ideas and values.[58] Mexican President AMLO echoed Vasconcelos’s sentiments in 2024 when he complained that when “ambitious young Mexicans” came to study and train in the United States, they were instructed in the vision of that country, so when they were in power, “they would undertake strategies and policies that favored Washington.”[59]

Vasconcelos called on Hispanics to oppose their Anglo neighbor by focusing on their “higher common mission . . . if we are going to keep Anglo-Saxon culture from remaining triumphant in America.” The Anglos had superior knowledge, industry, and technology, but it would not matter in the end. “At the beginning, the Whites will try to take advantage of their inventions for their own benefit, but since science is no longer esoteric, it is not likely that they will succeed. They will be absorbed into an avalanche of all the other races, and, finally, deposing their pride, they will combine with the rest to make the new racial synthesis, the fifth race of the future.”[60]

This would be the superior race, a “cosmic race.”

It would be easy to dismiss Vasconcelos as an archaic, eschatological nut. However, Vasconcelos is considered by some to be the “founder of modern education in Mexico.”[61] He served not only as the minister of education but also as rector of the National University. He helped inspire the university’s motto: “Por mi raza hablará el espíritu”—“The Spirit shall speak through my race.”[62]

Vasconcelos’s vision for a future “racial synthesis” depended on the present racial divide and domination. “We need to stimulate our national culture,” he explained, “because we have in front of us a culture that is powerful and imperialist [the United States]. However, in order to strengthen our national culture, it is necessary that our nationalism become continental [emphasis added] and lies its foundations not only on political but also ethnic grounds.”[63]

The book includes racist tropes about Anglos, Blacks, and Asians. “The black,” Vasconcelos declared, was “eager for sensual joy, intoxicated with dances and unbridled lust.” He wrote of Asians “with the mystery of his slanted eyes that see everything according to a strange angle.”[64]

How deeply have these ideas embedded themselves among activists in the United States? The powerful American Latino lobby group La Raza, now UnidosUS, says that Vasconcelos’s La Raza Cósmica inspired its original name.[65]

When AMLO was elected president of Mexico in 2018, his political victory was also presented as a cultural victory, symbolizing the spurning of Western culture. His inauguration included a celebration in the ceremonial center of one of Mexico’s most important plazas, Zócalo. Once the site of an Aztec temple, it now features a grand Catholic cathedral constructed after the Spanish conquest, using stones from the temple. For the inauguration celebration, AMLO welcomed a limpia “cleansing or purification ceremony,” an indigenous ritual involving the burning of herbs and chanting. The plaza that had been the ceremonial center of the Aztec capital before the Spanish conquest of Mexico was being reclaimed from European and Christian influence. The ceremony, it is said by supporters, “represented a virtual repudiation of European religion.”[66]

AMLO’s inaugural act at Zócalo was more than superficial theatrics. He envisioned himself as the one who would abolish Mexico’s European heritage as he romanticized Mexico’s pre-European past. “Before the Europeans invaded us,” he proclaimed, “there was no private property, no slavery, no greed, and great civilizations flourished.”[67] AMLO was an enormously popular president in Mexico who also won the popular vote among Mexicans living in the United States. Mexico’s recent presidents have largely rejected the European components of their heritage in favor of the Aztecs. President Sheinbaum has demanded that the king of Spain apologize for his country’s exploration and settlement five hundred years ago of what is today modern Mexico.[68] As of this writing, the king has refused. Meanwhile, Sheinbaum has embraced the brutal Aztec rulers of the past.

The irony here, of course, is that the very lands in the United States that Mexico’s elite consider occupied—California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas—came under their initial control because of their Spanish imperial history. They were never part of any Aztec or Mayan empire.

In the spring of 2025, Sheinbaum gathered most of Mexico’s top political leaders, including members of her cabinet, Mexico City authorities, indigenous communities, and special guests, and held a state funeral. The funeral was for the last of the Aztec rulers, Cuauhtémoc, on the five hundredth anniversary of his death at the hands of the Spanish. From Zlotcho, she lauded him and declared, “We renew our admiration and respect for your life dedicated to the dignified defense of your people.” She added that “for Mexicans, Cuauhtémoc represents our ancestors who bequeathed us with love and courage, the defense and cultural resistance of our nation against anyone who would violate its sovereignty. He represents the dignity of a free and resilient people.” There was an ironically European-style military honor guard, an artillery salute, and a military call to arms.[69] Of course, unmentioned was the widespread use of slavery and human sacrifice at the time under his rule and the brutal way the Aztecs treated other Indigenous tribes. Indeed, the last Aztec king had been deposed by the Spanish with the enthusiastic assistance of local native tribes tired of the Aztecs’ oppressive and brutal rule.[70] Sheinbaum and Mexico’s political leadership view their European heritage as oppressive, apparently failing to consider how much more backward and oppressive their society might be had the Aztecs ruled for another two hundred years or had they avoided European influence altogether.

The idea of an irreconcilable ethnic and cultural divide extends to Mexico’s foreign policy views that Mexicans who have migrated to the United States, either legally or illegally, are still part of Greater Mexico. Mass migration serves Mexico’s manifest continental destiny.

In 2025, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum began adding another song to official events she was attending, along with the national anthem. The militant tune is called “Somos Más Americanos” (We Are More American), performed by Los Tigres del Norte. The band, originally from northern Mexico, moved to San Jose, California, after enormous commercial success. Los Tigres songs include narcocorridos, or “drug ballads,” which in some cases glorify the lives of drug traffickers. “Somos Más Americanos,” originally released in 2001 but newly embraced in recent years by Mexico’s leaders, echoes some of the same themes of Reconquista and the Cosmic Race.

The song describes how states from California to Texas and Arizona to Wyoming were stolen from Mexico. The land was free until the gringos arrived.

The refrain ends:

We are more American than all of the gringos.

The song chorus echoes:

Indians from two continents
mixed with Spanish
we are more American
than the son of an Anglo-Saxon.[71]

As we will see, the song has also become an anthem for activists and protesters inside the United States.

When Mexican consulates operate in the United States, they perform services not just for Mexicans living in the country but for other Latin Americans as well. Indeed, Mexico often assumes the posture that it speaks not just for Mexicans but for all Latin America. “We also advocate for individuals from other countries, not just Mexicans, as they are our brothers and sisters,” explained Alejandro Robles, a member of Mexico’s parliament and a senior Morena Party official who works to advance the government’s interests in the United States, in 2025. “This solidarity acknowledges a shared colonial past marked by the exploitation of our Latin American peoples and territories.”[72]

We will show that a group of foreign governments, including Mexico, are actively engaging in political activities in the United States to subvert and shape American elections and alter the direction of our country. Working in conjunction with political figures and nongovernmental organizations in the US, their goal is the fundamental transformation of America. This is civilizational warfare: first, arrive surreptitiously; second, cultivate allegiance to hostile foreign entities; and third, sabotage the cultural norms of your host country.

By cultural norms, I don’t mean group-defining food, clothes, customs, or even language. What I mean is what people think life is about, what we strive to do or be, and the ethos that binds us together. As Professor Lawrence Mead of New York University states, America’s “strongly individualist ethos” comes from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the free market system, and a genuine embrace of individual liberty, not our generic DNA. Recent migrants from Mexico and elsewhere “reflect the more cautious, collective-minded, and deferential societies of other parts of the world.” Mead elaborates: “Western culture is individualist, whereas non-Western cultures are much more collectivist. . . . Western culture is moralistic, while non-Western cultures tend to be conformist. Westerners generally treat moral norms as principles that apply to all people, in all times and places . . . [while for non-Western cultures], moral behavior is shaped less by personal principles, goals, and values than by the immediate expectations of others.” Mead’s observations are supported by facts, laid out in the massive World Values Survey, which tracks cultural attitudes around the world on these issues.[73]

Certainly, many immigrants from Mexico and Latin America assimilate and embrace America’s more individualistic ethos. But today, those who do so are boats fighting the current. They have assimilated despite the best efforts of foreign governments and certain advocacy groups in the United States.

American political figures have blurred the notion of citizenship and assimilation. Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari of Arizona explained at a 2025 press conference that illegal immigrants in her district were her “constituents.” “If somebody is an asylum seeker, if somebody has a green card, if somebody is a U.S. citizen, if somebody lives in the community, I represent them,” she added.[74] Congresswoman Delia Ramirez from Illinois, during a speech the same year in Mexico City, declared, “I am a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.”[75]

Mass migration without assimilation means, in the words of Professor Alejandro Portes of Princeton University, “transformations” of “receiving societies,” in particular, the United States. Professor Portes himself speaks as one who favors these transformations. Mass migration brings changes, Portes writes, that can go “deep into the culture, transforming the value system, or into the social structure, transforming the distribution of power.” Poorly educated, illegal migrants who cannot speak English can have a “durable impact” on American culture, “because of their initial ignorance of the host language [English] and culture and the tendency, especially among migrants from rural origin, to adhere tightly to their customs.”[76] In Portes’s view, resistance to assimilation is a desirable migrant trait.

Professor Portes is not alone.

Government officials in the United States participate in the campaign to prevent migrants from assimilating and embracing American values. Ekhlas Ahmed, a policy analyst for the Maine Governor’s Office of New Americans, explains: “My advice . . . for anyone who’s coming is to hold on to their mother tongue, hold on to your culture, hold on to your religion, to your beliefs, uh, there is no reason to assimilate.”[77] Corporate executives echo these sentiments. “Stop telling immigrants to assimilate and start helping them participate,” Rick Goings, the chairman and CEO of Tupperware Brand Corporation, told the World Economic Forum.[78]

Another song of protest embraced by Mexico’s political leadership is “La Jaula de Oro” (The Golden Cage). AMLO, when he was president, featured the song at his media events, in which the narrator is angry that his children are assimilating in America.[79]

My children don’t talk to me

They have learned another language

And forgotten Spanish

They think like Americans

They deny that they are Mexican

Even if they have my [skin] color

Thinking “like an American” is considered an insult.

Jorge Ramos, a media star on the Spanish-language television channel, proudly explained that Mexicans were not melting into the US culture as other immigrants. “Some like to call it La Reconquista,” he wrote in a Spanish-language essay, using a term he did not dispute. The mass migration was a “cultural invasion” because Mexicans were not assimilating. He went on: “The famous and stereotypical idea of the melting pot is a myth. The European immigrants—Italians, Germans and Poles, that preceded the Latinos assimilated rapidly to the American culture. But the Latinos have achieved the feat of integrating economically to the United States without losing their culture. Such a phenomenon has never occurred before.”[80]

Former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda, who now teaches at New York University, shares this view: “Mexican immigrants are not being assimilated into the American melting pot the way other ethnic groups have been in the past.”[81] In his eyes, this is a good thing.

Powerful American figures who also seek the transformation of America are supportive. Indeed, they maintain that expecting migrants to assimilate is insulting and wrong. In 2014, senior officials gathered at the White House for a meeting on immigration. Eva Millona, who President Barack Obama appointed to serve as the cochair of the National Partnership of New Americans, took her turn at the microphone. Words like assimilation “implicitly privileges” the culture of the “receiving community,” she complained. It was far better to think about “valuing what diverse newcomers bring with them” rather than migrants conforming to the country.[82] In the Biden administration, Millona was appointed assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.

UnidosUS is one of the largest Hispanic activist groups in the United States. The group awards organizations that “promote self-determination instead of assimilation” and worries about “assimilation stressors,” because there is too much pressure on migrants to assimilate.[83]

In 1997, when Mexico decided to allow Mexicans living in the United States to maintain dual citizenship, it established the Presidential Office of Mexicans Abroad. This cabinet-level office works to deploy Mexicans and other Latin American migrants residing in the United States as a tool of the Mexican government against the gringos. The goal is not to help Mexicans assimilate or embrace America as patriotic citizens.

Those who were in the US illegally could not apply for citizenship, so the Mexican consulates started issuing IDs in the United States called matricula consular.[84] One of the first to embrace it was Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco. He declared in 2002 that illegal migrants could use the matracula as a form of ID to open bank accounts, get a bus or plane ticket, and identify themselves to police officers. Three years later, more than two hundred thousand illegals living in San Francisco had one. (For comparison, the population of Salt Lake City, Utah, is just 217,000.) The Mexican government eventually convinced other local governments around the US to accept them as legitimate forms of ID. Mexico’s foreign minister at the time, Jorge Castañeda, later explained that this was a strategy of “creeping legalization,” or “backdoor amnesty.”[85] The cards have no strict requirements that prevent rampant fraud. Illegals in the United States used them to open bank accounts, apply for government services, and obtain driver’s licenses. Millions of matricula consular were distributed by Mexican consulates across the country without an act of the US Congress to make any of it the law of the land. Simply put, the Mexican consulates acted, progressive mayors agreed to it, and it became the new rule.

The goal was clear for Mexicans living in the United States.

“I want the third generation, the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first,’” explained Juan Herandez, the first head of the office.[86]

Mexican president Vicente Fox encouraged Mexicans living in the US to speak Spanish as a symbol of Mexican patriotism. “To continue speaking Spanish in the United States is to ‘Ôhacer patria’ (fulfill one’s patriotic duty).”[87]

Somehow, meddling in American domestic politics became official Mexican foreign policy. After all, as Mexican president Felipe Calderón said in his September 2007 state-of-the-nation address, “Mexico does not end at its borders . . . Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.”[88]

His statement was no glassy-eyed sentimentalism, but an expression of a strategic and hostile foreign policy undermining the political sovereignty of the United States. Debates over immigration restrictions in the United States heightened Mexico’s intrusion into American politics. As Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda explained to his country’s Congressional Foreign Affairs Commission, “We are already giving instructions to our consulates [in the United States] that they begin propagating militant activities—if you will—in their communities.”[89]

Remember that word—“militant.” You will hear it again in the next chapter.

Mexican consulates are diplomatic offices that are not supposed to interfere in American domestic politics. Yet, at the will of the Mexican government, they became hubs for political resistance to stricter immigration rules. Hispanic nonprofit organizations registered and coordinated with the Mexican consulates to fight immigration laws like Proposition 187 in California and the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. They even formed political action committees to support candidates that were “friendly to the cause of Latinos and undocumented immigrants.”[90]

The Foreign Ministry established an organization called the Institute for Mexicans Abroad (IME) to serve as its lobbying mechanism. The advisory board included Hispanic activist groups in the US. The purpose of the IME is to create “a lobby group in favor of Mexican immigrants (and Mexico) in the United States,” according to two professors sympathetic to the effort. What Mexico has erected is unique: “No other country has this diplomatic infrastructure within the borders of the most powerful nation in the world.”[91]

The strategy was developed by a senior Mexican diplomat in the Foreign Ministry, and the purpose was crystal clear: “Mexico needs Mexican Americans to lobby the U.S. government to make decisions favorable to Mexico.”[92] These Mexican-American activist organizations were to “carry out the task entrusted to them by the Mexican government.”[93]

Does this not sound like subversion?

The Mexican Foreign Ministry began forging alliances with activist political groups in the United States, creating a group of advisors that would help the Foreign Ministry carry out its plans in the US. Many of America’s largest immigrant rights groups joined up with the Mexican government, including the National Council of La Raza, the Center for Community Change, and the League for United Latin American Citizens. They also appointed as advisers to the Mexican Foreign Ministry Mexican-American labor leaders like Eliseo Medina, head of the Service Employees International Union, and Esther Lopez, the international secretary of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.[94] None of them filed with the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), even though anyone in the US working on behalf of a foreign government is required to do so. (None of these organizations were charged with failing to register.)

Among the members of this advisory group were radicals like Angela Sanbrano, who worked with MEChA. She actively organized protests against the US government while advising the Mexican government.[95]

Initially, this activist advisory board had 128 members, with roughly two-thirds born in Mexico and one-third Mexican American. The first meeting took place in the Mexican consulate in San Antonio, Texas, with activists from Arizona, California, Texas, Colorado, and Illinois. All the meetings were supposed to be conducted in Spanish. Among the first initiatives was the formation of an antidiscrimination group to “reduce the use of the word ‘illegal’ in the media.”[96]

By 2021, the IME had partnerships with two thousand groups in Mexico and the United States, an astonishing political network.[97]

The Mexican Foreign Ministry’s efforts were, in the words of professors Jane Bayes and Laura Gonzalez, “important in strengthening and enhancing the operations of many groups concerned with immigrants and immigration” that were previously operating in the US and Mexico.[98]

Turning Mexicans in America into a subversive US political force for Mexico made sense. “Since the issues that most interest us Mexicans are a matter of US domestic policy, our best strategy is to strengthen the organizing capability of our migrants and foster the US agenda of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. . . . Supporting them is the best way of helping ourselves,” explains Carlos Heredia, a former member of the Mexican parliament.[99]

According to professors Bayes and Gonzalez, the Mexican Foreign Ministry was providing an opportunity “for Mexican American leaders to study and endorse candidates running for office in Mexico and in the United States.”[100] There was also an open discussion about running and supporting candidates for elective office in the United States.[101]

“On a federal level [in the US], less has been achieved, but we do have congresspersons,” explained Cándido Morales, head of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad, candidly.[102]

Because this invasion into American politics appears to violate US law, Mexican diplomats mask what they are doing. They deny that they are organizing Mexicans in the United States into a political force “when they address non-Hispanic American audiences,” noted Columbia University professor Rodolfo de la Garza, “but indicate that they seek such a relationship in meetings limited to or dominated by Mexican-Americans.”[103]

Mexican diplomats have organized political activities inside the United States, violating diplomatic agreements between the two countries. At the Chicago consulate, they were key “in the formation and consolidation of immigrant-related organizations” but also the “political mobilization and participation of Mexican immigrants” in US politics, according to Mexican professor Gustavo Cano.[104]

Other, smaller countries like Ecuador began to imitate Mexico’s scheme, extending their own foreign influence into America. The Ecuadorian government referred to Ecuadorians living in the United States as being the “Third Region” of Ecuador. Eventually, in 2016, Mexico joined forces with the consulates of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador to create TRICAMEX to share strategies for consulate activities. This approach was designed, in the words of Mexican professor Karla Vanlenzuela-Morena, to “expand their control beyond their territorial boundaries” into the United States.[105]

To reiterate, the Mexican consulates work not only with Mexicans living in the United States, but also with non-Mexican migrants.[106]

Mexico, working with its domestic allies, has staged successful mass protests. During the spring of 2007, hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets across America in multiple marches to defend illegal immigrants. They blocked roads, carrying Mexican, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, or Dominican flags. The chants reflected a presumption of the right to become citizens regardless of their host country’s laws. “‘Today we march, tomorrow we vote’ and ‘We didn’t cross the border; the border crossed us.’” An astonishing 3.5 million to 5 million people participated in the marches in twenty cities over a couple of months.[107] While many Americans were shocked by the political display, radicals noted with pleasure “the highly organized protest against the exclusionary model of citizenship.”[108] It worked: the bill raising illegal immigration to a felony died in the Senate.

At one Los Angeles protest involving hundreds of thousands of Hispanics, including illegal aliens, the Associated Press reported that Alberto Tinoco, a Mexican television reporter, was “almost giddy” watching the subversion of American political sovereignty, telling viewers on Mexican television: “With all due respect to Uncle Sam, this shows that Los Angeles has never stopped being ours.”[109]

It never stopped being ours.

The reporter was echoing the popular sentiment among senior Mexican officials and many of these activist groups. Let’s expose in the next chapter what they have been up to more recently inside the United States.

Chapter 3

Mexico: Organizing Militancy in the US

More than sixty people gathered in the white brick, two-story building on the west side of Oklahoma City in late May.[1] It was hot, but not because of the Oklahoma weather. America was amid the heated 2024 presidential election.

Among other subjects, the group was talking strategy about American politics, but in an unusual place. While they were in Oklahoma, they were in the Mexican consulate. Mexico had a lot to lose if the wrong person won the US presidential election in November.

The group included Mexican diplomats from consulates across the United States, including Phoenix, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Francisco, Orlando, Chicago, Boston, and other cities. They had brought guests, many of them activists.[2] Mexican officials had flown in from the Foreign Ministry in Mexico City. Mexican politicians were on hand, too, to offer advice and encouragement to the US-based political activists who had gathered. This would be a conversation about how “to positively influence the country’s [US] policy for the benefit of Mexican communities.” The stated purpose of the meeting was to emphasize “citizen participation and collective action” inside the United States and to “develop a solid plan of action” to fight back against immigration restrictions, specifically those pushed by Donald Trump. Cristina Planter, then director general for North American Political Affairs at the Mexican Foreign Ministry, addressed the group. There was even a message from the Mexican foreign minister, Alicia Bárcena, emphasizing the importance of the meeting.[3]

This meeting was a foreshadowing of what would become an outrageous Mexican government intrusion into American politics, including a cast of participants selected to influence the election.

Among those attending the gathering were activists from across the United States. Some had dual loyalties: they lived in the United States, but they worked for the Mexican government as advisors and even elected members of Parliament. Karina Ruiz, an immigrant rights activist in Arizona and head of the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition, was there to emphasize “the importance of voting and knowing local representatives” in the United States. While she lived in the United States and worked as a political activist, she was about to take up a position in the Mexican Senate as a member of the ruling Morena Party. She is the first member of their senate to represent Mexicans living outside of Mexico. Ruiz is a Mexican citizen, having come here illegally as a teen, but she’s been protected by DACA.[4] She had pledged, “Now from this side of the border we are going to create conditions and support the agenda of Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum [the recently elected Mexican president].”[5]

Ruiz has led protests in both Arizona and Washington, DC, sometimes wearing a “Citizenship 4 All” headband. When activists confronted US senator Krysten Sinema and forced her to seek refuge in a bathroom at Arizona State University,[6] Ruiz defended the act. In a statement, Sinema said those who interrupted her class engaged in “unlawful activities,” “deceptively entered a locked, secure building,” and held a protest that “was not legitimate.” President Joe Biden condemned the actions as “inappropriate.”[7]

“We don’t need her resentment,” Ruiz said. “We don’t need her to be upset at us. We need her to hear our pain and do something about it.”[8]

Ruiz organized “raucous” protests at the Arizona State Capitol, where more than a dozen people were arrested.[9] In 2021, Ruiz helped lead a sit-in in Senator Krysten Sinema’s Phoenix office, demanding she end a filibuster against immigration legislation.[10] As a Mexican senator, she supports the idea of making Mexicans living in the United States the “33rd state of Mexico,” thereby extending Mexican sovereignty farther into the United States. “We are going to be exploring this idea of forming a constituency abroad that involves Mexicans abroad, like this sixth constituency or that 33rd state,” she said.[11]

To the group in Oklahoma City, she explained that Latino activists in the United States needed to show “constant, constant” action, not only getting involved in political races but electing politicians in the US that “look like us.” American democracy was “falling to pieces,” she declared. She also compared the immigrant situation in the US to a “genocide.”[12]

Among those also at the Mexican consulate in Oklahoma was Ramiro Luna, a political operative from Texas who has been deeply involved in political races across the Southwest United States and “working to elect Democrats to local offices.” Luna, head of a Latino organization called Somos Tejos (We are Texas), had himself been granted “temporary status” in the United States as part of the DACA program.[13]

In Oklahoma City, Luna told the group: “I am an activist, I am an organizer, I am a revolutionary. I am here to fight for the rights of our community, [the] immigrant and the Latino community.” It’s a fight for “people of indigenous roots [to] make sure that we thrive in this country that’s ours.”

As the diplomats and other activists listened, Luna discussed how to turn states from majority Republican to Democrat controlled. In 2024, he was helping “change the state of Texas for the Latino community because the same thing that happened in California happened in Arizona and is going to happen in Texas.” He went on: “California was a red state. They screwed us [Latinos], and you saw what happened. The state turned blue. In Arizona, the same thing happened . . . They fought against our community. We fought back and now Arizona is blue.” He warned Republicans, “It’s a classic case, an example of I’ll f*ck around and find out.”[14]

Those connected to American political figures were also in attendance, including Margarita Salas Crespo, a senior advisor to the governor of Nevada, a crucial swing state in the upcoming election.[15] They discussed the work of Mi Familia Vota, which worked to register Latino voters for progressive causes. They debated how to “generate better communication” with organizations such as UnidosUS (formerly La Raza), and the Mexican American Legal and Education Fund.

Had this mixing of Mexican diplomats, elected officials, and American activists plotting political action together in America’s heartland been made public, there would have been howls of protest at Mexico’s meddling in American internal affairs. But they proceeded quietly, behind closed doors. After all, foreign countries are prohibited from interfering in American elections by law and also by conventions of foreign diplomacy.

Yet, the counsel general of the Mexican Consulate in Oklahoma City and members of the Foreign Ministry sat in and watched the discussion unfold on “collective action” in the United States.[16]

Given the emphasis on collective mobilization, it is highly likely that the Oklahoma City Consulate meeting represents one of several similar political meetings taking place at other Mexican consulates in the United States. In 2024, mobilization of Mexican assets for American elections was the order of the day. The Mexican government launched a television channel called TV Migrante (Migrant TV) and beamed it out to the tens of millions of Mexicans living in the United States. While the programming featured some practical advice, the government-funded channel also bombarded the audience in the US with political messages.[17] The channel ran glowing videos about Kamala Harris.[18] On the other hand, they fed migrants a diet of reports on candidate Trump’s “fake news and lies.” They also repeatedly played the Migrant Anthem as a call to arms for migrants living in the United States, reminding them to do their duty for their country.[19]

We change places, but not flags

I carry green, white and red in my veins.[20]

After Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the Mexican government used Migrant TV to beam messages to millions of Mexicans living in the US, such as “Racism, Hate, and Business: The Trumpist Model.” They also ran slick stories about how “the United States Department of Homeland Security has become the main spokesperson for hatred against migrants” and stories about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s “repressive machinery.”[21]

The American media failed to report on the Mexican government’s massive interference in American domestic politics. While news reports of Russia buying Facebook ads and running social media campaigns have garnered cries of Russian interference, Mexico’s far wider and more aggressive efforts are ignored. Indeed, Mexico and other foreign actors have become particularly assertive in their involvement in American internal politics at a level that would not be tolerated if the United States were doing the same in their countries. Rather than denouncing this foreign interference, American progressives have embraced it, all in the name of the resistance to Trump.

* * *

Mexico’s efforts to extend its political tentacles into America has been going on for decades, aided by the rising flow of illegal immigrants into the country. With Trump in the White House in early 2025, Mexican officials were crisscrossing the US to mobilize “militants.” Mexican officials were encouraged by what they called the “unprecedented” activism of Mexicans in the United States against Trump. The ruling Morena Party was building a network inside their neighbor to the north. This was not just a political battle but a civilizational struggle. “Their mobilization is not only an act of resistance, but also a reaffirmation of their identity,” the party declared. “From Mexico, this awakening must be recognized and supported. It is necessary to strengthen the ties with this new generation of Mexicans abroad, who, although not grown on Mexican soil, take Mexico in their hearts and struggle [emphasis added].”[22]

Among those operatives dispatched to the United States is Alejandro Robles, a former member of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies and the executive secretary of the party’s National Committee of Mexicans Abroad. During his tenure as a legislator, he was accused of having a neighbor savagely beaten after threatening him with a gun. It is also reported that he violently attacked another deputy. Robles denies the allegations.[23]

“The extreme speech of ‘Make America Great Again’ ignores the migrant contribution, and, thus, deserves an extreme response [emphasis added],” Robles declared, “which signifies organizing disadvantaged people to come out of the shadows, and the Mexican people are not alone; we have a patriotic government and a political party Morena, dedicated to the defense of its people. This is why the policy of Morena is and should be: For the good of all, migrants should come first.”[24]

Robles was making trips to the United States, “meeting with militants, supporters and Morena committees” in cities like Houston, Austin, and New York City, according to his party’s account of his activities.[25]

Robles was sent to stoke resistance to Trump in the United States, meeting with migrants both illegal and legal, as well as progressive activist groups. And he was blunt.

“It is important to note that Morena is the only party that has an agenda for the care of the migrant community; our mission is to organize the militancy abroad [emphasis added],” declared Robles. The Morena party was pushing “training workshops” for “compatriots in the United States” so they could enhance their militancy.[26] Morena had a vast network of party chapters in forty-nine states (all save Hawaii), and party leaders bragged, “There is a very important network of our movement” inside the US.[27]

Mexican officials “are constantly traveling to the country of the Stars and Stripes,” he told people on social media. “We will be on American soil fighting for our people.”[28]

Robles pointed out how they had helped thwart US officials from carrying out their official duties in major US cities. “In that sense, our committees are on the front line to battle in these moments of civil resistance,” he said.[29]

Read that again: The ruling party of Mexico, through its consulates, was on the “front line” of “civil resistance” in the United States. This is the very definition of subversion.

Mexican congressman Robles also joined with American radicals and forged a common cause. He appeared at the People’s Forum, a radical organization in New York funded by a wealthy American benefactor in China named Neville Roy Singham. The People’s Forum supported groups like Antifa and other protestors. “That is the revolution of consciences,” Robles told the audience. “Morena is not a movement limited to the national territory; it is a social movement that accompanies migrant dignity throughout the world.”[30]

American sovereignty be damned.

* * *

When Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016, Mexican consular officials also became involved in rallying opposition to Trump’s policies, a seemingly blatant violation of their diplomatic status. Then the consulate general in Chicago, Carlos Jiménez was a former politician and governor of a Mexican state that was a major source of migrants coming to the United States. With Trump in office, his goal became mobilizing Mexicans in the United States against the Trump administration. He was specifically looking to ally with Americans who did not like Trump. As he put it in 2017, “Here in Chicago there are politicians of Mexican origin and very important migrant activists, what we must do is strengthen other alliances with the local civil society, alliances with the academic sector, alliances with the business sector . . . with all those sectors of this North American society that does not share the views of the current president.”[31]

In short, a Mexican diplomat was actively trying to sway American politics.

Immigration organizations “supported by the Mexican Consulate” in Chicago “created campaigns training people to be informed and prepared in case of deportation,” according to scholar Estefania Cruz Lena. The Mexican consulate also supported the creation of a bilingual pamphlet dubbed “nada-nada” for use in confrontations with law enforcement, and telephone apps that assisted migrants who might encounter US immigration officials.[32]

Mexican consular officials were at the same time “encouraging and even financing” Mexicans in the United States to become citizens of this country before election day, according to Lena.[33] Why would a foreign government pay for its citizens to become citizens of another country? Clearly, it was because they saw the political benefits of doing so.

Mexican consulates have held political training seminars for Mexican nationals living in the United States for years. While ostensibly designed to encourage Mexicans to participate in their home country’s politics, everyone knew that the training, in the words of professor Patricia Escamilla Hamm, “facilitated participation in US politics.” This included training on how to organize rallies, marches, protests, and lobbying US politicians, one thousand miles from their home country. The instruction had one purpose: to mobilize activism in the United States, not in Mexico. They trained US citizens and noncitizens; whether they were in America illegally did not matter.[34]

Indeed, during Trump’s first term, Mexican consulates became meeting or rallying points for political protests and boycotts organized to expand migrants’ rights.[35]

Trump’s border policies were an existential threat to the Mexican political class’s plan and ambitions. Beyond Mexico’s quietly aggressive political subversion, Mexican officials increasingly publicly meddled in American politics.

Shortly after Trump entered office in 2017, the Mexican government authorized more than $50 million to implement a strategy called “Strengthened Assistance to Mexicans in the United States.”[36]

In February of that year, Mexico’s political interference in the United States escalated when then-Mexican presidential candidate and later president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), conducted a tour of American cities. This was no ordinary foreign dignitary tour. AMLO explicitly intended to rally Mexicans living in the United States against President Trump. The tour included stops in Los Angeles, Chicago, El Paso, Phoenix, Laredo, San Francisco, and New York, all cities with large populations of legal and illegal Mexican migrants. He strongly supported the idea that Mexicans had a right to ignore the border between the United States and Mexico. He had publicly expressed support for the concept of Reconquista. The Mexican consulates established hotline services to arrange legal representation for undocumented immigrants living north of the border.[37]

AMLO made clear he was looking to partner with anti-Trump forces north of the border in a partisan attempt to thwart the new president. According to the invite sent to local leaders in Chicago, candidate AMLO wanted to “meet with immigrant clubs, trade unions, social organizations, the community in general, as well as US academics and intellectuals who possess civic, social and democratic values with whom he can create alliances to form a national defense front to support and defend the immigrant community [emphasis added].”[38] This, in the United States.

One would be hard-pressed to find another example of a political figure from a country with which we are at peace working so aggressively and brazenly to subvert American politics.

Imagine for a moment an American presidential candidate flying around Mexico and pledging an “alliance” with Mexican political forces to advance American interests inside the country and thwart the efforts of the sitting Mexican administration. The outcry would be immense—and rightfully so. Yet AMLO’s meddling in America was largely either ignored or approved of by major media outlets.

AMLO countered Trump’s criticisms of illegal mass migration by declaring it was “yet another attack against those he considers foreigners.” Never mind that those illegally in the country, of course, are by definition “foreigners.” The future Mexican president suggested plans to “convert Mexican consulates in the US into migrant defense offices” and to interfere in American politics by “linking up with good-willed Americans—of whom there are many—who are victims of this [Trump] manipulation and deceit.”[39]

AMLO was not simply aiding migrants in their legal battles in the United States; he was calling for and working toward an electoral change inside the US. A foreign leader so brazenly interfering in American politics was unprecedented, at least from a country with which the United States was not at war.

In California, AMLO spoke before thousands of Mexicans, some illegally in the country. “Here, in Los Angeles,” he said, “we want you, the Mexican people on this side of the border, to know that we are with you and that we are one.”[40]

AMLO tied his rhetoric of unity specifically to the progressive agenda. It was evil free-market capitalism that “forced Mexican people to leave their homes,” not his own country’s failures.[41]

American progressives cheered.

AMLO sought to persuade American voters to adopt his collectivist vision, which was distinct from the Anglo-Saxon individualism that he thought was such a problem.

We must reach out to lower- and middle-class American workers, explaining that their problems are rooted in the poor distribution of income in the United States and that, compounding the problem, political power is in the hands of businessmen notorious for paying as little as possible.

It is essential to appeal to the good hearts of ordinary people, to make them see that our task is to build, here on earth, the kingdom of justice and fellowship for all. A world without walls, poverty, fear, discrimination, or racism.

He again expressed “complete solidarity with our countrymen who have come to the US.”[42]

Complete solidarity—as long as no one questioned the corruption and incompetence of the Mexican government that caused people to leave.

Shortly after, in Phoenix, AMLO appealed to the Mexican moral superiority of impoverishment over American materialism. “Let’s touch the hearts of the American people: let’s remind them that true happiness resides not in the accumulation of material goods, titles, or fame, but through spiritual well-being; that is to say, being at peace with ourselves, our conscience, and our neighbors.”[43] It was a crude rendering of The Cosmic Race’s argument, which I more fully described in chapter 2. Let’s just say here that AMLO’s tour was hardly a demonstration of neighborly peace with the United States.

Clearly, the socialist rhetoric has served the corrupt leadership of Mexico well, allowing them to avoid accountability for its government failures. AMLO continued to bang this drum in New York City. “We must not forget that you are here by necessity. You, like many others, have been victims of a neoliberal political system that has been imposed on our country for over thirty years.” And while AMLO would declare that “migration is the clearest and most painful proof of the exclusionary nature of the neoliberal (capitalist) model,” he would also admit that in contradiction, “the remittances you make to your families, totaling over $24 billion a year, sustain, in large part, the economy in Mexico.” Of course, the socialist event would not have been complete without the requisite false analogy: the “villainy for Trump and his advisors to speak of Mexicans as Hitler and the Nazis spoke of Jews, just before launching their vile campaign of persecution and extermination.”[44]

In San Francisco, the pattern of blather continued: “The US is a clear example of the truth that material wealth alone does not necessarily create better living or working conditions,” as his fellow countrymen continued their steady stream across the border in search of material wealth.

AMLO explained that he wanted to work “toward a world without . . . borders,” which sounds lovely until you examine the ugly realities contributing to the one-way flow.[45]

AMLO never mentioned his vision for mass migration to his American audiences. There was no mention of “reconquering” lands taken from Mexico. His goal was to keep migrants here for his purposes. Not to rile up the locals.

He was not just fighting for Mexican migrants, but for all migrants in the United States; this was a civilizational struggle. “And soon, very soon, with the triumph of our movement, we will defend the migrants of Mexico, of Central America, the entire American continent, and all the migrants of the world who, out of necessity, have to leave their homes to seek a life in the United States,” he said. “It is a human right that we will defend for all Mexicans and for all migrants.”[46]

AMLO’s interference in American politics also included highly personal attacks on American leaders such as Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, as well as senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Bob Menendez when they called for stiffer border controls.

He warned Governor Abbott before an election: “Well, look, we don’t have to do much, just tell our countrymen not to vote for the governor of Texas, nor for the legislators of the Republican Party who support these measures.” AMLO and his protégé Sheinbaum, like all recent Mexican presidents, consider US-born citizens of Mexican ancestry to be Mexican.[47]

AMLO is not alone among senior Mexican officials trying to steer the votes of Mexicans living in the United States. President of the Mexican Senate José Noroña explained in 2023 that given the Republican position on illegal immigration, “we should call on Mexicans in the United States who have dual nationality not to vote for the Republicans.”[48]

During Trump’s first term, the Mexican Foreign Ministry inserted itself further into America’s debate over immigration. The Office of the Undersecretary for North America inaugurated “Mexican Civil Rights Advisory Groups” in the United States. “These groups provide an institutional framework for working with civil rights groups to engage in high-impact litigation,” as the Foreign Ministry put it. By 2019, forty national, state, and local organizations participated in the MCRAGs as part of this “Mexican Migration Assistance Strategy.”[49]

Mexican officials have also cultivated opportunities to train activists in the United States to advance their agenda on American soil.

Beginning in 2023, for example, a program was launched to bring Latin American activists in the United States to meet and strategize with Mexican officials on issues such as immigration. The program “is designed to provide insight into social issues and develop strategies for promoting social change” in the United States, according to organizers. The program, Civic Leader Education and Advocacy Program (CLEAP), brings Latino progressives in the United States to Mexico City. It is run by a Colorado-based organization called Voces Unidas, which is part of a family of political organizations that, in their words, “can influence policy change using the several political levers.” The meeting in April 2025 included “leaders who self-identified as immigrants with a passion and interest in immigration policy.”[50]

The head of the organization, Alex Sánchez, fought immigration reforms like the Laken Riley Act. Laken Riley was a twenty-two-year-old nursing student in Georgia who was out jogging at the University of Georgia in 2024 when she was brutally attacked and murdered by a twenty-six-year-old Venezuelan man named Jose Antonio Ibarra who had entered the United States illegally. Ibarra had been caught crossing the border by federal officials but was released into the United States. In Washington, outraged by the crime, Congress passed a law in her name requiring the federal detention of illegal immigrants arrested for serious crimes.

“That bill, the Laken Riley Act, will forever be recognized as one of the most vindictive, anti-immigrant, and consequential laws passed by this administration,” he wrote.[51]

Mexican officials also formed and funded a group called the Migrant Force (Fuerza Migrante) to organize efforts in the United States. They opened an office in the National Press Building in Washington with the backing of local governments in Mexico.[52] Avelino Meza, secretary general of Migrant Force, accused Trump of “psychological terrorism” against migrants.[53]

* * *

When Trump won in 2024, there was again a call to arms against Trump that included Mexico’s efforts to manipulate events in the United States politically.

President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that her Mexican government was going to strengthen the network of fifty-odd consulates in the United States. “We are reinforcing the Consulates,” she said. “Tell our brothers and sisters in the United States that we will always defend them, so that they should come to the Consulates.”[54] Mexico’s foreign minister explained that the government would “strengthen strategic alliances” with its partners in the United States, including sympathetic government officials who were likely resisting Trump.[55]

Sheinbaum boldly declared to her countrymen, “We will never jeopardize our sovereignty.”[56] A strange choice of words considering that she was subverting ours.

Activists like Alejandro Robles, mentioned earlier, were joined by other Mexican officials to fan the flames in the United States.

Mexico mobilized to move further into American politics. The head of the Institute for Mexicans Abroad (IME) in the Mexican Foreign Ministry was Luis Gutierrez Reyes, who was educated in Cuba.[57] The Foreign Ministry committed itself to, in its own words, “using the diaspora as a strategic resource . . . The nationals residing in the United States are not alone, as they have the support of the Chancellery and its consular network.” And it echoed the words of the Migrant Anthem, which Sheinbaum was beaming to migrants in the United States: “We change places, not flags; I have green, white, red in my veins.”[58]

Trump’s return to the White House brought street protests, which involved foreign forces playing an important role. Beginning in early February 2025, thousands of protestors took to the streets in Los Angeles to protest Trump’s immigration policies. Many carried Mexican flags. Organizers blasted “We are More American” over loudspeakers.[59] “We are more American / Than the children of the Anglo-Saxons.”[60] The song became a source of “resistance and pride” in Mexico, too, according to the Mexican media.[61]

In an April 2025 interview, Robles, who seems to be spearheading Mexican activism in the United States, attacked those Mexicans who had “Americanized” by trying to “blend in,” sharing that President Sheinbaum referred to them as “traitors.” “They don’t agree with being Mexican; they would prefer always to be an imperialist colony, to be part of the United States.”[62]

In New York City, in early February 2025, migrants gathered carrying Salvadoran, Mexican, and Ecuadoran flags. It was part of the nationwide “Day Without Immigrants” protest. “We are more American than the son of the white man,” one protest leader declared over the loudspeaker.[63]

On May 1, 2025, protesters rocked Chicago by marching through the center of the city. The May Day rally included thousands who blocked traffic and voiced their support for migrants illegally in the country. Jorge Mujica was one of the organizers. Months earlier, he had promised to spearhead the opposition to Trump, “calling for a full week of civil disobediences.” In addition to the protests, he promised work stoppages.[64] Mujica also began training union leaders on how to become “sanctuary unions” for illegal migrants.[65]

Jorge Mujica had been “one of the masterminds” behind the massive demonstrations in 2006 that led millions to take to the streets in a failed effort to secure amnesty for those in the country illegally.[66] Mujica, a self-described “radical labor activist,” learned his trade while living in Mexico before bringing his politics to the US as an illegal migrant.[67] Mujica had denounced efforts to enforce immigration laws as “a strategy of ethnic cleansing.” After all, while he was a labor and political activist in Chicago, he had also been an advisor to the Mexican Foreign Ministry. Beginning in 2021, he was also a member of the Mexican Federal Congress.[68] Mujica was widely quoted by established news outlets in the United States on Trump and migrant rights, but none mentioned that this American activist was also a Mexican government official.

When Trump first announced his candidacy for the White House in 2015, Mujica dismissed the real estate mogul. As he told Time magazine at the time, “His ideas are so ridiculous they could never happen. . . . Trump doesn’t seem to realize that these things are politically impossible. Rather than making you cry, it makes you laugh.”[69]

After Trump’s first election, Mujica was no longer laughing. Nor was the Mexican government. “Everybody is under attack right now,” he declared.[70] Also helping organize the protest was Omar Lopez of the Immigrant Defense Resistance Council, which had proudly issued an anti-Trump policy manifesto.[71] Lopez, like Mujica, had ties to the Mexican government, serving as an advisor to the Mexican Foreign Ministry when he had led raucous rallies in Chicago in 2006.[72] Lopez enjoyed a long-time working relationship with the Mexican consulate and described his efforts as “pushing and fighting for establishing a very clear political link between Mexico and Mexicans living abroad.”[73] Now he was back, helping Mujica put bodies in the streets to resist Trump.

In Phoenix, Mexican senator Karina Ruiz, who had also been at the OKC meeting, led thousands of protestors, addressing the throng behind a Join the Fight placard.[74]

“So, it needs to be resolved and if this administration can do it, then we have to sit down and discuss how it’s going to be done,” she explained in one interview. “From Mexico, we’ve said dialogue is the priority.” To be clear, Ruiz was demanding that Washington consult with Mexico on a domestic political matter. “The main thing for them to know is that the Mexican government is not alone, [migrants] are not alone.”[75]

Other Mexican government officials were in the United States trying to fuel opposition to Trump as well.

* * *

In 2024, Aniceto “Cheto” Polanco had rallied people to attend the May Day protests in Los Angeles and demanded amnesty for migrants living in the United States. The protest route began conveniently in front of the Mexican consulate in Santa Ana, California, and then proceeded to the Ronald Reagan Federal Building. A van with a banner reading “Full Rights for Immigrants” in both Spanish and English led the march. Polanco had made outrageous claims about the situation in California, contending that Orange County, California, is a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity.[76]

Months after those protests, Polanco became a deputy in the Mexican Congress. Like all legislators, he declared his oath to Mexico and promised to protect his country patriotically. But Polanco continued to live in Los Angeles.

In 2025, with Trump back in office, now-Congressman Polanco cheered on the May Day protestors as they marched through downtown Los Angeles. “It’s admirable how young people have taken to the streets to defend their parents and families,” he said. “Trump was wrong to mess with this generation.”[77]

Matters escalated as the Trump administration began to enforce immigration laws, which led to deportations. Activists from Mexico’s ruling Morena Party who live in the United States met to discuss “brownist militancy” (as they call it).[78] An organization called Union del Barrio set up a network to monitor the streets of Los Angeles, looking for groups of federal law enforcement and immigration officials.[79] “You will not come into our community without facing an organized resistance,” declared Ron Gochez, a Los Angeles high school history teacher and spokesman for the group.[80]

When members of the organization spotted ICE vehicles in early June, they sent out the word on social media: “Support needed NOW!!! Massive ICE activity - The community has taken over the streets and [we] need more support.”[81] Violent protests and riots followed, law enforcement officials were assaulted, and rioters attempted to block law enforcement vehicles from moving. (Union del Barrio members have not been charged.) Why might Union del Barrio work so hard to prevent deportations? A look at the group’s political program reveals that they want “the liberation and reunification of Mexico under a revolutionary government,” which will be “committed to the liberation and unification of Nuestra América” and the deconstruction of the United States as an “illegal settler state.”[82] In other words, Reconquista. In 2010, Gochez told a rally in Los Angeles, “Where we now stand is stolen, occupied Mexico!”[83]

Union del Barrio might be easily dismissed as a fringe movement except for the fact that it is simply a more radical version of the views expounded by senior members of the Mexican government and elite over several decades.

After violent protests broke out in Los Angeles by early afternoon on June 6, Alejandro Robles, who had been crossing the country meeting with activists, declared later that night, “It’s very encouraging to see the activism of our people in the United States.”[84]

He went on: “This situation helps us to give more validity to our maxim, that only the people can save the people, and the organized people can rescue the nation. And this is what we are doing in our committees, particularly in the United States. Today, beyond our political training and affiliation tasks, we are focusing on the defense of our fellow Mexicans.”[85]

As the violence erupted, the president of the Mexican Senate, Gerardo Fernández Noroña, declared on social media that Los Angeles and Palestine were “two sides of the same coin.” Both were occupied territories.[86]

“Los Angeles is migrant land,” he said.[87]

Migrante TV, the Mexican government-funded news service for migrants in the US, offered detailed coverage of what it described as “the repression of protests of the Latino community.”[88] Other Mexican officials living in the United States joined the chorus in support of the protesters and even seemed to sanction violent acts.

Congressman Polanco posted a video of Hispanic cops being harassed for doing their jobs and being disloyal to their ethnic heritage, a verbal badgering he appears to participate in.

“That’s how it goes, our race for our race,” he captions another video, which shows protestors screaming at the police.[89]

The congressman also went on social media with a video of protesters blocking traffic in LA, carrying Mexican flags. He likened them to Aztec warriors, interspersing graphics of the same with weapons in hand, between video footage of the LA protestors. “For our race,” he announced.

“When Mexico rises, the continent trembles,” the video’s Spanish narration continues.

The Mexicans in Los Angeles made that clear. When Mexicans take to the streets, there’s no force that can stop them. They went out with flags, their souls burning, shouting for all those who remain silent, raising their voices throughout Latin America. Who dared to confront the system? The Mexican. Who stood up to the authorities without fear? The Mexican. Who endured the tear gas, the shoving, the threats, the Mexican, damn it. Because when Mexico rises, it doesn’t rise, it only drags with it a whole history of struggle, of people, of land, of Latin blood. Mexico doesn’t hide; Mexico stands up for everyone, and let it be heard clearly in every corner of the world. Mexicans are not trampled on; they are respected, because when they resist, they resist for everyone.[90]

After a day in which cars burned in the streets and violent protesters had been tossing concrete pieces off overpasses onto law enforcement vehicles below, Polanco told his thousands of followers on June 9: “We declare ourselves in permanent resistance.”[91]

How have our leaders in Washington allowed a foreign country to so deeply penetrate our country?

For some of our leaders, the simple answer is they have been unaware of the extent of the subversion until the release of this book, but for others, the answer is an old one. They have allowed it to happen because they politically stood to benefit from Mexico’s actions. Among these are three American presidents.

Chapter 4

Voter Mills

A simple memo written by a Catholic priest sat on the corner of the president’s desk. This document was not a spiritual missive. Rather, it touched off actions that would radically transform American elections over the next three decades to serve the needs of one particular political party.

In February 1996, Henry Cisneros, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, forwarded a letter to President Bill Clinton from Father Miguel Vega, an activist priest in Los Angeles who worked with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). The IAF was a radical group founded by Saul Alinsky to align religious groups with leftist goals. Father Vega had launched the California Active Citizenship Campaign months earlier to help migrants obtain citizenship and then get them out to vote.[1] In the memo, Father Vega requested that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) speed up the approval of applications for US citizenship. The usual application process requires several important steps, including conducting criminal background checks, language and other proficiency tests, interviews to determine the moral fitness of the applicant, and other procedures meant to ensure the qualifications of applicants for citizenship. As it happened, millions of migrants who had been granted amnesty in 1986 were now eligible to become American citizens, and Vega saw a huge political opportunity currently bogged down in the citizenship process. In a later letter to Vice President Al Gore, Vega included a column from the Los Angeles Times, indicating his agreement. In discussing the backlog in naturalization, the column stated the seminal issue of immigration: “The administration may be blowing a great chance to create a whole lot of pro-Clinton Voters.”[2]

Bill Clinton had prevailed in the 1992 election with just 43 percent of the popular vote, the worst showing for the winning candidate since 1912. In February 1996, Cisneros was being investigated by a special counsel for having lied about a five-figure payoff to a mistress. Bill Clinton was winding down his secret affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Both had a great deal at stake in the 1996 election.

The priest’s letters stirred the Clinton White House to aggressive action. If Mexico’s leaders were seeking a Reconquista via mass migration and were becoming politically active in the United States, powerful elected Democrats saw an easy opportunity to create new partisan voters. The Clinton team tossed aside required FBI checks for criminal records, dumbed down the required civics exam, and scrapped English-language proficiency requirements in a mad dash to generate new Clinton voters. A stunning 1.2 million new citizens were sworn in during the 1996 election year, three times the number processed by the INS the previous year. As a vote generator, it worked: eighty-five percent of this population voted for Clinton-Gore.[3]

But as a generator of American citizens, it was a travesty. An audit conducted by the accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick for the federal government later revealed that more than seventy-five thousand of the new citizens had their arrest records ignored; another sixty-one thousand were granted citizenship without ever even submitting their fingerprints for a requisite criminal background check. And a large swath who became citizens could not even speak rudimentary English or pass the basic civic test as required.[4]

For Bill Clinton, the goal was new Democrat voters, not ideal citizens. It was such an audacious success that Clinton’s successors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, replicated the approach, severely damaging an American civic tradition. (The three biggest years in history for naturalization are 1996, 2008, and 2022.) Democrat party leaders began to see immigration policy in purely transactional terms: more migrants = more Democrat voters. Citizenship requirements be damned.

Migrants, it appears, could be useful political tools.

In February 1996, just days after Father Vega’s first letter circulated in the White House, INS Commissioner Doris Meissner met at the White House with Harold Ickes and other Clinton aides.[5] Officially, Ickes was the Deputy White House chief of staff. Unofficially, he was the White House fixer. Nicknamed the “Garbage Man” in a New York Times profile, Ickes, who was never charged with a crime, had been “caught up in so many of Clinton’s scandals and crises that he came to describe his function in the White House as ‘director of the sanitation department.’”[6] The Clinton administration’s scheme to circumvent the citizenship vetting process and create new voters was the perfect sort of operation for Ickes. The trusted aide knew how important every vote would be to the president’s reelection chances, and a point underscored in a memo aide Stephen Warnath wrote for him conveyed the Hispanic Caucus’s sentiment: “Faster naturalization means more potential Democratic voters in the next election.”[7]

Several weeks after that White House meeting, on March 1, 1996, INS headquarters released a memorandum to field offices instructing “that all applications for naturalization received by the end of that month had to be completed . . . by September 30, 1996 [emphasis added].”[8] Why was the end of September so important? Because it was, in many locales, the last date citizens could register to vote in the presidential election. Douglas Farbrother, an aide to Vice President Al Gore and former Department of Defense career employee, later told Department of Justice investigators that he believed the deadline “was directly connected to the upcoming election” and “he presumed that such voters would support the Clinton/Gore ticket.”[9]

Indeed, Farbrother made clear what these efforts were all about in an email to his boss, Vice President Al Gore: “naturalizing one million new citizens in time for the November 1996 election.”[10] Farbrother and other aides knew that the White House was steering the citizenship process because “the President had learned from someone that there were large numbers of immigrants who had applied for citizenship in Southern California and the President was interested in naturalization because he thought this group would mostly vote for him.”[11] Father Vega’s memo was moving mountains.

On March 8, Vice President Gore was in Los Angeles and sat down with Father Vega and other senior officials from the Industrial Areas Foundation in Los Angeles. The IAF engaged in “community organizing” and included Marxists, progressive Catholics, and ethnic activists. At the meeting, which they held in private, “Gore pledged the Clinton administration’s full cooperation with their efforts to expedite citizenship applications.”[12]

The White House ran into resistance from career employees at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, who saw the plan for what it was— “they suspected it grew out of partisan purposes.” But the plan proceeded anyway. INS officials later recalled how Rahm Emanuel “took midnight trips to INS headquarters to meet with [then-Commissioner Doris] Meissner.”[13]

Expanding citizenship application reviews to 1.3 million before the election meant ignoring the requirement to investigate criminal records and determine if the applicant was “of good moral character.”[14] Essentially, they were told to take every applicant at their word.

FBI arrest records were sent to INS offices as required to conduct criminal background checks on applicants. But the drive to create new voters often meant simply ignoring them. In the INS’s Chicago office, the documents were never even placed in the applicants’ files—alien criminals were granted citizenship as a result. One migrant received his citizenship while sitting in jail. A later investigation by the Department of Justice revealed that “INS offices were naturalizing applicants so quickly that applicant criminal history reports,” produced by the FBI, “were arriving in INS offices only after the applicant had been sworn in as a United States citizen.” INS employees complained that people were being granted citizenship “without ensuring that they were eligible.”[15]

Despite the full press, the White House was impatient. On March 21, White House aide Elaine Kamarck, a senior policy advisor to Gore, fired off a note to Farbrother pressing to speed things up even more quickly: “THE PRESIDENT IS SICK OF THIS AND WANTS ACTION. IF NOTHING MOVES TODAY WE’LL HAVE TO TAKE SOME PRETTY DRASTIC MEASURES.”

District INS offices were instructed to “recruit and hire temporary employees” for the citizenship push.[16]

To become a US citizen, an applicant must demonstrate a basic, workable knowledge of the English language. However, with pressure from the White House, the INS “did not properly enforce the English-language requirement of naturalization.” Many INS workers reported that they “regularly encountered applicants who presented passing certificates but who could not speak even simple English.” They became US citizens anyway.[17]

The problem was not just that these moves broke the lawful process, but that the pool from which applicants were drawn was itself tainted. More than one million of the people who were eligible to apply for citizenship at the time had become permanent residents via an immigration program “widely regarded as having been rife with fraud,” according to the Clinton Justice Department. An estimated 70 percent of those who came through the Special Agricultural Workers (SAWs) program had lied on meaningful parts of their application.[18]

But never mind.

Farbrother and other White House aides were aware of how their activities might look to the public. He advised Kamarck on March 29 of the need “to blunt any charge that we are running a citizenship/Clinton voter mill” by pushing for some INS reforms. Meissner, the head of the INS, also warned, “If we are too aggressive at removing the roadblocks to success, we might be publicly criticized for running a pro-Democrat voter mill and risk having Congress stop us.”[19]

By early April, Father Vega was encouraged to write another memo. He told White House aides it was a real possibility that “as many as 229,000 new citizens [will be] voting in Los Angeles this November” and that across America, “some 800,000 will become citizens in time for the election.” (The actual number would be 50 percent higher.) Vega’s memo was passed along to Vice President Al Gore with a cover note: “Thought you might like to see this response from Father Vega. He seems very pleased with you.”[20]

The Clinton White House and the INS brass had even greater plans that must have pleased Father Vega. On May 1, the order came down from INS headquarters to loosen even further the naturalization standards by whittling down the required interview with the citizen applicant to just five minutes. Under Commissioner Meissner, the INS eliminated “the testing of Civics and written English proficiency” from the interview.[21]

By late summer, President Clinton turbocharged his citizenship machine: On August 22, he issued an Executive Order directing all agencies to assist INS in naturalizing applicants for citizenship.[22]

As the Clinton White House steered the new INS policies, outside activist groups joined in the effort. Several “community-based organizations” went to work as INS “outreach” to generate seven hundred thousand new applicants within a year.[23] Vice President Al Gore and White House aides met regularly with some of these activist organizations.

In addition to the citizenship machine, the Clinton White House needed to ensure that these new citizens registered to vote right away. In March, Harold Ickes pressed White House aides for information on arranging voter registration at naturalization ceremonies. Aides reported that the process was underway, explaining in internal emails that there would be a “mass ceremony” planned in Chicago and that the “registration attempt” would be “coordinated with Skinny Sheehan [sic], our best field organizer.” Skinny Sheahan, the “Director of Special Events for the City of Chicago” and a “longtime Democratic field organizer in Chicago,” led that registration effort.[24]

Skinny fattened the voter rolls for Clinton’s reelection effort.

In Orange County, California, the Latino advocacy group Hermandad Mexicana Nacional worked aggressively to help people apply for citizenship and register to vote—not necessarily in that order. The organization registered people who were not citizens, and some would cast ballots in the 1996 election. To motivate migrants to register to vote, they ran an illegal lottery to win a brand-new Chevy Camaro, with registering to vote or applying for citizenship as ways to enter. The winner of the lottery, a noncitizen, was given $12,000 in cash instead.[25]

According to informants who later cooperated with prosecutors, the group’s employees filled out voter registration forms for migrants to sign even though they were not citizens. Prosecutors concluded that employees of Hermandad Mexicana “willfully and unlawfully” helped 227 noncitizens register to vote, sometimes filling out the forms themselves. Investigators discovered that 632 ineligible people were registered to vote.[26] (No one was ever indicted over this.)

While these numbers in isolation may seem low, consider the effect if Hermandad Mexicana Nacional were one example of hundreds—or thousands—of such groups.

Even some political allies like Al Chavez, a member of the Democratic Central Committee in Orange County, disapproved of the group’s aggressive tactics. He accused the group of “exploiting immigrants who lack education and experience in the US political system.” Hermandad Mexicana officials said they did not intentionally break any laws; they were only trying to register citizens to vote.[27]

After the US Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General conducted the internal investigation and audit of the Clinton White House citizenship operation, another investigation discovered that in the Chicago INS office, five thousand arrest reports for citizen applicants were hidden in boxes. They arrived in time to be reviewed by INS officials but were cast aside. How many more such incidents were happening in other offices around the country?

As part of the investigation, DOJ lawyers interviewed dozens of White House aides and INS officials. Presidential advisors Harold Ickes and Rahm Emanuel refused to sit for interviews. Vice President Al Gore did the same. The official investigation concluded that “the integrity of” the citizenship process “suffered badly as a result of INS’ efforts to process naturalization applications more quickly,” and that the White House “hoped for a political benefit” in the upcoming election by cutting corners and pushing through more citizenship approvals.[28]

Despite these conclusions, no one was fired, and no criminal or civil charges were brought against anyone. However unethical and antithetical to American principles, the experiment was a success. It proved that ignoring immigration and citizenship laws and requirements on a mass scale could result in major political rewards with few, if any, consequences.

Some American politicians now saw the magic of loosening citizenship requirements to boost their voter numbers.

In 2000, when Al Gore was on the ballot for president, the Clinton White House revved up the machine once again. According to INS employees in Chicago, for example, agents in district offices were “directed to relax the testing for English, complete every interview within twenty minutes, and ensure that all applicants pass the Civics test by continuing to ask questions until an applicant got enough right. Sometimes it was necessary to ask twenty or twenty-five questions before four or five were answered correctly.”[29]

Activist groups were able, again, to commandeer the application process and influence the approval of certain applications. A Department of Justice Investigation in 2000 revealed that USCIS employees “discouraged the pursuit of potentially disqualifying issues” because “the pressure they were under was, in fact, pressure to approve applications” and there was “historical favoritism shown to certain [outside] organizations” who would push through certain applications.[30]

It was now received wisdom that by ramming through citizenship applications, one could gain additional power. Hollywood even noticed. In season 3 of the television drama The West Wing, released in 2001, two presidential aides discussed that very thing.

Victor Campos, played by Miguel Sandoval, a Hispanic labor leader from California, proposed “Complete amnesty.”

“No way,” replied presidential aide Sam Seaborn, played by Rob Lowe.

“Complete amnesty for all undocumented immigrants from the Americas, Mexico, Chile, El Salvador.”

“It’ll also expand the Democratic Party,” added presidential aide Connie Tate, played by Connie Britton.

“If I take this to the President, what do we get?” asks Sam.

“California and its 435 delegates,” replied Campos.[31]

* * *

Across the pond, British power brokers saw how well their American counterparts fared at cultivating new citizens for political power. British prime minister Tony Blair was, in many respects, Bill Clinton’s political twin. Blair posited that just as new migrants in the United States skewed heavily Democrat, new migrants in Great Britain were potentially a massive voting bloc for Blair’s Labour Party. “Once the ethnic minority population of a constituency reaches 30 percent . . . it becomes almost impossible for [the Conservatives] to win it,” explained Lord Cooper of Windrush, a British politician. A white paper later leaked to the media described the political benefits of encouraging immigration and the broader objective of reengineering British society with mass migration. A public version of the paper released in 2001 excluded some of the more shocking aspects of the original paper, including only references to the “social objectives” of increasing immigration.

Blair’s goal was to maximize immigration to achieve the political benefits that it would bring the Labour Party. After the 1998 election, “there was a deliberate policy of loosening immigration controls in almost every sector.” The Labour Party never campaigned on that issue, just as Clinton never campaigned on softening citizenship assessments. The results were undeniable: the policy “accounted for two-thirds of the 3.6 million net foreign migration under Labour.”[32]

The deliberate plan was to “open up the UK to mass migration,” recalled Andrew Neather, who served as an advisor to both Tony Blair and his home secretary, Jack Straw. Eventually, the Labour Party released a paper from Blair’s office by something called the Performance and Innovation Unit. As Neather would recount: “Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural . . . I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended—even if this wasn’t its main purpose—to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.” The plan was real, according to Neather. “But ministers wouldn’t talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn’t necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men’s clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland.”[33]

* * *

In 1992, A. G. Currie Middle School in Tustin, California, decided to fly sixty-five flags to represent the home countries of all its students. Principal Dan Brooks explained that Currie intended to become a “model multicultural school.” After all, he saw “diversity as a strength.”

By 2009, the middle school had become 91 percent Hispanic.[34]

By the mid-1990s, half of all Mexican immigrants—documented or not—lived in the state of California.[35]

Mexico’s elite wanted migrants to push forward so their expansionary dreams could be realized. The billions sent back to Mexico as remittances didn’t hurt either. Meanwhile, Democrats had realized that this was a pathway to greater political power.

The sweeping influx of illegal migrants into states like California and Nevada shifted the political balance in those states. With a more collectivist mindset, distinct from the more typical American view, migrants became a powerful tool to push left-wing political interests. Progressives shared with all Democrats their belief that migrants could promote their political agenda. “Progressives hope the expansion of the electorate [to include illegal immigrants] will help advance progressive candidates and policies,” explained Ron Hayduk, a sympathetic author.[36]

In 1998, President Clinton invited Mario Obledo, the former California state secretary of health and welfare, to come to the White House for a special ceremony. Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Likely, Obledo received the award less because of his government career and more because he was the cofounder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.[37] Obledo was a confident, even cocky, leader who personified the fusing of Democratic political ambitions to use migrants as a tool of power while the Mexican elite yearned for a cultural and ethnic reconquest. “We’re going to take over all the political institutions in California,” he explained. “California is going to be a Hispanic state, and anyone who doesn’t like it should leave . . . they ought to go back to Europe.”[38]

Progressives were confident they could ride that same wave. Deepak Bhargava, who had led the social justice organization Community Change, zeroed in on the core fact that mass migration meant that “translating demographic advantages into durable political coalitions will sustain progressive policy changes.” [39]

Mass migration changed California not only by moving it left politically, but also by giving the state more national power and making elections easier to win. California was home to nearly 4.8 million noncitizens who couldn’t vote legally but did get counted in the US Census. By 2020, California had eleven more congressional seats than it otherwise would have had because of the presence of immigrants. To put that into perspective, that is a larger congressional delegation than thirty-three US states. If you count only illegal migrants in California, that amounts to three extra congressional seats, larger than the congressional delegations of thirteen US states. This also meant that California would get a larger share of federal government block-grant money, which is based on population totals, whether the people being counted were in the country legally or not. It’s not just in California. In the state of New York, according to The New York Times, there is fear that changing the census to exclude illegal migrants could cost the state congressional seats.[40] Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, of the Ninth Congressional District (Brooklyn), candidly explained in January 2024 her calculus for wanting illegal migrants in her district: “I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.”[41] Winning congressional races in these states became easier because the number of actual voters in each district was much smaller. During the 2018 congressional elections, for example, in the five districts with the highest percentage of voting-age noncitizens, an average of only 132,000 votes were cast. In the five districts in the country with the smallest number of noncitizens, an average of 232,000 were cast.[42]

In Nevada, a similar push was taking place. The immigrant vote was key to transforming the state of Nevada from a red to a purple state. As D. Taylor, the international president of the UNITE HERE union, put it: “The immigrant vote was crucial in all this.” [43]

The union started a Citizenship Project, which offered a glimpse into its broader cultural goals beyond just winning political races. The group offered a themed license plate in the state of Nevada to highlight its work. The plate featured a picture of an Aztec calendar.[44] The Aztecs, of course, were never in Nevada. But it is one of the US states that was “stolen” from Mexico, and the Aztecs are one of the foundations of Mexican culture. The union’s workshops are conducted along with the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.[45]

Clinton and Gore were the first to see the partisan political benefits of abandoning the normal rules of citizenship for political gain. They were certainly not the last.

* * *

It was a hot July 2009 in Washington, DC, and a silver-haired labor boss stood before the crowd and personified the fusing of Mexico’s territorial ambitions with those of an American president looking to create new voters.

Eliseo Medina was the secretary-treasurer of one of the most powerful unions in America, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. He also had the ear of the newly elected president, Barack Obama, who had met with him when he was a senator. “Before immigration debates took place in Washington,” Obama had said, “I spoke with Eliseo Medina and SEIU members.”

Medina was a labor boss, but he was also an immigrant. Apparently, he wanted to change America profoundly.

“When they [recently naturalized migrants] voted in November,” Medina observed, “they voted overwhelmingly for progressive candidates. Barack Obama got two out of every three voters who showed up.”

So, I think there’s [sic] two things that matter for the progressive community: Number one: If we are to expand this electorate to win, the progressive community needs to solidly be on the side of immigrants. That will expand and solidify the progressive coalition for the future. Number two: [If] we reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if we have, even the same ratio, two out of three? If we have eight million new voters . . . [we] will create a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.[46]

What Eliseo Medina didn’t say on that day was that he was not only an immigrant, labor leader, and Obama confidant. He was also an advisor to the Mexican government’s foreign ministry, in particular, the Institute for Mexicans Abroad, which, as we saw earlier, was created by officials because “Mexico needs Mexican Americans to lobby the US government to make decisions favorable to Mexico.”[47]

Elected in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis, President Barack Obama brought a message of “hope and change” through the “fundamental transformation of America.”[48] The transformation he envisioned was both cultural and political, and Obama likely saw migrants as the vectors for such transformation. Obama’s second job out of college was as a community organizer for the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation, “an organization that had long supported immigrant rights.”[49] Immigrants had long been a cornerstone of the progressive coalition in Chicago, where Obama grew up politically.

During the 2008 Democratic Party campaign, Obama lost the hotly contested Pennsylvania primary to Hillary Clinton. He was later caught on tape explaining to donors why, blaming rural voters who opposed mass migration. “And it’s not surprising that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” he told them.[50] When he wasn’t expressing concerns about the immigrant sentiments of ordinary Americans, Obama declared that his immigrant roots gave him unique and special insights. He told voters in Iowa that “his childhood years in Indonesia and his Kenyan roots” led him to oppose the Iraq war because those experiences had taught him “how powerful tribal and ethnic sentiments are.”[51] For the 2008 election, Obama and his team brazenly “adopted a prominent phrase from within the immigrant rights movement” and made it their campaign slogan: “Si se Puede! Yes we can.”[52]

What Obama understood was that unlike those rural voters, the most supportive group in the United States for his expansive government agenda to transform America were immigrants. And many of them, like Obama, wanted America to change from the foundation up.

Not only did newly naturalized migrants vote for Democrats in large numbers, but they were also significantly to the left of the typical Democrat. In 2010, 69 percent of immigrants supported Obama’s plans for a massive government takeover of health care, according to polling. Surveys regularly demonstrated that migrants preferred larger and more intrusive government practices, often reflecting socialist experiences in their home countries. During Obama’s first term, 75 percent of Hispanic immigrants told pollsters they preferred a “bigger government providing more services.” Only 41 percent of the general American population agreed.[53]

At the same time, migrants were shown to be less supportive of preserving America’s core values. A 2013 Harris Interactive survey found that “only 50 percent of naturalized citizens” believed “schools should teach children to be proud Americans,” compared with 81 percent of those who were native-born. When asked if “the US Constitution is a higher authority than international law,” only 37 percent of naturalized citizens agreed, compared to 67 percent of American-born natives. And while surveys found that 85 percent of Americans viewed themselves as US citizens and not “citizens of the world,” only 54 percent of naturalized citizens embraced that view.[54]

The partisan advantage for Democrats that Obama and Medina noted was not only real, it was growing. Four years after his election, in 2012, a YouGov survey found that recent immigrants favored Democrats over Republicans by almost four to one.[55]

Therefore, the hard work of ignoring citizenship standards to create these voters needed to continue.

* * *

Alejandro Mayorkas was angry.

The balding, slender director of Obama’s US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), who would later head the Department of Homeland Security in the Biden administration, had stopped by the California Service Center of the USCIS to meet with employees who were reviewing citizenship and visa applications.

It was 2010, and Obama was up for reelection in two years. Mayorkas was “visibly agitated,” federal employees recalled, because they were pursuing greater fraud detection capabilities in reviewing applications.

“Why would you be focusing on that instead of approvals?” Mayorkas asked.[56]

The visa programs were rife with fraud, and the job of these employees was to detect and combat it. But Mayorkas didn’t want to hear any of it. He told them not to focus on fraud concerns but instead to “look at petitions from the perspective of the customer.” The “customer,” by which he meant migrant, was more important than the taxpayer and the integrity of the US citizenship system. For Mayorkas, the customer was apparently always right.

Mayorkas had been pushing government employees to ram through applications with less scrutiny for a while. In January 2010, he had instructed Deputy Chief of Staff Doug Craig to “get to yes” on visa and citizenship applications. It was a phrase he used often with senior staff. The California Service Center, one of the busiest visa and citizenship application processors in the country, was also pushed to abandon basic anti-fraud procedures. In the past, citizenship and visa applications were screened against a list of people known to have a history of fraud; any matches would be forwarded to fraud specialists for detailed evaluation. Mayorkas wanted this eliminated: fraud specialists were told to no longer focus on high-risk applications.

Many senior managers and employees resisted Mayorkas’s corruption of the process. In response, he called them out at a conference in Landsdowne, Virginia. He complained of “managers with black spots on their hearts” who would not approve every applicant. “I am dealing with some of these managers.”

And indeed, he was.

Employees who resisted his efforts were reportedly transferred involuntarily to other assignments so that employees more amenable to his agenda would take their places.[57]

As a result of Mayorkas’s efforts, there was a 30 percent decrease in the denial of applicants over the twelve months from August 2009 to August 2010.[58]

An investigation by the Department of Justice later discovered that some immigration officers were “required to approve specific cases against their will.” In other instances, cases would be reassigned. “Cases are sometimes taken away from us and given to officers who the supervisor knows will approve the case,” they told investigators.[59] (No charges were ever filed against Mayorkas.)

During the Obama years, “a low standard of proof” was used for most cases of citizenship or a visa. According to a Department of Homeland Security Investigation, “applicants or petitioners must demonstrate only that the facts in their case are slightly more likely to be true than not true.” A very low bar.[60]

The Obama calculus appeared simple. Rather than persuade more Americans to go along with their plans to transform the country, why not simply change or alter the political DNA of America by radically expanding the numbers of new citizens through suspending or ignoring the rules?

It is hardly surprising that the Obama White House imitated and expanded upon what Clinton had done. Rahm Emanuel, who had spearheaded the efforts in the Clinton White House, became Obama’s chief of staff. In 2012, when Obama was up for reelection, the White House pushed the INS to randomize (minimize) required background checks for citizenship applicants, instead opting for a “lean and light” procedure to speed up the process.[61]

In 2014, Obama created something called the White House Task Force on New Americans, which included a “strategic action plan” to help millions of green card holders become US citizens.[62] The new task force was cochaired by White House Domestic Policy Advisor Cecilia Muñoz, and its representatives included almost everyone from Obama’s cabinet.[63] Munoz was previously vice president of the National Council for La Raza (The Race).[64] La Raza members were also serving as advisors to the Mexican Foreign Ministry.

This Obama task force directed the INS to pull resources from its Electronic Immigration System, a computerized system to conduct national security and criminal background checks and instead send letters to nine million green card holders urging them to naturalize before the 2016 election.[65] The task force also invested in a “comprehensive media campaign targeting major media markets in California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Virginia, Washington, and Arizona.” Additional funds were allocated for “citizenship preparation programs in communities across the country.” The Obama administration also decided to waive the $680 citizenship application fee, which helped pay for the extensive background checks, screenings, and interviews.[66]

So, taxpayers picked up the bill for this elaborate Democratic campaign scheme loosely cloaked in altruism. Mexican authorities certainly did not object. As we saw earlier, they were happy to pay for their own citizens to apply for US citizenship.

* * *

When Joe Biden entered the White House in January 2021, he and his people had a well-oiled machine to fine-tune. So, the naturalization process was further simplified in the hope that it would benefit Biden’s chances of reelection in 2024. If the previous citizenship test included a 128-question pool, with twenty questions and a 60 percent passing score, the new Biden test included only a 100-question pool with ten questions asked. The Biden administration ditched the oral response requirement that was meant to test command of English and instead made it multiple choice, taken on a computer tablet.[67] The Biden administration also shortened the medical form that allowed immigrants to claim disabilities and disability benefits. Changes to the process under the Trump administration suggest that under the Biden administration, the program suffered from a susceptibility to fraud.[68]

President Biden effectively decriminalized the act of illegally crossing into the United States. “We should not be locking people up. We should make sure we change the circumstance . . . [of] why they would leave in the first place?”[69] But of course, as we will see, Latin American leaders in the countries producing the most emigration want their people to migrate to the United States. They propel them into the United States as a weapon pointed at us.

In June 2024, two State Department officials were caught on a hidden camera admitting that the Biden administration’s immigration policy facilitated a specific desire. Daniel Fitzgerald, who had responsibility for allocating US aid dollars in Latin America, and an international consular official, spoke candidly about what was unfolding. “Traditional, standard Americans are not leftists,” the official said. “Latin Americans are all leftists. This is just to try to change the demographics [of the United States.]” Further, the same official allowed, “I wish people knew we were letting in criminals [to the United States] daily.”[70]

Many members of America’s political class have played directly into the hands of America’s enemies by choosing to use migrants for their partisan political benefit over national identity and security. That is especially problematic when you realize how mass migrations are not spontaneous acts of individual initiative, but organized events by hostile foreign powers.[71] Speaking of hostile foreign powers, let us now consider the most sophisticated practitioner of weaponized migration and subversion, the People’s Republic of China.

Chapter 5

China: The Manchurian Generation

As we sang “Auld Lang Syne” in the early morning minutes of January 1, 2025, the first American newborn of the year arrived to much fanfare and celebration, as happens every year. But this time, the baby was the progeny of Chinese citizens, and the mother had intentionally traveled to give birth on American soil, so that the child would automatically be granted US citizenship, a practice known as birth tourism. When such children turn twenty-one, they can also apply for resident status for both of their parents. This New Year’s baby was born in the US territory of Saipan in the Pacific. More than 70 percent of the newborns in Saipan have PRC birth tourist parents who utilize the territory’s forty-five-day visa-free visitation rules and the “Covenant of the Northern Mariana Islands” to guarantee that their children will have American citizenship.[1]

That little child’s parents are two of many who are taking advantage of America’s birthright citizenship policies, based on an interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. How many is anyone’s guess. Birth tourism is a massive business in China alone, but how many such births are we talking about? No one really knows, least of all the US federal government, which does not directly track birth tourism.

The rough estimates from outside organizations are startling. In 2012, one nonprofit estimated that about thirty-six thousand foreign-born women gave birth in the United States and then left the country.[2]

But the number is likely to be far, far higher.

Chinese officials estimate that the number is a staggering fifty thousand of their own citizens per year.[3] Scholars who have studied the subject in depth, like Australian-based professor Salvator Babones, put the figure even higher, perhaps twice that. “With up to 100,000 Chinese babies being born US citizens every year,” he writes, “birth tourism may result in millions of new elite Chinese-Americans.”[4]

Some place the numbers higher still. Media Research, a Chinese data analysis company, says that in 2018 alone, 150,000 people came from China to the United States to practice birth tourism.[5]

The practice of Chinese birth tourism in the United States has been practiced for decades, but it has especially flourished in the past fifteen years. That means at least 750,000 and possibly as many as 1.5 million Chinese, who are also American citizens by virtue of being born here, are now growing toward adulthood in China.

So, as millions from Mexico and the developing world stream across the border, China has methodically exploited our laws with a more sophisticated approach. Because of US birth tourism, perhaps more than a million Chinese nationals have become US citizens by virtue of being born here, but have no memories or allegiance to our country. As we will see, they are often the children of elites who have prospered in the communist Chinese system. They have been suitably indoctrinated in CCP-controlled schools and taught about US values, culture, or history, from a distorted CCP perspective. Technically, as American citizens, they are eligible to vote in US elections and can relocate to the United States at any time. When they turn twenty-one, they can sponsor their parents to come here, too, as permanent residents. Based on what little data we have about Chinese-to-US birth tourism, this tidal wave could hit American society beginning in 2030, when the first baby wave reaches eighteen years old.

We might call them the Manchurian Generation, but it’s a story stranger and more lethal than fiction.

The US federal government does not even collect this data or track the numbers—it is a guessing game in Washington.[6] Officials in Washington have admitted for a while that birth tourism is a problem. When it first emerged as a large-scale practice during the Obama administration, the US State Department expressed the obvious national security implications. As officials told a US Senate committee, “permitting short-term visitors with no demonstrable ties to the United States to obtain visas to travel to the United States primarily to obtain US citizenship for a child creates a potential long-term vulnerability for national security.” Birth tourists “are able to help that child avoid the scrutiny, standards, and procedures that he or she would normally undergo if he or she sought to become a US citizen through naturalization.”[7]

Yet, as we will show, the Obama administration encouraged this practice.

Especially in China, birth tourism is highly organized, supported by the Chinese Communist Party, and perhaps represents a covert method of injecting millions of “citizens” into America. Some of these parents may not favor the CCP and could be seeking an escape hatch from communist China. But many of the parents involved are pillars of the Chinese elite: CCP members, senior officials of intelligence agencies, and government ministers. The practice targets a vulnerability in US immigration law, suggesting that China’s malicious intent is civilizational warfare through subversive immigration. China has done this before elsewhere.

There is an even more insidious method of penetrating the United States through birthright citizenship.

While hundreds of thousands of pregnant Chinese women have flocked to the United States to give birth in this country so their children will be American citizens, another even more byzantine and suspicious form of birthright citizenship is the widespread use of surrogate mothers in the United States to carry the children of senior CCP officials. These officials then collect the children at birth and raise them back in China.

One such senior Chinese Communist Party official lives in a fortress-like mansion in Southern California. When not carrying out his predictable duties as a senior official for several CCP “united front groups” in California designed to advance the interests of communism in the United States, he is helping to breed dozens of children in the United States. To what end?

Guojun Xuan is a slender, sixty-five-year-old Chinese businessman who has purchased more than $100 million in California real estate. Back in China, he has served for decades as a deputy of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional People’s Congress, a branch of the Chinese government’s National People’s Congress. In the United States he serves in senior leadership positions of several organizations controlled by the CCP and Chinese intelligence services called the United Front Work Department, including the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, where he serves on the executive committee.

Xuan has another interest: producing children via surrogacy with woman across the United States. In May 2025, when a two-month-old infant under his care was hospitalized with head injuries, officials found fifteen children living in his $4.1 million Arcadia, California, mansion, ranging in ages from two months up to thirteen years. In total, they found twenty-one children connected to the CCP member.

Xuan arranged the births of his children through mothers spread throughout the United States. The contracts were made through his Mark Surrogacy Investment LLC, which served as a multistate embryo pipeline. Surrogates often were unaware that others were carrying children for the same couple at the same time. Neighbors saw pregnant women coming and going from the house, which seemed to operate more like a surrogacy command center than a traditional home.

Xuan is listed as the owner of dozens of companies in California, most of them either investment or real estate firms. He has purchased more than 150 properties in Southern California worth more than $105 million.

He is not alone in his surrogacy baby mill. He is in fact the tip of a very large iceberg of children with Chinese parents being produced via surrogacy with American woman and thereby US citizens who will join the legions of others born here via birth tourism. Records in California indicate there are 107 companies with the word surrogacy in the name in the state, all owned by Chinese individuals. In China, IVF treatments in the United States have been incorporated into the government’s Belt & Road Initiative. In 2019, for example, officials organized an expo to match Chinese patients with overseas providers including the United States under the banner of Belt & Road.[8]

The booming surrogacy industry, primarily based in Southern California, is essentially nonregulated. The American surrogate mothers (referred to as “carriers” in the industry)[9] are implanted with the sperm of the father and in some instances the eggs from the mother and carry the child to birth. The Chinese government publicly condemns the practice as evidence of capitalism buying and selling people. “Despite the government’s insistence that commercial surrogacy is illegal in China, the law specifies no punishment for it,” note Aviva Xue and Kate Rose. “Surrogacy businesses openly advertise on digital mass media and elsewhere.”[10] Also, they grant visas to bring the children home, and run positive stories about the practice in the People’s Daily Online, featuring American moms holding smiling babies next to the Statue of Liberty.[11] And while surrogacy is illegal in China, there is one strange exception: military hospitals.[12] As with birth tourism, many of those who are having children born via surrogacy in the United States are senior officials connected with the CCP like Guojun Xuan. In fact, China’s hardline foreign minister, Qin Gang, had a child born this way in the United States.[13]

And these Chinese clients have some unusual demands. For example, they want their carriers to be Caucasian, especially “blond, blue-eyed American women to bear their children.”[14]

The surrogacy business has operated in the United States for decades, catering to families in the United States and in some cases overseas who are having trouble giving birth. But demand from China exploded a decade ago. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said John Weltman, the founder of the firm Circle Surrogacy, in 2017, “it’s like an explosion.”[15] The trend took off in 2009, as word spread through the Chinese elite about this mechanism for gaining US citizenship for their children.[16] It is openly discussed on WeChat, the closely monitored and censored social media platform controlled by the Chinese government.[17] The scale is hard to comprehend. No numbers are tracked. One Los Angeles–based producer, who does a lot of business in China, reported that she would regularly see between four and ten newborns in business class on flights from LAX to Beijing. “It was like a flying nursery—we saw it trip after trip.”[18]

As with Chinese children born to birth tourists, children born to surrogates are granted US citizenship automatically, too. “As soon as the baby takes its first breath, the names of the clients go on the birth certificate immediately,” notes Mario Caballero, executive director of Extraordinary Conceptions in California, in an article entitled “Rent-a-womb,” published by the nationalist website Global Times in China.[19]

Chinese parents using surrogate mothers are more secretive than other clients. “Chinese expect less [contact] during and after the relationship,” explains Kim Bergman, owner of Growing Generations.[20] Chinese clients will “straight up disappear on you” if a child has a health condition, says Bai Guan, who works in the industry. He admits that there is a lot of mystery connected with Chinese clients, noting that American surrogate mothers are often shaken by the cold, transactional nature of the reactions they can get from Chinese clients. “More than a few surrogate mothers complain to me about how long these parents have yearned for a child, so why is their manner so severe when they actually take the child into their arms? Why are they so silent? There’s no sense of joy.” Perhaps it is cultural? Perhaps something else is going on? In some cases, the parents are unable or unwilling to pick up the child to transport it back to China and send a third party instead. “You might well wonder how these children will be raised once they get back to China,” he says. “I don’t know. Thinking about it gives me a headache.”[21]

The Chinese Communist Party views itself not simply as a competing power, but as a superior civilization that must vanquish the decrepit, corrupt, and evil West. Just as the Mexican elite loathes key elements of Anglo-Saxon America, so too does the CCP. Jin Fenglin, a professor at the Central Communist Party School, the philosophical rudder of the CCP, says Western civilization only thrived because of “the brutal economic plundering of Africa, [North and South] America, Asia, and other countries,” and that the success of the United States is “inextricably linked to the long prevalence of a new model of slavery.” Beijing rejects the current system “based on Christian civilization, with individual rights as the starting point” and instead developed a superior civilization to “counteract, oppose, and transcend the Western civilization hierarchy,” says Jin. President Xi himself casts the CCP not just as a form of government but as “a new model of civilization.”[22]

Understanding their strongly held view as a rival civilization explains why the CCP champions mass migration to the United States not just from their own country, but from anywhere in the world, including through their coverage and embrace of Mexico’s Reconquista claims against America in government media.[23]

The Chinese government works aggressively to ensure that Chinese migrants resist the temptation to assimilate in the United States. China’s foreign minister has argued to Chinese immigrants abroad, “No matter how blonde you dye your hair, how sharp you shape your nose, you can never become a European or American. You can never become a Westerner.” In the heart of Washington, DC, sits the Chinese American Museum. Funded by a Chinese American businessman, it is aggressively promoted by the Chinese government. The goal is “to establish the first and only destination in Washington, DC, dedicated to the Chinese-American story because it is the capital.” And it paints a story of an ugly America. Museum founder Phillip Qiu explains that “it’s not easy for them [Chinese] to be part of mainstream society.” He believes that “fourth or fifth-generation Chinese Americans . . . know little about Chinese culture,” and need a cultural primer on their history. But the museum presents a dark picture of America and is “designed to alienate Chinese Americans from their new culture and imply that they owe some kind of loyalty to the modern Chinese communist state,” notes one observer. It “seems designed to undermine our image of America as the welcoming country in which millions of Chinese have made their home.”[24]

The Chinese Communist Party executes civilizational warfare through mass migration unlike anyone else.

* * *

No one in the Irvine, California, neighborhood noticed anything unusual until one day a forklift delivered “a huge pile of diapers” to a nondescript apartment building.[25]

The delivery was to a business run by two Chinese nationals called You Win USA. It quietly occupied twenty apartments in a suburban complex and discreetly hosted pregnant Chinese women so they could give birth to their children on US soil. You Win USA charged its customers between $40,000 and $80,000 for its services, which included helping Chinese parents avoid detection by US Customs and Border Patrol when entering the country. They instructed the women to wear loose-fitting clothes to hide their pregnancies. They were also instructed to steer clear of certain American ports of entry with tighter security. It is better to fly into Las Vegas or Honolulu before heading to Los Angeles Airport, where the screening of international flights is stricter.[26] Some Chinese mothers checked into the Trump International Hotel in Honolulu and spent the night so they could show customs officials the hotel receipt and demonstrate their wealth and status.[27] Chinese parents were also instructed to lie on their visas, that is, to declare that they were simply “tourists” visiting the United States for thirty days of travel, with no planned medical procedures.[28]

Once the Chinese mothers-to-be arrived safely in Los Angeles, You Win USA put them in apartments and provided them with prebirth medical care. Chinese birth tourism companies tout the fact that the Southern California hospitals they use, like Fountain Valley Regional Medical Center, have “Chinese doctors and bilingual nursing staff to provide you with comprehensive care.”[29]

When it was time to give birth, You Win USA took the mothers to Orange County, California, hospitals and told them to lie (again), declaring that they were indigent and unable to pay the full cost of the medical expenses. These wealthy Chinese clients would then get reduced rates, paying only $4,000 (sometimes less) when the normal cost was $25,000. More than four hundred Chinese babies were born in one Orange County medical facility over two years, costing the hospital nearly $1 million in lost revenue.[30]

Medical studies of birth tourism suggest that these mothers often have much higher medical costs than a typical American birth. Birth tourist babies are more likely to be delivered by cesarean, have much longer hospital stays (fifteen days versus the regular seven days), and have more surgical interventions. As a result, hospital costs are typically more than twice as high.[31]

Other Chinese birth tourism companies encourage their Chinese clients to skip out entirely on their hospital bills. One Chinese birth tourist was charged by the Trump Justice Department in 2018 for lying on their visa application, never having disclosed that they were having a medical procedure done in the United States. But when the hospital bill came due, they paid less than $5,000 of the $32,291 in hospital charges for the birth of their child. To avoid charges, they fled the country. “Anyway, I’m already home,” the father later said. “US can’t do anything to me.”[32]

This sort of hubris among Chinese birth tourists and the companies that serve them is not uncommon, suggesting that those who participate are quite aware that what they are doing must be sanctioned by the Chinese government.

Dongyuan Li, a Chinese national who lived in Irvine, California, and ran You Win USA, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and one measly count of visa fraud. (If you lie or encourage other people to lie on their visa application, you are committing visa fraud.) She was sentenced to less than one year in prison.[33] Li’s disregard for the United States is telling. When communicating with Chinese clients from California, Li referred to US immigration authorities as “the foreigners.”[34]

While Li’s operation was shut down, many others continue to operate as of this writing.

China Mifubaby Group (Mifu) is a luxury baby operation based in Irvine, California. It has a big footprint in China—with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. In addition to bringing expectant mothers to California, it also offers services in Saipan (a US possession in the Pacific), as well as Toronto and Vancouver, Canada.[35] Mifu has roots in the 1980s and is owned by Shanghai Ximing Industrial Co., Ltd. Mifu was the first to offer this service online.[36] Mifu is very active on Chinese social media, explaining why Chinese mothers should go to the US to have their children.[37] Some selectable (paid) services include private, award-winning chefs, Chinese medicinal consultations, tours of SoCal, and extensive consultations, training, and seminars about living permanently in the United States.[38] Mifu does not disclose the volume of clients, but they bring in millions in revenue every year. Nearly every Irvine property they own was purchased for more than $1 million with a mortgage, and they have at least fifty properties.[39]

Birth tourism from China exploded under President Barack Obama’s tenure because his administration made it “more accessible,” according to a US Senate report. The Obama administration instructed US consular officers “not to deny visa applicants solely because they planned to travel to the United States to obtain citizenship for their child.” Obama made it so Chinese birth tourists did not even need to lie on their visa applications. The change in policy also made it harder to prosecute visa fraud cases involving birth tourism.[40]

During President Donald Trump’s first term in office, there were some raids, arrests, and prosecutions in California. But the federal investigators who took down some of these operations said it was just the tip of the natal iceberg. “We are trying our best to quell this, but it is growing,” said Mark Zito of Homeland Security, who was involved in one raid. “Other nations will start taking advantage of this.”[41]

Indeed, they have. While most birth tourists and birth tourism companies are Chinese, enterprising companies that specialize in other foreign nationals are moving in on the lucrative market. One company operating out of South Florida that caters to Russians notes that its clients include “the wives of dignitaries, oligarchs and celebrities,” so discretion is guaranteed.[42]

The Mexican government itself estimates that twenty thousand Mexican nationals come to the United States every year just to have a baby to get citizenship.[43] This is in addition to the millions of illegal migrants from Mexico living in the US.

Mexican drug lords are also embracing the trend.

The notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán of the Sinaloa Cartel, sent his wife Emma Coronel to Los Angeles so that his twin daughters would be born in America and thereby be granted US citizenship. Mrs. El Chapo was herself an “anchor baby” because her mother was illegally in the United States when she was born.[44] (A US citizen who has a baby in another country must apply for citizenship for the child through the consulate, which would have been complicated by being married to the most famous criminal in North America. It was easier, as a US citizen, to travel freely to the United States, give birth here, and leave the father’s name blank on the birth certificate.)[45]

In Longview, Texas, an Egyptian doctor named Dr. Yasser Zeid advertises on Facebook, “No matter where in the WORLD you live, we can care for you,” and describes his “Travel for Care” program as an opportunity to give birth in the United States. It’s not a surprise that dozens of women from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Netherlands have flown to the East Texas town precisely to take advantage of his services.[46]

Beyond Trump, few government officials seem troubled by birth tourism. California authorities have done little to nothing to confront the problem. In 2015, Los Angeles County formed a birth tourism task force after locals complained about birthing houses operating in their neighborhoods. The Task Force ended in 2018 when complaints decreased. The main purpose of the effort was apparently to “prevent improper uses of buildings and property,” according to Alex Garcia, who helped lead the task force.[47]

While other foreign nationals may embrace birth tourism as a state-sanctioned practice, China is by far the most aggressive and organized. Birth tourism services are widely advertised in China. Clients say they type phrases into the approved Chinese government search engine Baidu, such as “giving birth to babies” and “going to the US,” and millions of results return. The companies have names like “Good American Baby (Meijiabei).”[48]

Chinese birth tourism websites, such as Asiamchild.com, lay out housing and food options for parents while in the United States and offer shopping sprees.[49]

Why would a repressive government like Beijing not crack down on this practice? After all, the children of their best and brightest are being born as American citizens. Indeed, the Chinese hubris surrounding the “right” to birth tourism is quite astounding. In a country with restricted freedoms, no elections, and no guaranteed rights, the Chinese media confidently explains to readers that birth citizenship “is a right that has long been rooted in the US Constitution.”[50]

As far back as 2011, China Daily, the government’s main newspaper, offered a lesson in American constitutional law to their millions of readers, explaining, “Thanks to the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, children born on US soil automatically become US citizens, regardless of where their parents hail from.” The paper noted how awareness of the amendment had contributed to a rise in “birth tourism,” and “more intermediaries providing cross-border baby delivery service [in China].”[51] There was no concern expressed about “dual loyalties” with the practice.

In November 2014, the Obama administration made Chinese birth tourism even easier when President Obama announced a ten-year reciprocal visa agreement with China.[52] Before the agreement, visas issued to Chinese citizens to visit the United States were valid for only one year and required an annual interview for renewal. With the ten-year multi-entry visas, Chinese nationals could shuttle back and forth, giving birth to multiple children in the US without even having a single interview.[53]

According to Professor Babones, “Young Chinese women granted (renewable) 10-year US multiple entry visas in the first years of the program may have as much as 25 years of fertility ahead of them.”[54]

Indeed, US Customs records of interviews with birth tourists suggest that such shuttling back and forth happens all the time. In 2017, a couple traveling from China already had two children born in the United States and was now having their third. The father happened to be a Chinese military officer. According to a US Senate Report, having multiple anchor babies in the US is relatively common.[55]

Beijing’s appeal to the Chinese elite encouraging US birth tourism has nothing to do with American values or patriotism. Birth tourism operators tout that the United States is “the most attractive nationality” because of free stuff, not freedom. US citizens receive “free education from junior high school to public high school,” and even “senior supplement benefits [Social Security and Medicare] when you are living overseas.”[56]

One Chinese agency offers “a primer on how the US welfare system works.”[57]

Another agency describes how “parents can apply for immigration as guardians at almost zero cost . . . [and] parents can emigrate to the United States without quota restrictions and go to California to enjoy the sunshine after retirement, as well as enjoy California’s white card program for the elderly and free medical care.”[58]

For this industry, says one birth tourism agent, “the return on investment is higher than robbing a bank.”[59]

Chinese baby tourism operators frame the practice as a legitimate business model, not fraud. Chinese officials seem to agree. Lawyer Liang Zhiyi explained to a Chinese government newspaper, “[Birth] tourism is an opportunity to make money. Operators should not waste this opportunity.” He adds: “This could have a long-term positive impact on the United States. Bruce Lee is a child of childbirth travel. Maybe we can still find a genius.”[60]

What exactly does a “positive impact on the United States” mean from a Chinese Communist Party perspective?

The Chinese elites using these services offer no evidence that they reject the CCP and embrace American or Western values. As we saw earlier, Chinese military officers engage in birth tourism. A Chinese birth tourism company called Star Baby Care has a client list that includes government tax officials, executives at China Telecom, Chinese Central Television, and Bank of China.

USA Happy Baby customers include people who worked for the government’s radio propaganda agency and the feared Public Security Bureau.[61]

Before the prospect of birth tourism to the United States became widespread, most mainland Chinese families would go to Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s constitution granted permanent residency to any mainland Chinese born in the territory. By 2010, nearly half of all births in Hong Kong were to mainland Chinese parents. The practice of granting a Hong Kong passport to children whose parents traveled from mainland China became so widespread that by 2013, it was banned.[62]

Communist China has a long and notorious history of using mass migration as a strategic weapon. In 1997, Great Britain began the two-decade process of Hong Kong’s transition from British to communist Chinese rule. During that period, Beijing, under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party, engineered an elaborate effort to have more than eighty-three thousand Chinese with fake identities migrate to Hong Kong. These immigrants represented 1.4 percent of Hong Kong’s population, but even more importantly, they totaled 9.12 percent of the territory’s voting population. “These fifth columnists appear to be ordinary immigrants, but they carry the Chinese government’s official blessing,” explains scholar Yin Qian.[63]

“These migrants served as Beijing’s ‘invisible hand’ to steer the territory in the designed direction,” adds Qian.[64]

Beijing also used the same migration weapon against Tibet. The Chinese government flooded Tibet with Han Chinese migrants as part of their colonization program. The Dalai Lama later expressed concerns about Europe being swamped by African and Middle Eastern migrants, suggesting they go back. He was undoubtedly influenced by what he had witnessed in his own country.[65]

* * *

What is perhaps America’s most mysterious and corrupt immigration program was the brainchild of a Chinese spy.[66]

A small, simple section inserted into an American immigration bill launched a program that opened the floodgates, allowing wealthy and connected foreign nationals to buy their way into the United States. Most are from China. Less obvious—but also by Chinese design—was that this created a gateway for Chinese and other foreign nationals to donate (legally) vast sums of money to American political campaigns.

The Employment-Based Fifth Preference (EB-5) investor program seems designed to encourage American business and jobs. Anyone from overseas who invests $1.05 million ($800,000 in an economically distressed area) and creates at least ten American jobs is granted permanent resident status through a green card to live in the United States. Once granted resident status, the investor can sponsor their entire family to join them.[67]

EB-5 was pitched as a global investment program, but 90 percent of the visa applicants come from China.[68] Since most of the projects are run by Chinese-based agents, it ensures that Beijing maintains dominance of an ostensibly American immigration program.

The EB-5 program was reportedly the creation of a Chinese-American named Maria Hsia. Born in Taiwan, she came to the United States on a student visa in 1973 and settled in Los Angeles, where, more than a decade later, she launched the Pacific Leadership Council (PLC) with some other immigrants, including John Huang. PLC started donating large sums of money to US politicians, quickly forging ties to powerful American politicians like senators Al Gore and Alan Cranston, as well as congressmen like Harry Reid (later a senator), Mel Levine, and Howard Berman.

However, the PLC was not a homegrown organization. Hsia had a close relationship with the Lippo Group, led by Mochtar Riady and his son James Riady. John Huang was a senior executive at a bank owned by the firm. The Lippo Group was based in Indonesia but had deep ties to mainland China. The Riadys sought to expand their financial and political influence in the United States, and Hsia’s PLC would play a central role.

The PLC’s first major event was a fundraiser at James Riady’s Los Angeles home in April 1988, which raised $110,000. Senate investigators later uncovered that some of the contributions at the event were supplemented with Lippo Bank funds because not all the donors could meet the fundraising requirements. They funneled money to key lawmakers, including senators Al Gore, Paul Simon, and Tom Daschle.[69]

A new immigration bill, which eventually became the 1990 Immigration Act, was being crafted in Washington, and Hsia advocated for the creation of an EB-5 visa category. Her ties to Asian and Chinese financiers and her role in drafting provisions of the bill raised suspicions about the program’s purpose and implementation. Hsia lobbied senators Al Gore, Tom Daschle, Paul Simon, and Barbara Mikulski to pass the bill. And Congress did indeed pass it, and President George H. W. Bush signed it into law.

However, Hsia later emerged at the center of the Clinton-China fundraising scandal in 1996, where millions of dollars from China ended up in the Clinton campaign. According to the US Senate Governmental Affairs Committee’s investigation, Hsia acted as “an agent of the Chinese government, that she has acted knowingly in support of it, and that she attempted to conceal her relationship with the Chinese government.”[70]

Some of the earliest beneficiaries of the new EB-5 program were Lippo employees, who not only secured green cards but also poured millions into political campaigns. In particular, Lippo employees began to make substantial contributions to the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic campaigns. Others in the visa industry later claimed the EB-5 program had been set up precisely for this purpose: to funnel campaign donations from overseas. “We believe the EB-5 visa category was set up to funnel Lippo money to the Clinton-Gore campaign,” said James O’Connor, the founder of Interbank Group, a financial services company later charged with visa fraud. “It was [a] very deliberate, premeditated plot. Before the EB-5 visa category was established, Lippo had nothing to do with this industry. The only reason they supported creating the EB-5 visa was to get their people admitted to the United States so they could get money to Clinton.”

While Bill Clinton was dramatically loosening naturalization laws to create new voters, he was also collecting campaign donations from foreign nationals courtesy of the EB-5 visa program.

There is plenty of evidence to support the idea that EB-5 allowed foreign influence of elections. According to Federal Election Commission records, Lippo Group employees began making large donations to the DNC and Democratic campaigns in 1992, just as the investor program was getting off the ground and permanent resident status was being granted via EB-5. Among the Lippo executives who could now make donations was Felix Ma, who started with a series of $5,000 checks to three state parties just ten days before the election, and another $10,000 went to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. He indicated that his employer was Lippo Bank, Hong Kong. Over the next year and a half, Ma sent $44,500 to various Democratic candidates. Charles de Queljoe, president of Lippo Securities, gave some $45,000 to Democratic candidates over the next three years. Another Lippo Bank employee, Agus Setiawan, began giving to the DNC in March 1993, and his donations totaled $6,000. Joseph Sund, an employee with the Lippo Bank branch in New York, tossed in $23,500. Tay Kim Tin and Susato Widjata gave $7,500 to Democrat campaigns.[71]

These incremental employee donations may not seem like much as isolated cases, but there is evidence that this was part of a coordinated Chinese government influence operation. In 1996, the FBI warned select members of Congress about CCP efforts to fund American political campaigns.[72] EB-5 quietly facilitated this effort.

What is truly remarkable about the program is that EB-5 visa holders don’t even have to relocate to the United States to fund US political campaigns. There is no requirement that they “move to our country.” Bottom line: “Some do move here, many do not.” [73]

According to leaked US State Department cables from China, the “explosive growth” of the EB-5 program among Chinese is driven by people who “indicate that they do not plan to relocate to the U.S. Rather, they will continue to operate businesses in China and travel frequently.”

Chinese officials emphasized in their meetings in the United States that just because an applicant received a green card through the program did not mean the applicant had to move to the United States. A deputy chief of the Chinese government’s program emphasized that scrutiny of where you lived as a US “permanent resident” was not a serious concern. At one presentation, “when an audience member asked whether or not the consulate would delve into applicants’ finances, the presenter assured the audience that records would not be rigorously examined and that most interviews took between three and ten minutes.”[74]

In addition to the large number of American citizens living in the United States courtesy of birth tourism, we also have a significant number of “permanent residents” of the United States who reside permanently in China.

Rather than see the threat that the EB-5 program posed, official Washington embraced it because of the promised wealth, and not just for the country. Money-making opportunities abounded for politicians and their families. President George H. W. Bush’s brother, Prescott, sat on the board of American Immigration Services, one of the leading EB-5 visa vendors.[75] Hillary Clinton’s brother got involved in another. Powerful politicians like former mayors Willie Brown of San Francisco and Richard M. Daley of Chicago started peddling EB-5 visas to foreign investors. (None of this was illegal.) As ABC News put it, “The obscure immigration program that helps wealthy foreigners get American Green Cards is proving profitable to some people with very familiar names.”[76]

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi lobbied for a big project funded with EB-5 money and run by the developer Lennar to redevelop decommissioned military bases in the Bay Area. Her nephew, Laurence Pelosi, was Lennar’s director of acquisitions. Willie Brown, who as mayor of San Francisco authorized the first use of Mexican-issued IDs as legitimate in the United States, left politics and opened an EB-5 visa firm called Platinum Advisors. He then hired Douglas Boxer, son of former senator Barbara Boxer, as a lobbyist for the project. As one government ethics expert put it, “If I had to diagram this project, it would look like a family tree with lots of extra little problems.”[77]

Former senior US government immigration officials cashed in, too. Harold Ezell, the Western regional commissioner for the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1983 to 1989, had an investor visa consulting business in California.

“We’ve done a great job on boat people,” he joked. “I see no problem with a few yacht people.”[78]

By all accounts, the program is rife with fraud and a lack of oversight. Criminals and spies became permanent residents in the United States with impunity.

Shuren Qin from China became a US resident via the EB-5 program. Later, he was arrested and charged by the US Department of Justice for exporting items with military applications to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and navy in his home country. He attempted to conceal items that “can be used for weapon delivery systems, anti-submarine warfare, mine counter-measures as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities.”

Other EB-5 recipients or applicants have been exposed for their involvement in efforts to trade with Iran, China, and North Korea illegally and used the EB-5 program to launder their proceeds.[79]

* * *

Chinese citizen Danhong “Jean” Chen had permanent resident status in the United States and a thriving immigration law practice. Chen and her then husband and business partner, Jianyun “Tony” Ye, ran the Golden State Regional Center, an EB-5 visa company based in California. They took in some $52 million from investors and would-be green card recipients from China.[80]

Chen is a resident but not a US citizen and, therefore, cannot vote. Nonetheless, she poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into US political campaigns. Specifically, between 2014 and 2018, she sent a whopping $294,300 into campaign races for Democrats. Another $449,052 was donated from her law firm’s address by various people unaffiliated with the law firm.

Who were these donors? Were they straw donations from China? There is no way to know.

We know of these cases because in 2018, Chen and Ye were indicted for visa fraud, obstruction of justice, and aggravated identity theft. Chen fled the country and Ye went to prison. Chen was recently apprehended in the Kyrgyz Republic and was extradited to the US to face charges.[81]

Chen and Ye are only two of many EB-5 operators who funnel large sums of money into American political campaigns despite being foreign nationals. They tout to their foreign visa-buying clients the idea that they will get access to American politicians. Sherry Xue Li, a resident of New York, ran a $27 million EB-5 operation that not only would grant foreigners a green card but also “access to political figures” in the United States. In this case, that political figure was Donald Trump. Sherry Li’s team brought twelve Chinese nationals to a June 2017 Trump fundraiser.

Those who did not have visas could still funnel cash to American politicians, one text explained. “It’s unlawful for businessmen in China to make donations,” one message to a Chinese national said. “But these businessmen can invest in our company and become our shareholders. We can then arrange for them to meet with the president, congresspeople, etc. Donation is definitely necessary. Our company can do that and it is legal.”[82]

Chinese nationals with green cards are clearly still subject to the influence of or even control by the Chinese Communist Party, whether they remain in China or move to the United States. Many have family members who are still back in their home country. A variety of Chinese cultural associations and organizations, usually linked to the embassy and the United Front organization in China, play an important role here in steering the actions of these permanent residents while in the United States.

During her 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton’s coffers swelled with an influx of mysterious money from New York City’s Chinatown. Checks of $1,000 to $2,000 came from donors with listed addresses in dirty tenements with paint peeling from the walls and trash bins in front. An investigation by the Los Angeles Times discovered that those contributions were highly questionable, given that many were coming from Chinese visa holders making just $500 a week. What emerged is how the campaign donations came at the direction of Chinese neighborhood associations, including one that was “a descendant of Chinatown criminal enterprises that engaged in gambling and human trafficking.” Many of those who donated to Clinton said they did so because leaders of the associations had told them to. Many of the donors spoke little or no English.

“Resident aliens may contribute even if they don’t appear likely to make their permanent home in this country,” explained The Wall Street Journal.[83]

The Federal Election Commission, which oversees campaign donations, does not have the resources to check the nationalities of contributors. They rely on the campaigns themselves to vouch for the legality and the source of the money.[84]

More recently, billionaire Wang Wenliang, a Chinese national who has served in the CCP governing parliament, gave $2 million to the Clinton Foundation in 2013. He controls a company that gave $120,000 to Democratic Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe starting the same year.[85]

In 2024, a Chinese billionaire named Qin Hui, who had a fraudulent green card, was convicted of US election interference for making straw donations to political candidates in two states. He gave money to others who made donations in their names on his behalf.[86]

In New York, donations to leading New York politicians by US-based Chinese community groups with “close ties to the United Front Work Department” operated by the Chinese Communist Party were uncovered. A million dollars was donated, but that was only contributions from “the groups and their principals who are linked with the united front system in China.” Donations from other members of the associations were not included. Recipients included Hillary Clinton, Congresswoman Grace Meng, who represents New York’s Sixth District, Governor Kathy Hochul, and Mayor Eric Adams. The donations to Meng were clearly organized and came in clusters: twenty-two donations from principals of pro-CCP groups gave to Meng’s campaign on a single day. The pattern happened repeatedly.[87]

The Wanxiang Group is a Chinese-based conglomerate founded by Lu Guanqiu, who enjoyed close ties to the CCP. Wanxiang America, the US portion of his empire, is run by his son-in-law, Pin Ni. Both Ni and his wife, Weidi Lu, are massive donors to American political campaigns despite being ineligible to vote.

The Wanxiang Group touts its ties to the CCP. It posthumously awarded the company’s founder, Lu Guanqiu, with the title of “National Outstanding Communist Party Member,” praising the founder as one guided by “the pursuit of communism as a lifelong ideal and practice.” They recognized that he “insisted that the development of an enterprise is inseparable from the correct leadership of the party.”[88]

The company award makes the Wanxiang Group’s family allegiances clear. Lu Guanqiu was a political leader in China, “elected as the 13th and 14th Representative of the Communist Party of China and a delegate to the 9th, 10th, and 11th Chinese National People’s Congress.”[89]

The founder’s son-in-law and daughter are politically active in the United States, advancing the interests of China. Wanxiang, under Ni’s leadership, has funded China’s controversial Confucius Classrooms in Chicago’s public schools, which embed CCP ideology in their cultural programs aimed at young people in the US.[90]

Ni enjoyed presidential-level access to the White House during the Biden administration, donating to candidates across the country, including a $10,000 check for a gubernatorial race in Mississippi, a $33,400 check to the Democratic National Committee, and a $33,900 check to the Democratic Senatorial Committee. He also cut checks for $10,000 to the Connecticut for Justice PAC and well over $30,000 to the Republican Congressional Committee.[91] There are many more.

His wife, Weidi Lu, has separately donated, including $33,400 to the DNC, $36,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Committee, and $3,300 to Mike Pence.[92]

Donations made by individual foreign nationals are traceable because individual campaign donations must be disclosed. However, it is impossible to determine whether a donor who has made a large contribution is a citizen or not because that information is not required. An additional problem is the use of obscure limited liability companies (LLCs) to funnel cash to political movements without detection. These are often anonymous companies because many states that register LLCs do not require the disclosure of who owns the company.[93]

The EB-5 visa program is widely advertised in China by consulting firms looking for clients. The CCP does nothing to restrict the program.

Beijing’s embrace of the EB-5 program is curious. The People’s Republic of China officially restricts its citizens from transferring more than $50,000 out of the country per year. Yet, they turn a blind eye in the case of the EB-5 program, which requires, at a minimum, ten times that amount to participate. EB-5 investments are openly solicited in China, and the government does nothing to shut them down.[94]

Why?

The obvious answer is that it serves the strategic interests of the PRC. It is interesting to note that EB-5 brokers in China are registered through their Public Security Bureau, the chief law enforcement bureau of the CCP.[95] In other words, it is officially sanctioned by the government.

In addition to creating opportunities to funnel money to American political campaigns, the program also allows Chinese state-owned companies to acquire stakes in major US infrastructure projects. Many of these projects are located in strategic areas like Washington, DC, New York City, or California, or those that are potentially near military bases, government facilities, and critical infrastructure.[96]

In fact, the San Diego FBI Field Office was constructed in part by Chinese EB-5 financing.[97]

The state-of-the-art facility is “the only FBI office in the country where the regional computer forensics lab (RCFL) is located inside the FBI building itself,” noted the San Diego affiliate of NBC News.[98]

Forty million dollars of the project’s funding came from Chinese investors through the EB-5 program. The concern is that the Chinese investors would have been “privy to the architectural plans, construction specifications, and the site’s communication infrastructure such as phone and internet networks.”[99]

When Chinese investors were recruited for the project, the promotional materials featured the acronym “FBI” in the pitch, including an entity named “EB-5 FBI LLC.”[100]

The EB-5 program also provides a back channel in case the United States restricts other means of gaining residence in the US. For example, if birth tourism is restricted, we may see a significant increase in EB-5 demand.[101]

* * *

Beijing’s weaponized migration allows it to create US citizens through birthright citizenship and surrogacy. The EB-5 program allows wealthy Chinese nationals to pour money into American political campaigns. But the CCP can also activate a network of agents to influence our elections, as we permit them to do so.

Like Mexico, China activated its network in the United States in the wake of Trump’s political rise. With his views on migration, tariffs, fentanyl, and other issues, Trump represents a major threat to Beijing. A key component of their effort comes through the Chinese United Front Work Department, which includes social and ethnic groups that are mobilized for the Chinese state.[102]

In addition to its consulate staff, Beijing employs a “global network of ‘consular volunteers’” who serve as mechanisms to engage in the domestic country’s workings to advance China’s interests.[103]

Chinese United Front groups like the New York–based American Association of Cantonese endorsed and worked to elect candidates to political office in the United States.[104]

In August 2020, the FBI issued a classified internal information report concerning Chinese efforts to shift the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden. According to the internal document, “the Chinese government produced a large amount of fraudulent US driver’s licenses that were secretly exported to the United States which would allow tens of thousands of Chinese students and immigrants sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party to vote for US Presidential Candidate Joe Biden, despite not being eligible to vote in the United States.” FBI agents rated the reliability of the confidential human source who tipped them to the scheme on a scale of 1–10 as “9–10 range.” But FBI headquarters intervened to not have the information released to the public, noting in internal emails that the report would contradict the public testimony of FBI Director Christopher Wray, who had said that China was not playing favorites in the 2020 election. One field agent expressed concern: “I think it gets dangerous if we cite potential political implications as reasons for not putting out our information.”[105]

In 2024, with Trump’s reelection looming, Chinese consulates began setting up gray-zone mobile consulates that moved around cities and towns. China experts like Sze-Fung Lee feared that these activities “align with the PRC’s broader strategy of influence and electoral interference in the United States, targeting districts with substantial Chinese American populations and potentially mobilizing community support for specific candidates and political agendas.” These pop-up consulates appeared to have an election interference function. According to Lee:

For instance, of the 11 sessions hosted in New York State between March and July 2024, most were hosted in distinct congressional, senate, and assembly districts. The only exception was the city’s Chinatown, a constituency with a large Chinese American population, where three of the events were hosted. This suggests that the pop-ups could provide a basis for mobilizing people to support specific candidates running for seats at various levels of government.[106]

China had a clear preference for Harris over Trump. On October 25, 2024, The New York Times reported that Chinese government-linked hackers had targeted the phones of Donald Trump and his running mate, J. D. Vance.[107]

Chinese United Front groups like the Coalition of Asian Americans for Civil Rights looked to bring immigrant voices to bear on national politics. In a 2024 interview, the head of the organization, John Chan, who has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, stated: “Expanding the strength of the Chinese community is CAACR’s mission. The ability of only 6 million Jews to influence the US government is a reference for the Chinese.”[108]

The Trump administration’s efforts to enforce immigration laws prompted active resistance from CCP-aligned groups like the Party for Socialism and Liberation. (For a detailed accounting of these ties, see my book Blood Money.) PSL organized sometimes violent protests across the country from Los Angeles to Tampa Bay. “We wanted to send a very strong message at that office that they need to stop kidnapping community members,” said PSL’s Ruth Beltran, referring to deportations.[109]

In Washington, DC, thousands of protestors gathered in Washington to rally against Trump. The rally was led in part by the PSL.[110]

PSL helped lead another protest in California, where one headline said, “Anti-Trump Protests Take Over San Francisco.”[111]

Another Beijing-tied group was also causing chaos in the streets. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization helped organize “Hands Off,” anti-Trump rallies across the country. “We will show the enemy what’s possible when we refuse to back down,” the group bragged. “We need to make the United States ungovernable.”[112]

Both groups joined radical Mexican groups in the streets of Los Angeles in June 2025.

* * *

The eleven-thousand-foot-plus runway was carved out of the California clay during World War II. Castle Air Force Base, as it came to be known, was constructed on about two thousand acres near the Central Valley town of Merced to train B-17 and B-29 bomber pilots. When the Cold War came, those planes gave way to the massive B-52 as the base became part of the Strategic Air Command. Shortly after the Cold War ended, the USAF shuttered the base.[113]

Today, hundreds of pilots are training there again.

Only this time, they are Chinese. And there is virtually no oversight.

How this happened is a testament to Chinese ingenuity in manipulating our immigration system for subversive purposes and using our openness and generosity against us. It is also a tribute to American innocence, or at worst, ignorance.

The People’s Republic of China has a pilot problem. Beijing needs five thousand pilot cadets every year to meet the demand for both military and civilian pilots. Because the Chinese military tightly controls the country’s airspace, it can domestically produce only about 1,200 pilots a year. So, Beijing quietly erected a system to train three thousand of them a year in the United States. Across the US, at least sixteen flight schools, operating out of taxpayer-funded airports, are training Chinese cadets—sometimes without disclosing their foreign military ties. They do so by sending future military pilots to the United States posing as civilians to learn how to fly.[114]

This also applies to Chinese helicopter pilots, who are trained by the thousands in the United States. The US Army itself uses civilian helicopter pilot training to augment its capacity to produce pilots.[115]

These Chinese pilot cadets come to the United States on student visas and receive minimal scrutiny.

Beijing has established a sprawling network of international partnerships that includes Chinese aviation training centers and academic institutions that send talent directly into the Chinese military-industrial complex. As a result, America is feeding a pipeline of Chinese pilots, some of whom may one day face US forces in the skies.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has approved several flight schools in the United States to train their pilots. The Sierra Academy of Aeronautics in Atwater, California, is one of them. And it trains eight hundred Chinese pilots a year. The CAAC’s name starts with the word Civil, but don’t let that fool you. The CAAC works closely with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force. China has a strategy called Military-Civil Fusion, which means that the CAAC serves important military functions in China. And while Sierra describes the pilots it trains as civilian airline pilots, the reality is far more complicated. Sierra participated with several Chinese entities directly tied to the military-industrial complex to create flight training systems within China too.

Documents show Sierra works with Chinese colleagues involved in aeronautical manufacturing, including those embedded with military contractors and talent pipelines to the communist government.[116]

These American flight schools are training Chinese pilots in the basics of aviation, so those pilots can be later trained in advanced military aircraft. As in life, to be a pilot, before you can learn to run, you need to know how to walk. Because China blurs the distinction between civilian and military pilots and the Chinese military conducts “force projection drill[s] with civilian aircraft,” creating new pilots directly enhances China’s military capabilities. Beijing has also used “civil aviation for long-distance transport of live troops and live ammunition,” according to PLA Daily newspaper headlines.[117]

Even if some of the Chinese pilots training in the United States remain civilians, they are still likely to play a significant role in the Chinese military. The US Department of Defense has long believed that the PLA would seek to “supplement its military transports with civilian aircraft in a combat scenario,” according to a 2024 report.[118] So, the Chinese description of “civilian” and “military” powers is a distinction without much difference.

In fact, military officials complain that China often designates its military transport planes as “civilian” by giving them civilian call numbers to deceive the West.[119]

Lawrence Trevethan, an expert with the US government’s China Aerospace Studies Institute, is more blunt: “CAAC (Civil Aviation Authority of China) can provide civilian air transport assets without meaningful limit” to the Chinese military.[120]

In short, if you are training pilots for the Chinese civilian aviation market, you are helping the Chinese military enhance its aviation power. America is ignoring the inherent danger.

Sierra is owned by John Yoon, who has several related companies with extensive Chinese ties. A few years ago, they developed plans to create a cargo facility at the Castle Airport that would fly goods in and out of China. They were hoping to use EB-5 money from China to do it. “Because Sierra Academy has been working with the Chinese government, institutions, airlines—we have all the right contacts to put this program in place,” explained Brian Johnson, Sierra’s vice president and chief flight instructor in 2013. They sought $30 million through EB-5 with investors from China and possibly from Yoon’s home country of South Korea. The plan is to channel that capital into various commercial projects centered around Castle Airport. These projects include flight schools, hangars, maintenance facilities, cold storage warehouses, and even petroleum wholesale operations.[121] They are selling both aviation training and US residency—a double win for Beijing.

In short, Sierra Academy has positioned itself as both a gateway for foreign pilots and a conduit for foreign capital, establishing a privately operated immigration pipeline based at a former US military base.

Those China ties remain, as most of the pilots who train at Sierra are Chinese nationals. Many students at Sierra and any other flight training schools in the United States are sponsored by Chinese state-owned airlines, ostensibly to be trained to fly commercial aircraft. But those same state-owned airlines, in addition to providing support for the military, have also been implicated in spying and working with Chinese intelligence services. The Chinese government sees airline crews as “nontraditional collectors” of intelligence. The Department of Homeland Security reported that Air China employees, for example, were providing “assistance with foreign intelligence collection.” When China’s police stations need to kidnap and hustle someone back to China, they receive assistance from Air China. The airline has also provided false paperwork for Chinese consular officials. In 2020, employees of another government-run outfit, Xiamen Airlines, guided a Chinese researcher on how to wipe her electronic devices in advance of an inspection by Customs and Border Patrol. In 2019, an Air China employee at JFK Airport in New York pleaded guilty to transporting packages for People’s Liberation Army officers and masking who the packages belonged to.[122] She also reportedly helped a Chinese national under FBI investigation flee the country on an Air China flight.[123]

Locals in Merced have expressed their opposition to what has been taking place at Castle Airport, but their voices have been ignored. Residents like Fred Warchel asked, “Why train potential enemies to fly?” He went on: “Hundreds of Chinese students are receiving initial and advanced flight training here in Merced at the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics. This means if Chinese and American pilots ever engage in combat, both may be able to say: We received our training in America at the former Castle Air Force Base.”[124]

Sierra is not alone in training a great number of Chinese pilots on American soil every year.

Near Phoenix, a company called AeroGuard is also training hundreds of Chinese pilots. In 2022, the company signed an agreement to train pilots for the Chinese government-controlled Cathay Pacific airline, with plans to train “hundreds of cadet pilots” at its campus in Phoenix, Arizona. The deal was even approved by the US Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration, thanks to the work of local congressman Greg Stanton. As AeroGuard put it in a press release, “Arizona Congressman Greg Stanton, [a] member of the House Subcommittee on Aviation, assisted AeroGuard in securing and expediting the training program approval with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Representative Stanton’s support was invaluable in making sure the approvals were obtained in a timely fashion.”[125]

Ironically, at the same time Congressman Stanton was helping Beijing advance its air capabilities, he was sponsoring a bill designed to reduce Chinese influence in the United States.[126]

AeroGuard has been training Chinese pilots since 2001. Of five hundred students in one year, 360 were Chinese. Tuition is more than $90,000 per year, but the Chinese government pays for that through the airlines that sponsor the pilots. The program lasts for twelve to fifteen months.[127]

The Chinese government, like Mexico’s, has used diverse forms of migration as a weapon against America. But beyond these foreign governments, foreign radical political movements working with American collaborators have also weaponized migration to subvert the United States. Let’s meet some of them.

Chapter 6

Importing the Revolution

While Mexico’s political class pushes mass migration into the United States as a form of civilizational warfare, or Reconquista, and China abuses various US visa and immigration policies to achieve dominance on US soil, American progressives welcome these and other foreign nationals to advance their political agendas. In the words of Mary Kay Henry, president of the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the goal is to create “a convergence of social movements,” which will guarantee the progressive movement’s political success.[1]

Indeed, radicals who migrate to the United States have become central to the progressives’ decolonial, cosmopolitan, and communitarian agenda, including radicals getting favored treatment in the US.

The illegal immigrant sanctuary movement emerged in the early 1980s as a group of churches pledging to protect immigrants entering the United States from war-torn Central America from federal immigration officials. Over the decades, it has grown to include sanctuary cities and even sanctuary states. The number of those covered by the sanctuary movement has reached millions.

From its earliest days, the sanctuary movement embraced the idea of using suitable immigrants as radical agents of change in the United States. Immigrants present an opportunity to create “a social movement,” explain Arizona law professors Lynn Jones and Nancy Wonders, affecting “significant social change” in the United States. Immigrants have great “transformative potential.”[2]

A major player in the movement was the Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America (CRTF), a “nominally Catholic organization that promoted [Marxist] ‘liberation theology’” and was comprised of a vast network of over four hundred congregations around the country. They coordinated the underground network of churches and nonprofits in the United States, smuggling in tens of thousands of Central American refugees.[3]

While the publicly stated purposes of the CRTF were humanitarian, quietly advancing their radical political interests drove their work. The CRTF had an “ideological litmus test for refugees.” If you had worked for a Latin American government fighting Marxist guerrillas in the region or were not supportive of their cause, CRTF was not interested in helping you. “At its height,” noted the Capital Research Center in a study, “the movement vetted prospective refugees for their ideological pedigree through the Catholic networks in Mexico and Central America, before they even reached the border.”[4]

Renny Golden, one of the cofounders of the CRTF, had taught liberation theology at Harvard Divinity School and became a leader of the sanctuary movement. She saw channeling illegal immigrants into the United States as something more than humanitarian work. According to Golden, refugees are spokespersons for “a people in a liberation struggle.”[5]

Some in the sanctuary movement intended to help refugees “regardless of the political origins of their persecution or their usefulness in promoting preconceived political purposes.” But in the 1980s, the CRTF dominated the movement and even went so far as to avoid sharing information with other organizations that would not comply with its political vetting process.[6]

As a result, many of the immigrants coming illegally into the United States had significant ties to radical political networks in their own countries, such as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). This radical Marxist guerrilla movement from El Salvador established a foothold in the United States with the engineered arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants, many presumably screened by the sanctuary movement. Some FMLN members eventually gained legal status in the United States. Others remained undocumented. Either way, many brought with them an FMLN ideology that promoted contempt for the United States and worked for radical change here.

These radical immigrants created entities like CASA de Maryland, later just CASA, a Latin activist group empowered by illegal immigrants in the United States. “There are 500,000 undocumented immigrants close to the [Washington, DC] metropolitan area and many of them are our members,” the head of the organization explained in 2015.[7]

Gustavo Torres, who founded CASA, reportedly fled his native Colombia in 1987. He went to Nicaragua and worked for a Marxist Sandinista newspaper for four years, and then came to the United States with an American woman whom he married. He obtained his US citizenship, and then they divorced in 1996. Another CASA de Maryland senior official and founder of CASA de Virginia was Lindolfo Carballo, who fought against the US and Salvadoran governments as a member of the FMLN military wing and then came to the United States illegally. Far from embracing the American values of their host country, Torres and Carballo have remained true to their radical roots and championed revolution in the United States.[8]

In 2007, Torres traveled to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela for a panel discussion on that very subject: “United States: A Possible Revolution.” At the meeting, Torres joined a chorus of panelists on how various groups were working to turn illegal immigrants in the United States into a transformative force. “Several of them gave a vivid and accurate picture of conditions of life for immigrant workers in the United States and the growing resistance and confidence manifested in strikes and ongoing street mobilizations against raids and deportations,” a socialist newspaper reported.[9]

While CASA positions itself as a Latino advocacy organization, it is deeply immersed in radical politics. It works with foreign governments hostile to the United States, like Cuba, to advance the cause.

In 1998, five Cuban intelligence agents were arrested and later convicted on espionage charges and conspiracy to commit murder by a jury in Florida. (The Cuban government acknowledged later that they were, in fact, Cuban spies.)[10] CASA de Maryland took up their cause as an act of injustice, hosting art exhibits at their headquarters and bringing in young Latinos in the area to learn about the case.[11] The Castro government–controlled media reported that sympathetic legislators around the world lauded these men as “Cuban fighters.”[12] In 2014, the chief of mission of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, DC, addressed CASA members at a discussion about the intelligence agents’ plight.[13] CASA has pushed Cuban propaganda in other ways too. CASA has brought teachers who taught in Cuba to discuss how education programs in the communist country “made us revolutionaries.” Migrants in the audience attentively watched as they were encouraged to sign up, visit Cuba, and join the “international brigade.” A Cuban embassy official was on hand for the event. CASA’s Lindolfo Carballo lauded Cuba’s education programs. “Imperialism will never succeed in teaching people to read.”[14]

Today, CASA operates out of an eighteen-thousand-square-foot Langley Park, Maryland, mansion, and boasts members across forty-six US states, calling itself “a national powerhouse organization building power.” Among their causes is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the accused MS-13 gang member (an allegation he denies) who was expelled from the United States and returned to El Salvador by the Trump administration in 2025. His deportation to El Salvador set off a media firestorm, much of it generated by CASA.[15]

Abrego Garcia became a cause célèbre when his case gained public attention. Despite his reported connections and suspicious activities, activists called him simply “a father in Maryland” who was being unfairly targeted for deportation. CASA led the charge, holding press conferences in his defense, providing legal representation, and bringing his girlfriend into the public eye to protect his character. The last step turned out to be a mistake when the police records emerged, indicating that she had placed a restraining order on him two years earlier because she feared for her safety.

The Prince George’s County Gang Unit in Maryland had identified Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member in 2019. He was detained in relation to a murder investigation, but was never charged. During his interview with the Department of Homeland Security, he did not claim to fear returning to his country.[16]

Abrego Garcia was also involved in an apparent human smuggling operation when the vehicle he was driving was pulled over for speeding in rural Tennessee with eight migrants in the vehicle. Local police concluded that it was a smuggling operation because no one had ID, and no one had luggage.[17]

Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who has a “decades-long” relationship with CASA, lobbied hard on Abrego Garcia’s behalf. CASA provided critical political support via an early endorsement in 2015 when Van Hollen first sought the nomination for the US Senate seat in Maryland.[18] Van Hollen not only questioned the deportation of Abrego Garcia, but he also traveled to Nicaragua and had lunch with him.

CASA took up his cause because it advanced the organization’s mission. It is also noteworthy that the FMLN and MS-13 have a history of cooperation.[19]

CASA is also the chief litigant in fighting to declare President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order unconstitutional.[20]

En masse, immigrants present opportunities for foreign radical movements and American progressives alike to demolish American foundations of law and order, individualism, and limited government. The more that immigrants are allowed to defy the law, they argue, “the more they change history by undermining the sovereign pillars of contemporary societies.” Mass migration presents an opportunity to reshape the country.[21]

Groups like CASA perceive illegal immigrants as receptive to taking radical political actions because their illicit status marginalizes them. Illegal migrants “operate by definition from a place of non-citizenship and non-inclusion,” notes Frédéric Mégret, a law professor at Columbia University. He adds: “This means that they may be more easily freed from the need to obey the law. . . . Moreover, because they typically do not share a sense of fidelity to the law, they may be less sensitive to the potential harm of violating it on the host society. If and once they do violate the law, they may also be less inclined to be ‘civil’ about their disobedience [emphasis added].”[22]

American progressives perceive this predicament and work to encourage immigrants in the country illegally to protest in the streets. The National Immigration Law Center argues that immigrants should engage in “resistance to oppression in the United States” and that they should “feel empowered to participate meaningfully, safely, and fully in our democracy” regardless of their immigration status. The progressive organization offers tactics on how to prepare for protests and how to protect themselves from ICE. “Know the protest route and emergency exits,” they advise, to avoid detection. “Use encrypted messaging applications when communicating regarding the protest” to keep law enforcement in the dark. “Avoid posting photos online of your participation in protests” to shield your identity. “If you are undocumented, avoid carrying documents issued by other countries,” so it will be difficult for law enforcement to prove that you are in the country illegally.[23]

Let me be clear: Many legal migrants in the US embrace American values and principles. However, the progressive agenda would prefer their resistance to and repudiation of the American experiment. Mass migration from Mexico, El Salvador, and neighboring countries provides foot soldiers and generals for the progressive movement in the United States. They bring and maintain a collectivist mindset that is antithetical to the American way. And foreign governments like Mexico and China use their vast networks, including consulates, in the US to challenge the American system with Marxist ideals.

Consider America’s most powerful and radical unions.

Unions had been declining for decades, particularly those for unskilled workers, until the influx of illegal migrants reanimated their antiquated limbs. American labor bosses found migrants “far easier to recruit than natives,” according to UCLA Professor Ruth Milkman, who studies and is sympathetic to the union cause. “They had a more collectively oriented worldview than most native-born workers” and were “far less individualistic in orientation than their native-born counterparts,” she explains.[24]

Labor bosses find that immigrants are more likely to embrace other political causes rather than focus narrowly on economic interests, allowing the unions to “reinvent themselves as ‘social movement unions.’”[25] Naturally, unions emerged as loud advocates for amnesty and immigrant rights.[26]

Illegal immigrants not only swelled the ranks of unions and revived them but also became the most radical vanguard. Many leaders of these new collective-minded immigrants had been “labor or social movement activists in their native lands,” according to Professor Milkman. As a result, she writes approvingly, “immigrants often arrive in the United States far better acquainted with the cultural idioms of collective organizing, unionism, and class politics than their native-born counterparts.” Many of the prominent leaders in the militant LA janitors’ campaign, for example, had been “veterans of the Salvadoran liberation struggle.” As a result, there was a “high level of class consciousness” among the immigrant janitors. When a wildcat strike occurred at a Los Angeles wheel factory, the organizers were immigrants from Latin America and had “union or left-wing political experience at home.”[27]

Radical Salvadoran activists like David Ayala-Zamora came to the United States illegally and were hired as organizers for unions such as SEIU. The unions sought seasoned activists who could organize workers as well as join political campaigns. Salvadoran radicals, in return, got the chance to advance their struggle into the most powerful country in the world.

“I never expected to live in this country, to knock on doors campaigning for a president of this country,” Ayala-Zamora recounted. “But I thank this country very much. In El Salvador, the frame of reference was small and local. Here in the United States, the perspective is much broader—it’s the whole world. So, I’ve learned more about other aspects of the struggle here.”[28]

Today, according to Milkman, many of America’s largest nonskilled unions are led by people who “had left-wing views and/or political experience in socialist and union movements at home.”[29]

So, if an American revolution does not develop organically, it can be imported instead.

Immigrants have, of course, played a central role in America’s labor movement for more than a century, but this time it is different. These new immigrant labor leaders, says Milkman, no longer share the “assimilationist thrust common in earlier periods.”[30] Many want to remain distinct from American society, and they do not want to conform to American values. Rather, they expect America to transform to their radical vision.

American progressive labor unions need mass migration. “The future of the labor movement—and the country—depends significantly on immigrants and immigration,” explains Mary Kay Henry, president of the SEIU, in her endorsement of a progressive, pro-immigration book.[31]

* * *

As far back as the early 2000s, thousands of immigrants tied to foreign radical movements like the Marxist FMLN staked out important positions in American labor unions and became involved in American political campaigns, whether they were US citizens or not. In her sympathetic account of radical FMLN activists in the United States, Dr. Arpi Misha Miller explains:

In the five years that passed between the elections of 2004 and 2009, [FMLN] activists also gained additional experience on the ground in community and labor organizing, as lead organizers with powerful organizations like AFSCME, the SEIU, Change to Win, and OneLA (of the Industrial Areas Foundation). And by 2008, they were fresh off more than a full year’s work on the Obama campaign as individuals and through their work in unions. For some, this organizing was a full-time, paid job. As in the past, as individuals they continued to walk precincts with their families and friends in the U.S. for political contests at all levels of governance.[32]

For these radical activists, political work in the United States was a continuation of their Marxist insurgency in El Salvador. They brought their cause with them when they crossed the border. For Barack Obama and other progressive leaders, mi casa es su casa, ideologically. No wonder that Obama welcomed these activists to work hard on his campaign and pressed to get them citizenship as quickly as possible, in that order.

“Los Angeles is a strategic city for El Salvador with 800 thousand or more Salvadoreños!” one activist named Chavelita told Miller at a rally in Los Angeles in November 2008. “If you noticed during the Obama campaign, those estados ya definidos in the US went on and worked for the other states.” Then, tapping the emotions of everyone in the room: “This campaign did not start today. It started YEARS ago!”[33]

These radical foreign activists would not remain on the fringes. CASA, the activist group whose leadership includes FMLN members, would see two of their board members rise to the highest levels of government thanks to their work with the Obama campaign. Thomas Perez would become assistant attorney general for Civil Rights during the Obama administration and later, head of the Democratic National Committee. When Joe Biden entered the Oval Office, Perez became assistant to the president. Along the way, Perez championed voting rights for noncitizens. Cecilia Muñoz, another former CASA board member, served as head of the Domestic Policy Council during the Obama administration. When Biden was elected in 2020, she joined his transition team.[34]

President Obama rewarded FMLN members and adherents for their help. In March 2013, his administration took the unusual step of removing most of the terrorism-related rules that had prevented FMLN leaders and members from getting resident status or citizenship in the United States. While acknowledging that the FMLN was a “Marxist-Leninist armed insurgency that was backed by the Cuban government” and that it once qualified as a “Tier III terrorist organization” due to its violent activities, a waiver was granted anyway.[35]

American progressives unabashedly use radicalized Latin American migrants to advance socialist agendas that most American citizens oppose. These migrants serve as political conduits in their host countries, note UN migration officials Larisa Lara-Guerrero and Sebastien Rojon. They label these people “animators” who “can encourage and guide [other] migrants to become political actors with enough agency to engage in contentious politics.” They call it “immigrant political transnationalism,” when foreign nationals, often illegally in the United States, engage in political activities here “aimed at gaining political power or influence at the individual or collective level in the country of residence.”[36]

A better term might be subversion.

The FMLN has worked to inject itself into American presidential politics.

In 2016, a group of twenty-five travelers from the United States huddled in the convention center in San Salvador, El Salvador, five miles outside of the historic city center. They were attending a São Paulo Forum meeting with government officials and political leaders from across Latin America. Some of those travelers were American citizens, some were not. Some were employees of the Salvadoran Embassy in Washington.

The event featured a special session dedicated to celebrating Fidel Castro’s ninetieth birthday, and the closing ceremony included a video address by his brother Raúl Castro, the Cuban head of state at the time. For good measure, there was a session on “the new challenges on the migration front and the imperial counteroffensive.”

But beyond the speeches, there was plotting of how to influence an American election and defeat Donald Trump.[37]

Most people in the group were members of the FMLN. Strikingly, some of the FMLN members in attendance were attached to the Salvadoran Embassy in Washington.

Dan La Botz, an American socialist who was also present as an observer, noted that the FMLN “is both the leading party of El Salvador and an important political organization of Salvadoran immigrants in the United States in places such as the state of Maryland and in cities such as New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.” La Botz went on: “It is engaged in working to organize Salvadoran immigrant communities in social movements and in political action generally within the Democratic Party.”

The US delegation, like everyone else at the meeting, wanted Donald Trump stopped because of his hard line on immigration. “FMLN members and leaders argued that registering voters and high turnout against Donald Trump served the best interest of those [immigrants] in the United States,” recalled La Botz.[38]

Foreign political parties like the FMLN and foreign nationals living inside the United States—not to mention people working at foreign embassies in Washington—are not supposed to influence an American election. But that did not deter them.

Other radical foreign movements have also discovered that America could be a fertile ground for their causes, and opportunistic Americans have happily joined them in creating conditions for their own destruction.

* * *

Ismail Selim Elbarasse, an accountant by training, seemed to be living a quiet life in Annandale, Virginia. However, when police officers noticed him driving with his wife across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and filming its critical structural elements, they decided to act, then detained him and notified federal agents.[39] He was already a suspect in a scheme to provide funding to Islamist terrorist groups, and now agents were searching through his home for further evidence of his possible involvement. They discovered far more than a terrorism-funding scheme.[40]

Buried among the stacks of paperwork in his home was a document written in Arabic entitled “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” written in 1987 by a US-based Islamist leader within the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Akram. The document was later approved by the Majlis al-Shura, or advisory council, of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States and published for internal distribution in 1991.[41] The Muslim Brotherhood is a secretive, global Islamist organization, banned in numerous countries such as Jordan, Egypt, and Austria, for its subversive activities and links to terrorist groups. Some officials in Washington, DC, have sought to have the group designated as a terrorist organization in the US.

The strategic goals memo specifically addressed the “Civilization-Jihadist Process” for using migration as a weapon of subversion. Members “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated, and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”[42]

In the memo, Akram dictated the stages for achieving victory, including immigration, advocacy, consolidation of the Islamist movement, and, ultimately, the destruction of American civilization.[43] Islamists joined Mexico, China, and other foreign radical organizations in their subversive methods but with a different goal in mind.

The memo’s directives called for the Muslim Brotherhood and its ancillary groups to begin implementing their plan. It is interesting to note that the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred a little over ten years after the publication of the memo. Although the terror attacks were carried out by Al Qaeda, senior group advisor Ayman al-Zawahiri would later declare that Osama bin Laden was also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, too, reportedly were Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who masterminded the attack, and Mohamed Atta, hijacker and eventual pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.[44]

Just as Mexican and Chinese officials are selective in what they reveal about their political intentions toward the United States based on their audience, Islamists mask the purposes of their work. Shukri Abu Baker, a leader in the US Muslim Brotherhood, was heard saying on an FBI wiretap, “I swear by Allah that war is deception . . . Deceive, camouflage, pretend that you’re leaving while you’re walking that way.”[45]

Even the group’s name, Muslim Brotherhood, denotes a simple fraternity looking to God and seeking to uplift an entire people group. The Muslim Brotherhood’s motto belies that deceptive notion: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”[46]

The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, positioned the Brotherhood in direct opposition to the West. “Today the Muslims, as you know, are compelled to humble themselves before non-Muslims, and are ruled by unbelievers. . . . Hence it has become an individual obligation, which there is no evading, on every Muslim to prepare his equipment, to make up his mind to engage in jihad, and to get ready for it until the opportunity is ripe.”[47] The man who replaced al-Banna as the main leader of the Muslim Brotherhood was Sayyid Qutb, who offered this: “Our mission is not to compromise with the practices of the jahili society [those ignorant of divine law], nor can we be loyal to it. Jahili society, because of its jahili characteristics, is not worthy to be compromised with.”[48]

The Muslim Brotherhood specifically and Islamists in general represent a radical political and religious movement. They are different from mainstream Muslims. All Islamists are Muslim, but not all Muslims are Islamists, any more than all Latin American migrants are FMLN. What these radicals share is complete contempt for Western civilization and plans for its destruction. Just as the radical revolutionaries in Latin America are most interested in bringing fellow radicals into the United States, Islamist organizations want radical Muslims at the front of the immigration line to advance their revolutionary goals.

Islamists have long viewed immigration as a weapon to deploy against the West. “One of the goals of immigration is the revival of the duty of Jihad and enforcement of their power over the infidels,” declared Abu Basir, a radical Islamic scholar. “Immigration and Jihad go together. One is the consequence of the other and dependent upon it. The continuance of the one is dependent upon the continuance of the other.”[49]

The fact that some Muslim immigrants arrive in the West and become dependent on public assistance is seen by some Islamists as a good and just behavior, describing it as a form of jizya, a tax placed on non-Muslims for the benefit of Muslims. As Anjem Choudary, a Muslim preacher in Britain, stated: “We take the Jizya, which is ours anyway. The normal situation is to take money from the [non-Muslim], isn’t it? So, this is the normal situation. They give us the money. You work, give us the money, Allahu Akhbar. We take the money.”[50] In 2024, Choudary was sentenced to life in prison for supporting a terrorist organization.[51]

Whatever the intentions of Muslims immigrating to the United States, for Islamists, it is a numbers game, and even those who do not share their goals can be helpful.

The Muslim Brotherhood is deeply entrenched in the United States and Western Europe. “The political system aimed for [by the Muslim Brotherhood] is reminiscent of a totalitarian system,” says the Austrian intelligence agency, “which guarantees neither the sovereignty of people nor the principles of freedom and equality.”[52]

In the United States, the Muslim Brotherhood operates through several groups that they have founded and/or funded, such as the Islamic Society of North America, launched in 1981, which describes itself as an umbrella organization for Muslims in North America “to advance the cause of Islam and service Muslims in North America so as to enable them to adopt Islam as a complete way of life.” The Muslim Brotherhood has other groups under its control, such as the Muslim Students Association, which actively recruits students on college campuses.[53]

The North American Islamic Trust was a financial entity created in 1973 to fund and hold real estate titles for mosques and Islamic centers in the United States. The organization has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and funding comes from Saudi Arabia. The trust gives the Brotherhood control over certain mosques and schools in the United States.[54]

The Brotherhood operates quietly throughout the Western world. “The identity of the members is secret; they operate in the greatest discretion,” explains the Belgian intelligence service. They seek to spread their ideology by focusing on second- and third-generation immigrants.[55]

It would be a mistake to dismiss the Muslim Brotherhood as a limited fringe movement. Further, the strange progressive bedfellows they have found in the United States—pro-gay, pro-abortion, and pro-feminist socialists—have increased the Brotherhood’s political influence and power as those progressives often work with Islamists in common cause. And what exactly is their common cause? According to veteran left-wing scholar and Princeton professor Michael Walzer, it comes from their common rejection of American values. Both Islamists and progressives want to subvert American civilization, their common enemy. As a result, progressives often rally as comrades with Islamists. Progressives like Professor Michael Hardt of Duke University and now-deceased Italian philosopher Antonio Negri applauded Islamists for their “refusal of modernity as a weapon of Euro-American hegemony.” They even praise the Iranian revolution as “a powerful rejection of the world market, we might think of it as the first postmodern revolution.”[56]

Professor Judith Butler of the University of California at Berkeley, another icon of the progressive left, argues for the need for “understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important.”[57]

In 2007, in a remarkable display of strange bedfellow solidarity, Aleida and Camilo Guevara, the daughter and son of Marxist revolutionary and college campus icon Che Guevara, traveled to Iran to discuss “common goals” with clerics and students at the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran. The two visitors met with these “militant students” to discuss the struggle ahead; Aleida even wore a head covering during the meeting. But the meeting went sideways when a student supporter of suicide bombings said communism was dead, Islam was the answer, and Che believed in God. “My father never talked about God,” Aleida retorted. “He never met God.”[58]

The meeting with the Iranian minister of culture and Islamic guidance, Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi, went much better. Before the two visitors from Cuba left, it was declared that the common goal was to fight America “everywhere and all the time.”[59]

It is just that simple.

So, while progressives denounce traditional Americans as bigoted against gays and oppressive toward women, they are prepared to work shoulder to shoulder with those who genuinely threaten the rights—or even lives—of women and gay people.

Senator Bernie Sanders, the secular, Jewish, self-described Democratic Socialist, courted Islamist Muslims during his presidential run in 2020 by naming the daughter of a radical Islamist operative as cochair of his presidential campaign in Virginia. Abrar Omeish, who was on the Fairfax County school board, is the daughter of a former president of the Muslim American Society, a group called the “overt arm” of the Muslim Brotherhood by US federal prosecutors. Her father had also served on the board of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, which has a long history of ties to the funding of terrorist groups. A committee from the Libya parliament has accused her father of links to terrorism.[60] He has not been investigated as far as can be publicly seen in the US.

Sanders’s one selection pales in comparison with those of President Obama, who more broadly courted radical Islamists during his presidency. Even though the FBI severed all ties with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in 2008 because of its ties to Hamas, officials from the group visited the White House more than twenty times. Obama reportedly appointed six Muslim Brotherhood–friendly activists to positions during his administration, including Mohamed Elibiary, who worked at the Department of Homeland Security.[61]

Perhaps prominent progressive-Islamic activist Linda Sarsour personifies the merging of these two movements best. Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised by Palestinian parents, Sarsour became a prominent activist during the Obama years when she was regularly invited to meetings at the White House. In 2012, President Obama gave her the “Champions of Change” award at a White House ceremony.[62]

Sarsour sits on the board of the New York Immigration Coalition, which includes two hundred groups, and was the head of the Arab American Association of New York.[63] In 2017, she helped organize the massive “Women’s March” in Washington and later became a campaign surrogate for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.[64]

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has aligned herself with Sarsour, headlining together the Sixteenth Annual Universal Muslim Association of America, as “the two took the stage to promote women’s rights and progressive values.” The event reportedly segregated men and women in attendance, and most women wore hijabs, but that did not seem to bother the congresswoman. Ocasio-Cortez later praised Sarsour when she was arrested for disrupting a US Senate hearing.[65]

In 2020, Sarsour served on a panel at the Democratic National Convention, declaring that, “The Democratic Party is not perfect, but it is absolutely our party in this moment.” After criticism, the Biden campaign was quick to declare that she had no formal role in the campaign.[66]

For Sarsour, America is the land of “white supremacy,” which means those living here are under “a supremacist state based on race and class.” I guess the United States is such a terrible place that we should invite more people from the Muslim world, apparently a less oppressive place, to live here.[67]

Sarsour has described Imam Siraj Wahhaj as her mentor and backer. A staunch Islamist preacher, Wahhaj was named as an unindicted coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[68] (He was never charged with anything and denies all wrongdoing.) Sarsour has defended Sharia law, the strict Islamist code that requires that women cover themselves, among other requirements, while touting its virtues. “You’ll know when you are living under Sharia law if suddenly all your loans & credit cards become interest free,” she wrote on social media. “Sound[s] nice, doesn’t it?”[69] She claimed the so-called underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was a CIA agent and says that Muslim children are “being executed” by the US federal government. And in case you missed it, the founder of the Muslim faith, Muhammad, was a progressive activist. “Our prophet was a racial justice activist, a human rights activist, a feminist in his own right,” she said. “He was a man that cared about the environment. He cared about animal rights . . . He was also the first victim of Islamophobia.”[70]

In 2017, she called for a “kind of jihad” against President Trump: “God is waiting for us to stand up to those who are oppressing our societies, not only the Middle East and abroad, but also here in the United States, and this is a kind of jihad, where you have fascists, white supremacists and Islamophobes. We have to remain angry.”[71]

The Muslim Brotherhood has amplified her message by posting her videos and praising her work. Critics argue that this is clear evidence that she works with them. “It’s no longer credible to say that it’s guilt by association when a major thought leader in the Muslim Brotherhood is using her material to establish a political agenda,” says Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Jasser is also a former US Navy officer.[72]

Sarsour and her comrades share a common vision with the FMLN and other foreign radical organizations that the United States must be torn down and rebuilt in their image. Like the FMLN, Sarsour works with progressive organizations and political causes to accomplish her goals through a “multiracial coalition” that includes Muslim, Sikh, South Asian, and Arab immigrants.[73]

They also share something else in common: Like the Mexican and Chinese governments, the FMLN, and many progressives in the United States, Sarsour does not want migrants to assimilate, lest her revolutionary goals be stifled.

“Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community,” she explained in a speech in 2017 before the Islamic Society of North America, a Muslim Brotherhood group. “It is not to assimilate and please any other people in authority. Our obligation is to our young people, is to women, and to make sure our women are protected in our community. And our top priority—even higher than all those priorities—is to please Allah and only Allah.”[74]

Aware that a clear, direct Islamist message has limited appeal in the United States, Islamists have exploited the strange Islamist-progressive relationship to produce some important political offspring, including several influential members of Congress. Both Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan, and André Carson from Indiana received considerable support from both progressives and the Muslim Brotherhood in their climb to political prominence.

Omar was on the radar of the Muslim Brotherhood–affiliated CAIR even before she was in Congress. CAIR was born out of a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia where members of a radical group called the Palestine Committee, which was tied to the terrorist group Hamas, discussed the creation of a moderate front organization to continue supporting Hamas.[75] CAIR was also named as an unindicted coconspirator in the largest terrorism financing prosecution in US history, the 2007 trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Texas. (A court later ruled it was a violation of their due process rights, since they had no way to defend themselves.)

According to CAIR officials, the purpose of living in the United States is to change it. “So, what is our role in that regard?” asked former Florida CAIR Director Hassan Shibly in a 2025 speech. “How do we even justify living here? I mean, why are we living here? Have we asked ourselves this question, why are we living in the United States? The only answer I believe is excusable and justifiable is if we are living here to shift this country’s political direction and spiritual direction together, engaging in da’awah [spreading Islam], and da’awah is essential.”[76] Leaders also emphasize that assimilation to the American way of life is not an option. “Ultimately, we can never be full citizens of this country,” explained Ihsan Bagby, a member of the board of directors of CAIR, “because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions of this country. We can be citizens in the sense that we try to influence American policy.”[77]

In February 2017, before she was a member of Congress, Ilhan Omar was the keynote speaker at CAIR’s Annual Banquet in Chicago. Over the years that have followed, she has been a regular fixture at the organization’s events.[78] In one of those speeches, she callously described the 9/11 attacks as “some people did something.”

“Omar is a byproduct of the Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups that coddled and developed her when she first came as a refugee from Somalia to live in Minnesota,” says Jasser.[79]

CAIR made a $5,000 contribution to her 2018 campaign.[80] Omar’s rise to congresswoman was also fueled in part by donations from the Sabri family in Minneapolis, a Palestinian family active in Middle Eastern politics. The patriarch, Basim Sabri, owns a real estate empire in the Twin Cities. He spent time in prison for bribing an elected official in Minnesota.[81] When Minneapolis’s Jewish mayor Jacob Frey vetoed a resolution on the Israeli War in Gaza, Sabri tried to ban him from the mall he owns in the Twin Cities. “I thought you were just a Jew but it appears that you lean toward the other extreme,” Sabri wrote the mayor in an email.[82]

Omar’s ties to CAIR and other groups have led critics to call her an “unofficial ambassador for the Muslim Brotherhood.”[83]

In Congress, Omar openly advocated for the release of a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hoda Abdelmonem, whom the Egyptian government had detained. The Muslim Brotherhood has been deemed a terrorist organization in that country.[84] She has criticized the governments of India and the United States for oppressing Muslims and disregarding their civil rights. Still, when the Iranian government violently shut down women protestors in 2022, she likened it to American women fighting for abortion rights. “So, we know the women in Iran are bravely chanting, ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ for their rights, for their right to bodily autonomy,” said Omar. “So, here in the United States, when the right extremists are challenging our bodily autonomy, we have to stand up and say, ‘Women, Life, Freedom.’”[85]

Omar also promoted an article claiming that the woman leading the protests was on “the US government’s payroll.”[86]

In October 2019, a Canadian citizen named Alan Bender made a series of allegations about Congressman Omar under oath. Bender was born in Kuwait and has served as an envoy for powerful figures in the Middle East. He was testifying in a civil case in the United States that involved Sheikh Khalid Bin Khalifa Al Thani, who would later serve as the prime minister of Qatar. According to Bender, Qatari officials invited him to meet in 2017 to discuss the possibility of working with them on some sensitive matters.

During his meetings with Qatari officials, including the head of Qatari intelligence, Bender claims that they informed him about Qatari influence operations in the United States that involved Congresswoman Omar, stating that she was working for Qatari intelligence to benefit Iran. “Ilhan Omar is cooperating with the Qataris in providing them with information that is shared with the Iranian government,” Bender claimed.[87]

Bender provided no supporting evidence, and Omar has denied all of Bender’s allegations, declaring he is part of a Saudi disinformation campaign to discredit her.[88]

True or false, there is no disputing Omar’s close working relationship with entities widely seen as Iranian influence operations.

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) has supported Omar’s political rise, donating to her political campaigns through their PAC and presenting her with the “NIAC Courage Award.”[89] Omar has likewise praised NIAC for their work. Omar and the NIAC align on every major issue, whether it is fighting sanctions against the Iranian regime, a nuclear deal, Islamophobia in the West, Israel, or the Abraham Accords.[90]

NIAC is no ordinary lobbying organization. According to Distinguished Service Professor Hooshang Amirahmadi of Rutgers University, the organization was created either directly or indirectly by the Iranian regime’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.[91] Members of Congress in both the US House and Senate have called for investigations into NIAC’s lobbying operations and ties to Tehran.[92]

The extent of Omar’s ties to NIAC is impossible to know, but there is no question that Omar’s outspoken positions have won her supporters within the Iranian regime. Recently, a glowing biography of Omar was published in Iran. Publishing a book in the country requires government involvement and approval. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance reviews every work before publication. “Discerners” evaluate the merits of the book and determine whether it is consistent with the regime’s goals.[93] If they believe it does, the work will be published.

The biography of Omar, entitled Ilhan Omar: The Voice of Muslims in a Colonist Society, was apparently consistent with the regime’s goals because it was published by an Iranian-government-linked publisher and has been widely praised by government-linked media. The Student News Agency described the tome as “an opportunity for readers to become familiar with the realities of Western society and learn from Ilhan’s experiences.”[94]

The Iranian Book News agency is more direct, noting the volume offers “criticisms of US domestic politics, including on immigration, minorities, and racial perceptions in American society.”[95]

While Omar has advocated for Iran’s positions, Tehran has reciprocated. When Omar was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Iranian Foreign Ministry expressed its outrage at the injustice.[96] When Omar called US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “a monster” for imposing sanctions on the Iranian government, Tehran amplified her message.[97] One Iranian media outlet even ran a story entitled “Is Iran Influencing the US Congress Through Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib?” repeating charges made by US conservatives. The article never challenged the claims.[98]

In nearby Michigan, Rashida Tlaib also received significant help from Muslim Brotherhood–linked organizations in her rise to national political power. Like Omar, Tlaib has frequently spoken to Muslim Brotherhood–tied groups like the Islamic Society of North America, even before she was in Congress.[99]

News outlets in Iran have applauded Tlaib’s rise. Bartarinha News crowed that she was a “Muslim Woman Who Brought America to Her Knees.”[100]

Iranian media frequently amplify her tweets, including her claims that the American police are “inherently and intentionally racist.”[101]

As a congresswoman, Tlaib was part of a hidden Facebook group called The Palestinian American Congress Group that not only supported Hamas but also mocked Jewish hostages. The page was created by Maher Abdel-Qader, a pro-Palestinian activist who had campaigned with Tlaib.[102]

Both Omar and Tlaib decry what they regard as censorship that prevents Muslims from expressing themselves and exerting political influence. At the same time, both demand censorship of those critical of Islamist ideas. Both signed a congressional letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding that he “eradicate anti-Muslim bigotry from Facebook.” They called for a “100 percent proactive detection and removal of anti-Muslim content.”[103] What is “anti-Muslim content”? They never defined it.

Interestingly, both congresswomen Omar and Tlaib also have a keen interest in mass migration into the United States, advocating for open borders and minimal screening of immigrants. “No person seeking asylum is crossing the border ‘illegally,’” Omar has boldly proclaimed.[104] Congresswoman Omar says she does not even want US immigration officials looking at the social media accounts to screen prospective immigrants, calling it “fascism.” Screening immigrants based on their views for or against the United States “weaponize[s] immigrants’ political views against them by denying entry.”[105]

Omar does not want mass migration everywhere. She opposes it in her home country of Somalia because she wants to keep ethnic Somalis in the clear majority. “We understand that Somalia’s unity and identity are tied to its people, but our homeland is under threat, and we are scrambling to claim territories we no longer possess,” she declared in a speech before Somalis in her congressional district. “Somalia belongs to Somalis—it is unified, and we are all brothers.”[106]

Tlaib has called for defunding border enforcement agencies. “Look, the simple answer to that question is we must eliminate funding for CBP, ICE and their parent organization, DHS,” Tlaib told a legal group in 2021.[107]

From Minnesota and Michigan, to Indiana, the American heartland is the surprising center of Muslim political activity in the United States. Congressman André Carson represents a district in Indianapolis, Indiana. Carson won office in a special 2008 election following the death of his grandmother, Julia Carson, who had held the seat for ten years. But unlike his grandmother, Carson is a convert to Islam.[108] Over the course of his career, Carson, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, has collected tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from individuals tied to the Muslim Brotherhood network, a similar pattern to Omar and Tlaib.[109] He shares their drive to fuse Muslim cultural institutions more deeply into American life. During a speech to the Muslim American Society, Congressman Carson explained that US public schools should be modeled after madrassas (Islamic schools). “America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our madrassas, in our schools, where innovation is encouraged, where the foundation is the Quran,” he said. “And that model that we are pushing in some of our schools meets the multiple needs of students . . . America must understand that she needs Muslims.”[110]

Beyond the Midwest, advances are being made in America’s largest cities, too. The political rise of Zohan Mamdani in New York politics is emblematic of radical Islam’s political network in the United States. His parents have ties to radical entities in the Middle East; his mother received millions in financing for her film projects from the government of Qatar.[111] Mamdani was a politically inexperienced rapper who caught the attention of radical Islamists in part because of a rap song he performed in 2019, about his “‘love’ for the ‘Holy Land Five,’” the five men convicted for gathering $12 million for the terrorist organization Hamas.[112] At the same time, he embraced the American progressive movement through the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), having attended his first meeting in 2017 and then working with local candidates tied to the DSA.[113] In 2020, he ran for the New York State legislature as a member of the DSA and won. By 2024, he was a candidate for Mayor of New York City and Muslims became a key component of his campaign. As the International Quran News Agency in Iran reported, his path to victory in the primary was through mosques and imams across New York City. “His campaign team visited more than 100 mosques, of which Mamdani personally visited almost 25,” according to Zara Rahim, a senior advisor to the campaign. “Many of the tenets of this campaign are inherently Muslim: justice, mercy, commitment to community,” she explained. One of the mobilizing factors for his campaign is opposition to the Trump administration’s efforts to deport “middle Eastern and North African immigrants” who are illegally in the country.[114]

Mamdani’s surprise win in the Democratic Party primary sent shockwaves throughout American politics and won praise from the Lebanese terrorist group Hizbullah. Al-Khandiq, a news website tied to Hizbullah, celebrated his victory, explaining that Mamdani “openly supports Arab and Muslim causes.” Winning the Mayoral Office would be vital for the Islamic movement, they explained, describing it as “the second most powerful local office in the US, after the governor of California. From this role, Mamdani could build significant public and media influence, potentially propelling him to: Member of U.S. Congress, potential vice-presidential candidate, Secretary of State, Justice, or Homeland Security.”[115]

Funds have flowed into Mamdani’s mayoral campaign from troubling sources. A political action committee called New Yorkers for Lower Costs is supporting his campaign and received at least $100,000 from a California-based PAC called the Unity and Justice Fund. The fund is reported to be associated with CAIR.[116] The Unity and Justice Fund had just days earlier received a donation from Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a Muslim cleric previously mentioned who was tied to figures involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Indeed, three of Wahhaj’s children had been sentenced in 2024 to life in prison for their role in a terrorism plot in New Mexico.[117] Wahhaj predicted in a 2021 interview the opportunity to create a Muslim political force. “They say, you know, there may be as many as 1,300,000 Muslims in New York City . . . And so, we have a number of Muslims who are into politics. So, I would like to see us more working more together, getting stronger politically and economic development.” He went on to note the role that mass immigration had played in the population surge including at his Mosque. “Let me tell you something interest[ing]. We started our masjid forty years ago, 100% African-American. Now, you know the percentage of African-Americans? Maybe 20 percent. Maybe 25 percent. The rest are immigrants.”[118]

* * *

On March 7, 2025, Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Debbie Dingell entered the Shi’ite Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. These otherwise-feminist women wore head coverings in submission to Islamic tradition. They were greeted by Mohammad Ali Elahi, an Iranian-born Shi’ite Cleric who has a long history of support for the Hizbullah terrorist organization in Lebanon and the Iranian regime. They met with the Imam and members of his mosque for more than an hour. In recent weeks Elahi had praised the slain head of the terrorist organization Hizbullah, Hasan Nasrallah, describing how he had been blessed to have “known” the terrorist leader and to have been “attached with” him. “You did your job, beloved martyrs,” he said of the slain leader and his aides. “We send our salam [peace] and our salutations to you.” The funeral for Nasrallah, Elahi added, was “A day of victory for morality, truth, justice, and humanity.”

Only months before that, in September 2024, Elahi had met with Iran’s president in New York. The Michigan imam had long ties to the Iranian regime, having met many times with senior Iranian officials. As a young man he had been appointed by Ayatollah Khomeini to a top post in the Iranian Navy. Tlaib clearly had religious ties with the Shi’ite cleric, but why was Dingell there? Dingell wanted the political support of the Muslim cleric. And she was not alone. Despite Elahi’s associations with the Iranian regime and Hizbullah, he had met with prominent political figures like Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and John Kerry. It was a testament to the political power that Elahi had amassed in Michigan courtesy of the large Muslim presence in the state.[119]

* * *

The Muslim Brotherhood and their allies look to the Prophet Muhammad himself for inspiration on the use of migration as a tool of conquest. Muhammad called it hijrah (“migration”), and it was an important component of Islamic expansion.[120] Migration is critically important for da’wah, which is the invitation to understand and adopt Islam. It’s also important in establishing an Islamic state or a political power base. In the year 622, Muhammad is said to have migrated from Mecca to Yathrib, which was later renamed Medina, marking a crucial moment in Muslim history as he transitioned from a wandering prophet to a major political and military leader. How significant was this hijrah? The Islamic calendar starts with this event.[121]

Several Hadiths (sayings attributed to Muhammad) are embraced by Islamists and speak to using migration (hijrah) as an important weapon to use against the West:

Hijrah ceases only when a place, a community, or a country has been won over, and Fath (occupation) has been achieved. Only then, there is no Hijrah.

Hijrah will continue until the sun rises from the West. Hijrah would not be stopped until repentance is cut off, and repentance will not be cut off until the sun rises from the West.

I charge you with five of what Allah has charged me with: to assemble, to listen; to obey; to immigrate; and to wage jihad for the sake of Allah.[122]

Just as the radicals who ran the sanctuary city movement had a litmus test for Central American refugees coming to the United States with the goal of creating a revolutionary force, Islamists seek to import the revolution.

One method is through R-1 visas, a program launched in 1990 that allows mosques and other religious institutions to bring religious workers to the United States. Most mosques in the United States are headed by imams who are not from the US but lived and studied overseas. Some have extremist views. Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called “Blind Sheikh” who organized the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, entered the US through an R-1 visa. Several employees of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which was convicted of serving as a front group for the terrorist group Hamas, arrived through the R-1 visa.[123] An investigation by the Department of Homeland Security in 2007 found that the program’s fraud rate was “excessively high.” Specifically, “instances of fraud were particularly high among applicants from predominantly Muslim countries.” In one instance, a Pakistani man living in Brooklyn declared himself an imam and submitted two hundred applications for religious worker visas.

From the Hadi Institute Youth Community Center in Dearborn, Michigan, Imam Usama Abdulghani, an immigrant from Iran, instructs his followers to fight Western civilization. “We need to expose Western civilization. The world needs to know this system is no longer a solution. These institutions are morally bankrupt. There is no other way, but God, or taklif [divine obligation]-oriented, God-based resistance and rejection of the systems.”[124]

Even those within the Muslim community have expressed concerns about the program because they have seen how the program has been manipulated. “People have come in and tried to come in with this visa to preach their hardline and dangerous views and then encourage [the] vulnerable to travel back with them where they are further brainwashed and can potentially be used to harm the USA,” warned Adnan Khan, the former president of the Council of Pakistan American Affairs.[125]

One moderate Muslim leader, Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, warned in 1999 that extremists had “taken over 80 percent of the mosques” in the United States.[126]

Islamists are confident that their infiltration and subversion will be successful. During a 2015 speech at the famed Al-Aqsa Mosque, which sits atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Ayed declared that Muslims in the Western world should be patient. “This dark night will be over,” he declared, “and soon, we will trample them underfoot, Allah willing.” He gives the West no credit for accepting Muslim migrants out of compassion.

They wish that we were dead. But they have lost their fertility, so they look for fertility in their midst. We will give them fertility! We will breed children with them, because we shall conquer their countries—whether you like it or not, oh Germans, oh Americans, oh French, oh Italians, and all those like you. Take the refugees! We shall soon collect them in the name of the coming Caliphate. We will say to you: These are our sons. Send them, or we will send our armies to you.[127]

This Islamist view of migration has the radical goal of destroying American and European civilizations. As Professor David Bukay puts it: “It is a step-by-step methodology of migration processes designed to subdue and subjugate the host society, culminating in the implementation of the Shari’ah. The Islamization of the infidels’ territories becomes inevitable.” He quotes Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars: “Islam will return to Europe and the US by Da’wah and not by Jihad, and the Europeans will convert to Islam, and disseminate Islam, and the entire world becomes Muslims.”[128]

American progressives are either not aware of these sorts of statements or ignore them out of strategic convenience: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Both are engaged at some level in viewing migrants as catalysts for radical social change. Refugee advocates such as the Global Goals Foundation, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Google, among others, explicitly note that the goal of refugee policy is “Driving Social Change” and “transform[ing]” our societies.[129] Migration can be “instrumental in forging social transformations,” others argue.[130] Why do stable, prosperous, free societies like the United States need “social transformation?” They never say.

Perhaps America needs emulation and assimilation, not transformation.

Czech President Milos Zeman believes that the Muslim Brotherhood is out to “gain control of Europe” through mass migration. “It cannot declare war on Europe, it does not have enough forces for it, but it can prepare a growing migrant wave and gradually gain control of Europe as it has been happening in some West European cities that police are afraid to enter at night.” Presumably, their goals are similar in the United States, but not as far advanced. President Zeman says the source of these insights was the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates and the Foreign Minister of Morocco.[131]

Once you understand the civilizational lens through which Islamists view their clash with the West, acts of violence conducted en masse can be seen in their proper context. On New Year’s Eve, 2015, a massive wave of rape, sexual assault, and other violent crimes occurred across at least five European countries. Large groups of Muslim men—sometimes as many as a thousand—arrived together and assaulted women in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland.[132]

And according to officials, the coordinated attacks were preplanned and almost all the attackers had a “migrant background.”[133]

The largest number of attacks was in Stuttgart, Germany. A woman named Michelle told the BBC how she and her friend became surrounded by between twenty and thirty men, who were speaking a foreign language. “They grabbed our arms . . . pushed our clothes away and tried to get between our legs or I don’t know where.”

Another woman, whose identity was protected, told German television how gangs of men assaulted her in a crowd. “All of a sudden, these men around us began groping us,” she said. “They touched our behinds and grabbed between our legs. They touched us everywhere.” She added: “I thought to myself that if we stay in this crowd, they could kill us, they could rape us, and nobody would notice. I thought we simply had to accept it.”[134]

According to German officials, the “scale and nature of the attacks” were “unprecedented.” National police reports later noted that law enforcement “could not cope” with the number of attacks, and women were “forced to run the gauntlet” through the aggressors.[135]

Witnesses recounted: “We heard a woman screaming and crying somewhere in the midst of this crowd, appearing to be escaping from a foreign man, who was shouting back and pointing his finger at her and chasing her with his accomplices.”

“Later on, we saw two men corner women at the cathedral and touch them while they were screaming for help and trying to fight back.”

“I saw a group of older foreign men go up to a group of younger girls (they looked under 18) in the underground train and started pushing them around and touching them, and the girls stumbled near to the train tracks. But thankfully, a German man stood up and defended them, so the girls were able to run away.”[136]

It wasn’t just in Stuttgart. That same night, an organized mob of five hundred North African and Arab males attacked a club in Bielefeld, Germany. According to witnesses, the men would use “force to drag women who were in the boulevard area to our entrance and, regardless of the women’s resistance, to claim that ‘That’s my girlfriend.’”[137]

Similar attacks played out in the German cities of Hamburg, Düsseldorf, and Frankfurt.[138]

“Nobody can tell me that this was not coordinated or prepared,” declared German Justice Minister Heiko Maas.[139]

Beyond Germany, there were a string of similar attacks in Helsinki, Finland, Sweden, and Zurich, Switzerland.[140]

Muslim leaders like Sheikh Tarafa Baghajati condemned the attacks in a speech at a mosque in Vienna, Austria.[141] But others blamed the victims, including Imam Sami Abu-Yusuf of a fundamentalist Cologne mosque, who said: “The events of New Year’s Eve were the girls’ own fault, because they were half naked and wearing perfume. It is not surprising the men wanted to attack them.”[142]

MuslimStern, an Islamist social media group in Cologne with twenty thousand members, added: “You cannot expect to chuck a naked antelope in front of a lion and not expect it to react.”[143]

Who exactly organized the attacks? And why?

According to author Serenade Chafik, an Egyptian activist now residing in France, the attacks were “sexual terrorism” or “an imported form of gendered terror played out as a ‘game’ of war.” She went on: “By using rape as an arm of war, these militias—because this indeed consists of pre-meditated acts committed by groups, some of them armed with notes containing a lexicon of sexual vocabulary—want to terrify women but also to humiliate men.

“The sexual violence these women were victims of, not only in Germany but also in Austria, Switzerland, and Finland, recalls the use of rape as a weapon of war.” She went on to explain that the sexual attackers “are manipulating a Middle Eastern concept of honor,” and the “act of raping women, according to the aggressors, will thus destroy the honor of these nations and humiliate not only women but Western countries.”[144]

In other words, these organized large-scale attacks were a form of civilizational warfare. Some progressives in Europe have joined the chorus of those who want restrictions on immigration because of these realities.

That immigration is often used as a weapon deployed against Western civilization cannot be in doubt. The question is, how long will the progressive-Islamist alliance last? Can these strange bedfellows maintain peace between them in order to accomplish their goals? Some Islamists have discussed among themselves the ultimate purpose of the alliance. Ibraheem Samirah, then a member of the Virginia legislature and a former senior advisor to Tlaib, characterized the partnership as Muhammad’s strategy “to form treaties with his enemies.” The leader of the Islamic faith “had to form alliances with people who weren’t necessarily believers of his message, who would later on become people who would be his enemies.”[145]

But Marxist radicals from Central America and Islamists are not the only surprising groups shaping progressive politics in America. You can add the drug cartels to that list.

Chapter 7

Progressives and Drug Cartels

Senator Bernie Sanders was very worried.

By his reckoning, fascism was on the rise globally. Donald Trump was in the Oval Office. Progressives had lost in Brazil, and conservatives were gaining popularity in both Europe and Latin America.[1]

Senator Sanders called for “an international front” that would coordinate progressives to join forces across the globe, but especially in North and South America. Among the priorities would be international migration and fighting President Trump’s efforts to stem the tide of migrants at the southern US border. For Sanders, a political strategy like this made sense for his political ambitions. In 2016, he had been praised for “a campaign that concentrated the enthusiasm of immigrant workers.”[2]

Two years after that campaign, Sanders unveiled Progressive International (PI), an organization founded by the Sanders Institute, his nonprofit, which is run by his wife and her son. A crowd of community organizers, political staffers, progressive politicians from around the world, and reporters gathered for a cocktail reception at an aquarium on picturesque Lake Champlain near Burlington. A panel of speakers, including Senator Sanders, economist Jeffrey Sachs, and some European and Canadian politicians, discussed the next steps. There was a “short promotional video created by the self-described ‘anti-capitalist propaganda’ firm, Means of Production,” that outlined the new group’s vision.[3] Means of Production was the firm behind the viral Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ad leading to her political rise. “Our planet [is] coming together as working people to form a global movement—a new popular front—to end capitalism once and for all,” they boomed on social media.[4]

Pushing for transformative mass migration would be a key element of their political efforts. The Sanders team looked at the tantalizing prospect of cross-border political collaboration by progressives. In 2020, when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, senior Sanders campaign officials told the Mexican media that if the Vermont senator won, he “would be a strategic ally that our people in Latin America desperately need.” His campaign would prove “the possibility of a relationship of solidarity between workers from the north and the south.”[5] Numerous progressive Latin American leaders would endorse his second failed candidacy.

Latin America welcomed Progressive International for its promise to fight for “working class and oppressed peoples, the women, the LGTBI people, the migrants, the landless peasants, [who] need more than ever an international revolutionary political tool to lead their struggle until the overthrow of capital.”[6] In the United States, Progressive International would play an important role in creating a platform for foreign politicians tied to the drug trade to spread their message in the United States, on topics of particular interest to the cartels: open borders and halting the war on drugs.

Ultimately, Sanders himself had no formal role at PI. David Adler, who had been Senator Sanders’s foreign policy advisor, became the group’s driving force. It was Adler, a Spanish-speaking, former Rhodes Scholar and Fulbright Scholar, who forged working relationships with progressives in the United States and Latin America, traveling extensively throughout Latin America.[7]

Progressive International established partnerships with and augmented voices on the left, including journalists at Dissent Magazine and Jacobin. Even more importantly, PI provided a conduit between US congressional members and major progressive figures in Latin America. The group’s membership came to include “several nonprofits that are funded by some of the largest and most prominent foundations and other grantmakers” in the United States. By January 2024, it had more than seventy member organizations worldwide.[8]

Progressive International also recruited prominent leftists to join the leadership of the organization, including Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and guitarist Tom Morello. Also included is Professor Nick Estes, who heads up the Red Nation, which, in the spirit of Mexico’s Reconquista, seeks the return of the American Southwest to Native American control.[9] The Democratic Socialists of America became an affiliate member, bringing its ties to the US Congress, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. As a result, Progressive International enjoyed, in the words of Venezuelan political figure Alejandro Pena Esclusa, “a direct channel of communication with the US State Department and the [Biden] White House itself.”[10]

There were other connections forged as well.

The interests of the drug cartels extended into progressive politics, always open to opportunities to expand migrant routes into the United States. PI’s leadership came to include individuals tied to the drug cartels and human trafficking networks in South America. Given this leadership, it is not surprising that the push for open borders became a central part of its work, along with ending the war on drugs.

Despite its many well-known and politically powerful leaders, the corporate structure and funding of Progressive International remains opaque.

At least two legal entities were set up, including Progressive International (Services) Ltd., and an entity described as “an unincorporated association with members (the ‘Progressive International’).”[11]

Brazil’s Lula da Silva, who reportedly inspired the founding of PI, had worrying ties to the Brazilian crime cartel First Capital Command, known by the Portuguese acronym PCC. This sprawling drug cartel had a major presence around the world, including the United States. In addition to being deeply involved with the São Paulo Forum with its narcotic entanglements, Lula’s accountant, and also his son’s, was the accountant for a PCC mob boss known as Magrelo.[12] A recent scandal revealed wiretaps of Lula’s party lawyers working to get better conditions for PCC members in prison. [13]

Progressive International says that its funding is solely through member contributions and donations. However, several of the organization’s advisors through the Progressive International Council have received financial support from drug cartels and human traffickers, and in some cases have direct ties to cartel bosses. The Progressive International Council “is responsible for setting the strategic direction of the Progressive International,” according to the group’s website.[14]

A look at the council’s members is troubling.

One such advisor with alleged ties to a drug cartel is Rafael Correa, who stepped down as president of Ecuador in 2017.[15]

Correa had initially supported Bernie Sanders for the presidency of the United States during the 2016 presidential primary.[16] When Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton, Correa’s administration continued to gratify American progressives in the fall of 2016 when Julian Assange’s access to the internet was cut while the dissident was holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange had been leaking damaging Clinton emails from John Podesta’s email account, which hurt the Hillary Clinton campaign. Correa had expressed his support for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Pulling Assange’s internet access prevented further damaging online leaks.[17]

Correa is a longtime advocate for open borders. As president of Ecuador, he eliminated all visa requirements for entering his country, “making the country a human smuggling paradise” and creating massive security concerns in the United States.[18] In 2008, Correa incorporated “the principles of universal citizenship, the free movement of all inhabitants on the planet and the progressive extinction of the status of alien or foreigner” into Ecuador’s constitution.[19] Mass migration was a necessity and a right, he claimed. “The solution to stopping migration isn’t walls or borders,” he said. “It’s solidarity, humanity and the creation of peace and well-being for everyone in the world. So long as a just distribution of wealth is not met, the world’s social problems will not be resolved.”[20]

Along with his advocacy for open borders, Correa has a long history of doing favors for the drug cartels and human traffickers. Correa denies these allegations.

Compromising photos were released in 2013 showing Correa “in an attitude of cordiality” next to three accused figures who trafficked cocaine for the Mexican drug cartels, according to the Attorney General’s Office of Ecuador. The photo had been taken by a retired Ecuadorian military officer, known as El Capi, who worked with the Sinaloa Cartel.[21] Correa was suspected of taking money for his election campaign from the Colombian FARC guerrillas, who financed their activities with drug trafficking. He subsequently made decisions as president that benefited them.[22] Correa had also kicked US personnel out of a strategic airbase in Ecuador, who were targeting drug and human traffickers.[23] President Correa developed a reputation for protecting drug smugglers and politicians linked to them. In 2017, in one of his last acts as president, Correa pardoned three thousand drug smugglers.[24]

While money was certainly a factor, blood loyalty may also have played a role. Correa later admitted that his father had been a successful drug smuggler.[25]

Pierina Correa, the president’s sister, was photographed with the Ostaiza brothers. Each has been accused by the United States of drug trafficking and association with Colombia’s FARC, and of directing a substantial “asset laundering organization.”[26]

In October 2024, the Biden State Department designated Correa and his family as ineligible for entry into the United States “for involvement in significant corruption” while in office.[27] Progressive International opposed the US decision. Indeed, after the State Department blocked Correa’s entry into the United States, PI accused the State Department of “persecuting” Correa and his family.[28]

Correa’s cartel and trafficking connections pale in comparison with those of Gustavo Petro, the current president of Colombia, who also sits as an advisor on the Progressive International Council.[29]

Before he entered into politics, Petro started as a member of the M-19, a revolutionary nationalist group that was the second-largest armed guerrilla group in Colombia after the FARC. This group was not only guilty of insurrection, but of kidnapping, weapons theft, and murder on a large scale.[30]

When Colombia elected Petro in 2022, it was a major victory for Progressive International and the drug cartels, with cocaine production skyrocketing as soon as he took office.[31] According to Foreign Policy, the Biden administration took PI’s cue and “welcomed the election of leftist (and former guerrilla fighter) Gustavo Petro as Colombia’s president, soon inviting him to the White House.”[32]

In September of that year, Petro further signaled his allegiances in an address to the United Nations in which he essentially shifted blame for the drug trade from the cartels to capitalism. “I demand from here, from my wounded Latin America, an end to the irrational war on drugs,” he declared. He went on: “The war on drugs has failed . . . Do you want less drugs? Think about less profits and more love.”[33]

In that speech Petro spoke of legitimizing cocaine, and detractors in Latin America accused Petro of revealing “himself as the main defender of drug trafficking and guerrilla interests.”

After his speech, Progressive International published the speech on its website, and highlighted one central question from it on Twitter: “What is more poisonous for human beings: cocaine, coal or oil?”[34]

In fact, the drug cartels assisted Petro in his election. The Gulf Clan, for one, a criminal organization involved in drug distribution and human trafficking, had reportedly organized an “armed strike before the elections” and “threatened the Colombian population with reprisals if they did not vote for Petro.”[35]

Then there was the munificence of the “Marlboro Man.” The drug trafficker who went by that name, also known as Samuel Satander Lopesierra, and Gabriel Hilsalca, the son of a controversial businessman named “El Turco,” who was accused of murder and conspiracy to commit crimes, contributed generously to Petro’s presidential campaign. President Petro’s brother, Juan Fernando Petro, was accused of offering favors to imprisoned drug traffickers, presumably in exchange for large sums of money for his brother’s campaign.[36] Petro’s son, also a politician, was arrested for taking money from drug cartels to fund his father’s campaign.[37] (All the Petros have denied these accusations.)

Progressive International, rather than recoiling, defended Petro and organized “an international call for solidarity” to back him.[38]

Petro worked to establish such loyalty from US activists. In October 2019, then-Senator Gustavo Petro was on a panel for the Progressive Strategy Summit at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, just half a mile from the US Capitol. The event was organized by the Progressive Caucus in Congress.[39]

The extent of the bonds between American progressives and Latin American progressives linked to the drug trade is truly shocking. One of Ocasio-Cortez’s top political aides, Andrés Bernal, who helped craft the Green New Deal legislation, left her office and later took up a position serving as a “liaison to President Gustavo Petro and the US Progressive Caucus.”[40]

Petro has enjoyed close relationships with American progressives despite the swirl of allegations concerning his ties to the drug cartels. He and his team met with members of the Black Caucus and the US Progressive Caucus in Congress when they visited Washington.[41]

By 2023, when he was already under scrutiny for his alleged ties to drug traffickers, President Petro ended cooperation with the United States on an extradition agreement for narco-terrorists. Progressive International organized a high-profile US congressional delegation anyway, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to meet with Petro in the summer of 2023.

According to AOC, the visit came after a conversation with President Lula of Brazil, who wanted US progressives to get more organized, that is, aligned with the progressive axis, in some instances in contradiction with the national interests of their country. In early 2023, when President Lula arrived in Washington for another visit, AOC recalled:

I had the benefit of sitting down with him, and I asked him what he thinks is needed right now from the progressives. He said, quite directly, that in Latin America progressives regularly gather, but US progressives are nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t know where we are. I took that as a challenge, and that’s one of the main things that precipitated our visit to Brazil, Chile, and Colombia.[42]

The delegation coordinator was Progressive International’s David Adler. Most of the delegation members were Hispanic Democrats: AOC was joined by congressmembers Nydia Velázquez, Joaquin Castro, Greg Casar, and Maxwell Frost, along with Senator Bernie Sanders’s chief of staff, Misty Rebik, suggesting that Senator Sanders had not completely detached himself from the organization.[43] The delegation was dubbed “a big step forward in the development of a new US approach to Latin America and highlighted the important role that the US progressive left has to play in it.” The delegates fawned that they were not going to “lecture but to listen” to Petro and the other leaders. It begs the question, in what capacity were they representing US foreign policy or their oath-bound US allegiances? AOC’s vague rationale was that they went to promote democracy. The fact that several of the people they would be listening to had financial ties to drug cartels and human smugglers did not seem to deter them.[44]

“Gustavo Petro seals a strategic alliance with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” read the headline in El País after their meeting.[45]

Ocasio-Cortez promised to work to “change the narratives [regarding] Latin America and Colombia.”[46]

AOC has repeatedly “expressed her ideological affinity” with Petro, noted Colombia’s IFM Noticias in 2025.[47]

“We have much to learn from our counterparts in these countries, including how to confront disinformation and violent threats to our democracies,” she proclaimed to the Los Angeles Times.[48]

These salaried beneficiaries of American taxpayers took time from their legitimate government business to learn lessons from leaders allegedly often funded by cartels, now framed as heroes of the people against capitalism. How naïve (or duplicitous) are these leftists that they can’t see that they are doing the bidding of America’s enemies?

“We are here because fascist movements are global, and as a result, progressive movements also have to be global if we are going to rise to the challenges of these times,” AOC told reporters in Spanish. During the meeting with President Petro in Colombia, delegation member Congressman Castro, the highest-ranking Democrat in the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, defended open borders, declaring, “Newly arrived immigrants are breathing new life into cities across the industrial Midwest.” [49]

Congressman Greg Cesar later recounted that the delegation discussed the “war on drugs” in Colombia and the need to end it. The war on drugs, not their distribution.

And so, a big part of the conversation we are having, both with the president and the vice president in Colombia, is about pivoting away from the failed US war on drugs, and start to figure out how we support both a peace process that we need, because there’s continued violence in Colombia, both from criminal organizations and some remaining ideological groups.[50]

This, of course, was a major win for the drug cartels with which Petro has been allegedly connected. It’s debatable if ending the war on drugs and opening the US border are good for Colombians, but it’s hard to imagine how that could benefit Americans.

During the visit, AOC populated her Instagram feed with selfies, photos with dignitaries, and “instruction on how to build collective solidarity.”[51]

According to congressional financial disclosures, George Soros funded the trip through his foundation. AOC traveled with her partner, Riley Roberts, and three members of the Soros Foundation, who accompanied the delegates to their meetings.[52]

The American delegation, upon their return to Washington, pushed an agenda that Latin American progressives from Colombia to Mexico fully embraced. In addition to fighting for a cessation of the drug war, with the approval of House members Greg Casar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others, Nydia Velázquez introduced a resolution in Congress calling for annulment of the Monroe Doctrine while also condemning the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico sold California and other territories to the United States.[53]

As Petro’s administration stumbles through indictments, campaign finance investigations, plummeting poll numbers, and resignations, he has continued his warm relations with progressives in Washington. He visited the US Capitol in April 2023 to confer with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.[54] He also visited Chicago, where he called for an end to the drug war.[55] His apparent ties to criminals never seemed to come up.

Senator Chris Murphy hailed Petro as the “Bernie Sanders of Colombia” and flew to Bogota to meet with him, along with other members of Congress, where they discussed several topics, including the war on drugs.[56]

In 2024, several members of Congress traveled to Bogota to join the so-called Pan-American Congress. Convened by Petro, the Americans met with elected officials from Mexico to Brazil. Among the topics of discussion was ending the war on drugs.[57]

* * *

European Union member of Parliament and former prominent Spanish journalist Hermann Tertsch has observed that because of these sorts of ties, “The left in general is nourished by drug trafficking.”[58]

Progressive International flaunts this “nourishment.” Ernesto Samper, former president of Colombia, is also a fixture at PI events.[59] Samper reportedly received more than $6 million from the Cali Cartel banker, a guy named Franklin Jurado, for his presidential campaign. The money came through the middleman Santiago Medina, an avid art collector and member of Samper’s presidential campaign. Reportedly assisting him with the transfer of funds was Fernando Botero, whom Samper later appointed defense minister. Botero and Medina negotiated the surrender of a Cali Cartel leader named Gilberto Rodríguez Orjuela, and Samper gave him no more than a slap on the wrist. His sentence allowed him to retain his assets and spend only a limited amount of time in an upscale jail. Much of the information in the case came from a disgruntled Samper aide, who recorded many of the conversations involving these transactions before releasing them to the public. Semper denies the allegations of any improper or illegal activity.[60]

Progressive International also features former Bolivian president Evo Morales, amplifying his message and including him in their events.[61]

Under Evo Morales’s tenure, Bolivia became the “new hub” of international drug trafficking.[62] Morales was himself a former coca grower, the plant from which cocaine is derived. During his tenure as president, Morales expelled the DEA from the country.[63] By 2014, Bolivia became one of the top three cocaine producers in the world. After being elected, he proposed a plan for the international legalization and trade of coca.[64]

The Chapare region’s coca growers maintained “strong connections” with Morales. According to Peruvian journalist Jaime Bayly, Morales was actually the head of a drug cartel, which sold vast quantities of cocaine to the Mexican drug cartels. Cartels in Chapare not only sell cocaine but also engage in human trafficking. Morales denies any ties to the drug trade and has not been charged with a crime.[65]

Several of President Morales’s close associates are tied to the drug trade. Ironically, “the former head of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking, Maximiliano Dávila Pérez, appointed under Morales, was arrested for links to drug cartels.” The US government accused him of being part of an international drug network operating in the United States. Morales’s “Minister of the Presidency, Carlos Romero Bonifaz, was also investigated for links to organized drug trafficking.”[66]

Senior Bolivian government officials close to Evo Morales serve or have served on the “international council” of Progressive International, including Álvaro García-Linera, who currently sits as an emeritus member of the PI council and is the former vice president of Bolivia.[67]

Progressive politics would seem to be a magnet for drug and human traffickers, particularly in light of their advocacy of both mass migration and the deescalation of the Latin American drug war—these pillars of progressive politics directly advance cartel interests. Open borders allow cartels to expand their commercial activities, whether in drug or human trafficking, and it has been shown that they use the same routes and networks to transport both drugs and people.[68]

Are American progressives who work with political figures linked to the drug cartels naïve or cynical in their embrace?

* * *

“Officially, there is no war anymore,” announced the new president of Mexico. “We want peace and we are going to get it.”

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) shocked his country and the world when he announced shortly after he was sworn in that he was canceling the “War on Drugs.”[69] While his two most recent predecessors had pursued the drug cartels, AMLO replaced that effort with a strategy of “hugs not bullets.”[70]

We saw earlier how the Mexican elite class promotes the narrative of mass migration as a means of undermining US sovereignty, particularly in those states lost to the United States in the nineteenth century, a narrative that also benefits the drug cartels. Not surprisingly, the Mexican cartels have financially supported the campaigns of Mexico’s recent presidents.

In 2018, when Mexicans elected AMLO in a landslide victory, progressives in Washington cheered his rise to power. “Congratulations to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the newly elected president of Mexico,” proclaimed Bernie Sanders. “Now is the time to stand up to Trump’s divisiveness and xenophobia and create a continent which brings countries together to focus on economic, social, racial, and environmental justice.”[71]

The press quickly dubbed AMLO “Mexico’s Bernie Sanders.” The Vermont senator had campaigned on the theme “we will make history” during his 2016 run. AMLO’s campaign sought a coalition called “Together We Will Make History.” Dual citizens, who could vote in both Mexico and the United States, gravitated to AMLO after voting for Sanders in the 2016 primary. “All the dual citizens I know voted for Bernie went down back to Mexico and voted for AMLO,” explained a guest of progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann.[72]

Progressives in the United States and Mexico fed off each other, sharing joint messaging as a hope for a spillover effect. As Rafael Barjas, a longtime AMLO friend and advisor, explained: “I am convinced that the radicalization of movements in Mexico can have an impact in the United States,” he explained. “I think it already has.”[73]

AMLO’s criticisms of capitalism align well with those of American progressives who looked to AMLO’s administration as an opportunity for America. But the open secret here was that drug cartels had propelled AMLO’s ascension.

In 2006, when AMLO had first run for president, a deal was brokered between a criminal group called the Beltrán Leyva Organization and the AMLO campaign. They would deliver millions of dollars to his campaign, including helping to pay for a large rally, and also funnel millions through two political consultants close to AMLO. In exchange, members of the AMLO campaign agreed to let the drug cartels have veto power over whom AMLO would select as attorney general of Mexico.[74] AMLO lost the election, but the drug cartel ties remained.

“He pays for it.”

An assistant to Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán explained to a federal jury in the United States how Guzmán was paying politicians. “He bribes the entire government of Mexico,” he explained in testimony in 2018, “including up to the very top: the current president of Mexico.” The president at the time was AMLO. Of course, many in Mexico already believed that AMLO was in bed with the drug cartels.[75]

Another cartel leader had the same story. Named El Grande because of his six-foot-plus frame, he also testified that he knew AMLO and remembered giving him money. “It was like 500K USD or something like that,” he explained. They also gave a Chevy Suburban to a Mexican general “who accompanied AMLO everywhere.”[76]

Like the Latin American politicians working with Progressive International, AMLO worked hard to defang the war against the drug cartels, and American progressives started to embrace the same position. Bernie Sanders adopted that policy shortly after AMLO was elected.[77]

Echoing Petro’s speech at the United Nations, AMLO claimed that the drug lords were not really such terrible people. After becoming president, he made multiple trips to a small town in Badiraguato, in Sinaloa, the hometown of imprisoned drug lord El Chapo. At one point, AMLO explained to shocked reporters that criminal gangs and cartels were “respectful people” who generally only killed each other and left other people alone. “They respect the citizenry.” He explained that he would refuse the US government’s request to go after the cartels. “We are not going to act as policemen for any foreign government,” he said.[78]

In June 2020, AMLO admitted that he had personally ordered the release of one of El Chapo’s sons after Mexican military forces detained him.[79] “We feel insulted as Mexicans and offended as soldiers,” said General Carlos Demetrio Gaytán Ochoa.[80]

In 2022, AMLO told the army not to attack cartel gunmen, because “we also take care of the lives of the gang members, they are human beings.” However humanitarian the rhetoric, the reality was that, for a price, AMLO was willing to overlook the tens of thousands of human beings who die or are abused at the hands of the cartels.[81]

AMLO stopped allowing the DEA to station a plane in his country, following the lead of other Progressive International–connected leaders who had booted the law enforcement agency from their countries. He also submitted legislation, which the Mexican parliament approved, that “stripped DEA agents of their diplomatic immunity and required them to share any information obtained with Mexican officials.”

“AMLO has never had a cross word for narcos,” complained David Agren in El Reportero.[82]

Meanwhile, he continued to push for open borders with the United States and the Reconquista of America. “We will not abandon the task of convincing those within the United States that we must build a universal brotherhood, without borders, more human and spiritual, with all the peoples of the world,” he declared.[83]

Welcome words to the drug and human traffickers in Mexico.

In 2024, AMLO’s protégé, Claudia Sheinbaum, was elected president of Mexico. “This effort—to strengthen a Progressive International—starts here, in Mexico,” proclaimed Jeremy Corbyn, a PI leader and part of the group’s inauguration delegation.[84] Progressives in the United States hailed Sheinbaum. Adler has cheered AMLO’s rise in Mexico and explained that Sheinbaum’s victory is “epic, whopping, [and] historic.”[85]

Like so many Progressive International affiliates, Sheinbaum has her own alleged entanglements with drug cartels. As mayor of Mexico City, one of her closest aides was Omar Garcia Harfuch, whom she appointed as secretary of Citizen Security. He was essentially Mexico City’s top cop. When Sheinbaum became president, she made him the most powerful policeman in the country, the secretary of Security and Civilian Protection.

Garcia’s relationship with the drug cartels is also worrisome. His career was launched under a group of policemen, including Genaro García Luna, Ramón Pequeño García, and Luis Cárdenas Palomino, “who participated in drug trafficking operations of the Sinaloa Cartel” when they were supposed to be fighting the war on drugs. In 2013, Garcia was named the Federal Police’s coordinator for the State of Guerrero. According to the DEA, during his tenure, Guerrero remained a hub for drug traffickers smuggling cocaine into the United States. “He was head of the Federal Police in a region that, at that time, became the largest heroin-exporting zone in the hemisphere,” notes John Gibler, an investigative journalist.[86] Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández reported that by 2016, when Garcia was the head of the attorney general’s Criminal Investigative Agency, he was allegedly receiving bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. Hernández says that DEA agents have confirmed that Garcia and his team also stole drugs and money from criminal gangs during police operations.[87] He was also accused of protecting the Sinaloa Cartel in the United States.[88] (He denies all these accusations.)

The push by some progressives in the United States was not just a function of their political ambitions to create a cultural revolution and transformation in America. With a de facto alliance with figures linked to the drug trade, they were also providing support for an opening of the channels for the drug trade: open borders and mass migration.

Just as joining forces with Islamists has led progressives to absorb some of their priorities as their own, the fusing of Latin American with US-based progressives has served to advance the interests of those who are funding many of these Latin American progressives: the drug cartels. Ending the drug war, open borders, and mass migration all help the cartels reap enormous profits with even less scrutiny.

Chapter 8

Transforming America

Pope Francis stood on the razor’s edge separating the world’s economic engine and the developing world. He was before a sea of people near the US-Mexican border for what was perhaps the world’s first “transborder Mass.” He was speaking at the dusty fairgrounds in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, with an audience of Mexicans, while American citizens gathered in the nearby El Paso, Texas, Sun Bowl to participate. It was the first visit by any Pope to the US-Mexico border region, and they purposely picked the corridor between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, which “has long been one of the most important crossing sites for emigrants coming from Mexico and other parts of Latin America” illegally into the United States.[1]

It was February 2016, and America was in the midst of a presidential election where migration was the hot topic. Francis was diving right in.

“Immigration is a right, a right that is in the Sacred Scripture,” he later said, explaining the crux of his view on borders.[2] On this day, he described migrant rights activists as “prophets of mercy,” and at one point, he gazed over the US border fence and made the sign of the cross on the edge of the Rio Grande, overlooking the border fence. He was apparently giving his blessing to illegal immigrants.[3]

Francis was positioning himself as the single most powerful religious leader and as a champion of mass migration into the United States and Europe. Later in the year, Francis made an appearance on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, surrounded by refugees. “Let everyone come,” he declared.[4]

On other occasions, he proclaimed in a fiery tone that turning away migrants was a “grave sin” against God. He likened those who opposed mass illegal migration to Cain and King Herod. Cain, of course, brutally murdered his brother out of jealousy. King Herod murdered many children in his attempt to kill baby Jesus.[5]

China, Mexico, and radical movements like the Muslim Brotherhood all have their motives for subverting the United States. It is a means of civilizational warfare. But the forces trying to change America by changing the people in it don’t have to be adversarial countries. They don’t have to even be countries.

Under Pope Francis, the Roman Catholic Church joined its ranks, hoping to transform American culture to conform to the precepts of liberation theology. Francis made common cause with those with whom he would appear to share very little in common, except for a deep, abiding desire to radically alter the foundations of Western society.

“Our theology is a theology of migrants,” he claimed.[6]

Those intimately involved in these efforts within the church are convinced that his successor, Pope Leo IV, will follow a similar path.

Pope Francis, aka Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was the first pontiff from outside of Europe since the eighth century and the first Jesuit pope. Born and raised in Argentina, he embraced the cause of mass migration like no other church leader. “Pope Francis’s dramatic gestures and poignant pleas for the rights and dignity of migrants and refugees have given these issues the highest priority ever for the Church worldwide,” explained Professor Allan Figueroa Deck, SJ. Borders and immigration are about “structural sin, the structural causes of injustice and the need for human solidarity across borders, [which] has arisen in contradistinction to an individualistic morality fixated on personal sin.”[7] The cause of mass migration is not the corruption and failure of leadership in unstable countries. Instead, it is the result of Western capitalism and aggression, and the individualism and overconsuming West that needs to be dramatically remade.

A central part of Francis’s political ambition was diverting the United States and Europe from their more individualistic culture to the collective values he embraced.

Francis had ambitions to see Latin America rise in power and prominence at the expense of the United States. He used the term “La Patria Grande,” The Great Fatherland, when visiting Latin America as a rallying cry against the US. La Patria Grande is deeply embedded in Latin American history, a call for a unified continent that could resist outside powers like the United States.[8] Francis often sounded more like a Latin American revolutionary than a leader of the Catholic Church, telling leaders in the region to never “sell off the motherland” and to resist “colonizations of any kind.”[9]

“We were looking for a path towards the patria grande,” he told bishops in Peru, “when we came up against an inhuman liberal capitalism that harms the people.”[10]

“The Florida Straits and the Mexican-American border are to this pontificate what the Berlin Wall was to John Paul II’s,” writes biographer Austen Ivereigh.[11] The Evil Empire, once the Soviet Union during the Cold War, was, by Francis’s calculation, now the United States, especially under Donald Trump.

More importantly for Francis, mass migration served a key purpose because it is, in his words, “a lengthy process that aims to shape societies and cultures.” It is less about migrants assimilating, which leads them to, in his words, “suppress or forget their own cultural identity.” Instead, migrants are the vehicles of change for the Western world. Mass migration is the best mechanism to unmoor the West from its unhealthy emphasis on individualism and move it toward a more collective design.[12]

“If we can overcome individualism,” Francis declared at one point, “we will truly be able to develop a different lifestyle and bring about significant changes in society.”[13]

Mass migration not only fits with Francis’s vision for transforming the West to make it less “individualistic,” but it also offers an opportunity to regrow the Catholic Church in America. “Is there any secret about the fact that immigrants are one of the principal sources of renewed life in Catholic parishes, schools, and organizations all over the United States?” asks Professor Deck.[14]

For Francis, this was not just about preaching; it was about using the global apparatus of the Catholic Church to reconstitute America and Europe through mass migration. It is about action.

* * *

The aging revolutionary was wearing a blue-and-white Adidas tracksuit when his guest arrived in white vestments. The two men reportedly looked into each other’s eyes as they greeted one another.

Fidel Castro and Pope Francis spent thirty minutes in what was called an “intimate and familial encounter.”[15] The aging communist and the leader of the Catholic Church chatted “informally,” according to Vatican Radio, about “the great problems of the contemporary world.”[16] There was no mention of “grave sin” or King Herod when it came to the communist dictator. Pope Francis was friendly, even a bit deferential.

The two might appear on the surface to have little in common. One was a Cuban communist, atheist, revolutionary, and the other was an Argentine, Jesuit-trained priest who had risen to lead the Catholic Church. And yet, they both drank from the same intellectual stream. Pope Francis was radically transforming Catholicism, elevating a Marxist-infused brand of faith to the center point of the Church. And like Castro, he saw the West as a powerful impediment to his ambitions.

During their meeting in Havana, Castro gave Francis a gift, a book laying out his views on revolution and religion. Titled Fidel & Religion, it was written by Frei Betto, a political activist, liberation theologian, and Dominican friar. “To Pope Francis,” Castro wrote, “On the occasion of his cordial visit to Cuba, with the respect and admiration of the Cuban people, Fidel.”[17]

Betto had been a longtime booster of the oppressive Cuban regime. “The Cuban revolution is an evangelic creation,” he declared. On another occasion, he said of communist Cuba, “Here a society of cooperation, collaboration, and international spirit has been constructed. All of those socialist values are essentially Christian.”[18]

Betto was familiar to the Pope: the two happened to be longtime friends. He had visited with the Pontiff several times in Rome.

Francis offered the Cuban dictator several gifts in return, including his encyclical on the environment, “an indictment of rich nations’ exploitation of the poor and misuse of the earth’s resources.”[19] One influence on the encyclical was Leonardo Boff, a Franciscan priest. Boff, another liberation theology adherent, had been condemned by the Catholic Church decades earlier for his rejection of basic Christian beliefs such as the resurrection. He and the Cuban dictator had a “close friendship,” according to Boff.[20]

Earlier in the day, Francis led a Mass in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, staged beside a “giant sculpted outline of Guevara’s face.”[21] Francis had nothing openly critical to say about the Cuban dictatorship or the human rights situation in the country. Pro-democracy activists in Cuba were clearly disappointed. Francis’s supporters were not surprised. “I have no doubt that Francis is coming to help build a new future for Cuba, but it’s one that reforms and builds on the revolution, rather than opposes it,” said Ivereigh.[22]

Francis also held a Q&A session with students at the Padre Felix Varela Cultural Center in Havana. When one student complained about structural difficulties in Cuba, Francis responded that the student didn’t have it so bad and that the unemployment rate in Europe for young people was 40 to 50 percent.

The Castro-loving Betto later recalled that Francis handled the question in “an absolutely brilliant manner.”[23]

Mass migration was very much on the minds of Cuba’s leaders. A day earlier, Pope Francis met with Fidel’s younger brother Raúl, who was running the country. The details of what they discussed never leaked. But Raúl’s gift to the Pope was unique and to the point concerning mass migration: a composition built “from the oars of migrant boats,” a gift said to be “inspired by Francis’ great attention to the plight of migrants.”[24] There was a theme here: earlier in the year, Raúl Castro had traveled to Rome to meet with Francis in the Vatican; among the gifts was a work by the Cuban artist Kcho: a painting showing a cross made from different migrant boats.

During that early 2015 Rome meeting between Raúl Castro and the Pontiff, the Cuban dictator had exited the Vatican and declared to the stunned media that he might return to the Church. It set off a brief frenzy; an atheist returning to the flock? But Castro was quick to explain that it was not so much that he was moving toward the Church, but that the Church under Francis had moved toward him. “If you continue talking like this,” Raúl said he told Francis, “sooner or later I will begin to pray again, and I will return to the Catholic Church . . . I may convert again to Catholicism, even though I am a Communist.”[25]

Under Pope Francis, the Catholic Church moved considerably to the left on several issues. During one of his many visits to Cuba, Frei Betto made clear that Francis “is making a true revolution within the Catholic Church.” He explained, “That is why all the progressive forces of Latin America are happy with the pope’s stance, which is perfectly in tune with liberation theology.”[26]

In this view, theology and politics are directly intertwined. “I think that the enormous historic importance of liberation theology,” said Fidel Castro, “or the liberation church—whatever you want to call it—lies precisely in its profound impact on the political views of its followers.”[27]

Francis wanted to move the church theologically, but he also wanted to move it geopolitically. Rather than supporting or defending Western tradition, he wanted to lead the Church as an opponent of those values. According to Francis, the systems of the West—individualism, freedom, and a market economy—are sinful and flawed. Western culture needs to be more collective in its orientation. His view reflected La Patria Grande, the Great Fatherland of Latin America. Mass migration was a means by which the cultural elements of La Patria Grande could be extended into the United States and Europe.

At the root of the Church’s revolution was Pope Francis’s embrace of liberation theology, which melds Marxism with Catholic social teaching. (“The theologians are becoming Communists and the Communists are becoming theologians!” Fidel Castro had exclaimed at one point in wonder.)[28] Born in Latin America, liberation theology called for Marxist collectivist solutions and the rejection of individual freedom prominent in free market societies.

Gustavo Gutiérrez wrote one of the earliest and most important books on the concept called, appropriately, A Theology of Liberation. “Only a radical break from the status quo, that is, a profound transformation of the private property system, access to power of the exploited class, and a social revolution that would break this dependence would allow for the change to a new society, a socialist society—or at least allow that such a society might be possible,” he wrote.[29]

Liberation theology emphasized action—revolution—to accomplish its “spiritual” goals. Changing the private property system meant creating governments like Castro’s in Cuba and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua: heaven on earth via dictatorial socialism. As Frei Betto, friend to both Francis and Fidel, put it, “What is the utopia that moves the revolutionaries to the light of Marxism? The future communist society, the same utopia that the gospel calls the Kingdom of God.”[30]

But it was cultural, too. Liberation theology was embraced because it was not European or Western; it reflected Latin American cultural values. “The Latin American church started to formulate its own theology,” explained Betto in describing the origins of liberation theology. “It stopped importing it from Europe.” The European approach was a “personalist philosophy.” Liberation theology was about the “collective.”[31] La Patria Grande, the idea of a Latin American Fatherland infused with indigenous values, merged perfectly with the cultural elements of liberation theology.

Fidel Castro had passionately pushed for a “strategic alliance” between “Christians and Marxists” for decades as a powerful revolutionary weapon. But deception was required, he argued, given that Marxists were atheists. It was necessary to “at all costs avoid doctrinal rhetoric that goes against the religious feelings of the population,” he explained in Fidel & Religion, the book he gifted to Pope Francis.[32] After one seized power, of course, it was a different story.

Liberation theology became a powerful political force in Latin America because of this strategic alliance between revolutionaries and Catholic priests. Its chief architects agreed with Castro that it was necessary to deceive people to create a broad appeal for their ideas. “I’m glad that Liberation Theology is not on the front page of the newspapers today,” Gustavo Gutiérrez told the São Paulo Forum in an interview, “because that didn’t let us work.”[33]

Instead, the liberation theologians proposed shading their goals and using different words. “Let’s not start by speaking of liberation theology straight away; this scares people,” explained Frei Betto. Instead, he advised discussing issues and incorporating liberation theology into those discussions. “Let’s start by talking about social-environmental issues.”[34]

This was, of course, precisely the approach Castro had taken. During his armed struggle to take power in Catholic Cuba, Castro had often positioned himself as democratic or Christian, hiding his ultimate goals. He had, after all, launched his violent revolution using the slogan “He who betrays the poor betrays Christ.” Once in power, of course, he promptly expelled priests and shut down churches.[35]

That same sort of deception was employed when it came to mass migration.

The rise of liberation theology in Latin America led the Vatican in 1984, under Pope John Paul II, to declare that it was a false teaching. It was flawed because of “a disastrous confusion between the poor of the Scripture and the proletariat of Marx [emphasis added],” explained then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in an official Vatican statement. “In this way they pervert the Christian meaning of the poor, and they transform the fight for the rights of the poor into a class fight within the ideological perspective of the class struggle.”[36]

That remained the church’s position for thirty years, until Francis.

Shortly after he became Pope, Francis declared that liberation theologians should not be condemned but instead be praised for their “high concept of humanity.” In 2013, just a few months after his inauguration, Francis welcomed Gutiérrez to the Vatican as his special guest.[37] It was a stunning rebuke to his predecessors, including Pope John Paul II, who had grown up in a communist country and knew the perils of Marxism. Francis offered the father of liberation theology “apologies” for the “suffering he endured in life.” This first meeting was held in secret, intentionally left off the Pope’s official schedule. Only after a pointed question did a Vatican spokesperson confirm it. Gutiérrez did not indicate he had changed any of his more outrageous views. He still saw Fidel Castro as a “model” for all of Latin America.[38]

Vatican officials declared Gutiérrez was responsible for one of “the most important currents in 20th-century Catholic theology.” L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, said that the rise of Pope Francis would bring liberation theology out from the “shadows to which it has been relegated for some years, at least in Europe.”[39]

When Gutiérrez died in 2017, Pope Francis was effusive in his praise. “Gustavo . . . a great man, a man of the Church,” who “knew how to stay silent when he needed to be silent, who knew how to suffer when he had to suffer, and who managed to bring forward so much apostolic fruit, and such rich theology.”[40]

Francis was now casting aside the condemnation of liberation theology and embracing it. It was a positive thing. “Liberation theology rehabilitation continues at Vatican” ran one Associated Press story headline.[41] Francis, the first Pope from Latin America, cast the Church’s earlier rejection of the Marxist-infused theology in cultural terms, as a way of casting off European influences and removing the weight of Western dominance. Francis noted that in the supporting documents from the 1984 condemnation titled Instruction on Certain Aspects of Theology of Liberation, “80 percent of the notes were written in German.”[42] Apparently, European Church leaders could not understand the truths of Liberation theology because they were not from Latin America.

Beyond Gutiérrez, Francis rehabilitated other liberation theologians who had been pushed to the sidelines in the church by previous popes.

Leonardo Boff, a Franciscan priest and decades-long friend of Pope Francis, had been condemned by the Vatican in 1992 for his views.[43] When the Catholic Church censored him, Castro brought him to Cuba for two weeks of rest and support.[44]

Boff had deep ties to Castro and the Sao Paul Forum, where he sat on the editorial board of their magazine, America Libre. “What we propose,” he said in 1980, “is not theology within Marxism, but Marxism within theology.”[45] His views on that had not changed.

Boff, despite his self-proclaimed fight against oppression, did not appear particularly bothered by Marxist dictatorships that oppressed people. In addition to his “close friend” Castro, he stood up for other tyrants like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Like so many others who sought a war on the Anglo-European world, Boff saw this as a civilizational war. “Marxism is a principally European theme,” he said. “In Latin America, the big enemy is not Marxism, it is capitalism.”[46]

Boff saw the Pope as not just a friend but a powerful ally for his cause. “Francis is one of us,” he told the German newspaper Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger in 2016. “He has turned Liberation Theology into a common property of the Church. And he has widened it.”[47] As we saw earlier, Pope Francis recruited him as an advisor for his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si.[48]

Pope Francis also restored the standing of other radical priests, such as Nicaraguan Ernesto Cardenal, who had served in a senior position in the Sandinista government while in the church. In 1983, when Pope John Paul II visited the country, he chastised him for violating his religious vows by joining the communist government of the Sandinistas. “You must straighten out your position with the Church,” John Paul II had sternly said.[49]

Now Francis was bringing them back into the fold.

Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, another Nicaraguan priest involved with the Nicaraguan government, had also been expelled from the Church by Pope John Paul II. (D’Escoto sat on the editorial board of America Libre.) Francis reinstated him in 2014, giving “his benevolent assent that Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann be absolved from the canonical censure inflicted upon him.”[50] After Francis restored him to the church, D’Escoto proudly announced that God “chose the greatest Latin-American of all time: Fidel Castro.” It is through him that “the Holy Spirit sends us the message.” On another occasion, he offered his view that capitalism is the “most un-Christian doctrine and practice ever devised by man to keep us separate and unequal in a kind of global apartheid.”[51]

Pope Francis shared these views, attacking the free market economy as a “tyranny.”[52]

“In this system,” Francis thundered, “which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which becomes the only rule.”[53]

These were long-held views by Francis. Growing up in Argentina, “he loved to hang out in political clubs and meeting rooms where socialists, radicals, and Peronists met and argued,” writes his sympathetic biographer, Austen Ivereigh. “He remains, to this day, Homo politicus, committed to what he calls ‘big politics.’”[54]

When he joined the church, he rose quickly through the ranks, practicing a “‘Peronist’ version of liberation theology,” while “his circle was hostile to what they perceived as foreign Enlightenment ideologies.”[55]

Those who knew him well earlier in his career saw the same elements, according to Pope Francis’s mentor and seminary teacher, Juan Carlos Scannone. (“Arguably, few theologians influenced Francis as much as Scannone.”)[56]

According to Scannone, Francis embraced the “Argentine theology of the people,” which was a strand “within Latin American liberation theology.”[57] What made “theology of the people” different from other strands of liberation theology was that while much of liberation theology focused on Marxist economic class warfare, the theology of the people focused on cultural warfare.

As another sympathetic Francis biographer, Paul Vallely, puts it: “The theology of the people focuses on cultural rather than economic change.”[58]

The theology of the people that Francis embraced and touted rejected Western Christendom as its reference point. Instead, it was developed “as a revolt against a worldview handed down from Argentina’s colonial masters.”[59]

“Our humanism is not individualistic, like that of the Renaissance or in the liberal sense,” Scannone wrote in Theology of the People. “This is proven by the reality and idea of people as a collective subject.”[60]

According to Scannone, the Pope also partially embraced “the Frankfurt School” of thinking, the cultural form of Marxism that seeks to transform societies through cultural revolution rather than a purely economic one.[61]

For Francis, the rejection of capitalism was a dogmatic necessity to follow Jesus. In 1998, as archbishop in Buenos Aires, the future pope wrote: “No one can accept the precepts of neoliberalism [free market capitalism] and consider themselves Christian.”[62] These were bold, harsh, condemning words—words that were never openly expressed about communism, Castro, or statist societies. Once he became pontiff, the same fierce denunciation of capitalism remained, as did his excuses for communist regimes, like the one he offered up to the student in Havana. As Dr. Samuel Gregg writes, “In the numerous addresses, press conferences, and interviews Francis has given since becoming pope, it is difficult to find any criticism of left-populist policies that comes close to matching his impassioned denouncements of market economies.”[63]

Francis was also interested in culture and expressed his displeasure with emphasizing the connections between Christianity and Western civilization. “We need to speak of [European] roots in the plural because there are so many,” he said in an interview with the French publication La Croix. “In this sense, when I hear talk of the Christian roots of Europe, I sometimes dread the tone, which can seem triumphalist or even vengeful. It then takes on colonialist overtones.”[64]

Christian roots in Europe were to be downplayed. Indigenous roots in Latin America were to be celebrated, even if they contradicted the centrality of Christianity. La Patria Grande. The man on the Throne of St. Peter was soon hosting religious services on the main altar at St. Peter’s in the heart of the Vatican with a wooden idol of the pagan goddess Pachamama. It was even carried in a procession to Synod Hall.[65] It was very much like what Mexico’s leaders were doing, rejecting Western ideas and embracing indigenous cultures. Cosmic Race, indeed.

Francis’s low regard for European culture and his celebration of indigenous pagan cultures was an echo of what Castro had preached for decades: notions like individualism, democracy, and even Christianity were European—not universal—values. As Castro put it in his book Fidel & Religion: “The concept of bourgeois democracy was born in Europe . . . they weren’t the ideas of the Aztecs, the Incas, or the Cuban Siboneys [A tribal people of the Caribbean]. Christianity itself wasn’t the religion of the Aztecs, the Incas, or the Siboneys.” These were different civilizations, and it was clear on which side Castro placed himself and liberation theology.[66]

As discussed, migration was important for Francis not only as a right for people but also as a mechanism for changing Western societies. Under Francis, there was an “unprecedented volume of teaching on the subjects [of migration and the politicization of migration] through homilies, addresses and public statements.”[67] He called on people in the West to welcome migrants and be “open to being mobilized, challenged, broadened.” Truly religious people would not vote for restrictions on immigration.[68]

Within the Catholic Church itself, there were grave concerns about both the spiritual and cultural shifts that were taking place under Pope Francis. A cultural revolution was afoot. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, an Italian priest who rose to become the secretary-general of the Governate of Vatican City State and then Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, accused Francis of “destroying civil society” by promoting “uncontrolled immigration and calls for the integration of cultures and religions.”[69]

Archbishop Vigano regarded the mass migration to Europe as an “indiscriminate invasion.” An invasion welcomed by Francis.

Vigano noted that with Francis, “there is no mention of the duty of migrants to respect the rules of civil life, the culture, and the religion of those who welcome them, nor of the duty of the Catholic Church to evangelize and convert those who ignore the Gospel of Christ.”[70] Instead, the cultural shift brought in by mass migrants was to be embraced.

Vigano also pointed out that while the pontiff had harsh words for those opposed to mass migration, there was “not a word for the persecuted Catholics in China.”[71]

Another religious leader also rejected Francis’s cultural views and actions to transform Western civilization: the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan monk feared that mass migration into Europe would turn the continent into an “Arab country.”[72]

It would culturally transform the continent.

“Europe belongs to the Europeans,” he said.[73]

But isn’t cultural transformation the point?

It is ironic but not surprising that the Tibetan monk took up the defense of the Western world more boldly than the head of the Catholic Church. The Dalai Lama witnessed how China had used mass migration to subvert the culture of his own country, Tibet. It had, in fact, created a “cultural revolution.”

But Francis, who had reinstated the dissenting liberation theologians in the name of tolerance and forgiveness, had no tolerance for Archbishop Vigano’s views. He promptly ejected him from the church on the grounds of “schism”—dividing the church.

* * *

Francis was moving the Catholic Church against the West—and he had some powerful secular allies.

In 2015, non-Catholic progressives saw an opportunity to advance their goals by pouring money into Catholic charities. George Soros has long been in favor of a borderless world. “Sovereignty is an anachronistic concept,” he has declared. Although he has lived and prospered in the United States, Soros explains, “I live in one place, but I consider myself a citizen of the world.” He refers to himself as a “stateless statesman.”[74] He has poured large sums of money into projects over the decades to support mass migration into the United States and the erasure of restrictions on mass migration into the country. The movement of the Catholic Church to the left under Pope Francis created an opportunity to advance his agenda further. The Soros Foundation gave $650,000 to the PICO Network and Faith in Public Life for Pope Francis’s visit to the United States.

The goal was to get the American Catholic Church focus on migration and social justice issues. With fifty million American adults identifying as Catholic, and no candidate for president getting more than 55 percent of the popular vote since Reagan, any political changes within the church could be politically seismic.

The timing was key: this was the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. According to leaked documents from the Soros Foundation: “In order to seize this moment, we will support PICO’s organizing activities to engage the Pope on economic and racial justice issues.”[75]

“By harnessing the papal visit to lift up the Pope’s searing critique of what he calls ‘an economy of exclusion and inequality’ and his dismissal of ‘trickle down’ theories, PICO and FPL will work to build a bridge to a larger conversation about bread-and-butter economic concerns and shift national paradigms and priorities in the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign,” said the document from May 2015.

This allowed them to “focus on refugees, migrants, over-incarceration, and immigrant rights, ‘while also bringing new energy into the 2016 presidential conversation.’”

“PICO and FPL have been able to use their engagement in the opportunity of the Pope’s visit to seed their position in the long-term project of shifting the priorities of the US Catholic Church to focus on issues of injustice and oppression,” said the memo.[76]

The collaboration or cooperation between Pope Francis’s Vatican and progressives in the United States remains a topic shrouded in mystery. Vigano, for example, criticized the Vatican for being too close to the Obama administration.[77]

And then there was the matter of a possible donation to the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign.

Libero Milone had been a senior executive at the accounting firm Deloitte for decades and was hired by the Vatican as the first auditor general to investigate the misuse of funds by senior church officials. One of the matters he was looking into was the allegation that approximately $1 million had been transferred from Peter’s Pence, “the Pope’s personal charity fund,” into the coffers of the Clinton campaign in early 2016. Milone said he was looking at Peter’s Pence when he was ousted without explanation.[78]

While the extent of the ties between American progressives and Francis’s Vatican cannot be fully known, it is clear that Francis took unprecedented steps to try to influence the 2016 campaign. Just days before the election, Francis was asked by reporters about candidate Donald Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall along the Mexican border. “A person who thinks only about building walls,” he responded, “wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the Gospel.”[79]

Declaring a political figure, one up for election in a matter of days, no less, “not Christian,” was something Pope Francis had never done before. Only Donald Trump had that distinction.

It is also clear that the Pope worked to mask his ambition during visits to the United States. Of eighteen official speeches that Pope Francis gave when he visited the United States in 2016, only three were in English. One was in Italian, and the rest were in Spanish.[80] When he spoke to Hispanic audiences in Spanish, the Vatican provided inaccurate or incomplete translations in English, so non-Spanish speakers couldn’t fully grasp the full-throated message. Particularly when it came to the topic of migration, what he said in Spanish and what the Vatican’s official translation into English presented were quite different, according to two scholars sympathetic to Francis. “As a result of both minor discrepancies and major text omissions, the pope’s message is unquestionably altered to remove his emphasis on his connection with and esteem for the immigrant, his direct acknowledgment of the presence of immigrants, and his affirmation that there is a community present to welcome and love them, and his pastoral encouragement for all present to keep dreaming,” notes Notre Dame professor Luis Fraga and Professor Kiku Huckle of Pace University. After his Spanish speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, which was more political in tone, the English translation omitted his words regarding “his redefinition of religious liberty” and his views on globalization. He challenged the American people to apply the principles of liberty to migrants coming into the country. But “this message [was] significantly weakened and watered down in the English translation,” they write.[81]

Why would the Vatican try to hide his message? Why was the message different for Spanish speakers in the United States than for English speakers?

* * *

For Francis, moving the US and Europe away from individualism was necessary for the very survival of the planet. The individualism and wealth of the West caused overconsumption, resulting in ecological disaster. In a cri de coeur, Francis offered a dark view of the modern Western world. And his solution was personal repentance, as well as “deep change” and a “bold cultural revolution.”[82]

Mass migration offered a mechanism to accomplish that goal. Francis believed that migrants bore “the brunt of ‘aggressive’ nationalism and ‘radical individualism.’”

“Today’s migration movements offer an opportunity for us to overcome our fears and let ourselves be enriched by the diversity of each person’s gifts,” he declared. “Then, if we so desire, we can transform borders into privileged places of encounter, where the miracle of an ever wider ‘we’ can come about.”[83]

Pope Francis condemned “barriers to migrants as a grave moral issue.”[84] The United States needed “to open the doors to migration.”[85]

Critics noted, of course, that high walls surround the Vatican itself, and that the city-state strictly enforces its immigration laws.

But Francis was about more than talk. As we will see, Francis took steps to encourage, help, and push mass migration into the United States and Europe. He used the institutions within his worldwide church to do so. But this was not only about changing the nature of Western civilization. The financial interests of the church also pointed toward open borders. His critic, Archbishop Vigano, noted that the Catholic Church, through a variety of organizations, “participate(s) in the lucrative business of receiving immigrants,” which created “a macroscopic conflict of interest.”[86]

* * *

The Roman Catholic Church has a long history of involvement with social movements. Francis wanted to deepen that involvement. It was all in keeping with his theology of the people and its fixation with cultural social action. He created a powerful new mechanism dubbed the World Meeting of Popular Movements (WMPM) to collaborate and consult with radical groups from around the world, many of which seemed intent on a “cultural revolution.”[87] The first meeting convened in Rome in 2014, and he presided over the hundreds of community organizers and social-movement leaders who gathered. Just how radical were these groups? At that first meeting, there was a call for the canonization of Antonio Gramsci. He was an Italian communist with theories that a Marxist revolution was best achieved by capturing cultural institutions. Needless to say, “Saint Antonio” was a very odd idea, given that Gramsci was not just an atheist but a self-described “cultural despiser” of religion. This reflected how many who attended these meetings to work with the Pope were political radicals and not actually the Christian faithful.[88]

The purpose of the WMPM “is to create an ‘encounter’ between Church leadership and grassroots organizations working to address the ‘economy of exclusion and inequality’ . . . by working for structural changes that promote social, economic, and racial justice.”[89] Propelling migrants into the Western world is a central part of that effort.

Working with radical community organizers was a central tenet of Pope Francis’s tenure at the helm of the Catholic Church. “Like me, Pope Francis seems to love being around organizers,” said University of San Francisco theologian Erin Brigham, who studies community organizing and Catholic social thought. “[Francis is] always making space to listen to organizers; he prioritizes meeting with them.”[90]

These were often not Catholic organizations but instead radical groups with little interest in Christendom or faith. Francis met privately with community organizers in the United States, including those in the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), who were working aggressively with illegal immigrants. Francis’s meeting with the IAF leaders was about the “Recognizing the Stranger Initiative” to bring immigrants and nonimmigrants together via political action. Again, working with a Saul Alinsky–created and –inspired organization is an odd choice for the Catholic Church.[91] Alinsky infamously dedicated his most famous book, Rules for Radicals, to Lucifer.[92]

In July 2015, Francis was in Bolivia to attend the Second WMPM. If the first meeting in Rome had brought together 150 activists, this second meeting brought fifteen hundred activists from “every corner of the globe.”[93] He called for poor people to “change the world economic order,” denounced the “new colonialism,” and declared that the poor had “sacred rights” to “labor, lodging, and land.”[94] He warned of “the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain free-trade treaties, and the imposition of ‘austerity’ measures which always tighten the belts of the workers and the poor.”[95] One means of changing global economic order, of course, was through mass migration. The “stench” in the air, he told those assembled, was “‘the dung of the devil’ [that] lies behind global capitalism’s indifference to the poor and the planet.”[96]

Priests and pastors often speak like this, but the context makes it clear whether they are talking about charity or revolution. In this case, the main keynote speaker at the event was leftist strongman, Bolivian president Evo Morales. Since taking office in 2006, he “had relentlessly attacked the Church, painting it as a colonial import, and excluding it wherever possible from official acts, replacing Catholic rites with official venerations of the Inca fertility goddess Pachamama.”[97]

While in Bolivia, Francis spent time with Morales. Together, they stopped to pray at the spot where a radical priest named Espinal had been gunned down decades earlier. Francis referred to him as “our brother.” Morales later presented the Pontiff with a “huge crucifix made out of a hammer and sickle.” It was said to be a replica of one Espinal had kept by his bed. Francis was “taken aback” by the gift but not offended by it.[98] He took the crucifix back to the Vatican.

“It was [Espinal’s] life, his way of thinking,” the pope explained.[99]

In 2017, the WMPM came to the United States to further fan the flames of mass migration. Catholic leaders and radical groups gathered for a regional meeting of the group in Modesto, California. The purpose of the event, according to Church leaders, was “to deepen solidarity between social justice movements in the United States and the Church.”[100] Earlier in the year, on the exact day that Donald Trump was inaugurated president, Francis gave a stunning—if overlooked—interview in which he said the return of nationalism and populism should make us think of how Hitler rose to power in Germany.[101]

The main organizer was PICO National Network (later renamed “Faith in Action”), a left-wing group founded by a Jesuit priest and heavily funded by Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott.[102] It claims more than one thousand Catholic parishes across the country as members and has named “a society free of economic oppression” as its primary goal.[103] PICO enjoys the support of Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga from Honduras, who was also one of Francis’s top advisers.[104]

Among PICO’s initiatives is LA RED, which urges local governments not to work with federal immigration officials to enforce laws against illegal immigrants.[105] It is also a member of “Field Team 6, a coalition of lobbying and state election advocacy organizations working towards registering more Democrat voters within key swing states and counties.”[106]

As we saw earlier, George Soros and his foundation were explicitly funding PICO to use the Catholic Church to influence the 2016 presidential election.

The nearly seven hundred attendees at the Modesto event included “grassroots activists, faith-based organizers, farm workers, undocumented immigrants, clergy, and several bishops.”[107] Francis offered a welcoming letter: “For some time, the crisis of the prevailing paradigm has confronted us. I am speaking of a system that causes enormous suffering to the human family, simultaneously assaulting people’s dignity and our Common Home in order to sustain the invisible tyranny of money that only guarantees the privileges of a few.”[108] That system, of course, was free market capitalism.

That was the key point: the problem was not one of personal greed, excess, or sin. “Inequality is the root of social ills.” According to Francis, the problems in the Western world are structural and cultural. The entire nation needed transforming.[109]

At the center of this “system” were the borders. Francis had titled the subsection of his Fratelli Tutti “without borders.”[110] At this meeting in California, facilitating mass migration was a central part of the discussion. San Diego Catholic bishop Robert McElroy took the stage and, in a booming speech, offered a call to action. McElroy had been appointed to his position by Francis and had teamed up with PICO in September 2015 to lead an event along the “Mexican border, unveiling a ‘Wall of Lament’ for families separated by illegal immigration.”[111]

“We must all become disrupters,” he thundered in Modesta, encouraging religious leaders and activists to obstruct US law enforcement efforts to locate and/or deport illegals. “President Trump was the candidate of disruption . . . Well now, we must all become disrupters.”

We must disrupt those who would seek to send troops into our streets to deport the undocumented, to rip mothers and fathers from their families. We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies, rather than our brothers and sisters in terrible need. We must disrupt those who train us to see Muslim men and women and children as sources of fear rather than as children of God. We must disrupt those who seek to rob our medical care, especially from the poor. We must disrupt those who would take even food stamps and nutrition assistance from the mouths of children.[112]

His speech was a loud echo of liberation theology.

“So let us see and judge and act. Let us disrupt and rebuild. And let us do God’s work,” McElroy finished to exuberant applause.

The program director of another Mackenzie Scott and George Soros–funded group, Faith in Public Life, tweeted that the address “was one of the most powerful speeches I’ve ever seen a bishop give.”[113]

The meeting ended with a call for general mobilization with several action items. “We urge every faith community, including every Catholic parish [emphasis added], to declare themselves a sanctuary for people facing deportation and those being targeted based on religion, race, or political beliefs.”[114]

When Donald Trump was elected president again in 2024, McElroy was promoted to archbishop of Washington, DC.[115]

The call went out from the Vatican itself. Francis and his church were supporting the full invasion of the United States and Europe by a wave of humanity propelled forward by an array of foreign actors bent on fundamentally changing the United States via demography.

Shortly after that meeting in Modesta, Francis issued a directive of Twenty Pastoral Action Points for the Church. It was submitted to the United Nations and offered as guidelines for what governments should do when it comes to illegal migrants.

- The substantial increase in visas and other legal avenues for the arrival and residency of migrants who would otherwise migrate illegally.

- The end to detention for illegal migrants.

- The end of the “safe countries” list by which to determine the provisional validity of refugee claims (persons could claim refugee status from countries such as the United States and Canada).

- The right to use and possession of bank accounts for “all immigrants” (legal and illegal alike, potentially opening the door to significant money laundering).

- Access to welfare and health services independent of their legal status.

- Access to “national pension schemes” (Social Security and potentially Medicaid, depending on how expansive one considers their definition of health services).

- Extension of citizenship or amnesty to “all refugees.”

- Declaration of amnesty and pathway to legality for all migrants who have lived in their host country for “a considerable amount of time.”

- Public funding to promote “a positive narrative of solidarity towards migrants.”[116]

In 2017, Pope Francis established a new Vatican office to oversee the Church’s activities with migrants and refugees called the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Francis directed its Migrants and Refugees section.[117]

One of the undersecretaries of the Migrants and Refugees section, Father Fabio Baggio, urged the West not to resist the wave of mass migration. “In recent times, more restrictive immigration policies have revealed worrisome manifestations of xenophobia and racism, raising questions about the international community’s commitment to the building of a ‘global village’ capable of appreciating differences while celebrating the unity of humankind.”[118]

* * *

The death of Pope Francis and the selection of Robert Prevost, Pope Leo XIV, to succeed him, has not dimmed the hopes and aspirations of the Catholic Church’s liberation theologians. Indeed, according to Brazilian journalist Marcelo Menna Barreto, liberation theology advocates “expressed greater enthusiasm” for the selection.[119] Frei Betto indicated he was happy with the new Pope, declaring that he would be a “counterpoint to Trump.”[120] He later added that Prevost’s decision to name himself after Leo was “a symbolism of someone who will adopt progressive policies.”[121]

Liberation Theologian Leonard Boff agrees, saying Leo will be “very consistent with [Francis’s] social positions.” Francis liked Prevost, Boff argues, because he “lived much of his life outside the United States,” and had been naturalized as a Peruvian citizen.[122] And while serving in Peru, Prevost was known to cite church documents “strongly influenced” by liberation theology.[123] He is also said to have met with the father of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez, while serving in Peru, and expressed appreciation for his work.[124] Boff believes that Francis was drawn to Prevost precisely because of where he was living and the worldview that he represents. His faith “did not belong to the old and already decadent European Christianity, he came from the Great South, with the pastoral and theological experience ripened on the periphery of the Church, in this case from Peru, where Gustavo Gutiérrez’s theology of liberation was born and developed,” says Boff.[125]

Cardinal McElroy, who gave the fiery speech on immigration in California and voted in the conclave for the new pope, is equally optimistic. Noting that Pope Leo “had a wonderful relationship with the late Pope,” he declared that the new pope “will follow much in the path of Pope Francis.”[126]

It is too soon to know the path that Pope Leo will take. There is also the question of whether the new pope, should he ever wish to change course, would be able to root out those individuals within the Catholic Church hierarchy who want to continue Francis’s legacy. What is clear is that a large faction within the Church shares the late pope’s views about the role and purpose of mass migration as a cultural weapon.

Pope Leo certainly appears to be more theologically traditional than his predecessor. Whether these progressives within the church are correct or only hopeful, time will tell. Leo is no Francis, but perhaps their ultimate desire is that the machinery they have established within the Catholic Church can withstand any changes Leo might make.

What is clear is that the Catholic Church has played a major role with foreign governments and movements to precipitate the greatest subversive act in American history.

Chapter 9

The Surge

On November 6, 2020, just three days after America’s presidential election, Mexico’s top officials gathered for a secret meeting.[1] With Donald Trump exiting the Oval Office and Joe Biden entering, Mexico looked forward to a dramatic shift. This was good fortune for Mexico.

There was business to do.

With Biden in office, Mexico would have a historic opportunity to act. During his campaign for president, Biden had declared that some illegal migrants in the country “are more American than most Americans are.”[2] All indications were that he was swinging the gates to America wide open.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) had been an outspoken critic of Trump, traveling throughout the United States in 2017 to fan the flames of opposition to the newly elected US president and his nascent immigration policies. As always, Obrador wrapped his Reconquista motivations for mass migration to reclaim portions of the American Southwest in the rhetorical cloak of “human rights.”

Now, AMLO waited as Mexican legislators quickly and quietly passed a law entitled “Various Articles of the Migration Law and the Law of Refugees and Reformed, Complementary Protection and Political Asylum in the Matter of Migrant Children.” The bill was never announced to the public, and when AMLO signed the legislation, there was neither a formal announcement nor press coverage. The stealthily passed law disallowed the detention of migrant families with minor children in Mexico and sanctioned the Mexican government to aid and assist migrant families arriving on Mexico’s southern border who were heading north to the United States.[3] It promised to propel a massive wave of humanity toward the US border in sync with Biden’s inauguration and his coming executive orders.

The Biden administration was no doubt aware of the bill’s passage. Despite its shattering implications, Biden revealed nothing to the American public and told no one outside of a few close aides.[4]

In December of that year, as the Trump administration was winding down, more than one hundred Cubans raced from Mexico across the International Bridge toward El Paso, Texas. They rushed past the Mexican border guards, but when they reached the US crossing point, they were met by a group of US Border Patrol agents who repelled them.

The Cubans retreated, for the moment, ominously taunting, “Bi-Den! Bi-Den! Bi-Den!”[5]

* * *

Both Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, and Nicaragua’s ruling party, the FSLN, were members of the São Paulo Forum. So, just weeks after Mexican officials passed that law, Mexico’s neighbor to the south, Nicaragua, turned on another faucet by dropping all visa requirements to visit the country. Now, anyone could come to Nicaragua whenever they wanted and emigrate to the United States.

Flights originating from around the world began arriving with clocklike precision at Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua, Nicaragua. This was the same airport where, forty years earlier, President Daniel Ortega had met Fidel Castro during the height of the Mariel Boatlift. At the time, Castro bragged to Ortega about how he was flooding America with undesirable refugees. Now it was President Ortega’s turn to imitate his mentor, although he would surpass Castro in both numbers and global reach.

The number of chartered flights every month landing at Sandino Airport ran into the thousands. Migrants from Africa, the Caribbean, India, the Middle East, and Asia arrived via airplane by the hundreds of thousands and then began their march north to the US border, assisted by Nicaraguan government officials who “suspended visa requirements.” Castro had mobilized 125,000 Cubans over five months; Ortega facilitated the mobilization of more than a million people into the United States from around the world.[6]

Over the following two years, four hundred thousand Cubans flew into Managua to make the trek north to the US border. If the Cuban government followed Fidel’s lead, then they would have infused these flights with criminals and psychopaths, who would then be steered north by the Nicaraguan government.[7]

Migrants arrived from Haiti too. In the late summer and early fall of 2023, 260 chartered flights from Haiti to Nicaragua brought more than thirty thousand people, most headed north to the United States.[8]

Others came from the far reaches of the globe.

In 2023, 6,500 migrants from Uzbekistan and other ex-Soviet nations arrived in Nicaragua to head north to the US border.[9]

Terrorists were easily placed among the migrants. The United States arrested eight Tajiks who allegedly belonged to the ISIS terrorist organization and were “unofficially presumed to have entered from Nicaragua.”[10]

Ortega also welcomed flights from Libya. A plane from Ghadames Airline arrived from Benghazi, Libya, carrying 356 passengers. How many more made the trip is hard to know.[11]

The surge of Muslim migrants now coming across the southern US border was so great that an American nonprofit opened an eight-thousand-square foot shelter in Tijuana, specifically for Muslims.[12]

Word of the Nicaraguan portal into the United States reached Africa and Asia, including Dakar, the capital city of Senegal. “In Senegal, it’s all over the streets—everyone is talking about Nicaragua, Nicaragua, Nicaragua,” said Gueva Ba, a migrant.[13] Migrants from Cameroon and Mauritania also flocked to Nicaragua and then headed north for the US.[14]

Approximately one hundred thousand came from India and crossed the US-Mexico border in 2023. That was five times more than recorded in 2019–2020.[15]

Ortega not only succeeded in a multinational invasion into the United States but also made money from it, charging every migrant a fee to enter his country.

“It’s a great business for Ortega,” observed Eduardo Enriquez, exiled editor of Nicaragua’s La Prensa. “You cause problems for the US and at the same time you cash in on those troubles.”

When Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Nicaragua in April 2023, he joined Daniel Ortega for a good laugh at America’s expense over the migration crisis. As Ortega explained, “We are not scared or worried” about what the United States might do about it.[16]

And the world would respond. In the first full year of Biden’s term, border patrol encounters on the US-Mexico border jumped 400 percent to 1.66 million. In 2022, they reached 2.37 million.[17] And that, of course, did not include the “getaways,” those who evaded the border patrol altogether.

Washington progressives rallied to keep the pipeline open. Some in the Biden administration proposed an “asylum transit ban,” requiring migrants to apply for asylum in the country they first entered, such as Nicaragua, rather than waiting until arrival in the United States. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and senators Alex Padilla, Cory Booker, and Ben Ray Luján rejected that practical reform.[18] Their rejection is telling: only if the ultimate goal was to flood the US with migrants rather than provide protection to refugees and asylum seekers would you oppose such an idea; it would hinder their quest for a cultural revolution.

Informed observers saw what was unfolding. Mexican journalist Alfredo Martinez de Aguilar described in 2023 how the mass migration pouring into the United States was a “demographic war” being waged against America, “a brilliantly perverse maneuver” that was ultimately seeking “to destroy the hated Yankee imperialism.”[19]

Beyond just pushing people to the US border, operators in Nicaragua created access to US public assistance programs for migrants through fraudulent accounts. The Biden administration’s parole program would allow migrants to enter the country on a parole basis if they could demonstrate they had a “sponsor” in the United States. Nicaraguan operatives charged would-be migrants $1,000 up front, which would buy them contact with an American willing to fill out forms promising financial support. Once the Department of Homeland Security approved the sponsor, the migrant would pay the other $4,000 to the scammers and head to the United States. The scam worked because USCIS did not “have the capacity to investigate whether the sponsors [were] fulfilling their promises of support.”[20] As a result, migrants who claimed to have sponsors but in fact did not ended up on government welfare programs.

The United Nations also fueled the flow of migrants by handing out debit cards and cash vouchers to migrants en route to America. The UN’s “Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan” included money to hand out cash to migrants in seventeen Latin American countries. The plan was to send $372 million in “cash and voucher assistance” for migrants in transit to the US. The United Nations noted approvingly that the Biden administration was creating “‘newly established opportunities for regular pathways to move to the United States of America’ for those who could make their way to northern Mexico.”[21] United Nations general secretary António Guterres, a former socialist prime minister from Portugal, had long pushed the benefits of mass migration to encourage cultural revolution in Western countries.[22]

For some reason, prosperous societies like the United States and Europe needed a revolution, while failing societies apparently did not.

The pipeline worked. Under President Joe Biden, the number of illegal migrants in the United States more than doubled over the next several years, meaning another ten million new illegal immigrants entered the US.[23] According to the US Census Bureau, in 2024, the United States set a record when the foreign-born population reached an all-time high of 15.2 percent, surpassing the previous high of 14.8 percent in 1890.[24]

Thomas Jefferson had worried that a flood of new migrants “will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave.”[25] No one in the Biden White House seemed to share Jefferson’s concern.

The United States had never experienced mass migration like this before, whether in terms of raw numbers or the global scope of the migration. In 2000, 98 percent of migrants detained at the southern US border were Mexican. In 2017, it was still 84 percent from Mexico and Central America. By 2023, 51 percent of those detained at the border came from countries outside of Central and South America, courtesy of the land bridge America’s enemies created and progressives helped to work at maximum capacity.[26]

Human smugglers saw their profits explode. Comprehensive surveys of migrants crossing the border indicate that 100 percent of their facilitators were affiliated with the drug cartels.[27] The profits were enormous. Patrick Lechleitner, the acting deputy director of ICE during the Biden administration, estimated that human smugglers had made $500 million in 2018. By 2022, that number was $13 billion. In 2021, John Condon, acting assistant director of international operations at ICE, put the number lower, at between $2 billion and $6 billion. Either way, it was still a massive payday for the cartels.[28] The cartels also saw the porous border make it much easier to move their people in and out of the United States.

The investments the drug cartels had made in backing progressive politicians had clearly paid off.

Word quickly spread that with the new Mexican law in place and the Biden administration in charge, traveling with a child was a golden ticket to entry—even one yet to be born. Diane Edrington, who spent twenty years as a volunteer health provider to US-bound immigrants in Panama, told journalist Todd Bensman: “They understood that if they were pregnant by seven months by the time they got to the [U.S.] border, they would be allowed to go through. I was told they got pregnant just for that reason. Everyone knew that this is the way to do it now. Let’s get pregnant and we can get through. That’s a free pass to get across. That’s common knowledge.”[29]

Of course, arriving at the border in late pregnancy not only got you into the country, but it also gave your child birthright citizenship.

If a migrant could not arrive pregnant at the US border, the next best option was to travel with a child—any child. Because migrants traveling with children received preferable treatment in both Mexico and the United States, a marketplace emerged in which children were borrowed or offered for rent to increase a migrant’s odds of being able to enter and remain in the United States. Some migrants abandoned the children once they crossed the border. Other children were pushed into sex trafficking. Children detained by Border Patrol were often placed in the hands of guardians or sponsors, where there was little or no follow-up to determine if the child was safe.[30]

Nonprofits like Catholic Charities and HIAS, which see mass migration as a mechanism for social change in the United States, ramped up their efforts to facilitate it. In 2021, HIAS received a massive gift from MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the third-wealthiest woman in the world. Scott funded the creation of an Emergency Department that collaborates with offices in various countries, which would include immediate assistance to migrants coming to the United States.[31] Federal grants to the nonprofit surged. The Biden administration gave the organization more than $350 million from 2021 to 2024.[32] And there were corporate sponsors too. Uber agreed to provide free or discounted rides for migrants visiting refugee centers outside of cities in Colombia and Mexico.[33]

Catholic Charities likewise saw its coffers explode with the influx of migrants.

The federal government granted the US Conference of Catholic Bishops $14.6 million for refugee and migrant support in 2019. With the influx of migrants, grants jumped by more than 800 percent to $122.6 million in 2022. Local Catholic charities saw their government grants grow too, as local and state governments kicked in. Catholic Charities of San Diego received just $12 million in 2020. By 2023, government grants totaled $65 million.[34]

HIAS made it a priority to assist migrants in their efforts to reach the United States as quickly and safely as possible. They promised “Help All Along the Way” on their website—until three days after Trump’s inauguration.[35] In the Panamanian town of Lajas Blancas, along a popular migrant route, HIAS erected a large map showing the best route north to the US, including information like altitude, bus stops, temperatures, and a “migration kiosk” locator.[36] Like the United Nations, HIAS also provided “cash transfers and distribution of non-food items” to migrants traveling north to the US border.[37]

Catholic Charities started lobbying for benefits for illegal migrants once they were in the country.[38] In not so many words, Pope Francis affirmed the Biden administration’s open-border policies.[39]

HIAS board members were politically juiced, primarily with presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, all three of whom aggressively pursued pushing immigrants through the citizenship vetting process during election years.[40]

Both Catholic Charities and HIAS also lobbied to broaden the definition of “refugee.” Traditionally, a refugee is someone at direct risk of persecution should they return to their home country. But HIAS wanted refugees to include those moving due to “climate change,” poverty, or high crime rates in their home countries. By that definition, argued critic Jonathan S. Tobin, “virtually every citizen of the countries of Central America should qualify.” (Perhaps that was the point.) He continued: “The idea that every person who is unhappy with their lot where they are currently living should be considered a refugee renders the term meaningless.”[41]

Both non-profits, which see migration as a key element of social transformation, had to be pleased about the broader scope of “refugee.” Advocating for the right to enter the country illegally became the central focus of many progressives. “The refugee movement is the civil rights movement of the hour,” explained Professor Angela Davis.[42]

* * *

When migrants reached the Rio Grande River, which marked the line between Mexico and the United States, the Biden administration effectively waved them in. The Department of Homeland Security began coordinating with Mexico’s immigration service so that “mass swims” could be organized. “We’re letting them know that there’s a group of people ready to cross,” explained one Mexican officer. The two government agencies communicated on an encrypted WhatsApp channel.[43]

The swell of migrants heading to the United States led to mounting media coverage of the human cost of the journey and the resulting deaths of migrants along the treacherous path. Secretary of State Tony Blinken was dispatched to the region to discuss solutions. The goal was not to stem the tide, but to make it more orderly. A major problem was the treacherous Darién Gap in Panama, a dense jungle that became a choke point. So Blinken hammered out an agreement that led Panama to open two new shorter and less rigorous routes, making the journey easier. The “Bilateral Agreement on Migration and Protection,” signed by Secretary Blinken, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Panamanian officials, increased the flow.[44] Panama was happy to oblige. The then-president of Panama, Laurentino “Nito” Cortizo, was a member of the São Paulo Forum.[45]

In the United States, local government officials handed out money to the new arrivals, no doubt aware that boosting their population levels would help them with federal grants as well as the allocation of congressional districts during the national census. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams handed out hundreds of dollars to hundreds of “asylum seekers” in the city, courtesy of a debit card issued by a company called Mobility Capital Finance. (It was a no-bid contract.) The cards were refillable and did not have names on them, and the contract was supposed to balloon to over $50 million if it worked.[46]

* * *

Chinese migrants surged into the United States too. Cuba started smuggling Chinese nationals into the United States; seventeen were caught after entering Key Largo, Florida.[47] Many more poured across the US border with Mexico, part of a sophisticated smuggling operation that enjoyed quasi-official status in China. A private network run by a “Chinese government agent” operated openly on social media. The so-called America Self-Guided Tour Channel identified US border gaps and offered advice on how to deal with US Customs and Border Patrol agents. It also included scripts on how to claim asylum and offered direction on how to detail persecution in China. “Be sure to prepare a story about your persecution in advance,” he counsels.

The administrator of the account, though, is not a Chinese political dissident; it is someone at the heart of the Chinese police state.

The American Self-Guided Tour was run by a “Jack W,” who described himself as a cyber police officer in China, part of China’s Ministry of Public Security. According to Jack W, his work duties included being “responsible for national security affairs, fighting reactionaries and foreign hostile forces.”

He even encouraged people to seek employment at China’s spy agency. “If you want to work for the Ministry of State Security, please use the method of participating in the National Civil Servant exam,” he told people on his social media channel.

In addition to providing detailed advice on how to infiltrate the United States, the channel also included plenty of Chinese Communist Party propaganda. On June 4, 2024, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the channel posted a picture of a military tank with the words: “Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Defeat of the Western-Backed Colour Revolution.”[48]

In 2019, there were 2,060 Chinese nationals apprehended at the southern border. By 2023, that number had jumped to more than twenty-four thousand.[49]

In the face of surging Chinese migrants, the Biden administration, far from tightening its procedures, loosened them. The vetting process for Chinese illegal immigrants was simplified by reducing the number of interview questions Border Patrol agents were required to ask them from around forty down to five.[50] While the FBI was warning of sophisticated Chinese efforts to penetrate the United States, the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Mayorkas required only five basic questions of Chinese illegals: “Military service,” “Universities,” “POB/Region,” “Employment,” and “Political Party.” Hardly the screening one would expect of thousands coming from a hostile country to the United States. As one former CBP agent shared, “This scaling back of the interview process fast-tracked the [release] of Chinese illegal immigrants into the US while making it more difficult for CBP agents to identify national security threats.”[51]

The Biden approach was to open the floodgates, not to halt the illegal migrants. Even the language changed: “Illegal alien” or “illegal migrant” were no longer correct. The White House instead issued fact sheets calling them “newcomers.”[52]

The Biden approach was not happenstance or incompetence. Even before he entered the Oval Office—even before he was elected in November 2024—Team Biden had been preparing for a surge as if they knew it might be coming. In October 2020, the Penn Biden Center, of which Joe Biden and many of his top aides were on the payroll, released a report titled: “A Roadmap to Rebuilding the Paul Vallely Refugee Admissions Program.” While the report got little media attention at the time, in retrospect, it was in fact a roadmap to what the administration unleashed. The report called for, among other things, a “wider Paul Vallely refugee protection policy” and “expanding processing for refugees from the Western Hemisphere.”[53]

* * *

Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro gave a televised speech to his nation, one of those typical bombastic, paranoid addresses given by megalomaniacal leaders. While he was on Venezuelan national TV, some observers were watching his phone, which was visible on his desk. The phone was buzzing with WhatsApp messages he was receiving about migrant activity in the United States. One of his closest aides was sending him a flurry of messages, all news accounts of Venezuelan criminal activity in the United States. Specifically, there were updates about the violence that the criminal gang Tren de Aragua was wreaking across America.[54]

Why would the Venezuelan strongman be monitoring criminal activity thousands of miles away? Just as Castro had watched the mayhem from Havana back in 1980, Maduro was getting real-time updates on his phone. Perhaps Maduro had been seeding the flow of migrants into the United States with criminals and psychopaths. After all, he had learned from the best; Maduro was a regular guest and had attended training courses in Cuba. What’s interesting—and damning—is how the crime rate in Venezuela dropped precipitously with Biden’s open-border policies.[55]

Migrants crossing the border illegally into the United States shared the same concerns as American law enforcement about who they were seeing on the road to America. “Who comes into this country?” one asked. “They don’t know. OK, I’m good, but how if they’re not good? How if they’re killers, psychopaths, else? No guarantee of that. Like, no security checks, no background check.”[56]

Venezuelans had suffered under the brutal dictatorship of Hugo Chavez and Maduro for more than a decade, and as a result, thousands fled the country. Up until the Biden administration, few of them ended up in the United States. According to Customs and Border Patrol, in 2019 they had apprehended just over 2,200 Venezuelans at the southwest border. By 2022, with Biden in charge, they had encountered more than 187,000.[57]

The Biden administration aided Maduro in his efforts to flood the US with violent criminals. On March 8, 2021, his administration granted Venezuelans temporary protected status in the United States, meaning that if they made it into the country, they could stay protected indefinitely. Congress did not approve the move; Secretary Mayorkas made the decision on his own.

The administration promised “rigorous security vetting” of migrants admitted into the United States through the program. The problem? They relied on the Venezuelan government to share information on the criminal records of those seeking admission. It was the same with other parts of the amnesty program, which included people from Cuba and Nicaragua too. The US has only limited diplomatic relations with Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and the governments of these three countries are openly hostile to the US. They were incentivized to push criminals into the United States, not to prevent them from coming.[58]

Tren de Aragua, the gang Maduro had been tracking on his phone, spread through the country. “These are killers,” warned Miami immigration attorney Rolando Vazquez. “These are career criminals . . . [Maduro] is just sending more.” In Miami, a Tren de Aragua gang member killed a retired Venezuelan cop who lived in Florida. “Our intelligence section who works very closely with the FBI has also identified that the most dangerous gangs in the world are now in Miami from Venezuela,” said Palm Beach County sheriff Ric Bradshaw. “They make MS-13 look like school kids.”[59]

Maduro had exported his problem. In December 2023, Bloomberg reported that the violent death rate in Venezuela hit a twenty-two-year low.[60]

* * *

Once the mass of migrants was in the United States, fraud exploded. Figuring out how to manipulate the law to garner official legal status became a central focus. Four people in California were arrested for running a massive marriage fraud scheme for migrants. Green cards for sham marriages was not the goal. The scheme included falsely claiming that their spouses had abused them, which gave them green cards under the Violence Against Women Act. This enabled them to “apply for lawful permanent status without their (fake) spouses’ involvement.” It was a scam replicated across the country.[61]

In other instances, illegal aliens claimed abuse by their citizen children, which also gave them a green card under the Violence Against Women Act. In New York, two lawyers were charged “for a massive and complex scheme” in which the father-and-son team “put together phony claims of US citizen children abusing their non-citizen parents so that the parents could get green cards.”[62]

Migrants who were detained by law enforcement and requested asylum often carried false papers. As Gabriella Sanchez of Georgetown University noted, documents are “frequently borrowed, purchased, or rented among travel documents from friends, family members, and third parties.” Migrants are quite sophisticated at “having ‘learned’ to perform foreign identities that may allow them to ‘pass’ for nationals or residents of a specific nation in order to be admitted into [the US] or to avoid detection and removal.”[63]

For some progressives, this fraud was a welcome political act, a form of “resistance.” According to Professor Tamara Caraus: “Acts of invisible resistance by illegal migrants include escape, hiding, destruction of identity documents, destruction of fingertips, false documents, false identities, false marriages, false visas, overstaying the visa.

“Becoming undocumented is usually a deliberate act and a strategic choice.”[64]

Some nonprofit organizations, funded by the United Nations, trained migrants on their way to the United States on how to request asylum. Those who said they only wanted to work and had not suffered any abuse while in their own countries were denied admission; that is not suitable for a claim of asylum. But the nonprofits hired psychologists who, in the questionable discipline of recovering “repressed memories,” coached the migrants on how to recall a circumstance valid for refugee status.

“The most common mistake migrants make during interviews . . . is that they are saying they are suffering economic hardship,” explained Enrique Vidal, a coordinator for the Fray Matias de Cordoba human rights center. “It’s not one of the criteria for refugee status. That may cover one of the true reasons why they are coming. They need psychological help so they can remember the situation they experienced.

“That’s the most important part of the process.”[65]

It was the largest demographic transformation in US history, orchestrated by foreign powers and their domestic collaborators with the purpose of forever changing American society for political benefit. President Biden was clearly looking for a political payoff. In May 2024, he sat down for an interview with a Spanish-speaking radio show, and the massive flow of people through the southern border became a central point of the conversation. Biden compared it to the migration from Ireland in the nineteenth century, and pledged to support the new arrivals. “It’s even a bigger influx now in terms of Hispanic voters . . . Hispanic-Hispanic citizens, who want to become citizens,” he unintentionally confessed.[66]

The goal was simple: Changing the country by changing the people. The only thing standing in the way was a political movement in the United States that was opposed to their efforts.

Chapter 10

Fighting Back

The title of this book suggests a political takeover, or coup, that is invisible. Its perpetrators would like to keep it so by framing the debate as whether or not America will be controlled by racist xenophobes. This frame not only vilifies anyone who questions mass migration and the subversive forces at work, but sanctifies and provides a cloak of invisibility to those with ulterior political motivations, who vehemently support it. Our adversaries have used immigration to establish political networks in the United States that we must dismantle to preserve our national sovereignty. However, any reforms must begin with a challenge to the false narrative or frame that serves to hide their true motives.

Mexico’s leadership class sees mass migration as a lever by which they can exert political control over vast portions of the US population. They tell us so. And they are using their networks within the United States to strong-arm their agenda, even placing government officials here to advance their interests and organize protests and other political activities. These officials have openly stated that these people are on the “front line” of “civil resistance” inside the United States. At the same time, the Mexican government works aggressively to prevent Mexican and other Latin Americans from integrating, labelling those who adopt American values and habits as “traitors.” They are working to create a US that is politically and culturally fragmented.

From the other side of the globe, China is engaged in a clash of civilizations with the United States on many fronts, but particularly as it relates to the weaponization of migration, manipulating our generosity to create an entire generation of young Chinese raised under the hand of the CCP, who are US citizens because they were born here before heading back to China in a matter of days or weeks. Whether they were born to parents who arrived here briefly as birth tourists or came from a womb rented from an American citizen, they will assume full rights as citizens of the United States from voting to taking on sensitive jobs. This is an unprecedented threat to our national integrity.

China has also manipulated other aspects of US immigration laws to create pathways to fund political campaigns in the United States and to have us train their military pilots.

Radical organizations see the influx of migrants as fertile ground for expanding their agenda, and there is evidence that they are correct. Islamists see migration as the mechanism for their civilizational defeat of the West. A Left-Islamist alliance has yielded impressive results, electing political figures here who bear the dubious honor of praise from the Iranian government.

Drug cartels see mass migration as a pathway to greater profits for their business of trading both narcotics and human beings. As a result, they are funding progressive politicians who are pursuing open borders and “end the war on drugs” policies.

Even significant elements within the Catholic Church see mass migration as a mechanism for radical social change in the United States, while masking their motives as simply biblical compassion.

The phrase E pluribus unum on the US seal, means, “out of many, one.” It denotes a coming together, a melding of peoples into one. This has been the genius of America, guided by shared principles and values. But certain foreign and domestic actors don’t want unum. They want radical political and social division to subvert our constitutional republic.

To counter this real threat, we must first recognize it, specifically acknowledging that political subversion is occurring through illegal immigration. Mass migration is not simply a function of geography or economics. It is organized. It was first tested as a concept in the modern era with the Mariel Boatlift and then maximized dramatically during the Biden administration. With a new American president, it could happen all over again unless we acknowledge its weaponization. When we acknowledge, for example, that Mexico’s interests in mass migration result from its hopes of reclaiming or reconquering—in some sense—the territories it lost to us in the nineteenth century, we can frame our negotiations with our neighbor to the south in the proper strategic context and adopt discerning policies.

When we acknowledge the reality that China uses immigration to manipulate and undermine the United States, we can also make serious policy changes for our national security.

We must also equally acknowledge how recent American presidents and other politicians have manipulated and weakened our citizenship laws for their own ambitions—and to our detriment.

First, we should ban the practice of dual citizenship in the United States. As we have seen, foreign governments pay for their citizens to become US citizens. Why? It is certainly not for our benefit. Dual citizenship means, at best, dual loyalty. We welcome people who meet the requirements to become US citizens. But they should also renounce their previous oaths and allegiances to other countries. Banning dual citizenship would likely require a constitutional amendment, but it is worth the effort.

Second, we should subject immigrants and refugees seeking admission into the United States to rigorous vetting and “ideological scrutiny.”[1] If you reject basic American values or are a member of a political organization that does so, you should not be granted entry into the country. For those who want to become American citizens, we should insist that English language and civic knowledge requirements are not diluted. Knowing what America stands for, how it works, and the basics of our language are essential to preserving our republic.

Third, we should ban political contributions from noncitizens. It makes little sense to allow people to fund our political campaigns who can’t vote and may not live here. Granted, the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case concluded that campaign contributions are a First Amendment right, and presumably, permanent residents in the United States have First Amendment rights. But the reality is that tens of millions of dollars flow into our elections every campaign cycle from foreign nationals, and these donations cannot even be identified as such. This is outrageous. Often, these campaign donations from foreign nationals are coordinated and directed, including by foreign governments. If the Citizens United case prevents a ban on these donations, at the very least, campaign contributions from noncitizens should be disclosed as such. We ought to know when foreign nationals are trying to get certain politicians elected.

Fourth, we must ban birth tourism and surrogacy as a means of citizenship. President Trump has issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship, and Senator Marsha Blackburn has introduced legislation to ban birth tourism. The Supreme Court will ultimately rule on Trump’s executive order. Can there be any doubt that foreign powers are manipulating birthright citizenship? Did the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, upon which the claims of birthright citizenship rest, intend to allow foreign governments to inject our nation with “US citizens” who never really lived here and grew up under a foreign totalitarian ideology? Did the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment intend to allow foreign nationals to mail their sperm and eggs to the United States, have a child born in an American womb, only to have the child sent back to their country as a US citizen? The very notion is ridiculous. As we have seen, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of these cases have occurred every year for more than a decade. The organized effort of the Chinese elite class is, by its very nature, a subversive act designed to undermine our country.

Fifth, we need to expel foreign diplomats and close the consulates of foreign nations that are engaged in political activities inside the United States. For far too long, we have tolerated the interference of so-called friendly countries like Mexico (not to mention adversaries like China) in our domestic political affairs. Whether it is trying to influence elections, coordinate “militant” activities on our streets, or sway public opinion by mounting protests, these are not the legitimate activities of a foreign outpost in the United States. We should have a zero-tolerance policy for this behavior.

Sixth, we should enforce laws that restrict the participation of foreign nationals and foreign political organizations in American politics. Foreign organizations should not be allowed to skirt the laws and try to elect their favorites to US office. By their very nature, these radical organizations have a foreign political agenda that is antithetical to core American values. Americans, not foreign radical organizations, should settle American elections.

Seventh, we need to review student visas vigorously. The Trump administration has rightfully done work in this area, particularly screening those who have questionable ties overseas or antisemitic views. However, prospective students should not only be scrutinized for radical foreign political affiliations. We should also assess what they are studying, particularly skills like pilot training that can have a military application. We should not be training the pilots of our adversaries. If an aspiring pilot from France comes to study in the United States, merveilleux. But if a foreign national from a hostile power such as China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran wants to come to the country on a student visa to become a pilot, we need to ban it.

Eighth, we need greater congressional oversight of the US citizenship process. Too many American presidents, out of political expediency, ignore the rules regarding criminal background checks, language requirements, and competency, to fabricate new voters and get themselves reelected. It is no coincidence that the three biggest years for new citizens were 1996, 2012, and 2022—all election years. As we have seen, this was accomplished by ignoring basic requirements and discarding criminal background checks. It is a federal crime for an applicant to file false papers in an attempt to get citizenship. So why is it so easy and painless for politicians to circumvent those requirements? There should be regular audits and greater transparency about how our citizenship admission standards are enforced and implemented by our elected officials.

The preamble to the Constitution reminds us that “We the people,” through our elective representatives, have a fundamental right to maintain our sovereign “Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility . . . promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” This includes our right to choose new citizens based on their good character and commitment to our constitutional rights.

Let us fight against subversion and welcome new Americans on this basis only.

This nation of liberty and justice for all that we call America is worth protecting.

Acknowledgments

I write this book as the son of immigrants, grateful that my parents came to this country because they believed in the American Dream. They have both passed, but I owe them a great deal, including my values, work ethic, and love for this country.

My books are all research-intensive, made possible by the team at the Government Accountability Institute (GAI). That begins with our leadership, and we are blessed to have Rebekah Mercer as our chairman, as well as Ron Robinson and Tom Smith as members of our board of directors. Thank you for supporting this important work and for your commitment to the truth.

GAI’s senior management—including Peter Boyer, Stuart Christmas, Seamus Bruner, Eric Eggers, Steve Post, Joe Duffus, Steve Stewart, and Rick White—deserves my sincere thanks for helping the organization continue to produce groundbreaking investigative work. I am grateful to Catherine Baer and Yoalys Castillo for the same. Our research team is second to none and includes Jedd McFatter, Price Sukhia, Peter Aagaard, Chris Fourcher, Paul Marchitti, Jack Andrews, Rush Tucciarone, Priscilla West, Samuel Schaefer, Brian Aguila, and Grace Glenn. At the same time, the GAI media team—David Lamb, Grant Holcomb, and Lucas Nuss—has been vital in getting our message out. I am also grateful to the interns who helped with this book: Jude Doer and Lucas Myers.

Eric Nelson at Harper has been my editor for close to ten years. I appreciate him more every year for his insight and support for my work. Thank you, Eric, for your confidence in me. A hat tip also needs to go to James Neidhardt for his assistance with the manuscript. My agent, Jonathan Brodnitsky at ATHOS, has been an enthusiastic advocate in so many ways. I am grateful for his friendship and energy as we journey through these ventures together.

My mother passed as I was finishing this book, which reminded me yet again of the importance of family. My wife, Rhonda, is forever patient and kind. Her grace never ceases to amaze me. I love her dearly, as I do my children, Jack and Hannah, as well as Raquel and Ava. Joe, Maria, Daniel, Adam, Rachel, Josiah, and Tank—I am grateful to have you in my life.

The author alone is responsible for this content.

Notes

Introduction

1.Shawn Hubler and Orlando Mayorquin, “Mexican Flags Have Become Republican Fodder, but Protesters Keep Waving Them,” New York Times, June 11, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/la-protests-mexican-flags-republican-reaction.html; “Los Angeles Rioter In Hamas Armband, PFLP Headband Waves Mexican Flag as Waymo Cars Go Up in Flames,” MEMRI TV, https://www.memri.org/tv/la-riots-waymo-hamas-pflp-mexican-flag-unity-of-fields.

2.Renaud Camus, You Will Not Replace Us! (Chez l’auteur, 2018), 138.

3.Renaud Camus, “‘There Is Nothing Extreme about Resistance to Invasion’: An Interview with Renaud Camus,” interview by Louis Betty and Ethan Rundell, European Conservative, August 16, 2024, https://europeanconservative.com/articles/interviews/interview-with-renaud-camus/.

4.Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon and Schuster, 1996), 198–206.

5.Edward Bernard Glick, “Who Will Be on Top at the End of This Century?” American Thinker, December 27, 2010, https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/12/who_will_be_on_top_at_the_end.html.

6.Kelly Greenhill, “Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement as an Instrument of Coercion,” Strategic Insights 9, no. 1 (Spring–Summer 2010).

7.Ian Stewart, “Mahathir Warns of Migrant Flood,” The Australian, May 7, 1997, https://worldservice.org/issues/junjul97/mahathir.htm.

8.Aaron R. Petty, “Migrants as a Weapons System,” Journal of National Security Law &Policy 13, no. 1 (2022): 121, https://nationalsecurity.law.georgetown.edu/journal/2022/12/16/migrants-as-a-weapons-system/.

Chapter 1: Proof of Concept

1.Kathleen Dupes Hawk, Ron Villella, Adolfo Leyva de Varona, Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980: The First Twenty Days, ed. Kristen Cifers (University of Alabama Press, 2014), 10.

2.“A Clear Policy for the Castro Tide,” New York Times, May 16, 1980, https://www.nytimes.com/1980/05/16/archives/a-clear-policy-for-the-castro-tide.html.

3.Jose Luis Llovio-Menendez, Insider: My Hidden Life As a Revolutionary in Cuba (Bantam Books, 1988), 387.

4.Dupes Hawk et al., Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, 31, 34.

5.Llovio-Menendez, Insider, 385, 388.

6.Quoted in Kelly M. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy (Cornell University Press, 2010), 93.

7.Dupes Hawk et al., Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, 62.

8.Ibid., 38.

9.Ibid., 41.

10.Ibid., 43.

11.Katie Springer, “Five Years Later, Overriding Crime Is Mariel Legacy,” Sun Sentinel, September 26, 1985, archived March 15, 2016, at https://web.archive.org/web/20160315091525/http:/articles.sun-sentinel.com/1985-09-26/news/8502100720_1_mariel-boatlift-criminals.

12.Alexander Billy and Michael Packard, “Crime and the Mariel Boatlift,” International Review of Law and Economics 72 (2022): 106094, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2022.106094.

13.Dupes Hawk et al., Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, 155.

14.Alex Larzelere, Castro’s Ploy—America’s Dilemma: The 1980 Cuban Boatlift (National Defense University Press, 1988), 230.

15.Quoted in Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration, 75, 93.

16.Fernando Morais, Lula: A Biography, trans. by Brian Mier (Verso, 2024), 253–54.

17.Darren E. Tromblay, “Hybrid Warfare at Home: Asymmetric Tactics Are Not Just Used in Ukraine, They Are Employed Against the United States, and Have Been for Quite Some Time,” Lawfare, August 29, 2016.

18.Larzelere, Castro’s Ploy—America’s Dilemma, 372.

19.Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration, 306.

20.Dupes Hawk et al., Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, 247.

21.“They’re Castro’s Convicts,” Washington Post, July 10, 1983, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/07/11/theyre-castros-convicts/8cbead9b-407b-41a8-aa7e-9985373430dc/.

22.Dirk Kruijt, Cuba and Revolutionary Latin America: An Oral History (Zed Books, 2017), 173.

23.Dupes Hawk et al., Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, 252.

24.Ed Newman, “Fidel and Lula Created the São Paulo Forum 30 Years Ago,” on Internet Archive, Radio Havana Cuba, July 6, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20221113060406/https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/nacionales/227675-fidel-and-lula-created-the-sao-paulo-forum-30-years-ago (the screenshot of the site was captured on November 13, 2022).

25.Guilherme Ferreira, “Latin American Bourgeois Nationalist, Pseudo-Left Parties Gather at São Paulo Forum in Brazil,” World Socialist Web Site, July 21, 2023, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/22/cvvs-j22.html.

26.Tatiana Cozzarelli and Sybil Davis, “The DSA’s 2021 Convention Consolidates Its Rightward Turn,” Left Voice, August 18, 2021, https://www.leftvoice.org/the-dsas-2021-convention-consolidates-its-rightward-turn/.

27.Carlos Fernando Timaná Kure, “La Adenda et Corrigenda del Grupo de Puebla al Foro de São Paulo: Mantener la Promesa Política Tras el Desplome del Socialismo del Siglo XXI,” Araucaria 26, no. 56 (2024): 211–35, https://doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i56.10.

28.Patricia Grogg, “Cuba’s Reintegration into Latin America; CUBA-LATAM: From Isolation to Reinsertion,” Noticias Financieras, LEXIS, January 9, 2009.

29.“Read the Full Declaration of the 24th São Paulo Forum in Havana,” ed., Nate Singham, trans. Aline Scátola and Pilar Troya, Brasil de Fato, July 20, 2018, updated June 24, 2025, https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2018/07/20/read-the-full-declaration-of-the-24th-sao-paulo-forum-in-havana.

30.Diego Ore, “How Mexican Narcos Use Remittances to Wire U.S. Drug Profits Home,” Reuters, August 18, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mexico-drugs-remittances/.

31.Sebastian Grundberger, “La Galaxia Rosa: Como el Foro de São Paulo, el Grupo de Pueba y Sus Aliados Internacionales Socavan la Democracia en America Latina,” Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, April 22, 2024, 35; Mike Gonzalez, “The Marxist Influence of the São Paulo Forum in Latin America,” The Heritage Foundation, August 30, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/americas/commentary/the-marxist-influence-the-sao-paulo-forum-latin-america.

32.Rina Guadalupe Serrano, “El Salvador Hosts São Paulo Forum,” United Press International, LEXIS, July 26, 1996.

33.Alejandro Peña Esclusa, The Electoral Frauds of São Paulo Forum (2023), 13.

34.José Crespo, video posted January 14, 2025, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/JoseCaldiniCrespo/videos/1383935145905196/.

35.Foro De São Paulo, “Final Declaration of the 20th Meeting of the São Paulo Forum,” August 25–29, 2014, https://forodesaopaulo.org/final-declaration-of-the-20th-meeting-of-the-sao-paulo-forum.

36.“Brazil’s Lula Repeats ‘Blue Eyes’ Crisis Comment,” Reuters, updated April 15, 2009, https://www.reuters.com/article/business/brazils-lula-repeats-blue-eyes-crisis-comment-idUSTRE53E76B/; Maureen Dowd, “Blue Eyed Greed?” New York Times, March 28, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29dowd.html.

37.“Memoria Del XXIV Encuentro del Foro de São Paulo-La Habana, Cuba—15 al 17 de Julio de 2018,” on Internet Archive, Foro de São Paulo, July 8, 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20190313203608/https://forodesaopaulo.org/memoria-del-xxiv-encuentro-del-foro-de-sao-paulo-la-habana-cuba-15-al-17-de-julio-de-2018/ (the screenshot of the site was captured on March 13, 2019).

Chapter 2: Mexico’s Reconquista of the US Is Real

1.“Efeméride Aniversario de la Suscripción del Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo,” Sistema de Información Legislativa de la Secretaría de Gobernación, February 8, 2023, https://sil.gobernacion.gob.mx/Archivos/Documentos/2023/02/asun_4487254_20230208_1675963010.pdf. He made his remarks on the anniversary of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

2.“Reconquista Territorial y de Derechos Humanos: AMLO,” posted February 13, 2017, by Reconquista.mx, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U1QV7hbMk4.

3.Jorge Nuño Jiménez, “¿Quiénes somos? El reto de la identidad estadounidense,” El Universal, updated May 9, 2024, https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/opinion/jorge-nuno-jimenez/quienes-somos-el-reto-de-la-identidad-estadounidense/.

4.“Sheinbaum Celebrates International Migrants Day: Wednesday’s Mañanera Recapped,” Mexico News Daily, December 18, 2024, https://mexiconewsdaily.com/politics/sheinbaum-press-conference-2/.

5.Mario A. Medina, “Que no le digan . . . ,” Agencia de Noticias Parlamento y Debate Legislativo, December 23, 2024, https://parlamentoydebate.com/2024/12/23/columnas/himno-migrante-legado-de-grandeza/.

6.Antonio Hernández, “Se ‘Recupera Territorio’ en EU, Asegura la Conapo,” El Universal, April 12, 2024, https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/cartera/se-recupera-territorio-en-eu-asegura-la-conapo/.

7.Felix Salgado Macedonio (@FelixSalMac), “Trump pelos de elote, ni creas que te tenemos miedo. Los Mexicanos estamos en nuestro territorio (California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, Nuevo México, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado y Wyoming) Vamos a recuperar nuestro territorio que nos robaron. ¡Viva AMLO cabrones!,” Twitter (now X), May 31, 2019, https://x.com/FelixSalMac/status/1134519937802919936.

8.Alberto Vieyra Gomez, “Fundamentalismo Yanqui,” Diario Imagen, March 14, 2023, https://comunicacionsocial.senado.gob.mx/sintesis/book/2023/03/14/SINTESIS/SINTESIS.pdf; “Alberto Vieyra Gómez,” Facebook, accessed August 11, 2025, founding director of the Agencia Mexicana de noticias (AMN), https://www.facebook.com/alberto.vieyragomez/.

9.Octovio Paredes Lopez, “Héroes Históricos de Procedencia Mexicana en los EU: Los Inmigrantes,” Crónica, LEXIS, January 23, 2025.

10.José Jaime Ruiz, “Manifiesto: America es nuestra,” Los Tubos, January 23, 2025, https://lostubos.com/2025/01/23/manifiesto-america-es-nuestra/. Ruiz is the winner of Mexico’s National Poetry Prize and is also a commentator for Televisa.

11.Quoted in Mark Krikorian, The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal (Sentinel, 2008), 56.

12.Roger D. McGrath, “The Reconquista of California,” Chronicles, October 2000, https://chroniclesmagazine.org/correspondence/the-reconquista-of-california/.

13.Quoted in Krikorian, The New Case Against Immigration, 63.

14.Ibid., 70.

15.Ibid., 64.

16.Kate Linthicum and Tiffany Hsu, “Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on L.A. Visit,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2014, https://www.latimes.com/business/la-me-brown-mexico-20140826-story.html.

17.“La Reconquista. 40 millones de Mexicanos en Estados Unidos,” May 10, 2022, posted May 12, 2022, by Escucha Diario, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BTKbV9AQbQ.

18.Sam Howe Verhovek, “Torn Between Nations, Mexican-Americans Can Have Both,” New York Times, April 14, 1998, https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/14/us/torn-between-nations-mexican-americans-can-have-both.html.

19.“Mexico: Migration, Labor,” Migration News 9, no. 7 (2002), https://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=2659.

20.Tim Weiner, “Mexico City Journal; Of Gringos and Old Grudges: This Land Is Their Land,” New York Times, January 9, 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/world/mexico-city-journal-of-gringos-and-old-grudges-this-land-is-their-land.html.

21.Nick Gillespie, “Unions ‘Own the Democratic Party,’” Reason, August–September 2010, https://reason.com/2010/07/19/mickey-kaus-interview/.

22.Antonio Friedl Zapata, “La Reconguista: El Desafío Hispano en los Estados Unidos,” Mendoza Today, July 3, 2023, https://mendozatoday.com.ar/2023/07/03/la-reconquista-el-desafio-hispano-en-los-estados-unidos.

23.Michelle Malkin, “Absolut Idiocy: Reconquista Vodka,” New York Post, April 10, 2008, https://nypost.com/2008/04/10/absolut-idiocy-reconquista-vodka/.

24.“Mexico Recuperará Territorio Robado Por USA| el Honor de Ser Mexicano,” posted September 21, 2024, by Vladi & Marta, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpX8QGoVBV8 (translated by TurboScribe).

25.McGrath, “The Reconquista of California.”

26.Catón, “De Política y Cosas Peores/‘Reconquista,’” MURAL, 7, LEXIS, July 27, 2023.

27.“1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Between Mexico-US Invalid, Politician Says,” Texas Border Business, updated April 26, 2017, https://texasborderbusiness.com/1848-treaty-guadalupe-hidalgo-mexico-us-invalid-politician-says.

28.Diego Oré and Anthony Esposito, “Mexican President-Elect Taps Heir of Leftist Icons as Her Chief of Staff,” Reuters, updated July 11, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-president-elect-sheinbaum-taps-lazaro-cardenas-chief-staff-2024-07-11/.

29.Edna Alcantara, “Interview: Legal Expert Says Mexico Has Strong Case to Sue U.S. for Lost Territories,” XinhuaNet, March 31, 2017, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-03/31/c_136174375.htm.

30.“Buscan Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas y Abogado Antonio Hamdam Anular Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo de 1848,” El Independiente, February 15, 2023, https://elindependiente.mx/nacional/2023/02/15-buscan-cuauhtemoc-cardenas-y-abogado-antonio-hamdam-anular-tratado-de-guadalupe-hidalgo-de-1848/.

31.Quoted in Krikorian, The New Case Against Immigration, 57; Susan Salter Reynolds, “Discoveries,” Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2004, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-oct-10-bk-reynolds10-story.html.

32.José Angel Hernández, Mexican American Colonization During the Nineteenth Century: A History of the US-Mexico Borderlands (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

33.Quoted in Henry Kamen, “La Importancia de Ser Latino en EEUU,” El Mundo, 17, LEXIS, November 12, 2009.

34.Quoted in Krikorian, The New Case Against Immigration, 57.

35.Jeordan Legon, “After the Party: Reflecting on Scars from Another War,” The Mercury News, LEXIS, May 6, 1996.

36.Nora Gámez Torres, “In Latin America, Russia Finds an Opening to Blast the US and Erode Support for Ukraine,” Miami Herald, updated April 21, 2023, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article274588326.html; Ido Vock, “Finland Accuses Russia of Aiding Illegal Migrant Crossings,” BBC, November 14, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67420564; “Poland Blames Russia for Migrant Smuggling amid Belarus Border Tensions,” The Times of India, updated June 7, 2024, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/poland-blames-russia-for-migrant-smuggling-amid-belarus-border-tensions/articleshow/110799017.cms.

37.Diego Jiménez, “‘Tarde o temprano’ México recuperará territorio perdido ante EU, afirma Rusia,” EjeCentral.com, March 29, 2023, https://www.ejecentral.com.mx/tarde-o-temprano-mexico-recuperara-territorio-perdido-ante-eu-afirma-rusia; Darlene McCormick Sanchez, “‘Weaponized Migration,’ A Coordinated Effort Playing Out Deep in the Panama Jungle,” The Epoch Times, March 4, 2024, updated February 10, 2025, https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/weaponized-migration-a-coordinated-plot-playing-out-deep-in-the-panama-jungle-5597754.

38.Juan Pablo Duch, “‘Tarde o Temprano, Recuperarán Vecinos de EU Territorio Robado,’” La Jornada, March 28, 2023, https://www.jornada.com.mx/notas/2023/03/28/mundo/tarde-o-temprano-recuperaran-vecinos-de-eu-territorio-robado/.

39.David Martosko, “‘I’m Mad, Y’all!’ Ocasio-Cortez Wipes Away a Tear as She Vows to Defund ICE over Death of 7-Year-Old Migrant and Claims Trump Hates ALL Immigrants—While Saying Latinos Can’t Be Illegals Because America Is ‘Native Land,’” Daily Mail, February 7, 2019, updated February 8, 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6679401/Ocasio-Cortez-wipes-away-tear-vows-defund-ICE-claims-Trump-hates-immigrants.html.

40.Doug Hubley, “Convocation Speaker Dolores Huerta to the Class of ’23: ‘We Have the Power,’” Bates College, September 4, 2019, https://www.bates.edu/news/2019/09/04/convocation-speaker-to-the-class-of-23-we-have-the-power/.

41.Steven W. Bender, Keith Aoki, and Sylvia Lazos, “Race and the California Recall: A Top Ten List of Ironies,” Berkeley La Raza Law Journal 16, no. 11 (2005): 12, 13, https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/288; “U of A Remembers Raúl M. Grijalva, Congressman and University Alumnus,” The University of Arizona, March 14, 2025, https://news.arizona.edu/news/u-remembers-raul-m-grijalva-congressman-and-university-alumnus.

42.Quoted in Otis L. Graham Jr., “Immigration and America’s Unchosen Future,” Negative Population Growth, September 2009, https://npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ImmigrationAmericasUnchosenFuture2009-fp.pdf; Otis L. Graham Jr., Unguarded Gates: A History of America’s Immigration Crisis (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 132. The late Graham was a distinguished university professor at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.

43.Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro, “The Bi-National Path to Immigrant U.S. Political Incorporation: Chicago’s Mexican Hometown Associations, State Projects, and Social Mobilization in an Era of Globalization,” (Ph.D. diss, University of Chicago, 2011), 59.

44.Heather MacDonald, “Mexico, the Meddling Neighbor,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2005, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-08-oe-macdonald8-story.html; Louis E. V. Nevaer, “Mexico Donating Spanish Language Textbooks to US Schools,” Albion Monitor, February 8, 2007, http://albionmonitor.com/0702a/copyright/mexicoschoolbooks.html.

45.Alexandra Délano, Mexico and Its Diaspora in the United States: Policies of Emigration Since 1848 (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 209.

46.Christine Murray, “Parents Burn ‘Decolonial’ School Textbooks in Mexico Culture War,” Financial Times, August 25, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/69bf7312-c593-4b76-8b62-a29fd2c5346b.

47.Mark Stevenson and Leon Ramírez, “In Mexico, Accusations of ‘Communism’ and ‘Fascism’ Mark School Textbook Debate,” Associated Press, August 8, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/mexico-school-textbooks-debate-75e304c8f9e8c33f1520b599a4cdb0ce.

48.Murray, “Parents Burn ‘Decolonial’ School Textbooks in Mexico Culture War.”

49.MacDonald, “Mexico, the Meddling Neighbor”; Krikorian, The New Case Against Immigration, 88.

50.Krystof Kozak, “Are Immigrants Disloyal? The Case of Mexicans in the US,” European Journal of American Studies 4, no. 2 (2009), https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.7629.

51.Nevaer, “Mexico Donating Spanish Language Textbooks to US Schools.”

52.Elizabeth Mayoral Corpus, “Mexican Consulate to Donate Spanish Books,” Imperial Valley Press, updated July 7, 2022, https://www.ivpressonline.com/featured/mexican-consulate-to-donate-spanish-books/article_a7d34d9c-fd5e-11ec-bc19-73e3d4522b1e.html.

53.Délano, Mexico and Its Diaspora in the United States, 210.

54.Nevaer, “Mexico Donating Spanish Language Textbooks to US Schools.”

55.Ryan C. Berg, Rubi Bledsoe, and Michael Ferguson, “Understanding the Impact of Remittances on Mexico’s Economy and Safeguarding Their Future Impact,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, January 15, 2025, https://www.csis.org/analysis/understanding-impact-remittances-mexicos-economy-and-safeguarding-their-future-impact.

56.Tania Molina Ramirez, “Los migrantes expresan en la música el temor de EU a la reconquista,” La Jornada, October 15, 2006, https://www.jornada.com.mx/2006/10/15/index.php?section=espectaculos&article=a10n1esp.

57.Maureen Dowd, “Blue Eyed Greed?” New York Times, March 28, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29dowd.html.

58.José Vasconcelos, La Raza Cósmica (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 10.

59.Emir Olivares and Andrea Becerril, “China responde a AMLO que ellos ‘nunca’ actuaron como colonizadores,” La Jornada, May 23, 2024, https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2024/05/23/politica/china-responde-a-amlo-que-ellos-201cnunca201d-actuaron-como-colonizadores-6820.

60.Vasconcelos, La Raza Cósmica, 24.

61.Robert Eli Sanchez Jr., “Spectres of Vasconcelos in AMLO’s ‘Cuarta Transformacion’?” 20th Century Mexican Philosophy (website), February 5, 2019, https://mexicanphilosophy.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/spectres-of-vasconcelos-in-amlos-cuarta-transformacion/.

62.Vasconcelos, La Raza Cósmica, xiv, xxii.

63.Quoted in Vasconcelos, La Raza Cósmica, 105.

64.Zalfa Feghali, “Book Review: Land of the Cosmic Race: Race Mixture, Racism and Blackness in Mexico by Christina A. Sue,” LSE Review of Books (blog), August 30, 2013, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2013/08/30/book-review-land-of-the-cosmic-race-race-mixture-racism-and-blackness-in-mexico/.

65.“History of UnidosUS,” UnidosUS, accessed August 12, 2025, https://unidosus.org/about/history/; “Our name derives from the term ‘la raza cósmica,’ meaning the cosmic people, which was coined by Mexican scholar José Vasconcelos,” in “NCLR: Myth vs. Reality,” UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza), accessed August 12, 2025, https://unidosus.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/NCLR_MythvReality.pdf.

66.Eric A. Gordon, “President Andrés Manuel López Obrador Promises New Hope for Mexico’s Future,” People’s World, December 7, 2018, https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/president-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-promises-new-hope-for-mexicos-future/.

67.Pablo S. Olmos, “López Obrador, on the ‘Pardon’ He Demands from the Spanish Crown for the Conquest: ‘I Think They Will Do It,’” El Mundo, updated February 21, 2024, https://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2024/02/20/65d4fb92e85ece74228b45ba.html.

68.Joe Stanley-Smith and Elena Giordano, “Spain to Boycott Mexico President’s Inauguration After She Snubbed King Felipe VI,” Politico, September 25, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-boycott-mexico-president-inauguration-claudia-sheinbaum-king-felipe-vi/.

69.“Funerales de Estado: 500 Años de la Ejecución de Cuauhtémoc. Zócalo de la Ciudad de México,” February 28, 2025, by Gobierno de México, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P331D5oUCfg.

70.Karen Juanita Carrillo, “How Hernán Cortés Conquered the Aztec Empire,” History.com, updated May 28, 2025, https://www.history.com/articles/hernan-cortes-conquered-aztec-empire.

71.“‘Somos Más Americanos,’” Golpe Político, February 3, 2025, https://golpepolitico.com/2025/02/03/somos-mas-americanos/; Tom Barnes, “Musicians Protest Donald Trump’s Racism with Song and Banner During the Latin Grammys,” Mic, November 20, 2015, https://www.mic.com/articles/128982/donald-trump-latin-grammys-somos-mas-americanos.

72.Mexico Solidarity Bulletin, February 12, 2025, Mexico Solidarity Project, https://mexicosolidarityproject.org/archives/213/.

73.Lawrence M. Mead, Burdens of Freedom: Cultural Difference and American Power (Encounter Books, 2019), 2–3, 11, 73–74.

74.Cameron Arcand, “House Dem Lashes Out at Critics After Calling Illegal Immigrants Her ‘Constituents’: ‘I Don’t Give a Sh——,’” Fox News, September 5, 2025, https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/house-dem-lashes-critics-calling-185354232.html.

75.MJ Lee and Haley Talbot, “GOP Congressman Moves to Strip Democrat from House Homeland Security Committee over Comments Made in Mexico,” CNN, August 8, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/08/politics/gimenez-resolution-strip-ramirez-homeland-security-committee-house.

76.Alejandro Portes, “Migration and Social Change: Some Conceptual Reflections,” The Center for Migration and Development, August 2008, http://cmd.princeton.edu/sites/cmd/files/working-papers/papers/wp0804.pdf.

77.The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire), “‘There’s no reason to assimilate.’ Eklas Ahmed, a policy analyst for Governor Mills’ Office of New Americans, vows to ‘fight for Sudan’ with all her capacities,” X, February 18, 2025, https://x.com/TheMaineWire/status/1891926124319399937.

78.Rick Goings, “Stop Telling Immigrants to Assimilate and Start Helping Them Participate,” World Economic Forum, January 14, 2017, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/01/stop-telling-immigrants-to-assimilate-and-start-helping-them-participate/.

79.“‘Para Nuestros Paisanos’, ahora AMLO pone en la mañanera ‘La Jaula de Oro’ de Los Tigres del Norte,” posted May 26, 2022, by El Universal, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT8x6n4l80c.

80.“La Reconquista Will Be Televised,” The New American 18, no. 23 (2002): 6, LEXIS.

81.Jorge G. Castañeda, Ex Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants (The New Press, 2008), 136.

82.Quoted in Susan E. Eaton, Integration Nation: Immigrants, Refugees, and America at Its Best (The New Press, 2016), 5, 6.

83.“UnidosUS Recognizes Affiliates for Local Efforts to Empower Latino Families,” UnidosUS, August 13, 2020, https://unidosus.org/press-releases/081320-unidosus-family-strengthening-award-affiliates/; Catalina Norby, “Healthy and Ready for the Future Raises Awareness and Promotes Mental Health,” UnidosUS Blog, May 26, 2022, https://unidosus.org/blog/2022/05/26/healthy-and-ready-for-the-future-raises-awareness-and-promotes-mental-health/.

84.John Fonte, “Dual Allegiance: A Challenge to Immigration Reform and Patriotic Assimilation,” Hudson Institute, November 2005, 10–11, http://www1.udel.edu/teachushistory/resources/nov2005.pdf.

85.Castañeda, Ex Mex, 144, 147, 148.

86.ABC News Nightline, June 7, 2001, quoted in Krikorian, The New Case Against Immigration, 64.

87.Nevaer, “Mexico Donating Spanish Language Textbooks to US Schools.”

88.Traci Carl, “Mexican President Blasts US for Deportations; Promises to Fight for Immigrant Rights,” Associated Press, LEXIS, September 2, 2007.

89.Dave Montgomery, “Summit to Take Up Immigrant Initiative,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, LEXIS, November 24, 2002.

90.Daniel G. Lehman, “Local Party Organizations and the Mobilization of Latino Voters” (PhD diss., Temple University, 2013), 71, https://scholarshare.temple.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.12613/1716/Lehman_temple_0225E_11453.pdf.

91.Gustavo Cano and Alexandra Délano, “The Institute of Mexicans Abroad: The Day After . . . After 156 Years,” prepared for delivery at the 2004 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2004, 26, 29, https://escholarship.org/content/qt9dd518xt/qt9dd518xt_noSplash_cea78f8660d2847a6996a7fb6fb5eb73.pdf.

92.Jane H. Bayes and Laura Gonzalez, “Globalization, Transnationalism, and Intersecting Geographies of Power: The Case of the Consejo Consultivo del Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (CC-IME): A Study in Progress,” Politics and Policy 39, no. 1 (2011): 21, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2010.00281.x.

93.Karla A. Valenzuela Moreno, “Los consulados y la institucionalizacion de las relaciones con las comunidades mexicanas en Estados Unidos,” Manifestaciones Políticas Desde la Movilización y los Espacios Simbólicos de Poder Cultural (2019): 283, http://dx.doi.org/10.35985/9789585522961.10.

94.Xochitl Bada and Shannon Gleeson, Scaling Migrant Worker Rights: How Advocates Collaborate and Contest State Power (University of California Press, 2023), 38, 55, https://www.ucpress.edu/books/scaling-migrant-worker-rights/paper.

95.“Angela Sanbrano,” Activist Video Archive, accessed August 12, 2025, https://activistvideoarchive.org/archive-library-2/2018/6/18/angela-sanbrano.

96.Bayes and Gonzalez, “Globalization, Transnationalism, and Intersecting Geographies of Power,” 16, 33, 38; Carlos González Gutiérrez, “The Institute of Mexicans Abroad: An Effort to Empower the Diaspora,” in Dovelyn Rannveig Agunias, ed., Closing the Distance: How Governments Strengthen Ties with Their Diaspora (Migration Policy Institute, 2009), 89, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-closingthedistance-2009-final-webversion.pdf.

97.Rodrigo Márquez Lartigue, “Beyond Traditional Boundaries: The Origins and Features of the Public-Consular Diplomacy of Mexico,” Journal of Public Diplomacy 2, no. 2 (2022): 77, https://doi.org/10.23045/jpd.2022.2.2.070.

98.Jane H. Bayes and Laura Gonzalez, “Organizing the Mexican Diaspora: Can It Strengthen North American Integration?” in Gaspare M. Genna and David A. Mayer-Foulkes, eds., North American Integration: An institutional Void in Migration, Security and Development (Routledge, 2013), 147, 148.

99.Quoted in José de Jesús López Almejo, “Mexican Lobbying in the US: A New Generation Understanding the System,” Voices of Mexico no. 99 (2015): 106, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328346946_Mexican_Lobbying_in_the_US_A_New_Generation_Understanding_the_System.

100.Bayes and Gonzalez, “Organizing the Mexican Diaspora: Can It Strengthen North American Integration?”

101.Gutiérrez, “The Institute of Mexicans Abroad: An Effort to Empower the Diaspora.”

102.“Interview with Cándido Morales, Head of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad,” Voices of Mexico, Center for Research on North America, UNAM, 2003, http://www.revistascisan.unam.mx/Voices/pdfs/6402.pdf.

103.Quoted in Mike Gonzalez, “Mexico’s American Diaspora,” National Affairs no. 64 (2016), https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/mexicos-american-diaspora.

104.Gustavo Cano, “Órale! Politics: Mobilization of Mexican Immigrants in Chicago and Houston” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2009) 5, 13.

105.Karla A. Valenzuela-Morena, “Transnational Social Protection and the Role of Countries of Origin: The Cases of Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, and Ecuador,” in Vanessa Bravo and Maria De Moya, eds., Latin American Diasporas in Public Diplomacy, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021): 32, 42, 44, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74564-6_2.

106.Bada and Gleeson, Scaling Migrant Worker Rights, 103.

107.Castañeda, Ex Mex, 117–19.

108.Katarzyna Marciniak, “Legal/Illegal: Protesting Citizenship in Fortress America,” in Imogen Tyler and Katarzyna Marciniak, eds., Protesting Citizenship: Migrant Activisms, (Routledge, 2014), 121.

109.John Rice, “An Old War Haunts a New Debate Between Mexico, United States,” Associated Press, LEXIS, April 30, 2006.

Chapter 3: Mexico: Organizing Militancy in the US

1.“Concluye el VI Foro Dreamers con gran entusiasmo y tareas,” Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior, June 6, 2024, https://ime.gob.mx/vinculacion/articulo/concluye-vi-foro-dreamers.

2.“VI Foro Dreamers 2024,” trans. by TurboScribe, posted May 29, 2024, by IME - SRE, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK16Dfv2cZI.

3.“Concluye el VI Foro Dreamers con gran entusiasmo y tareas.”

4.“Karina Ruiz se convertirá en la primera senadora migrante de México,” Carlos Slim Foundation, June 26, 2024, https://accesolatino.org/orgullo-latino/karina-ruiz-se-convertira-en-la-primera-senadora-migrante-de-mexico/.

5.Beatriz Limón, “Karina Ruiz Makes History, Taking Oath as the First Migrant and Dreamer to Reach the Mexican Senate,” Arizona Luminaria, August 26, 2024, https://azluminaria.org/2024/08/26/karina-ruiz-makes-history-taking-oath-as-the-first-migrant-and-dreamer-to-reach-the-mexican-senate/; “Karina Ruiz will be the First Migrant to Reach the Senate of the Mexican Republic,” California-Mexico Studies Center, May 12, 2024, archived August 14, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20240814024855/https://www.california-mexicocenter.org/karina-ruiz-will-be-the-first-migrant-to-reach-the-senate-of-the-mexican-republic/.

6.LUCHA Arizona (@LUCHA_AZ), “BREAKING: Blanca, an AZ immigrant youth confronts @SenatorSinema inside her classroom, where she teaches @ ASU. ‘in 2010 both my grandparents got deported bc of SB1070 . . . my grandfather passed away 2 wks ago & I wasn’t able to go to Mexico bc there is no pathway to citizenship,’” Twitter (now X), October 3, 2021, https://x.com/LUCHA_AZ/status/1444729925408153601.

7.Laura Gómez, “DACA Leaders Confronted Kyrsten Sinema on Flight, at ASU to Ask for Her Support. They Got Silence,” AZ Mirror, October 5, 2021, https://azmirror.com/2021/10/05/daca-leaders-confronted-kyrsten-sinema-on-flight-at-asu-to-ask-for-her-support-they-got-silence/.

8.Laura Gómez, “Immigration Advocates Shave Heads to Protest Failure to Pass Citizenship for Dreamers,” Tucson Sentinel, October 11, 2021, https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/101121_immigration_ruiz_shave/immigration-advocates-shave-heads-protest-failure-pass-citizenship-dreamers/.

9.Andrew Nicla, “Arizonans Join Hundreds in Raucous Protests Demanding Action on DACA,” Cronkite News, November 9, 2017, https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2017/11/09/arizonans-join-hundreds-in-raucous-protests-demanding-action-on-daca/.

10.“The Poor People’s Campaign Lead Protest at Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s Office,” Arizona Republic, July 26, 2021, https://www.azcentral.com/picture-gallery/news/local/arizona/2021/07/26/poor-peoples-campaign-lead-protest-sen-kyrsten-sinemas-office/5380889001/.

11.María G. Ortiz-Briones, “Could the United States Become México’s 33rd State? There’s a Movement to Do That,” Fresno Bee, August 5, 2024, https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article290663234.html.

12.“VI Foro Dreamers 2024.”

13.Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, “DACA Recipients Brace for New Trump Term, as Future of Program Is Uncertain,” NPR, November 15, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/11/15/nx-s1-5188091/the-likelihood-of-daca-ending-is-high-with-trumps-win; Hojun Choi and Dianne Solis, “Six to Watch on the Social Justice Front in Dallas,” Dallas Morning News, January 21, 2022, accessed September 2, 2024, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/inspired/2022/01/21/six-to-watch-on-the-social-justice-front-in-dallas/.

14.“VI Foro Dreamers 2024.”

15.Arleigh Rodgers, “For Undocumented Immigrants in Nevada, Health Care Options Are Limited,” Las Vegas Sun, February 27, 2022, https://lasvegassun.com/news/2022/feb/27/for-undocumented-immigrants-in-nevada-health-care/; “Maggie Salas Crespo,” profile, LinkedIn, accessed August 15, 2025, https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggiesalascrespo/.

16.“Concluye el VI Foro Dreamers con gran entusiasmo y tareas.”

17.TV Migrante (website), https://tvmigrante.tv/.

18.“Kamala Harris, la candidata demócrata oficial a las presidencia de EEUU,” Información Migrante, chapter 85, MX+, video, accessed August 15, 2025, https://mxplus.tv/series/informacion-migrante/11681/1.

19.“Que no te cuenten, los migrantes no son delincuentes,” Información Migrante, chapter 100, MX+, video, accessed August 15, 2025, https://mxplus.tv/series/informacion-migrante/11338/2.

20.“Sheinbaum Celebrates International Migrants Day: Wednesday’s Mañanera Recapped,” Mexico News Daily, December 18, 2024, https://mexiconewsdaily.com/politics/sheinbaum-press-conference-2/.

21.“#TvMigranteInforma: racismo, odio y negocios: el Modelo Trumpista,” TVMigrante Informa, chapter 1878, MX+, video, accessed August 15, 2025, https://mxplus.tv/series/tv-migrante-informa/14647; “#TvMigranteInforma: Trump inyecta recursos a la maquinaria represiva de ICE,” TVMigrante Informa, chapter 1881, MX+, video, accessed August 15, 2025, https://mxplus.tv/series/tv-migrante-informa/14254.

22.Maria de los Angeles and Galindo Sarmiento, “Adolescentes mexicanos nacidos en EEUU lideran protesta sin precedentes contra Trump,” Morena en el Exterior, February 21, 2025, https://www.morenaenelexterior.org/1903/adolescentes_mexicanos_nacidos_en_ee_uu_lideran_protesta_sin_precedentes_contra_trump.

23.“Violence Accused by Morenista Aspirants,” Noticias Financeras, LEXIS, December 8, 2023; “Margarita Zavala Reveals That a Morena Deputy Has a Criminal Record,” Noticias Financieras, LEXIS, October 20, 2021.

24.Alejandro Robles, “For the Good of All, Migrants Should Come First,” Morena, January 20, 2025, https://www.morenaenelexterior.org/for_the_good_of_all_migrants_should_come_first.

25.Rosalba Gomez, “Alejandro Robles Refuerza el Apoyo a la Comunidad Migrante Mexicana,” Morena en el Exterior, February 21, 2025, https://www.morenaenelexterior.org/alejandro_robles_refuerza_el_apoyo_a_la_comunidad_migrante_mexicana.

26.Ibid.

27.“Morena Tells Paisanos What to Do in Case of Arrest in the US,” Noticias Financieras, LEXIS, February 6, 2025.

28.Migrantes Unidos Con Claudia Sheinbaum, “Vamos en Unidad a Defender a los migrantes ante la amenza de deportaciones sumarias. MARG,” Facebook, January 20, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=430540483470454&id=100095435167971&set=a.105757015948804&locale=zh_TW.

29.Gomez, “Alejandro Robles Refuerza el Apoyo a la Comunidad Migrante Mexicana.”

30.“La Batalla por la Dignidad y la Lucha Internacional contra la Ultraderecha,” Morena en la Exterior, April 24, 2025, https://morenaenelexterior.org/la_batalla_por_la_dignidad_y_la_lucha_internacional_contra_la_ultraderecha.

31.Estefania Cruz Lera, “Local Political Opportunity Structure and Immigrant Political Incorporation: The Multifaceted Incorporation of Latinos in Chicago” (PhD diss., Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2018).

32.Ibid.

33.Ibid.

34.Patricia H. Escamilla Hamm, “How Transnationalism Facilitates the Participation of Mexican Immigrants in U.S. Politics,” Migracion y Desarrollo 7, no. 12 (2009).

35.See for example Mary Lynn Smith, “Many Area Businesses Join ‘Day Without Immigrants’ One-Day Boycott,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, LEXIS, February 16, 2017.

36.Rodrigo Márquez Lartigue, “Book Review 4. ‘Mexico’s Integral Consular Management in the United States’ (Chpt 6.) of Mexican Consular Diplomacy in Trump’s Era,” Consular and Public Diplomacies Blog, October 19, 2020, https://www.consulardiplomacy.com/home/book-review-4-mexicos-integral-consular-management-in-the-united-states-chpt-6-of-mexican-consular-diplomacy-in-trumps-era.

37.Nancy Montoya, “Tucson Mexican Consulate Info Hub for Whole Nation,” AZPM, April 7, 2017, https://www.azpm.org/p/headlines/2017/4/7/108627-tucson-consulate-serving-all-50-us-states/; Pavel Jacomino, ed., “Mexico’s Lopez Obrador Kicks Off U.S. Tour for Immigrant Rights,” Radio Habana Cuba, February 14, 2017, archived April 16, 2022, at https://web.archive.org/web/20220416105141/https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/internacionales/121581-mexicos-lopez-obrador-kicks-off-us-tour-for-immigrant-rights.

38.Paris Schutz, “Mexican Political Leader in Chicago,” WTTW News, February 20, 2017, https://news.wttw.com/2017/02/20/mexican-political-leader-chicago.

39.Andrés Manuel López Obrador, A New Hope for Mexico: Saying No to Corruption, Violence, and Trump’s Wall (Pluto Press, 2018), 11,12, 22.

40.Ibid., 25.

41.Ibid., 56.

42.Ibid., 37.

43.Ibid., 79.

44.Ibid., 92.

45.Ibid., 137, 139.

46.“Pide AMLO a Peña que actue con urgencia y de inmediato sobre el tema de los niños mexicanos deportados de EU,” Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) (website), June 19, 2018, https://lopezobrador.org.mx/2018/06/19/105774/.

47.Greyson Gee, “Mexican Election Interference,” Texas Public Policy Foundation, November 7, 2023, https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2023-11-SSF-Mexican-Election-Interference-Greyson-Gee.pdf.

48.Gerardo Fernández Noroña, “Conferencia de Prensa del Diputado Gerardo Fernández Noroña (PT), del 12 de Mayo de 2023,” speech, trans. by TurboScribe, posted May 12, 2023, by Senado de México, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nptnxsBlQ0I.

49.“New Regional Civil Rights Advisory Group Added to Better Defend Mexicans in US,” Gobierno de México (website), press release, August 24, 2019, https://www.gob.mx/sre/prensa/new-regional-civil-rights-advisory-group-added-to-better-defend-mexicans-in-us?idiom=en.

50.“More than 30 Latino Leaders Have Now Joined Voces Unidas for Education and Advocacy Program in Mexico City,” Voces Unidas, April 16, 2025, https://www.vocesunidas.org/post/more-than-30-latino-leaders-have-now-joined-voces-unidas-for-education-and-advocacy-program-in-mexic; “About Us,” Voces Unidas, accessed August 15, 2025, https://www.vocesunidas.org/about-us.

51.Alex Sánchez, “Guest Column: Authoritarian Approach to Immigration Enforcement Is the Wrong Answer,” Glenwood Springs Post Independent, January 31, 2025, https://www.postindependent.com/opinion/guest-column-authoritarian-approach-to-immigration-enforcement-is-the-wrong-answer/.

52.Miriam Estrada, “Inauguran en Washington la primera oficina de representación de Morelos para migrantes,” El Sol de Cuernavaca, January 19, 2025, https://oem.com.mx/elsoldecuernavaca/tendencias/inauguran-en-washington-la-primera-oficina-de-representacion-de-morelos-para-migrantes-21223077.

53.Enrique Sánchez, “Comunidad mexicana en EU vela armas: Fuerza Migrante,” Excélsior, November 24, 2024, https://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/comunidad-mexicana-eu-armas-fuerza-migrante/1686031.

54.Emilio Dorantes Galeana “Mexico Will Reinforce Its Consulates in the US in the Face of Possible Mass Deportations,” Wilson Center, November 15, 2024, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/mexico-will-reinforce-its-consulates-us-face-possible-mass-deportations.

55.“Mexico Will Defend Human Rights of Its Citizens in the US in Accordance with international Law: Foreign Secretary de la Fuente,” Gobierno de México (website), press release, December 27, 2024, https://www.gob.mx/sre/prensa/mexico-will-defend-human-rights-of-its-citizens-in-the-u-s-in-accordance-with-international-law-foreign-secretary-de-la-fuente?idiom=en.

56.Xinhua, “Mexico’s President Pledges to Defend Country’s Sovereignty, Independence,” China Daily Hong Kong, August 11, 2025, https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/617751.

57.“Ing. Luis Gutiérrez Reyes,” directory, Gobierno de México (website), accessed August 15, 2025, https://www.gob.mx/ime/estructuras/luis-gutierrez-reyes.

58.“Retos y Compromisos en el 2025,” Casa de Mexico, Instituto de Los Mexicanos En El Exterior, December 2024, archived February 13, 2025, at https://web.archive.org/web/20250213153927/https://ime.red/casa-de-mexico/2025/01/retos-y-compromisos-en-el-2025/.

59.Janette Villafana, “Thousands Marched on Downtown LA and Shut Down the 101 Freeway to Protest Trump’s Mass Deportation Threats,” L.A. Taco, February 3, 2025, https://lataco.com/downtown-la-march-deportation-threats.

60.Larry Rohter, “The United States of Los Tigres,” New York Times, June 27, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/arts/music/los-tigres-del-norte-breaks-boundaries.html.

61.“Mexicanos responden a Trump con poderosa canción: ‘Somos más americanos,’” Maya Comunicación, January 27, 2025, https://mayacomunicacion.com.mx/mexicanos-responden-a-trump-con-poderosa-cancion-somos-mas-americanos/.

62.Alejandro Robles, “La Revolución de las conciencias, con Alejandro Robles (Secretario de mexican@s en el exterior),” interview by Daniela Campero, April 27, 2025, posted by INFP Morena, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_6LvjxVUys.

63.Sammie Seamon, “On Day Without Immigrants, a Group Marches from the UN to Times Square in New York,” El Molino Informativo, February 6, 2025, https://molinoinformativo.com/2025/02/06/on-day-without-immigrants-a-group-marches-from-the-u-n-to-times-square-in-new-york/.

64.Kaitlin Washburn, “Chicago Immigrant Advocates Plan ‘Full Week of Civil Disobediences’ Kicking off on May Day,” Chicago Sun-Times, February 26, 2025, https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/02/26/chicago-immigrant-advocate-week-civil-disobediences-may-day; Lexi Sutter, “Protesters Block Traffic in Chicago’s Loop Amid Nationwide May Day Demonstrations,” NBC 5 Chicago, May 1, 2025, https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/protesters-block-traffic-in-chicagos-loop-amid-nationwide-may-day-demonstrations/3735604/.

65.“Labor Notes National Call: Union Solidarity with Immigrant Workers,” Labor Notes, January 6, 2025, https://labornotes.org/events/2024/labor-notes-national-call-union-solidarity-immigrant-workers.

66.“Immigration Reform Fizzles,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, August 23, 2013, https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2013/08/23/immigration-reform-fizzles/29194611007/.

67.Leon Fink, “Labor Joins la Marcha: How New Immigrant Activists Restored the Meaning of May Day,” in Amalia Pallares and Nilda Flores-Gonzalez, eds., Marcha! Latino Chicago and the Immigrant Rights Movement (University of Illinois Press, 2010), p. 113.

68.Excellentor, “Peligra el Negocio del Beisbol por el Boicot Contra Arizona,” Vanguardia, September 22, 2015, https://vanguardia.com.mx/deportes/2892855-peligra-el-negocio-del-beisbol-por-el-boicot-contra-arizona-KQVG2892855; “Staff,” Arise Chicago, accessed September 6, 2025, https://www.arisechicago.org/staff; Gustavo Cano, “Órale! Politics: Mobilization of Mexican Immigrants in Chicago and Houston” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2009), ProQuest (3348429); “Diputado Jorge Mujica Murias,” Sistema de Información Legislativa, accessed September 6, 2025, https://sil.gobernacion.gob.mx/Librerias/pp_PerfilLegislador.php?SID=&Referencia=9227960.

69.Ioan Grillo, “The Rise of Donald Trump Sparks Anger and Laughter in Mexico,” Time, August 22, 2015, https://time.com/4007160/donald-trump-mexico/.

70.Sutter, “Protesters Block Traffic in Chicago’s Loop Amid Nationwide May Day Demonstrations.”

71.Manuel Martínez Santamaría, “Organizaciones de Chicago firman manifiesto contra las políticas de Trump,” El Sur, March 26, 2025, https://suracapulco.mx/impreso/1/organizaciones-de-chicago-firman-manifiesto-contra-las-politicas-de-trump/; “May Day Actions Demand Protection for Immigrants,” Labor Network for Sustainability, accessed August 15, 2025, https://www.labor4sustainability.org/articles/may-day-actions-demand-protection-for-immigrants/.

72.Kari Lydersen, “The Year that We Lived in the Streets,” El Beisman, December 2, 2019, https://www.elbeisman.com/v2/2019/12/02/the-year-that-we-lived-in-the-streets/.

73.Quoted in Leonard G. Ramirez, José Perales-Ramos, and Josée Antonio Arellano, “Marchando al Futuro: Latino Immigrant Rights Leadership In Chicago,” in Pallares and Flores-Gonzáalez, eds., Marcha! Latino Chicago and the Immigrant Rights Movement, 128.

74.Taylor Seely and Alexandra Hardle, “Thousands March Against Trump,” Arizona Republic, May 2, 2025, https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-arizona-republic/20250502/281479282288486; Karina Ruiz (@karina_migrante), “¡Que la lucha siga hasta que todos los derechos laborales sean una realidad para tod@s! Hoy me sumé al #ArizonaMayDayMarch, porque alzar la voz por los derechos laborales es honrar la lucha de quienes nos precedieron y defender la dignidad de quienes hoy construyen con su trabajo nuestras comunidades,” Twitter (now X), May 1, 2025, https://x.com/karina_migrante/status/1918132786336014723.

75.Karina Ruiz, “Si se van los migrantes, la economía no va a crecer. La senadora migrante mexicana Karina Ruiz dijo que esta lucha ha cruzado fronteras, ya que mexicanos de los dos lados siguen peleando por el reconocimiento y el respeto de las garantías laborales. Algo que, para ella, como migrante no es nuevo,” interview, posted May 2, 2025, by conectaarizona, TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/@conectaarizona/video/7499923747730935086.

76.Aniceto Polanco, “They Call Undocumented People to Take to the Streets, to Raise Their Voices, on May 1 to Demand a General Amnesty,” California-Mexico Studies Center, April 2, 2024, https://www.california-mexicocenter.org/convocan-a-indocumentados-a-salir-a-la-calle-a-alzar-la-voz-el-1-de-mayo-para-exigir-una-amnistia-general/.

77.Polanco Cheto Aniceto, “Es admirable como los jóvenes an tomado las calles para defender a sus padres y familias, Trump se equivocó al meterse con esta generación, jóvenes ustedes son el futuro de esta nación, ánimo,” Facebook, February 2, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3964955477165976.

78.Morena Placita Olvera Los Angeles, “Do you want to keep getting to know the brownist militancy from abroad? Don’t miss the 8th Transatlantic Dialogue of Morena Committees Abroad this Sunday, May 25 at 13:00 CDMX time,” Facebook, May 23, 2025.

79.Ruben Vives, “Neighborhood Patrol Is on Lookout for ICE and Immigrant Rights; Coalition’s Goal Is to Spot Federal Agents in Communities and Alert Locals on Social Media,” Los Angeles Times, LEXIS, March 3, 2025.

80.Billal Rahman, “ICE Agents Tracked in California: What to Know,” Newsweek, LEXIS, February 21, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/ice-agents-tracked-california-what-know-2034420.

81.@uniondelbarrio, “Support needed NOW!!! Massive ICE activity - The community has taken over the streets and need more support,” Instagram, June 7, 2025, https://www.instagram.com/p/DKm-oYENK3e/.

82.“Self-Determination, Liberation & A Unified Nuestra América,” Unión del Barrio, accessed August 15, 2025, https://uniondelbarrio.org/main/4-2/about-udb/political-program/what-we-want/i-self-determination-liberation-a-unified-nuestra-america/; “This is ‘Nuestra América’ – We Are Indigenous Nations,” Unión del Barrio, accessed August 15, 2025, https://uniondelbarrio.org/main/4-2/about-udb/political-program/who-we-are/ii-this-is-nuestra-america-we-are-indigenous-nations/.

83.Glenn Beck, “‘Glenn Beck’: Neutralizing the Truth,” Fox News, LEXIS, May 10, 2010, https://www.foxnews.com/story/glenn-beck-neutralizing-the-truth.

84.La 4TV (@la_4tv), “#EntrevistaLa4TV a Alejandro Robles @alejandrorobmx, secretario de Mexicanos y Mexicanas en el Exterior, nos habla sobre el poyo del Gobierno de México a migrantes,” X, June 6, 2025, https://x.com/la_4tv/status/1931124593278046478. This was reposted by Mr. Robles.

85.“Entrevista con Alejandro Robles—Secretario de Mexicanos y Mexicanas en el Exterior,” interview, posted January 23, 2025, by La 4TV, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP-2wvUcSQw (translated by TurboScribe).

86.Gerardo Fernández Noroña, “Noroña Press Conference June 9, 2025,” press conference, posted June 9, 2025, by 4T México, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2VBvhtz4lk.

87.Gerardo Fernández Noroña, “Los Ángeles es tierra migrante,” Facebook, June 9, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/fernandeznorona/videos/1906410430132952.

88.TV Migrante (@TvMigrante), “#TvMigranteInforma. En #LosÁngeles, #California, continúa la represión hacia las protestas de la comunidad latina en #EEUU contra las políticas migratorias del presidente #DonaldTrump, quien desplegó 2 mil elementos de la Guardia Nacional para ‘contener’ las manifestaciones, pasando por alto la opinión del gobernador californiano, @GavinNewsom,” X, June 8, 2025, https://x.com/TvMigrante/status/1931899128847470703.

89.Polanco Cheto Aniceto, “Así las cosas, nuestra raza por nuestra raza,” Facebook, June 7, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/chetopolanco/, reposted from Veronica Soria, “ESTOY LLORANDO CON ESTO 😭😭😭,” Facebook, June 7, 2025, accessed September 6, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/reel/716269674116775.

90.Polanco Cheto Aniceto, “Por nuestra Raza. Viva Mexico,” Facebook, June 2025, accessed August 15, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/chetopolanco/videos/1008101848197873.

91.Ibid.

Chapter 4: Voter Mills

1.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA, Hearing, Before the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, 106th Cong. (2000) (letter from Robert L. Ashbaugh, Deputy Inspector General of U.S. Department of Justice, section vii, “White House/NPR Involvement in the CUSA Program”), LEXIS; Randy Shaw, Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century (University of California Press, 2008), 199.

2.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, section vii, “White House/NPR Involvement in the CUSA Program”).

3.Peter J. Duignan, “Making and Remaking America: Immigration into the United States,” Hoover Institution, September 15, 2003.

4.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, section i, “Introduction”).

5.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, section vii, “White House/NPR Involvement in the CUSA Program”).

6.Michael Lewis, “Bill Clinton’s Garbage Man,” New York Times, September 21, 1997, https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/21/magazine/bill-clinton-s-garbage-man.html

7.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, section vii, “White House/NPR Involvement in the CUSA Program”).

8.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, executive summary).

9.Ibid.

10.Ibid.

11.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, section vii, “White House/NPR Involvement in the CUSA Program”).

12.Shaw, Beyond the Fields, 203; “WFF 1997 Report to the USCCB on the CHD,” Wanderer Forum Foundation, September 26, 1997.

13.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, executive summary); Ian Smith, “The White House and Soros-Backed Open Borders Group Strategize About Bribing Immigrants to Naturalize Before 2016,” Daily Caller, April 23, 2015, https://dailycaller.com/2015/04/23/the-white-house-and-soros-backed-open-borders-group-strategize-about-bribing-immigrants-to-naturalize-before-2016/.

14.Ibid.

15.Ibid.

16.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, section vii, “White House/NPR Involvement in the CUSA Program”).

17.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, executive summary).

18.Ibid.

19.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, section vii, “White House/NPR Involvement in the CUSA Program”).

20.Ibid.

21.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, executive summary).

22.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, section vii, “White House/NPR Involvement in the CUSA Program”).

23.Immigration Control and Financial Responsibility Act of 1996: Hearings on H.R. 2202, before the subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice, 104th Cong. (1996) (opening statement of Representative Mark Souder, Presiding Chairman of House Government Reform and Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice), LEXIS.

24.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, section vii, “White House/NPR Involvement in the CUSA Program”).

25.Ruth Larson, “Dornan Cites 1,789 Illegal Votes; Lawyer Accuses Hispanic Group of ‘Systematic Conspiracy,’” Washington Times, LEXIS, February 8, 1997; H. G. Reza, “Illegal Lottery Tied to Voter Registration Alleged,” Los Angeles Times, February 5, 1997, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-02-05-mn-25758-story.html.

26.Peter M. Warren and H. G. Reza, “Voter Group Aided in Fraud, Probe Alleges,” Los Angeles Times, February 5, 1997; “No Indictments in OC Voter Fraud Case,” United Press International, December 19, 1997.

27.Nancy Cleeland and Dexter Filkins, “Voting Dispute Deepens Rift Over Latino Group,” Los Angeles Times, December 29, 1996, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-29-mn-13645-story.html.

28.Justice Department Inspector General’s Investigation of Citizenship USA (letter from Ashbaugh, executive summary); Eric Lichtblau, “Gore’s Aides Faulted in INS Inquiry,” Los Angeles Times, LEXIS, August 1, 2000; David Schippers, Sellout: The Inside Story of President Clinton’s Impeachment (Regnery Publishing, 2000).

29.Schippers, Sellout, 46–47.

30.“The Effects of USCIS Adjudication Procedures and Policies on Fraud Detection by Immigration Services Officers,” Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, January 2012.

31.West Wing, season 3, episode 3, “Ways and Means,” written by Aaron Sorkin, Eli Attie, and Gene Sperling, directed by Alex Graves, aired October 24, 2001, on NBC. Note that the discussion was condensed to salient statements.

32.Sascha-Dominik, Dov Bachmann, and Anthony Paphiti, “Mass Migration as a Hybrid Threat?—A Legal Perspective,” Polish Political Science Yearbook 50, no. 1 (2021): 128–29; Rosie Campbell, “The Puzzle of the People Least Likely to Vote Tory,” BBC News, October 14, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45765496.

33.Tom Whitehead, “Labour Wanted Mass Immigration to Make UK More Multicultural, Says Former Adviser,” Daily Telegraph, October 23, 2009, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html.

34.Ann Coulter, ¡Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole (Regnery Publishing, 2015), 67.

35.Jorge G. Castañeda, The Mexican Shock: Its Meaning for the US (The New Press, 1995), 13.

36.Ron Hayduk, Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States (Routledge, 2006) 41.

37.Salvador Guerrero, “Mario Obledo Leaves a Heartfelt Legacy of Victories for Latinos,” Borderzine, October 7, 2010, https://borderzine.com/2010/10/mario-obledo-leaves-a-heartfelt-legacy-of-victories-for-latinos/.

38.“Mario Obledo,” Discover the Networks, accessed August 15, 2025, https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individuals/mario-obledo/.

39.Ruth Milkman, Deepak Bhargava, and Penny Lewis, eds., Immigration Matters: Movements, Visions, and Strategies for a Progressive Future (The New Press, 2021), 303.

40.Winnie Hu, “New York Gears Up for Fight to Count 1.8 Million Noncitizens in Census,” New York Times, June 19, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/nyregion/nyc-2030-census-immigrants.html.

41.Congressman Troy Nehls, “Wow. Democrat Rep. Yvette Clark said the quiet part out loud,” Facebook, July 22, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1658886974906560.

42.Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler, “The Impact of Legal and Illegal Immigration on the Apportionment of Seats in the US House of Representatives in 2020,” Center for Immigration Studies, December 19, 2019, https://cis.org/Report/Impact-Legal-and-Illegal-Immigration-Apportionment-Seats-US-House-Representatives-2020.

43.D. Taylor, “The Nevada Turnaround: Immigrant Workers Build Political Power,” in Milkman, Bhargava, and Lewis, eds., Immigration Matters, 131.

44.“The Citizenship Project,” The Culinary Union (website), accessed August 16, 2025, https://m.culinaryunion226.org/affiliates/citizenship.

45.“Citizenship Project: Working with Immigrants to Realize the Dream of Citizenship,” Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc (CLINIC), September 17, 2018, https://www.cliniclegal.org/stories/citizenship-project-working-immigrants-realize-dream-citizenship.

46.Trevor Loudon, “How One California Marxist Is Indoctrinating Millions of School Children,” Epoch Times, updated August 28, 2019, https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/how-one-california-marxist-is-indoctrinating-millions-of-school-children-2899563.

47.Xochitl Bada and Shannon Gleeson, Scaling Migrant Worker Rights: How Advocates Collaborate and Contest State Power (University of California Press, 2023), 38. The founder of the CC-IME explained that the body was created for this purpose: “Mexico needs Mexican Americans to lobby the US government to make decisions favorable to Mexico.” Quoted in Jane H. Bayes and Laura Gonzalez, “Globalization, Transnationalism, and Intersecting Geographies of Power: The Case of the Consejo Consultivo del Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (CC-IME): A Study in Progress,” Politics and Policy 39, no. 1 (2011): https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2010.00281.x.

48.Paul Kengor, “How Barack Obama Fundamentally Transformed the United States,” National Catholic Register, January 12, 2017, https://www.ncregister.com/news/how-barack-obama-fundamentally-transformed-the-united-states.

49.Chris Zepeda-Millán, Latino Mass Mobilization: Immigration, Racialization, and Activism (Cambridge University Press, 2017), 188; Michael Nelson, “Barack Obama: Life Before the Presidency,” Miller Center, University of Virginia, accessed August 16, 2025, https://millercenter.org/president/obama/life-before-the-presidency.

50.Joan Walsh, “The 2008 Democratic Primary Was Far Nastier Than 2016’s,” The Nation, April 11, 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-2008-democratic-primary-was-far-nastier-than-2016s/.

51.David J. Garrow, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama (William Morrow, 2017), 1034.

52.Marcel Paret, Sofya Aptekar, and Shannon Gleeson, “Capitalism and the Immigrant Rights Movement in the United States,” Socialism and Democracy 34, no. 1 (2020): 9, https://doi.org/10.1080/08854300.2019.1674078.

53.Daniel E. Horowitz, Stolen Sovereignty: How to Stop Unelected Judges from Transforming America (WND Books, 2016), 152–53.

54.Ibid., 153.

55.Ibid., 155.

56.See letter to the Honorable Janet Napolitano from Senator Chuck Grassley, October 14, 2010, https://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/articles/2010/sen-grassley-letter-oct-14.pdf.

57.Ibid.

58.“Applications for Immigration Benefits,” chart, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, August 2010, accessed August 16, 2025, https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/applications-for-benefits-2010-aug.pdf.

59.Safeguarding the Integrity of the Immigration Benefits Adjudication Process, Hearing, February 15, 2012, Before the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, 112th Cong. (2012) (statement of Charles K. Edwards, Acting Inspector General).

60.“The Effects of USCIS Adjudication Procedures and Policies on Fraud Detection by Immigration Services Officers,” Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, January 2012.

61.Hans A. von Spakovsky, “DACA Is Not What Liberals Say It Is. Here Are the Facts,” The Heritage Foundation, December 4, 2017, https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/daca-not-what-the-democrats-say-it-here-are-the-facts.

62.“White House Task Force on New Americans,” The White House of President Barack Obama, accessed August 16, 2025, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/350671.

63.“Strengthening Communities by Welcoming All Residents: A Federal Strategic Action Plan on Immigrant & Refugee Integration,” The White House Task Force on New Americans, April 14, 2025, accessed August 16, 2025.

64.“National Council of la Raza,” The National Center for Public Policy Research, July 11, 2012, https://nationalcenter.org/ncppr/2012/07/11/national-council-of-la-raza/.

65.J. Christian Adams, “Homeland Security Working Overtime to Add ‘New Americans’ by 2016 Election,” PJ Media, April 23, 2015, https://pjmedia.com/j-christian-adams/2015/04/23/homeland-security-working-overtime-to-add-new-americans-by-2016-election-n122493#google_vignette.

66.Jeh Charles Johnson to León Rodríguez, memorandum, November 20, 2014, US Department of Homeland Security, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/14_1120_memo_naturalization_0.pdf; Smith, “The White House and Soros-Backed Open Borders Group Strategize About Bribing Immigrants to Naturalize Before 2016.”

67.Ronn Blitzer, “Biden Administration Looks to Change Citizenship Test to Multiple Choice, Include New Material,” Fox News, December 15, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-looks-change-citizenship-test-multiple-choice-include-new-material; Alexandra Kelley, “Biden Rolls Back Trump’s Tougher Citizenship Test,” The Hill, February 22, 2021, https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/diversity-inclusion/539997-biden-rolls-back-trumps-tougher-citizenship-test/.

68.“USCIS Form and Policy Updates Remove Barriers to Naturalization for Applicants with Disabilities,” US Citizenship and Immigration Services, press release, October 19, 2022, https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/uscis-form-and-policy-updates-remove-barriers-to-naturalization-for-applicants-with-disabilities; “Update to Policy on Disability Exceptions to Naturalization Requirements,” US Citizenship and Immigration Services, June 13, 2025, https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/update-to-policy-on-disability-exceptions-to-naturalization-requirements.

69.Nick Givas, “Most Dems Vow to Decriminalize Illegal Immigration During Night 2 Debate,” Fox News, June 27, 2019, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democratic-candidates-vow-to-decriminalize-illegal-immigration-during-debate.

70.“Biden’s State Department Official Admits Great Replacement Is Real; ‘They Want to Change the Demographics of the United States,’” Project Veritas, June 20, 2024, https://www.projectveritas.com/news/bidens-state-dept-official-admits-great-replacement-is-real.

71.Quoted in John Wahala, “Critical Theory and Mass Immigration,” Center for Immigration Studies, April 19, 2021.

Chapter 5: China: The Manchurian Generation

1.Mark Rabago, “Birth Tourism Continues in the Marianas,” Pacific Daily News, January 6, 2025.

2.“New Federal Visa Rules Target California’s Illegal ‘Birth Tourism’ Industry,” CBS News, January 23, 2020, https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/us-imposes-visa-rules-for-pregnant-women-on-birth-tourism/.

3.Jennifer Pak, “Why Chinese Parents Come to America to Give Birth,” Marketplace.org, March 7, 2019, https://www.marketplace.org/story/2019/03/06/why-chinese-parents-come-america-give-birth.

4.Salvatore Babones, American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power, and the End of History (Policy Press Research, 2017), 50, 60.

5.Rong Xiaoqing, “US-Born Children in China Will Have to Choose Between Rival Superpowers,” The Nation, February 16, 2022, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/china-us-dual-nationals/.

6.Dan Gooding, “Tracking Birthright Citizenship Is Harder Than It Seems,” Newsweek, March 28, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/birthright-citizenship-tracking-numbers-trump-administration-2052392.

7.United States Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Birth Tourism in the United States, minority staff report, 117th Cong., 2nd sess., 2022, 19, 20.

8.http://www.scyyxh.com/admin/Public/editor/attached/file/20190530/20190530021555_82560.pdf

9.Moira Weigel, “Made in America,” The New Republic, LEXIS, November 1, 2017.

10.Aviva Wei Xue and Kate Rose, Weibo Feminism: Expression, Activism, and Social Media in China (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), 80.

11.Danielle Braff, “Another Pandemic Shortage: Surrogates in the US,” New York Times, April 3, 2022; Jin Chen, “US Media: Chinese Couples Hiring Surrogate Mums in America,” People’s Daily Online, August 25, 2015, https://en.people.cn/n/2015/0825/c98649-8941455.html.

12.Shannon Van Sant, “Chinese Couples Turning to American Surrogate Moms,” Voice of America, January 30, 2014, https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-couples-turning-to-american-surrogate-moms/1840770.html.

13.Yong Xiong and Nectar Gan, “China’s ousted Foreign Minister Had an Affair with TV Host, FT Reports,” CNN, September 27, 2023, https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/27/china/china-qin-gang-fu-xiaotian-intl-hnk.

14.Weigel, “Made in America”; see also Kalee Thompson, “Whoa, Baby! Why American Surrogates Are in Demand for Chinese Families,” Hollywood Reporter, November 4, 2016, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/whoa-baby-why-american-surrogates-are-demand-chinese-families-942832/.

15.Weigel, “Made in America.”

16.Lily Kuo, “Wealthy Chinese Are Turning to American Surrogates to Birth Their Children,” Quartz, updated July 21, 2022, https://qz.com/201767/wealthy-chinese-are-turning-to-american-surrogates-to-birth-their-children.

17.Yin Lu, “Rent-a-Womb,” Global Times (China), LEXIS, September 14, 2015.

18.Thompson, “Whoa, Baby! Why American Surrogates Are in Demand for Chinese Families.”

19.Lu, “Rent-a-Womb.”

20.Thompson, “Whoa, Baby! Why American Surrogates Are in Demand for Chinese Families.”

21.“Connecting Would-Be Chinese Parents with American Surrogates,” The World of Chinese (website), June 5, 2021, archived June 22, 2021, at https://web.archive.org/web/20210622104310/https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2021/06/connecting-would-be-chinese-parents-with-american-surrogates/.

22.Jin Fenglin, “Creating a New Model of Chinese Civilization Beyond the Western Civilizational Hierarchy,” Marxism & Reality no. 5 (2022), https://en.theorychina.org.cn/c/2023-04-10/1464571.shtml.

23.Edna Alcantara, “Interview: Legal Expert Says Mexico Has Strong Case to Sue US for Lost Territories,” XinhuaNet, March 31, 2017, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-03/31/c_136174375.htm.

24.Ryan Quinn, “Opinion: The Message China’s Communist Regime Is Using to Hijack Chinese American Identity,” The Hill, LEXIS, February 9, 2024.

25.Andrew Blankstein, Anna Schecter, and Tracy Connor, “Feds Raid California ‘Maternity Hotels’ for Birth Tourists,” NBC News, March 3, 2015, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-raid-l-maternity-hotel-birth-tourists-n315996.

26.“Federal Prosecutors Unseal Indictments Naming 19 People Linked to Chinese ‘Birth Tourism’ Schemes That Helped Thousands of Aliens Give Birth in US to Secure Birthright Citizenship for Their Children,” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, January 31, 2019, https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/federal-prosecutors-unseal-indictments-naming-19-people-linked-chinese-birth-tourism.

27.Miriam Jordan, “3 Arrested in Crackdown on Multimillion-Dollar ‘Birth Tourism’ Business,” New York Times, January 31, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/us/anchor-baby-birth-tourism.html.

28.Aliza Chasan, “Woman Sentenced for Helping Pregnant Chinese Women Get to US as Part of ‘Birth Tourism’ Scheme,” CBS News, January 27, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jing-dong-sentenced-chinese-birth-tourism-scheme/; “Federal Prosecutors Unseal Indictments Naming 19 People Linked to Chinese ‘Birth Tourism’ Schemes that Helped Thousands of Aliens Give Birth in US to Secure Birthright Citizenship for Their Children,” press release, United States Attorney’s Office Central District of California, January 31, 2019, https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/federal-prosecutors-unseal-indictments-naming-19-people-linked-chinese-birth-tourism.

29.“Birth Tourism in the United States,” 30.

30.Blankstein, Schecter, and Connor, “Feds Raid California ‘Maternity Hotels’ for Birth Tourists.”

31.Michael Mikhael et al., “Birth Tourism and Neonatal Intensive Care: A Children’s Hospital Experience,” American Journal of Perinatology 33, no. 14 (2016): 1415–19, https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0036-1584139.

32.“Federal Prosecutors Unseal Indictments Naming 19 People.” It should also be pointed out that skipping out on your medical bills will not prevent you from entering the country to have another child. The US Senate Report, “Birth Tourism in the United States,” states, “During a conference call with the [US State] Department, Committee staff asked several questions surrounding State’s procedures for validating financial documents presented by visa applicants. The Department informed the Committee that State’s Fraud Prevention Unit at consulates evaluate the validity of bank documents presented during applicant interviews. State, however, does not have a strong relationship with Chinese banks, and so confirming the authenticity of these documents is difficult. As a result, the Department tries to rely on applicant interviews instead of documents. As an alternative to financial statements, consular officers attempt to determine an applicant’s income by asking questions like what kind of car they drive. Nevertheless, when an applicant presents financial documents during interviews, State does not retain or otherwise scan them into a database. The Department did note that consular officers sometimes take notes for visa applicant files, but this is often reserved for medical emergencies.”

33.“Chinese National Pleads Guilty to Running ‘Birth Tourism’ Scheme That Helped Aliens Give Birth in US to Secure Birthright Citizenship,” United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, press release, September 17, 2019, https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/chinese-national-pleads-guilty-running-birth-tourism-scheme-helped-aliens-give-birth-us, September 17, 2019.

34.“Federal Prosecutors Unseal Indictments Naming 19 People.”

35.“热门房型: 5S服务的美国月子中心-安全、舒心,” Mifubaby, accessed September 6, 2025, archived July 13, 2025, at https://web.archive.org/web/20250723100847/https://www.mifubaby.com/.

36.“国内首家赴美生子行业020模式 美福嘉儿上海成功上线,” Sina Henan, May 9, 2014, archived August 21, 2025, at https://web.archive.org/web/20250821160442/https:/henan.sina.com.cn/nanyang/tongcheng/2014-05-09/143311908.html ; 国内首家赴美生子行业020模式 美福嘉儿上海成功上线_新浪南阳 + 上海喜明实业有限公司.

37.“Giving Birth in the US vs. Meifu Jiaer,” Baidu.com, accessed August 20, 2025, https://author.baidu.com/home?from=bjh_article&app_id=1709667260731517.

38.“热门房型: 5S服务的美国月子中心-安全、舒心,” Mifubaby, accessed September 6, 2025, archived July 13, 2025, at https://web.archive.org/web/20250723100847/https://www.mifubaby.com/.

39.See additional birth tourism sources at https://thedrilldown.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Irvine-Birth-Tourism-Sources-1.zip.

40.“Birth Tourism in the United States.”

41.Jordan, “3 Arrested in Crackdown on Multimillion-Dollar ‘Birth Tourism’ Business.”

42.“Birth Tourism in the United States,” 32.

43.Jessica Calderón, “Trump contra el jus soli: Así afectará a mujeres mexicanas la eliminación de la ciudadanía por nacimiento,” Publimetro, January 22, 2025, https://www.publimetro.com.mx/noticias/2025/01/22/trump-contra-el-jus-soli-como-afectara-a-mujeres-mexicanas-la-eliminacion-de-la-ciudadania-por-nacimiento/.

44.Tacy Wilkinson and Ken Ellingwood, “From the Archive: Wife of Fugitive Mexican Drug Lord Gives Birth in LA County,” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2011, https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2011-sep-27-la-fg-mexico-twins-20110927-story.html; “Emma Coronel,” InSight Crime, March 1, 2024, https://insightcrime.org/mexico-organized-crime-news/emma-coronel/.

45.Wilkinson and Ellingwood, “From the Archive: Wife of Fugitive Mexican Drug Lord Gives Birth in LA County.”

46.Jo Lee Ferguson, “‘Birth Tourism’ Draws Scrutiny,” Longview News-Journal, November 3, 2019, https://www.newspapers.com/image/612390884.

47.Frank Shyong, “Chinese Birth Tourism Documentary Pulls Back the Curtain on a Controversial Industry,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2024, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-01-26/birth-tourism-doc.

48.Pak, “Why Chinese Parents Come to America to Give Birth.”

49.AsiamChild (website), accessed August 18, 2025, https://asiamchild.com/.

50.“特朗普屡对移民发难，’定锚婴儿’ 动了谁的奶酪?,” China News Service, November 2, 2018, https://mobile.rmzxw.com.cn/tranm/index/url/www.rmzxw.com.cn/c/2018-11-02/2207721.shtml.

51.“生育旅游,” China Daily, June 9, 2011, https://language.chinadaily.com.cn/news/2011-06/09/content_12665040.htm.

52.“FACT SHEET: Supporting American Job Growth and Strengthening Ties by Extending US/China Visa Validity for Tourists, Business Travelers, and Students,” The White House of President Barack Obama, November 10, 2014, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/10/fact-sheet-supporting-american-job-growth-and-strengthening-ties-extendi.

53.“Birth Tourism in the United States,” 13.

54.Ibid., 50.

55.Ibid., 22.

56.“Federal Prosecutors Unseal Indictments Naming 19 People.”

57.“Birth Tourism: Chinese Flock to the US to Have Babies,” Aoji Education Group, August 14, 2017, http://www.aoji.cn/news/2068811.html.

58.Chen Yang and Li Shiyun, “长沙9.5万赴美生子真相调查 不为人知隐情揭秘,” edited by Liu Le, Huasheng Online, February 28, 2012, https://hunan.voc.com.cn/news/201202/27040452.html.

59.Quoted in Jon Feere, “Birth Tourism Fraud from China: ‘The Return on Investment Is Higher than Robbing a Bank,’” Center for Immigration Studies, June 16, 2011, https://cis.org/Feere/Birth-Tourism-Fraud-China-return-investment-higher-robbing-bank.

60.“中国孕妇讲述在美生子遭查：从生育旅游变逃,” 观察者网,” Guānchá zhě, May 17, 2015, https://www.guancha.cn/america/2015_05_17_319861_s.shtml.

61.“Federal Prosecutors Unseal Indictments Naming 19 People.”

62.Courtney B. Cook and C. Rees, “How to Have an American Baby Discussion Guide,” 12, 13, POV, PBS, https://www.pbs.org/pov/resources/how-to-have-an-american-baby-discussion-guide/; Pak, “Why Chinese Parents Come to America to Give Birth.”

63.Yin Qian, “Beijing’s Fifth Column and the Transfer of Power in Hong Kong: 1983–1997,” in Robert Ash et al., eds., Hong Kong in Transition (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 113–32.

64.Ibid., 113–29; quoted in Nathan D. Steger, “The Weaponization of Migration: Examining Migration as a 21st Century Tool of Political Warfare” (master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, 2017), 36.

65.Zach Halaschak, “Dalai Lama Warns Europe Could Become ‘Muslim’ or ‘African,’” Washington Examiner, June 27, 2019, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/1110080/dalai-lama-warns-europe-could-become-muslim-or-african/; Edward Wong,“China’s Money and Migrants Pour into Tibet,” New York Times, July 24, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/world/asia/25tibet.html.

66.Kenneth R. Timmerman, “INS Abuse: Funny Business with Foreign Investors Could Do In Al Gore,” American Spectator, LEXIS, July 10, 2000.

67.David North, “EB-5 Roundup: A Scandal in Texas, a Ploy in Grenada, and a Mild Rise in Visas in October,” Center for Immigration Studies, December 19, 2023, https://cis.org/North/EB5-Roundup-Scandal-Texas-Ploy-Grenada-and-Mild-Rise-Visas-October.

68.“Indian Applications for US EB-5 Visa on the Rise; China Tops with 90% Share,” Business Standard, May 9, 2023, https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/indian-applications-for-us-eb-5-visa-on-the-rise-china-tops-with-90-share-123050900298_1.html.

69.Kenneth R. Timmerman, “INS Abuse: Funny Business with Foreign Investors Could Do In Al Gore,” American Spectator, LEXIS, July 10, 2000.

70.Committee on Governmental Affairs, Investigation of Illegal or Improper Activities in Connection with 1996 Federal Election Campaigns, S. Rep No. 105–67 (1998); Bob Woodward, “Findings Link Clinton Allies to Chinese Intelligence,” Washington Post, February 9, 1998, archived December 21, 2024, at https://web.archive.org/web/20241201232428/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/02/10/findings-link-clinton-allies-to-chinese-intelligence/87265d5d-7452-41f2-ad2f-aa4abe7e579e/; 146 Cong. Rec. S5654–S5656 (daily ed. Jun 22, 2000) (statement of campaign task force chief prosecutor), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2000-06-22/html/CREC-2000-06-22-pt1-PgS5654-3.htm.

71.Ibid.; “INS Abuse Funny business with foreign investor visas could do in Al Gore.” The American Spectator, LEXIS< July 2000 / August 2000.

72.Jonas Parello-Plesner and Belinda Li, “The Chinese Communist Party’s Foreign Interference Operations: How the US and Other Democracies Should Respond,” Hudson Institute, June 2018, 28.

73.David North, “New York Times Op-Ed All Wrong on EB-5,” Center for Immigration Studies, July 11, 2014, https://cis.org/North/New-York-Times-OpEd-All-Wrong-EB5.

74.“China Sees Explosive Growth in Immigrant Investment Program,” US State Department, From: China Guangzhou, December 11, 2009, WikiLeaks, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09GUANGZHOU671_a.html.

75.Walter F. Roche Jr. and Gary Cohn, “INS Insiders Profit on Immigrant Dreams; Cashing In: Former Immigration Officials Siphon Millions from a Program to Entice Foreign Investors with the Promise of Green Cards,” Baltimore Sun, LEXIS, February 20, 2000.

76.“The $500,000 Green Card: Obama, Clinton Kin Courted by Foreign Middlemen,” ABC News, February 4, 2015, https://abcnews.go.com/International/500000-green-card-clinton-obama-kin-courted-foreign/story?id=28723441.

77.Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement & Resistance (PM Press, 2021); Matt Smith, “Firm Tied to Willie Brown Gets Political Boost for Hunters Point Plan,” NBC Bay Area, July 1, 2013, https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/firm-tied-to-willie-brown-gets-political-boost-for-hunters-point-plan/1948276/.

78.Roche Jr. and Cohn, “INS Insiders Profit on Immigrant Dreams; Cashing In.”

79.David North and Bryan Griffith, “Three EB-5 Applicants with Ties to North Korean, Iranian, and Chinese Militaries,” Center for Immigration Studies, December 13, 2019, https://cis.org/North/Three-EB5-Applicants-Ties-North-Korean-Iranian-and-Chinese-Militaries.

80.Angela Swartz, “Two Atherton Residents Indicted in Visa Fraud Scheme,” Almanac, March 27, 2019, updated June 30, 2025, https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2019/03/27/two-atherton-residents-indicted-in-visa-fraud-scheme/; “Owner of South Bay Law Firm and Office Manager Charged with Committing Large-Scale Immigration Visa Fraud,” United States Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California, press release, March 26, 2019, https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/owner-south-bay-law-firm-and-office-manager-charged-committing-large-scale-immigration.

81.“San Jose Immigration Lawyer Extradited from the Kyrgyz Republic to Face Charges of Large-Scale Visa Fraud,” press release, United States Attorney’s Office Northern District of California, March 7, 2025, https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/san-jose-immigration-lawyer-extradited-kyrgyz-republic-face-charges-large-scale-visa.

82.Stewart Bishop, “Feds Say NY Pair Used Trump Event as Lure in $27M Scam,” Law360, LEXIS, July 18, 2022. See also the complaint attached to this article; John Annese, “Trump Donors Ran $27 Million Real Estate and Green Card Scam, Prosecutors Say,” Portland Press Herald, July 18, 2022, https://www.pressherald.com/2022/07/18/trump-donors-ran-27-million-real-estate-and-green-card-scam-prosecutors-say/.

83.Peter Nicholas, “Clinton Campaign Taps into an Unlikely Treasure-Trove; New York’s Chinese Immigrants Shell Out—But It Doesn’t Add Up,” Los Angeles Times, LEXIS, October 19, 2007; Glenn R. Simpson and Jill Abramson, “War Chests Benefiting from Afar: Porous Law Fails to Stop Foreigners,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, LEXIS, October 10, 1996.

84.Myles Martin, “Foreign Nationals,” Federal Election Commission, June 23, 2017, https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/.

85.Krishnadev Calamur, “Reports of a Federal Investigation of Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe,” The Atlantic, LEXIS, May 23, 2016.

86.“Chinese Media Mogul Convicted of US Election Interference Flies Off into the Unknown,” Caixin Global, LEXIS, June 14, 2024.

87.Didi Kirsten Tatlow and John Feng, “Exclusive: How $1M From China-Linked Groups Oiled New York Politicians,” Newsweek, September 28, 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/china-communist-party-new-york-political-influence-campaign-donations-1828730.

88.Houston Keene, “Dem Gubernatorial Candidate Took Money from CCP-Linked Businessman, Hunter Biden Art Buyer,” Fox News, August 11, 2023, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dem-gubernatorial-candidate-took-money-ccp-linked-businessman-hunter-biden-art-buyer.

89.Ibid.

90.Ian Oxnevad, China and Our Children (National Association of Scholars, 2024).

91.Keene, “Dem Gubernatorial Candidate Took Money from CCP-Linked Businessman, Hunter Biden Art Buyer”; “Pin Ni,” Donor Lookup, OpenSecrets, accessed August 18, 2025, https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Pin+Ni+.

92.“Weidi Lu,” Donor Lookup, OpenSecrets, accessed August 18, 2025, https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Weidi+Lu.

93.Parello-Plesner and Li, “The Chinese Communist Party’s Foreign Interference Operations,” 28.

94.Shae Armstrong, “The EB-5 Trojan Horse: How an American Pay-for-Citizenship Immigration Program Poses a National Security Threat—Communist China: A Case Study,” Center for Security Policy, August 2016, https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/EB-5_Trojan_Horse.pdf.

95.“China Sees Explosive Growth in Immigrant Investment Program.”

96.Armstrong, “The EB-5 Trojan Horse.”

97.Matt Potter, “San Diego FBI Building Financed by Chinese Seeking US Visas, Senator Says,” San Diego Reader, September 11, 2013, https://www.fosterglobal.com/news/san_diego_fbi_building9112013.pdf.

98.Christina London, “FBI Unveils New San Diego Headquarters,” NBC 7 San Diego, May 28, 2013, https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/fbi-unveils-new-san-diego-headquarters/2078946/.

99.Ibid.; Armstrong, “The EB-5 Trojan Horse.”

100.Matt Potter, “More Mobster Friend Molasky Money for San Diego GOP,” San Diego Reader, October 2, 2013, https://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/news-ticker/2013/oct/02/more-mobster-friend-molasky-money-for-san-diego-go/.

101.Shae Armstrong, “How Will Limiting the Scope of the 14th Amendment Impact the EB-5 Financing Market?” National Law Review, January 22, 2025, https://natlawreview.com/article/how-will-limiting-scope-14th-amendment-impact-eb-5-financing-market.

102.Yitong Wu, “Activists Call for Probe into China’s ‘Consular Volunteers’ Network,” Radio Free Asia, November 24, 2023, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-consulates-united-front-11222023160631.html.

103.Ibid.

104.Sze-Fung Lee, “Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics: PRC Consulate Gray Zone ‘Pop-Up’ Events in New York and Beyond,” China Brief Volume 24, no. 19 (2024), https://jamestown.org/program/diplomacy-with-chinese-characteristics-prc-consulate-gray-zone-pop-up-events-in-new-york-and-beyond/.

105.FBI redacted emails to Senator Chuck Grassley, September to October 2020, Senator Chuck Grassley (website), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fbi_iir_email_productions_to_chairman_grassley.pdf.

106.Ibid.

107.Devlin Barrett, Jonathan Swan, and Maggie Haberman, “Chinese Hackers Are Said to Have Targeted Phones Used by Trump and Vance,” New York Times, October 25, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/us/politics/trump-vance-hack.html.

108.Audrye Wong and Francis de Beixedon, “China Is Exploiting America’s Social Divisions,” Foreign Policy, LEXIS, March 6, 2025.

109.Jennifer Kveglis, “Anti-Trump Administration Rallies Across the Tampa Bay Area,” Fox 13 News, April 20, 2025, https://www.fox13news.com/news/anti-trump-administration-rallies-across-tampa-bay.

110.Kerem Gençer, “‘Palestine Is Not for Sale, Donald Trump Belongs in Jail!’” The Progressive, April 17, 2025, https://progressive.org/latest/palestine-is-not-for-sale-donald-trump-belongs-in-jail-gencer-20250417/.

111.Leanne Maxwell, “Anti-Trump Protests Take Over San Francisco: Ocean Beach, Civic Center, Union Square and Chinatown,” SFist, April 20, 2025, https://sfist.com/2025/04/20/anti-trump-protestors-rally-across-san-franciscos-ocean-beach-civic-center-union-square-chinatown/.

112.“The April 5 Protests and the Fight Against Trump—Our Role in the Growing Movement,” Freedom Road Socialist Organization, April 10, 2025, https://frso.org/statements/the-april-5-protests-and-the-fight-against-trump-our-role-in-the-growing-movement/.

113.“History of Castle AFB,” Air Force Civil Engineer Center, accessed August 18, 2025, https://www.afcec.af.mil/Home/BRAC/Castle/History/.

114.Abhinandan Mishra, “Companies Based in the US, UK, Canada, NZ, France Boost Chinese Air Capabilities,” Sunday Guardian, October 29, 2022, https://latest.sundayguardianlive.com/news/companies-based-us-uk-canada-nz-france-boost-chinese-air-capabilities; “Flight Schools Implicated in Training Chinese Military Pilots,” Save Our Skies Alliance, accessed September 6, 2025, https://www.saveourskiesalliance.org/security-issues.html.

115.“Crew Training International and Helicopter Institute Awarded US Army FAA Part 141 Helicopter Flight School Pilot Program,” Vertical, press release, March 6, 2025, https://verticalmag.com/press-releases/crew-training-international-and-helicopter-institute-awarded-u-s-army-faa-part-141-helicopter-flight-school-pilot-program/.

116.“Flight Technology,” Changzhou Institute of Technology, April 6, 2022, https://jdxy.czu.cn/jdxyen/2022/0406/c7810a111510/page.htm.

117.Quoted in Roy Kamphausen, David Lai, and Travis Tanner, eds., Learning by Doing: The PLA Trains at Home and Abroad (Strategic Studies Institute, 2012), 211.

118.US Department of Defense, “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” annual report to Congress, 2024, 165.

119.Robert D. Eldridge, “A New Trojan Horse from China, Why It’s Irresponsible to Outright Dangerous,” JAPAN Forward, February 5, 2024. This article quotes former Air Force deputy commanding general and retired lieutenant general Chang Yen-ting as saying, “China’s Xi’an Y-20s can bear civil aviation numbers because they are transport aircraft. Auxiliary aircraft like the Shaanxi Y-8 and Shaanxi Y-9 can be disguised as well. These kinds of strategies are often used against the enemy” (https://japan-forward.com/a-new-trojan-horse-from-china-why-its-irresponsible-to-outright-dangerous/).

120.Lawrence Trevethan, “Brigadization” of the PLA Air Force (China Aerospace Studies Institute, 2018), 26.

121.Ramona Giwargis, “Castle Aviation Project Gets Legs,” Merced Sun-Star, December 21, 2013, https://www.newspapers.com/image/706238933/.

122.Jana Winter and Zach Dorfman, “DHS Eyes Chinese Airline Employees Suspected of Spying,” Yahoo News, December 3, 2021, https://www.yahoo.com/news/dhs-eyes-chinese-airline-employees-suspected-of-spying-195725473.html.

123.Nate Raymond, “Ex-Air China Employee Pleads Not Guilty to US Smuggling Charge,” Reuters, September 6, 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/world/ex-air-china-employee-pleads-not-guilty-to-u-s-smuggling-charge-idUSL1N1BE1QZ/.

124.Fred Warchol, “Why Train Potential Enemies to Fly?” Merced Sun-Star, October 13, 2015, https://www.newspapers.com/image/706304921/.

125.“AeroGuard Flight Training Center Signs Long Term Agreement With Cathay Pacific, Plans to Train Hundreds of Cadet Pilots at Its Phoenix, Arizona Campus,” GlobeNewswire, December 5, 2022, https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/12/05/2567623/0/en/AeroGuard-Flight-Training-Center-Signs-Long-Term-Agreement-With-Cathay-Pacific-Plans-to-Train-Hundreds-of-Cadet-Pilots-at-Its-Phoenix-Arizona-Campus.html.

126.“Stanton’s Bipartisan Bill to Counter China’s Influence in US Markets Clears House,” US Representative Greg Stanton (website), press release, September 29, 2022, https://stanton.house.gov/2022/9/the-house-of-representatives-today-passed-rep-greg-stanton-s-bipartisan-bill-to-protect-american-entrepreneurs-and-safeguard-against-foreign-governments-from-using-state-sponsored-enterprises-to-wrongfully-influence-u-s-markets-steal-intellectual-property-and-suppress-competition-time-and-aga.

127.Liu Yinmeng, “Trainee Pilots Qualify for Their Wings in US,” Wall Street Journal, accessed August 18, 2025, https://partners.wsj.com/chinadaily/chinawatch/trainee-pilots-qualify-for-their-wings-in-u-s/.

Chapter 6: Importing the Revolution

1.Ruth Milkman, Deepak Bhargava, and Penny Lewis, eds., Immigration Matters: Movements, Visions and Strategies for a Progressive Future (The New Press, 2021). See the quote here: https://www.amazon.com/Immigration-Matters-Movements-Strategies-Progressive/dp/1620976528.

2.Lynn C. Jones and Nancy A. Wonders, “Migration as a Social Movement,” Border Criminology (blog), May 9, 2019, https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2019/05/migration-social.

3.Domenic Vitiello, The Sanctuary City: Immigrant, Refugee, and Receiving Communities in Postindustrial Philadelphia (Cornell University Press, 2022); Christian Smith, Resisting Reagan: The US Central America Peace Movement (University of Chicago Press, 2010), 120; James Simpson, “CASA de Maryland and the Corrupting Influence of Illegal Immigration,” Capital Research Center, September 6, 2012, https://capitalresearch.org/article/casa-de-maryland-and-the-corrupting-influence-of-illegal-immigration/.

4.Simpson, “CASA de Maryland and the Corrupting Influence of Illegal Immigration”; Maria Cristina Garcia, “Refugees or Economic Migrants? The Debate over Accountability in the United States,” in Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the United States, and Canada (University of California Press, 2006), 102.

5.Miriam Davidson, “Sanctuary Movement Under Fire,” Christian Science Monitor, October 22, 1985, https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/1022/zsanc.html.

6.Ibid.

7.José Luis Rocha, “The Political Clout of Immigrant Organizations, et al,” Envío, November 2015, https://www.revistaenvio.org/articulo/5116.

8.Simpson, “CASA de Maryland and the Corrupting Influence of Illegal Immigration.”

9.Olympia Newton, “Venezuela Forum Debates Prospects for Revolutionary Change in United States,” The Militant 71, no. 45 (2007), https://themilitant.com/2007/7145/714503.html.

10.“Havana Complains About Conditions for Cuban Spy in US Jail,” Latin American Herald Tribune, December 11, 2020, accessed August 19, 2025, archived December 11, 2020, at https://web.archive.org/web/20201211114410/http:/www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=361417&CategoryId=14510.

11.“Caricaturas de Gerardo cobran vida en Maryland,” Radio Santa Cruz, May 15, 2011, archived November 19, 2019, at https://web.archive.org/web/20191119081003/https://www.radiosantacruz.icrt.cu/19326-caricaturas-gerardo-cobran-vida-maryland/.

12.“Exitoso día de lobby por los Cinco en Washington,” Juventud Rebelde, June 9, 2014, updated September 21, 2017, https://www.juventudrebelde.cu/internacionales/2014-06-09/exitoso-dia-de-lobby-por-los-cinco-en-washington.

13.Nora Gamez Torres, “Piden ‘Marginar a Miami’ del Caso de Espías Cubanos,” El Nuevo Herald, LEXIS, December 6, 2014.

14.Arlene Rubeinstein, “Cuba’s Literacy Drive ‘Changed Society, Made Us Revolutionaries,’” The Militant 82, no. 10 (2018), https://themilitant.com/2018/03/12/cubas-literacy-drive-changed-society-made-us-revolutionaries/.

15.“Judge Demands Daily Updates on Government’s Efforts to Return Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” CASA, April 12, 2025, https://wearecasa.org/federal-court-orders-the-government-return-kilmar-abrego-garcia/; Christina Morales, “What We Know About the Charges Against Abrego Garcia,” New York Times, June 6, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/us/abrego-garcia-charges-explainer.html; Simpson, “CASA de Maryland and the Corrupting Influence of Illegal Immigration.”

16.“Kilmer Abrego Garcia Documents,” media, US Department of Justice, accessed August 19, 2025, https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1396906/.

17.“DHS Releases Bombshell Investigative Report on Kilmar Abrego Garcia Suspected Human Trafficking Incident,” US Department of Homeland Security, press release, April 18, 2025, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/04/18/dhs-releases-bombshell-investigative-report-kilmar-abrego-garcia-suspected-human; “VIDEO: When Kilmar Abrego Garcia Worked As M-13 Human Smuggler | Body Cam Shows Dramatic Stop,” posted May 2, 2025, by Oneindia News, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHHekBfVNek.

18.“Venezuelan and Other TPS Leaders Join Sen. Van Hollen to Push for Permanent Solutions,” CASA, April 1, 2021, https://wearecasa.org/venezuelan-tps-sen-chris-van-hollen-push-permanent-solutions/; Arelis R. Hernández, “Major Pro-Immigrant Organization Backs Van Hollen in Senate Race,” Washington Post, December 1, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/major-pro-immigrant-organization-backs-van-hollen-in-senate-race/2015/12/01/478c9ed4-9834-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html; Van Hollen Statement on Return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States,” Senator Chris Van Hollen (website), press release, June 6, 2025, https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/news/press-releases/van-hollen-statement-on-return-of-kilmar-abrego-garcia-to-the-united-states.

19.Roger F. Noriega, “MS-13’s Secretly Backing Ruling Party in El Salvador,” American Enterprise Institute, March 3, 2014, https://www.aei.org/articles/ms-13s-secretly-backing-ruling-party-in-el-salvador/.

20.Trump, President of the United States, et al. v. CASA, Inc., et al., No. 24A884, slip opinion, Supreme Court of the United States (June 27, 2025), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a884_8n59.pdf

21.Dimitris Papadopoulos and Vassilis S. Tsianos, “After Citizenship: Autonomy of Migration, Organizational Ontology and Mobile Commons,” in Imogen Tyler and Katarzyna Marciniak, eds., Protesting Citizenship: Migrant Activisms (Routledge, 2014), 187.

22.“Frédéric Mégret,” Columbia Law School, accessed August 19, 2025, https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/frederic-megret; Frédéric Mégret, “Migrant Protests as a Form of Civil Disobedience: Which Cosmopolitanism?” in Tamara Caraus and Elena Paris, eds., Migration, Protest Movements and the Politics of Resistance: A Radical Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism (Routledge, 2019), 31.

23.“Know Your Rights: Immigrants’ Participation in Protests,” National Immigration Law Center, January 24, 2025, https://www.nilc.org/resources/immigrant-participation-in-protests-rights/.

24.Ruth Milkman, L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement (Russell Sage Foundation, 2006), 9, 117, 118.

25.Ibid., 17.

26.Ibid., 117.

27.Ibid., 137.

28.Peter Costantini, “Being Tortured Has Been the Best Experience of My Life,” Foreign Policy in Focus, LEXIS 58941, September 25, 2015.

29.Milkman, L.A. Story, 137.

30.Ibid., 138.

31.Milkman, Bhargava, and Lewis, eds., Immigration Matters.

32.Arpi Misha Miller, “Reconciling Americas: Salvadoran Immigrant Activists and Political Transnationalism,” (PhD diss., University of California, 2013), 206.

33.Ibid., 207.

34.“Tom Perez,” InfluenceWatch, accessed August 19, 2025, https://www.influencewatch.org/person/tom-perez/; “Cecilia Munoz,” InfluenceWatch, accessed August 19, 2025, https://www.influencewatch.org/person/cecilia-munoz/.

35.“Policy Memorandum,” US Department of Homeland Security and US Citizenship and Immigration Services, May 22, 2013.

36.Larisa Lara-Guerrero and Sebastien Rojon, “‘My Guitar Is My Rifle’: Mexican Migrants Mobilizing Unconventionally Through Arts,” Comparative Migration Studies 10, no. 45 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-022-00321-0; “Larisa LARA, PhD,” LinkedIn, accessed August 19, 2025, https://www.linkedin.com/in/larisalarag/.

37.Dan La Botz, “Report on DSA Participation in the Foro de Sao Paulo, San Salvador, El Salvador, June 22–June 25, 2016,” Medium, July 25, 2021, https://danlabotz.medium.com/report-on-dsa-participation-in-the-foro-de-sao-paulo-san-salvador-el-salvador-june-22-june-25-a4aee2b13499.

38.Ibid.

39.“Maryland Transportation Authority Police Department Incident Report 04L010168: Ismail Selim Elbarasse,” The Investigative Project on Terrorism, August 20, 2004, accessed August 19, 2025, https://www.investigativeproject.org/case_docs/ismail-selim-elbarasse/1523/police-incident-report.pdf.

40.“$1 Million Posted for Suspect in Hamas Funding,” NBC News, August 30, 2004, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5868702.

41.David Bukay, Islam and the Infidels: The Politics of Jihad, Da’wah, and Hijrah (Transaction Publishers, 2016), 255; Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” The Investigative Project on Terrorism, May 19, 1991, https://www.investigativeproject.org/document/20-an-explanatory-memorandum-on-the-general.

42.Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America.”

43.Earl Cox, “Radical Islamic Immigration Strategy,” Jerusalem Post, February 28, 2017, https://www.jpost.com/blogs/israel-uncensored/radical-islamic-immigration-strategy-482786.

44.See Al-Zawahiri’s comments in Cynthia Farahat, The Secret Apparatus: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Industry of Death (Bombardier Books, 2022), 265–66; “The Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Contacts With Two September 11 Terrorists: A Review of the INS’s Admissions of Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, Its Processing of Their Change of Status Applications, and Its Efforts to Track Foreign Students in the United States,” US Department Of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, report, May 20, 2002, https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/0205/exec.htm.

45.Boim v. American Muslims for Palestine, et al., No. 1:17-cv-03591, (N.D. Ill. 2019), https://www.investigativeproject.org/case_docs/boim-et-al-v-amp-et-al-boim-20-case/4565/first-amended-complaint-for-declaratory-and-monetary-judgment.pdf.

46.Quoted in Lorenzo Vidino, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Conquest of Europe,” Middle East Forum 12, no. 1 (2005).

47.Hasan Al-Banna, Five Tracts of Hasan Al-Banna (University of California Press, 1978), 72.

48.Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2017), 10.

49.Quoted in Reuven Paz, “Middle East Islamism in the European Arena,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 6, no. 3 (2002): 73.

50.Robert Johnson, “Muslim Preacher Tells Followers Getting Welfare Cash for Holy Wars Is Easy and Right,” Business Insider, February 18, 2013, https://www.businessinsider.com/anjem-choudary-muslim-preacher-explains-government-assistance-to-fund-jihad-holy-war-2013-2.

51.Dominic Casciani, “Anjem Choudary Jailed for Life,” BBC News, July 30, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3geqp8vx08o.

52.Quoted in Lorenzo Vidino, “Verbatim: What European Security Services Say About the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe,” George Washington University Program on Extremism, October 2, 2023, https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/2023-09/verbatim-final_0.pdf.

53.Zeyno Baran, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. Network,” Hudson Institute, February 27, 2008, https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/the-muslim-brotherhood-s-u-s-network.

54.Michael Freeman et al., The Global Spread of Islamism and the Consequences for Terrorism (Potomac Books, 2021), 125.

55.Quoted in Vidino, “Verbatim: What European Security Services Say About the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.”

56.Michael Walzer, “Islamism and the Left,” Dissent, Winter 2015, accessed online August 19, 2025, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/islamism-and-the-left.

57.“Judith Butler and the Normalization of Hamas and Hezbollah Within Progressive Social Movements,” Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy (ISGAP), October 18, 2023, https://isgap.org/post/2023/10/judith-butler-and-the-normalization-of-hamas-and-hezbollah-within-progressive-social-movements/.

58.William Ratliff, “Che Guevara, Apostle of War,” Hoover Digest, January 16, 2008, https://www.hoover.org/research/che-guevara-apostle-war; Abedin Taherkenareh, “Iran Cuba Che Guevara Children - Sep 2007,” Shutterstock, photograph, September 22, 2007, https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/aleida-guevara-46-year-old-cuban-daughter-che-guevera-7827617a.

59.Quoted in Jon B. Perdue, The War of all the People: The Nexus of Latin American Radicalism and Middle Eastern Terrorism (Potomac Books, 2012), 60–61; “Children of Che Guevara Meet Iran’s Culture Minister,” Tehran Times, September 27, 2007, https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/153877/Children-of-Che-Guevara-meet-Iran-s-culture-minister.

60.Kyle Shideler, “Sanders Names Daughter of Muslim Brotherhood Leader as Virginia Campaign Co-Chair,” Center for Security Policy, February 19, 2020, https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/sanders-names-daughter-of-muslim-brotherhood-leader-as-virginia-campaign-co-chair/.

61.“Obama’s Muslim Sympathies Grow Curiouser and Curiouser,” Investor’s Business Daily, editorial, January 12, 2015, https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/obama-muslim-sympathies-grow-curiouser-and-curiouser/.

62.“I have been invited at least to seven meetings in the White House since April 2010,” she has been quoted as saying. See Huda al-Saleh, “Details of Calls to Attack Trump by US ‘Muslim Sisters’ Allied to Brotherhood,” Al Aribiya, December 9, 2018, https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2018/12/08/Details-of-calls-by-US-Muslim-Sisters-of-Muslim-Brotherhood-to-attack-Trump-.

63.“Linda Sarsour,” Kennesaw State University, accessed August 19, 2025, https://www.kennesaw.edu/global-education/center-for-africana-studies/faculty-development-workshops/scholars/linda-sarsour.php.

64.Warren Henry, “Warren Mimics Bernie’s Promotion Of Anti-Semite Linda Sarsour to Campaign Surrogate,” The Federalist (website), September 11, 2019, https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/11/warren-mimics-bernies-promotion-anti-semite-linda-sarsour-campaign-surrogate/.

65.James Barrett, “Liberals Turn on Ocasio-Cortez over Linda Sarsour Tweet,” Islamist Watch, September 5, 2018, https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/liberals-turn-on-ocasio-cortez-over-linda-sarsour.

66.“Sarsour Featured at Muslim Delegates Assembly at DNC,” Jewish News Syndicate, August 19, 2020, https://www.jns.org/linda-sarsour-featured-at-democratic-national-convention/.

67.Steven Emerson, “Linda Sarsour Thinks You Can’t Hear or Read,” The Investigative Project on Terrorism, December 3, 2019, https://www.investigativeproject.org/8190/linda-sarsour-thinks-you-cant-hear-or-read.

68.“Tarek Fatah on Linda Sarsour’s ‘Jihad’ Against Trump,” Middle East Forum, July 7, 2017, https://www.meforum.org/tarek-fatah-on-linda-sarsour-jihad-against-trump.

69.Sam Westrop, “Creeping Theo-Progressivism: The Odd Alliance Between Islamists and the ‘Woke’ Intersectional Left,” City Journal, March 12, 2019, https://www.city-journal.org/article/creeping-theo-progressivism.

70.Daniel Pipes, “Linda Sarsour, the Left’s Latest Star,” Washington Times, February 2, 2017, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/2/linda-sarsour-the-left-latest-star/.

71.“Article in Leading Saudi Media Outlet Al-Arabiya Criticizes Palestinian-American Activist Linda Sarsour, Claiming She Has ‘Roots in Muslim Brotherhood,’” Middle East Media Research Institute, December 11, 2018, https://www.memri.org/reports/article-leading-saudi-media-outlet-al-arabiya-criticizes-palestinian-american-activist-linda.

72.John Rossomando, “Senior MB Official Touts Linda Sarsour’s Gaza Video,” The Investigative Project on Terrorism, July 31, 2018, https://www.investigativeproject.org/7555/senior-mb-official-touts-linda-sarsour-gaza-video.

73.Erik Love, Islamophobia and Racism in America (New York University Press, 2017).

74.Linda Sarsour, “54th Annual ISNA Conference- July 3, 2017,” Archives of Women’s Political Communication, Iowa State University, July 3, 2017, https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/08/30/54th-annual-isna-conference-july-3-2017/.

75.“Hamas’s Influence on US Campuses: A Study of Networks, Strategies, and Ideological Advocacy,” Program on Extremism, George Washington University, 2024, accessed August 20, 2025, https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/2024-11/Pamphlet_compressed.pdf; “The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development,” Center on Extremism, ADL, May 28, 2009, https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/holy-land-foundation-relief-and-development.

76.“Former Florida CAIR Director Hassan Shibly: Congress Is Bought and Paid For by AIPAC and the ‘Jewish Supremacist Lobby’; Muslims Living in America Must Shift This Country’s Political and Spiritual Direction; Calling People to Islam Is Essential,” Middle East Media Research Institute, May 1, 2025, https://www.memri.org/reports/former-florida-cair-director-hassan-shibly-congress-bought-and-paid-aipac-and-jewish.

77.Quoted in Vidino, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Conquest of Europe,” 197.

78.Lenny Ben David, “The Secret History of Ilhan Omar,” Jewish News Syndicate, October 25, 2022, https://www.jns.org/the-secret-history-of-ilhan-omar/.

79.Steve Postal, “Muslim Reform Movement Founder Opposes Omar, CAIR and Islamism Abroad,” M. Zuhdi Jasser (website), May 18, 2019, https://mzuhdijasser.com/24154/zuhdi-jasser-ilhan-omar-cair.

80.“Council on American-Islamic Relations/CA PACA Contributions to Federal Candidates,” OpenSecrets, accessed August 20, 2025, https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/council-on-american-islamic-relations-ca/C00396556/candidate-recipients/2018.

81.Ben David, “The Secret History of Ilhan Omar.”

82.Dave Orrick, “Minneapolis Business Owner Tries to Ban Frey over Mayor’s Israel-Hamas Veto,” Minnesota Star Tribune, February 12, 2024, https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-business-owner-tries-to-ban-frey-over-mayors-israel-hamas-veto/600342954.

83.Ben David, “The Secret History of Ilhan Omar.”

84.“Ilhan Omar Calls for Release of Egyptian Prisoner with Terrorist Ties,” The Jerusalem Post, April 11, 2019, https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/ilhan-omar-calls-for-release-of-egyptian-prisoner-with-terrorist-ties-586456.

85.Ben David, “The Secret History of Ilhan Omar.”

86.Ibid.

87.Alan Bender Dep., Pittard and Allende v. Al Thani, et al., OR (M.D. Fla. 2019), https://www.docdroid.net/DtiLYBH/bender-affidavit-pdf.

88.Donna Rachel Edmunds, “Ilhan Omar Denies Being ‘Qatari Asset,’ Witness Confirms Jerusalem Post Report,” The Jerusalem Post, November 28, 2019, https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/ilhan-omar-working-for-qatar-florida-court-hears-609003.

89.“NIAC Action PAC PAC Contributions to Federal Candidates,” OpenSecrets, accessed August 20, 2025, https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/niac-action-pac/C00710764/candidate-recipients/2022; “Congresswoman Ilhan Omar—NIAC Courage Award Recipient,” NIAC, accessed August 20, 2025, https://niacouncil.org/media_gallery_video/congresswoman-ilhan-omar-niac-courage-award-recipient/.

90.“Ilhan Omar,” NIAC Action PAC, April 12, 2022, https://niacactionpac.org/candidates_pt/ilhan-omar-2/.

91.Arash Sobhani (@arach_sobhani), “Amirahmadi: NIAC was created by Zarif,” Twitter (now X), May 22, 2019, https://x.com/arash_sobhani/status/1131329145269575680; Kaveh Shahrooz, “In All But Name: The Iranian Regime’s (De Facto) Lobby in the West,” Hoover Institution, December 5, 2023, https://www.hoover.org/research/all-name-iranian-regimes-de-facto-lobby-west.

92.“Cotton, Braun, and Cruz Urge DOJ Investigation of NIAC,” Senator Tom Cotton (website), press release, January 14, 2020, https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-braun-and-cruz-urge-doj-investigation-of-niac.

93.Amir Ahmadi Arian, “Navigating Literary Censorship—and Worse—in Iran,” Literary Hub, September 28, 2020, https://lithub.com/navigating-literary-censorship-and-worse-in-iran/.

94.“کتاب »ایلهان عمر؛ صدای مسلمانان در جامعهای استعمارگر« منتشر شد (The Book ‘Ilhan Omar: The Voice of Muslims in a Colonial Society’ Has Been Published),” Student News Network, accessed August 20, 2025, https://snn.ir/fa/news/1257509.

95.“ایلهان؛ از آوارگی تا نماینده کنگره (Ilhan: From Displacement to Congresswoman),” خبرگزاری کتاب ایران (Iran Book News Agency), May 13, 2021, https://www.ibna.ir/news/533238/.

96.“واکنش کنعانی به استبداد کنگره آمریکا در اخراج ایلهان عمر (Canaanite Reaction to the Tyranny of the US Congress in Expelling Ilhan Omar),” Khabaronline News Agency, February 14, 2022, https://www.khabaronline.ir/news/1727070/.

97.“ایلهان عمر: پمپئو یک هیولاست/ تحریمهای وی هزاران ایرانی را به کام مرگ کشانده است (Ilhan Omar: Pompeo Is a Monster / His Sanctions Have Led Thousands of Iranians to Death),” باشگاه خبرنگاران جوان (Young Journalists Club), February 1, 2020, https://www.yjc.ir/fa/news/7635787/.

98.“آیا ایران از طریق ”ایلهان عمر “و ”رشیده طلیب “در حال نفوذ در کنگره آمریکا است؟ (Is Iran Influencing the US Congress Through Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib?),” Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, January 24, 2019, https://aftabnews.ir/fa/news/628409/.

99.Brent Scher, “Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib Joins Radical Cast at Muslim Conference,” Washington Free Beacon, September 6, 2018, https://freebeacon.com/politics/michigans-rashida-tlaib-joins-radical-cast-muslim-conference/.

100.“رشیده طلیب؛ زن مسلمانی که آمریکا را به زانو درآورد (Rashida Tlaib: The Muslim Woman Who Brought America to Its Knees),” Batarinha, August 19,2018, https://www.bartarinha.ir/.

101.“عضو مسلمان کنگره: پلیس آمریکا ذاتاً نژادپرست است (Muslim Congressman: US Police Are Inherently Racist),” International Quran News Agency (IKNA), April 15, 2021, https://iqna.ir/fa/news/3964384/.

102.“Rashida Tlaib Receives Scrutiny over Joining Secret Facebook Group That ‘Glamorizes’ Hamas,” special report, Fox News, November 15, 2023, https://www.foxnews.com/video/6341202369112; Gabe Kaminsky, “Democrat Rashida Tlaib Part of Secret Pro-Hamas Facebook Group: Report,” Washington Examiner, November 15, 2023, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2572034/democrat-rashida-tlaib-part-of-secret-pro-hamas-facebook-group-report/.

103.Debbie Dingell et al. to Mark Zuckerberg, December 15, 2020, https://debbiedingell.house.gov/uploadedfiles/12.15.20_dingell_letter_to_facebook_-_anti-muslim_content_final.pdf.

104.“Rep. Ilhan Omar Statement on the Biden Administration’s New Border Policies,” Representative Ilhan Omar (website), press release, January 6, 2023, https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-ilhan-omar-statement-biden-administrations-new-border-policies.

105.Justin Caruso, “Ilhan Omar: Vetting Immigrants’ Social Media Is ‘Fascism In Action,’” Daily Caller, September 10, 2019, https://dailycaller.com/2019/09/10/ilhan-omar-fascism-in-action/.

106.Mike Gonzalez, “Ilhan Omar Brags About Advancing a Somalia First Agenda in Congress,” The Heritage Foundation, February 5, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/ilhan-omar-brags-about-advancing-somalia-first-agenda-congress.

107.Mark Moore, “Rashida Tlaib Calls to Defund Immigration Agencies amid Border Crisis,” New York Post, July 8, 2021, https://nypost.com/2021/07/08/rep-rashida-tlaib-calls-to-defund-immigration-agencies/.

108.Hilary E. Kahn and Rosemary Pennington, eds., On Islam: Muslims and the Media (Indiana University Press, 2018) 133.

109.“Report on Rep. André Carson’s Alleged Ties to the Muslim Brotherhood,” Center for Security Policy, 2015, https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Andre_Carson_Dossier_02-24-15.pdf.

110.Chelsea Schilling, “Lawmaker: Model Public Schools After Muslim Ones,” Campus Watch, Middle East Forum, July 5, 2012, https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/lawmaker-model-public-schools-after-muslim-ones.

111.Robert Spencer, “Mamdani’s Mom Got Millions from a Source That Should Make His Supporters Think Twice (but Won’t),” FrontPage Magazine, September 5, 2025, https://www.frontpagemag.com/mamdanis-mom-got-millions-from-a-source-that-should-make-his-supporters-think-twice-but-wont/.

112.Lydia Musher, “Shaking Off Zohran Mamdani’s Violent Doublespeak,” Times of Israel, June 30, 2025, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/shaking-off-zohran-mamdanis-violent-doublespeak/.

113.Micah Uetricht and Meagan Day, Bigger than Bernie: How We Can Win Democratic Socialism in Our Time (Verso, 2021).

114.“New York Mayoral Candidate Wildly Popular with Muslims across US,” International Quran News Agency, July 19, 2025, https://iqna.ir/en/news/3493901/new-york-mayoral-candidate-wildly-popular-with-muslims-across-us.

115.“Lebanese Hizbullah Outlet Celebrates Zohran Mamdani’s Potential Win Of NYC Mayoral Race, Noting That It Propels Him to Become ‘Member of US Congress, Vice-Presidential Candidate, Secretary of State, Justice, or Homeland Security,’” Middle East Media Research Institute, June 26, 2025, https://www.memri.org/jttm/lebanese-hizbullah-outlet-celebrates-zohran-mamdanis-potential-win-nyc-mayoral-race-noting-it.

116.Tani Burton, “The Muslim Brotherhood Goes to City Hall,” Times of Israel, June 26, 2025, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-muslim-brotherhood-goes-to-city-hall.

117.Hudson Crozier, “Pro-Mamdani PAC Took Donation from Islamist Cleric Who Vouched for Terror Plot Mastermind,” Daily Caller, July 10, 2025, https://dailycaller.com/2025/07/10/pro-mamdani-pac-donation-Islamist-cleric-vouched-terror-mastermind.

118.Imam Siraj Wahaj, “The Legend Himself: Imam Siraj Wahaj/Interview with Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi,” interview by Yasir Qadhi, February 23, 2021, posted February 25, 2021, by Yasir Qadhi, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndj9mZ7uQ3A.

119.“Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-MI) Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC) Maintains Ties with Dearb, Michigan’s Extremist, Antisemitic Top Shi’hite Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi,” Special Dispatch no. 11898, Middle East Media Research Institute, March 27, 2025, https://www.memri.org/reports/congresswoman-debbie-dingell-d-mi-chair-house-democratic-policy-and-communications-committee.

120.Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Challenge of Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to Counter It (Hoover Institution Press, 2017), 17.

121.Ibid., 23–24.

122.Quoted in Bukay, Islam and the Infidels, 245–47.

123.Oren Litwin, “Time to Deport New Jersey’s Genocidal Imam,” Middle East Forum, December 20, 2017, https://www.meforum.org/could-this-extremist-new-jersey-imam-be-deported-7114.

124.“At Dearborn, Michigan Memorial for Iranian Islamic Revolution Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Usama Abdulghani Says: Israel and the Western System Are Going Down; Western Civilization Is Morally Bankrupt, Must Be ‘Exposed’; Quotes Supreme Leader Khamenei: Freeing Palestine Is Key to the World’s Salvation,” Middle East Media Research Institute, June 6, 2025, https://www.memri.org/tv/dearborn-usama-abdulghani-khomeini-memorial-israel-west.

125.Hollie McKay, “Jihadis Using Religious Visa to Enter US, Experts Warn,” Fox News, March 14, 2017, https://www.foxnews.com/us/jihadis-using-religious-visa-to-enter-us-experts-warn; Charlie Savage, “Probe Finds Fraud in Church Visa Program,” Deseret News, July 15, 2006, https://www.deseret.com/2006/7/15/19963647/probe-finds-fraud-in-church-visa-program/.

126.Quoted in Daniel Pipes and Khalid Durán, “Muslim Immigrants in the United States,” Center for Immigration Studies, August 1, 2002.

127.“Al-Aqsa Mosque Address: Europe Wants the Muslim Refugees as Labor; We Shall Conquer Their Countries,” Middle East Media Research Institute, September 11, 2015, https://www.memri.org/tv/al-aqsa-mosque-address-europe-wants-muslim-refugees-labor-we-shall-conquer-their-countries.

128.Bukay, Islam and the Infidels, 253.

129.“How Refugees Transform and Enhance Our Societies,” The Global Goals (website), June 20, 2024, https://www.globalgoals.org/news/how-refugees-transform-and-enhance-our-societies/.

130.Philomena Essed, Georg Frerks, and Joke Schrijvers, eds., “Introduction,” in Refugees and the Transformation of Societies: Agency, Policies, Ethics, and Politics (Berghahn Books, 2004).

131.Matthew Day, “Muslim Brotherhood ‘Using Migrants as Invasion Force’ to Seize Control of Europe, Czech President Claims,” The Telegraph, January 5, 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/czechrepublic/12082757/Muslim-Brotherhood-using-migrants-as-invasion-force-to-seize-control-of-Europe-Czech-president-claims.html.

132.Jasmine Coleman, “Cologne Sex Attacks: Search for Answers,” BBC News, January 8, 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35241808.

133.James Rothwell, “Cologne Sex Attacks: Mob Attacks Group of Migrants in ‘Manhunt’ for Suspects,” Telegraph, January 11, 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12092354/Cologne-sex-attacks-New-Years-Eve-cases-rise-to-more-than-500.html.

134.“Cologne Sex Attacks: Women Describe ‘Terrible’ Assaults,” BBC News, January 7, 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35250903.

135.Coleman, “Cologne Sex Attacks: Search for Answers.”

136.“Cologne Attacks: ‘Women Were Screaming,’” BBC News, January 7, 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35248765.

137.“Hunderte Sollen Bielefelder Disco Attackiert Haben” (Hundreds Are Said to Have Attacked a Bielefeld Disco), WELT, January 9, 2016, https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article150798244/Silvesternacht-Hunderte-sollen-Bielefelder-Disco-attackiert-haben.html.

138.Kate Connolly, “Tensions Rise in Germany over Handling of Mass Sexual Assaults in Cologne,” The Guardian, January 6, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/06/tensions-rise-in-germany-over-handling-of-mass-sexual-assaults-in-cologne

139.Kate Connolly, “Tensions Rise in Germany over Handling of Mass Sexual Assaults in Cologne,” The Guardian, January 7, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/10/germany-heiko-maas-new-years-eve-assaults-nationwide.

140.Richard Orange, “Unprecedented Sex Harassment in Helsinki at New Year, Finnish Police Report,” The Telegraph, January 8, 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/finland/12088332/Unprecedented-sex-harassment-in-Helsinki-at-New-Year-Finnish-police-report.html; Jens Dahlkvist, “Several Women Molested on New Year’s Eve,” Expressen, January 6, 2016, https://www.expressen.se/kvallsposten/flera-kvinnor-ofredade-under-nyarsnatten/; Vincent Wood, “Did 1,000-Strong Sex Gang ALSO Strike in Zurich? Police Probe ANOTHER String of Attacks,” Daily Star, January 8, 2016, https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/zurich-police-probe-string-sex-17151700.

141.“Vienna Friday Sermon Following New Year’s Eve Sex Attacks in Cologne: We Must Not Keep Silent about Sexual Harassment,” Middle East Media Research Institute, February 5, 2016, https://www.memri.org/tv/vienna-friday-sermon-following-new-years-eve-sex-attacks-cologne-we-must-not-keep-silent-about.

142.Charlie Peat, “Muslim Cleric ‘Says Cologne Sex Attacks Were VICTIMS’ Fault Because They Wore Perfume,’” Express Newspapers, January 20, 2016, https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/636306/Muslim-cleric-imam-Cologne-sex-attacks-victims-fault-perfume-Germany-migrants.

143.Darren Boyle, “Germans Must Ban ALCOHOL If They Want to Prevent Further Sex Attacks and Help North Africans Integrate, Says Muslim Group,” Daily Mail, January 22, 2016, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3411641/Germans-ban-ALCOHOL-want-prevent-sex-attacks-help-North-Africans-integrate-says-Muslim-group.html.

144.“NYT: Sexueller Terrorismus gegen Frauen!” Alice Schwarzer (website), January 20, 2016, https://www.aliceschwarzer.de/artikel/sexueller-terrorismus-gegen-frauen-331451.

145.Westrop, “Creeping Theo-Progressivism.”

Chapter 7: Progressives and Drug Cartels

1.Ernesto Londoño and Shasta Darlington, “Jair Bolsonaro Win’s Brazil’s Presidency, in a Shift to the Far Right,” New York Times, October 28, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/world/americas/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-election.html.

2.Facundo Aguirre, “OPINIÓN POLÍTICA. Internacional Progresista: Centroizquierdismo Al Rescate Del Capitalism,” La Izqierda Diario, May 13, 2020, https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Internacional-Progresista-centroizquierdismo-al-rescate-del-capitalismo.

3.Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, “Yanis Varoufakis’s International Odyssey,” The Nation, LEXIS, December 18, 2018.

4.Jeff Beer, “The Creatives Behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Campaign Ad Promote Global Progressive Solidarity,” Fast Company, December 1, 2018, https://www.fastcompany.com/90275298/the-creatives-behind-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-campaign-ad-promote-global-progressive-solidarity.

5.“Encabeza Bernie Sanders ‘movimiento popular’: portavoz,” La Jornada, March 2, 2020, https://ljz.mx/02/03/2020/encabeza-bernie-sanders-movimiento-popular-portavoz/.

6.Facundo Aguirre, “OPINIÓN POLÍTICA. Internacional Progresista: centroizquierdismo al rescate del capitalism,” https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Internacional-Progresista-centroizquierdismo-al-rescate-del-capitalismo.

7.Sebastian Grundberger, The Pink Galaxy: How the Foro de São Paulo, the Grupo de Puebla, and their International Allies Undermine Democracy in Latin America (Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2024), 57–58; “About,” David R. Kadler (website), accessed August 21, 2025, https://davidrkadler.info/about/.

8.Robert Stilson, “The Progressive International: The ‘Left of the Left’ Goes Global,” Capital Research Center, February 14, 2024, https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-progressive-international-part-1/.

9.“Council,” Progressive International, accessed August 21, 2025, https://progressive.international/council/; Robert Stilson, “The Progressive International: Leadership,” February 14, 2024, https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-progressive-international-part-4/; “The Red Nation,” KeyWiki.org, last modified June 23, 2025, https://keywiki.org/The_Red_Nation.

10.Alejandro Peña Esclusa, The Electoral Frauds of São Paulo Forum (self-published, 2023), 129.

11.Stilson, “The Progressive International: The ‘Left of the Left’ Goes Global.”

12.“Accountant Who Worked for Lula Is Target of Operation Targeting PCC, Says Newspaper,” Noticias Financieras, LEXIS, April 9, 2024.

13.Ryan C. Berg, “Brazil’s Workers’ Party Has an Organized Crime Problem in the Making,” American Enterprise Institute, June 19, 2020, https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/brazils-workers-party-has-an-organized-crime-problem-in-the-making/.

14.“Council,” Progressive International.

15.Stilson, “The Progressive International: Leadership.”

16.Mohammed Rawwas, “US Needs a Pro-Latin America President,” The Northern Iowan, December 12, 2019, https://www.northerniowan.com/11924/opinion/u-s-needs-a-pro-latin-america-president/.

17.“Ecuador Admits Cutting Off Assange’s Internet After Clinton Leaks,” Deutsche Welle, LEXIS, October 19, 2016.

18.Todd Bensman, “Ecuador a Linchpin in Fight Against Terrorist Migration,” Middle East Forum, October 21, 2019, https://www.meforum.org/ecuador-a-linchpin-in-fight-against-terrorist.

19.Quoted in “Freedom of Movement: Why We Need Open Borders,” Global Justice Now, December 2020, https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/freedom_of_movement_booklet_1220_-_web.pdf.

20.“Latin American Leaders Blast Trump Border Wall,” Euronews, LEXIS, January 26, 2017.

21.Casto Ocando, “Ecuador: El retorno de Correismo y la sombra de los cartel de la droga,” Medium, March 15, 2021, https://medium.com/v%C3%A9rticecontents/ecuador-el-retorno-del-corre%C3%ADsmo-y-la-sombra-de-los-carteles-de-la-droga-66f3eb24dd65; “The Strange Judicial History of Telmo Castro,” Plan V, December 17, 2018, https://planv.com.ec/english/strange-judicial-history-telmo-castro/.

22.Patrick Markey, “Columbia Says FARC Documents Show Correa Ties,” Reuters, March 2, 2008, https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/colombia-says-farc-documents-show-correa-ties-idUSN02297382/.

23.“Pentagon Staff ‘To Leave Ecuador’ after Correa Order,” BBC News, April 25, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27165203; “Ecuador President May Have Sought Money from FARC for Election, Says Report,” Fox News, May 11, 2011, https://www.foxnews.com/world/ecuador-president-may-have-sought-money-from-farc-for-election-says-report.

24.Alejandro Peña Esclusa, The São Paulo Forum’s Cultural Warfare (self-published, 2022), 78; “Mega Investigation Reveals Links Between Politicians, Judges, and Criminals in the Correa Era,” La Derecha Diario, March 3, 2025, https://derechadiario.com.ar/us/ecuador/ecuador-shadow-of-correaism-persists-in-national-politics.

25.“Ecuador’s Correa Admits Father Was Drug Smuggler,” Reuters, August 9, 2007, https://www.reuters.com/article/markets/oil/ecuadors-correa-admits-father-was-drug-smuggler-idUSN14237138/.

26.Ocando, “Ecuador: El Retorno de Correismo y la sombra de los cartel de la droga.”

27.“Designation of Two Former Ecuadorian Public Officials for Involvement in Significant Corruption,” US Embassy and Consulate in Ecuador, October 9, 2024, https://ec.usembassy.gov/designation-of-two-former-ecuadorian-public-officials-for-involvement-in-significant-corruption/.

28.“The US Is Persecuting Rafael Correa—And His Family,” Progressive International, October 10, 2024, https://progressive.international/observatory/2024-10-10-the-u-s-is-persecuting-rafael-correa--and-his-family/en.

29.“Council,” Progressive International.

30.Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “M-19,” last modified August 27, 2025, https://www.britannica.com/topic/M-19.

31.“Colombia: Potential Cocaine Production Increased by 53 Per Cent in 2023, According to New UNODC Survey,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, press release, October 18, 2024, https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2024/October/colombia_-potential-cocaine-production-increased-by-53-per-cent-in-2023--according-to-new-unodc-survey.html.

32.Matthew Duss, “Latin America Doesn’t Want to Be Forced into Cold War 2.0,” Foreign Policy, September 1, 2023, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/01/latin-america-aoc-us-congress-trip-chile-brazil-colombia-progressive/. Duss is the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy.

33.“Colombian President Denounces Before the UN the Failure of the Drug War,” Noticias Financieras, LEXIS, September 20, 2022.

34.“Progressive International Backs Petro’s Plan to Legitimize Cocaine,” Noticias Financieras, LEXIS, September 27, 2022; Gustavo Petro, “‘Without Peace with the Planet, There Will Be No Peace Among Nations,’” Progressive International, September 21, 2022, https://progressive.international/wire/2022-09-21-without-peace-with-the-planet-there-will-be-no-peace-among-nations/en.

35.Peña Esclusa, The Electoral Frauds of São Paulo Forum, 114; Adam Isaacson, “Migrants in Colombia: Between Government Absence and Criminal Control,” Washington Office on Latin America, June 20, 2024, https://www.wola.org/analysis/migrants-in-colombia-between-government-absence-and-criminal-control/; “The US Puts Gulf Clan Leaders Linked to Human Trafficking and Fentanyl on Clinton List,” Noticias Financieras, LEXIS, September 24, 2024.

36.“Dura respuesta de Juan Fernando Petro a su hermano: ‘Decide, sin miramiento alguno, colocar a los suyos a padecer este escarnio,’” Semana, March 2023, https://tinyurl.com/yr2n3syv; “Colombia president’s son turns gov’t witness in corruption probe,” EFE, August 2, 2023, https://efe.com/en/latest-news/2023-08-02/colombia-presidents-son-turns-govt-witness-in-corruption-probe/; “Has Narco-Money Once Again Infiltrated Political Campaigns in Colombia?,” InSight Crime, last modified May 16, 2024, https://insightcrime.org/news/has-narco-money-once-again-infiltrated-political-campaigns-colombia/.

37.Agence France Presse, “Colombian Leader’s Son Says Drug Money Entered Father’s Campaign,” Barron’s, August 3, 2023, https://www.barrons.com/news/colombian-leader-s-son-says-drug-money-entered-father-s-campaign-2a992a27.

38.Grundberger, The Pink Galaxy, 50.

39.“Progressive Strategy Summit 2019,” Congressional Progressive Caucus Center, accessed August 21, 2025, archived November 11, 2019, at https://web.archive.org/web/20191111151249/https://www.progressivecaucuscenter.org/progressive-strategy-summit-2019/program.

40.“Andres Bernal,” CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, accessed August 21, 2025, https://slu.cuny.edu/people/andres-bernal/.

41.Josep Freixes, “Colombia at the Afro-Descendant Leaders Summit in Atlanta, US,” Columbia One, May 16, 2024, https://colombiaone.com/2024/05/16/colombia-afro-descendant-leaders-summit-atlanta-us/.

42.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “AOC: ‘What Latin America Wants Is Sovereignty,” interview by Daniel Denvir, New York Progressive Action Network, September 23, 2023, https://nypan.org/about/news-and-updates/2023/9/19/aoc-what-latin-america-wants-is-sovereignty.

43.“US Congressional Delegation Led by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Arrives in Santiago,” Center for Economic and Policy Research, press release, August 16, 2023, https://cepr.net/press-release/us-congressional-delegation-led-by-representative-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-arrives-in-santiago/.

44.Duss, “Latin America Doesn’t Want to Be Forced into Cold War 2.0.”

45.Lucas Reynoso, “Gustavo Petro sella ‘una alianza estratégica’ con Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” El País, August 21, 2023, https://elpais.com/america-colombia/2023-08-22/gustavo-petro-sella-una-alianza-estrategica-con-alexandria-ocasio-cortez.html.

46.“Gustavo Petro se reunió en Bogotá con Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez y otros congresistas demócratas, ¿de qué conversaron?” El Tiempo Latino, August 28, 2023, https://eltiempolatino.com/2023/08/28/politica-comunidad-latino/gustavo-petro-se-reunio-en-bogota-con-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/.

47.“Ocasio-Cortez critica medidas de Trump contra Colombia tras crisis con Petro,” IFMNoticias.com, January 27, 2025, https://ifmnoticias.com/ocasio-cortez-critica-medidas-de-trump-contra-colombia-tras-crisis-con-petro/.

48.Duss, “Latin America Doesn’t Want to Be Forced into Cold War 2.0.”

49.Natalie Alcoba, “AOC and Democratic Colleagues Learn Lessons from Latin-America’s Resurgent Left,” The Nation, August 22, 2023, https://thenation.com/article/politics/aoc-congress-brazil-chile-colombia.

50.“Inside the Lefty Congressional Delegation to Latin America,” The Intercept, September 9, 2023, https://theintercept.com/2023/09/09/deconstructed-podcast-greg-casar-latin-america/.

51.Alcoba, “AOC and Democratic Colleagues Learn Lessons from Latin-America’s Resurgent Left.”

52.Chuck Ross, “Soros Funded House Democrats’ ‘Socialist Sympathy Tour’ to South America, Records Show,” Washington Free Beacon, September 7, 2023, https://freebeacon.com/democrats/soros-funded-house-democrats-socialist-sympathy-tour-to-south-america-records-show/.

53.Calling for the annulment of the Monroe Doctrine and the development of a “New Good Neighbor” policy in order to foster improved relations and deeper, more effective cooperation between the United States and our Latin American and Caribbean neighbors, H.R. Res. 943, 118th Cong. (2023–2024), https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-resolution/943/.

54.Congressman Chuy Garcia, “Joined fellow members of the Progressive Caucus in welcoming Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the Capitol on Wednesday, where we discussed the global movement for justice and how it intersects with climate action and fighting for workers,” Facebook, April 21, 2023, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=646364963968817&id=100057859580344&set=a.285487893389861&locale=ms_MY.

55.Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, “I had the honor of meeting with Colombian President Gustavo Petro during his visit to Chicago today,” Facebook, September 24, 2024, https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=919164080033691&id=100058203215124.

56.Senator Chris Murphy, “Bogotá + Mexico City + Tabasco,” Medium, September 3, 2022, https://chrismurphyct.medium.com/bogot%C3%A1-mexico-city-tabasco-ba07ddc6a2bb.

57.“NEWS: Congressman Greg Casar Participates in Historic Launch of Panamerican Congress,” Congressman Greg Casar (website), press release, August 8, 2024, https://casar.house.gov/media/press-releases/news-congressman-greg-casar-participates-historic-launch-panamerican-congress.

58.“Hermann Tertsch: Petro Comes to Power, Narco-Chavismo Eats Up the Region,” Noticias Financieras, LEXIS, June 21, 2022.

59.See for example “New International 1974–2024 Economic Order,” Progressive International, accessed August 21, 2025, https://act.progressive.international/nieo-collection/; “PI Briefing | No. 36 | Economic Liberation Will Not Be Granted. It Must Be Seized,” Progressive International, September 16, 2024, https://progressive.international/wire/2024-09-16-pi-briefing-no-36-economic-liberation-will-not-be-granted-it-must-be-seized/en; Progressive International, “PI Briefing | No. 6 | Southern Insurgency,” LinkedIn, May 7, 2024, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pi-briefing-6-southern-insurgency-progressive-international-wcbuf/.

60.Larry Rohter, “Columbian Turncoat Tells Miami Court Samper Took Drug Money,” New York Times, July 25, 1997, https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/25/world/colombian-turncoat-tells-miami-court-samper-took-drug-money.html; Michael S. Serrill, “Rocked by Scandal,” Time, August 14, 1995, https://time.com/archive/6727754/rocked-by-scandal/; “Murió tesorero de Samper,” La Nación, January 16, 1999, https://www.nacion.com/el-mundo/murio-tesorero-de-samper/6QOTL5P6CRAR7A53KAHYZTQZOE/story/.

61.See for example Matt Kennard, “‘We Showed That Another Bolivia Is Possible’—An Interview with Evo Morales,” Progressive International, August 25, 2022, https://progressive.international/wire/2022-08-25-an-exclusive-interview-with-evo-morales/en.

62.Jeremy McDermott, “Bolivia: The New Hub for Drug Trafficking in South America,” InSight Crime, October 16, 2014, https://insightcrime.org/investigations/bolivia-the-new-hub-for-drug-trafficking-in-south-america/.

63.“Bolivia’s Morales Bars ‘Spying’ US DEA Agents,” Reuters, November 1, 2008, https://www.reuters.com/article/world/bolivias-morales-bars-spying-us-dea-agents-idUSTRE4A01IW/.

64.“Bolivia’s Morales Boosts Legal Coca Production,” BBC News, March 9, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39214085; Bureau of International Narcotics and law Enforcement Affairs, “2016 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR),” US Department of State (website), accessed August 21, 2025, https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2016/vol1/253242.htm.

65.“Jaime Bayly: ‘Evo Morales vendía cocaína al Cartel de Sinaloa y era el socio de ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán,’” Infobae, November 13, 2019, https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2019/11/13/jaime-bayly-evo-morales-vendia-cocaina-al-cartel-de-sinaloa-y-era-el-socio-de-el-chapo-guzman/; “El Chapare, la zona roja del narcotráfico y de la trata,” Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights, April 23, 2020, https://www.derechos.org/nizkor/bolivia/doc/narcos762.html.

66.Grundberger, The Pink Galaxy, 120.

67.Álvaro García-Linera, “Álvaro García Linera: All Popular Victories Require Prior Cultural Victories,” Progressive International, April 5, 2023, https://progressive.international/wire/2023-04-05-lvaro-garca-linera-all-popular-victories-require-prior-cultural-victories/en.

68.Richard Schoeberl, Jeff Bollettieri, and William Loucks Jr., “The Nexus Between Drug and Human Trafficking,” Domestic Preparedness, June 5, 2024, https://www.domesticpreparedness.com/articles/the-nexus-between-drug-and-human-trafficking.

69.Oswaldo Zavala, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narco-Trafficking and Culture in the US and Mexico, trans. William Savinar (Vanderbilt University Press, 2022), 156.

70.Lucia Suarez Sang, “Mexico Cartel Massacre: Lopez Obrador’s ‘Hugs, Not Bullets’ Strategy Questioned Amid Deadly Violence,” Fox News, November 5, 2019, https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexican-president-hugs-not-bullets-security-deadly-violence.

71.Bernie Sanders, “Congratulations to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the newly elected president of Mexico. Now is the time to stand up to Trump’s divisiveness and xenophobia and create a continent which brings countries together to focus on economic, social, racial and environmental justice,” Facebook, July 2, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/berniesanders/posts/congratulations-to-andr%C3%A9s-manuel-l%C3%B3pez-obrador-the-newly-elected-president-of-me/1822888561099473/.

72.Thom Hartmann, “The Bernie Sanders of Mexico Was just Elected President,” posted July 2, 2018, by Thom Hartmann Program, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMa0a-VDky8; Alex Seitz-Wald, “Bernie Sanders Highlights Differences with Clinton at Iowa Speech,” NBC News, October 24, 2015, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/bernie-sanders-highlights-differences-clinton-iowa-speech-n451006; Morgan Winsor, “Amlo, the Leftist Candidate Leading Mexico’s 2018 Presidential Race,” ABC News, June 30, 2018, https://abcnews.go.com/International/amlo-leftist-candidate-leading-mexicos-2018-presidential-race/story?id=56198425.

73.“Revolutionary Cycles Are Contagious,” interview with Rafael Barajas by Adrián Gerardo Rodríguez Sánchez, trans. Nicolas Allen, Jacobin, May 3, 2019, https://jacobin.com/2019/05/morena-mexico-popular-education-amlo-fourth-transformation.

74.Steven Dudley, “‘Operation Polanco’: How the DEA Investigated AMLO’s 2006-Presidential Campaign,” InSight Crime, January 30, 2024, https://insightcrime.org/operation-polanco-how-dea-investigated-amlos-2006-presidential-campaign/.

75.Motion to Preclude Cross-Examination of Cifuentes-Villa, United States v. Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, No. 1:09-cr-00466-BMC-RLM (Dist. Ct. E.D.N.Y).

76.Anabel Hernández, La Historia Secreta: AMLO y el Cártel de Sinaloa, trans. Lucas P. Myers (Grijalbo, 2024).

77.Meagan Day, “Bernie’s Plan Rings In a New Era of Criminal Justice Politics,” Jacobin, August 19, 2019, https://jacobin.com/2019/08/bernie-sanders-criminal-justice-safety-for-all-plan-black-lives-matter.

78.Associated Press, “AMLO Calls Gangs, Cartels ‘Respectful People’ Who ‘Respect the Citizenry,’” Fox News, April 25, 2024, https://www.foxnews.com/world/amlo-calls-gangs-cartels-respectful-people-respect-the-citizenry.

79.“AMLO Offers New Version of Story About Release of El Chapo’s Son in Sinaloa,” Mexico News Daily, June 20, 2020, https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/amlo-offers-new-version-of-story-about-release-of-el-chapos-son-in-sinaloa/.

80.Kurt Hackbarth, “The Politics of Destabilizing AMLO,” Jacobin, November 12, 2019, https://jacobin.com/2019/11/amlo-sinaloa-cartel-el-chapo-ovidio-guzman-culiacan.

81.Adry Torres, “Mexican President Lopez Obrador Indicates Gangs and Cartels Are ‘Respectful People’ Who Respect Residents and Just Kill Each Other,” Daily Mail, April 25, 2024, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13351435/mexico-president-andres-manuel-lopes-obrador-cartel-gangs.html.

82.David Agren, “AMLO Doubles Down on ‘Hugs, Not Bullets,’” Texas Public Policy Foundation, May 18, 2022, https://www.texaspolicy.com/amlo-doubles-down-on-hugs-not-bullets/; https://davidagren.substack.com/p/amlo-doubles-down-on-hugs-not-bullets. Commentary was originally published by El Reportero.

83.Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Oye, Trump, trans. Lucas P. Myers (Planeta Publishing, 2017).

84.Jeremy Corbyn, “Jeremy Corbyn: ‘Venceremos compañeros, y viva México,’” Progressive International, October 2, 2024, https://progressive.international/wire/2024-10-02-jeremy-corbyn-venceremos-compaeros-y-viva-mxico/en; “¡Viva la Cuarta Transformación!” Progressive International, October 1, 2024, https://progressive.international/observatory/2024-10-01-viva-la-cuarta-transformacin/en.

85.Jake Johnson, “Progressive Climate Scientist Claudia Sheinbaum Wins Mexican Presidency in Landslide,” The Real News Network, June 3, 2024, https://therealnews.com/progressive-climate-scientist-claudia-sheinbaum-wins-mexican-presidency-in-landslide.

86.Suhail Gharaibeh, “The Rebirth of Omar García Harfuch,” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), June 28, 2024, https://nacla.org/rebirth-omar-garcia-harfuch. (“Pequeño García is considered a fugitive of the US judiciary, where he is wanted on drug charges; Cárdenas Palomino, also wanted in the United States, is currently awaiting trial for torture in Mexico’s Altiplano prison; and in February 2023, García Luna was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn on charges of cocaine trafficking and taking millions of dollars in cash bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel.”)

87.Rubi Martinez, “Ésta es la cifra que ‘Los Chapitos’ pagaron a Omar García Harfuch para capturar a ‘El Licenciado’, según el ‘Mini Lic,’” Infobae, May 8, 2024, https://www.infobae.com/mexico/2024/05/08/esta-es-la-cifra-que-los-chapitos-pagaron-a-omar-garcia-harfuch-para-capturar-a-el-licenciado-segun-el-mini-lic/.

88.Hernández, La Historia Secreta, 327–28.

Chapter 8: Transforming America

1.Julia G. Young, “A Century of Mercy: The Catholic Church and Immigration Along the U.S.-Mexico Border,” in Maria Clara Bingemer and Peter J. Casarella, eds., Pope Francis and the Search for God in America: The Significance of His Early Visits to the Americas (Catholic University of America Press, 2021), 180, 183.

2.Elise Ann Allen, “On US Elections, Pope Says Catholics Must Choose ‘Lesser of Two Evils,’” Crux, September 13, 2024, https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2024/09/on-u-s-elections-pope-says-catholics-must-choose-lesser-of-two-evils.

3.Austen Ivereigh, Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church (Henry Holt, 2019), 225; George Neumayr, The Political Pope: How Pope Francis Is Delighting the Liberal Left and Abandoning Conservatives (Center Street, 2017), 122; Young, “A Century of Mercy,” 182; Kausha Luna, “Pope Francis and Immigration in Mexico,” Center for Immigration Studies, February 18, 2016, https://cis.org/Luna/Pope-Francis-and-Immigration-Mexico.

4.Associated Press, “Pope Invites Refugees to Join Him on Stage for Audience,” Voice of America, June 22, 2016, https://www.voanews.com/a/ap-pope-invites-refugees-to-join-him-on-stage-for-audience/3386719.html.

5.Uri Friedman, “Refugees and the ‘Globalization of Indifference,’” The Atlantic, April 16, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/04/refugees-pope-francis-lesbos/477870/; Pope Francis, “General Audience: Saint Peter’s Square,” The Holy See, August 28, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2024/documents/20240828-udienza-generale.html; Courtney Mares, “Pope Francis Tells Jesuits He Is Shocked by Anti-Immigration Narratives in Europe,” Catholic News Agency, December 5, 2019, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/43003/pope-francis-tells-jesuits-he-is-shocked-by-anti-immigration-narratives-in-europe.

6.Massimo Faggioli, “A Pope with ‘Both Feet in History,’” Commonweal, September 14, 2017, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/pope-both-feet-history.

7.Allan Figueroa Deck, SJ, “Migrants and Refugees in Pope Francis’s Transformative Vision of Church and Society,” Center for Migration Studies, November 28, 2016, https://cmsny.org/pubications/tomasilecture2016/

8.Austen Ivereigh, “The Pope and the Patria Grande: How Francis Promotes Latin America’s Continental Destiny,” in Bingemer and Casarella, eds., Pope Francis and the Search for God in America; Marcantonio Colonna, The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy (Regnery Publishing, 2017), 187.

9.Inés San Martín, “Pope Calls On Latin America to Fight ‘Colonizations,’ Realize Its Destiny,” Crux, July 9, 2016, https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2016/07/pope-calls-latin-america-fight-colonizations-realize-destiny.

10.Ivereigh, Wounded Shepherd, 234.

11.Ivereigh, “The Pope and the Patria Grande,” 25.

12.Pope Francis, “Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the 104th World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2018,” The Holy See, January 14, 2018, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/migration/documents/papa-francesco_20170815_world-migrants-day-2018.html.

13.Pope Francis, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home (Our Sunday Visitor, 2015).

14.Deck, “Migrants and Refugees in Pope Francis’s Transformative Vision of Church and Society.”

15.Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Jonathan Watts, “Pope Meets Fidel Castro in ‘Intimate and Familial’ Encounter,” The Guardian, September 20, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/20/pope-francis-meets-with-fidel-castro-cuba-visit.

16.Cathy Lynn Grossman, “Christ, Marx and Che: Fidel Castro Offers Pope His Religious Views,” National Catholic Reporter, September 21, 2015, http://ncronline.org/news/world/christ-marx-and-che-fidel-castro-offers-pope-his-religious-views.

17.Américo Freire and Evanize Sydow, Frei Betto: The Political-Pastoral Work of a Dominican Friar in Brazil and Beyond (Sussex Academic Press, 2020), 177; “The São Paulo Forum, Castro’s shock troops,” Executive Intelligence Review 22, no. 45 (1995), https://larouchepub.com/other/1995/2245_sao_paulo_forum.html; Fidel Castro and Frei Betto, Fidel & Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism & Liberation Theology (Ocean Press, 2016), ix.

18.Denise F. Blum, Cuban Youth and Revolutionary Values: Educating the New Socialist Citizen (University of Texas Press, 2011), 29.

19.Kirchgaessner and Watts, “Pope Meets Fidel Castro in ‘Intimate and Familial’ Encounter.”

20.Astrid Prange De Oliveira, “Leonardo Boff: ‘Fidel llevaba una cruz sobre el pecho,’” Deutsche Welle, November 29, 2016, https://www.dw.com/es/leonardo-boff-al-principio-fidel-llevaba-una-cruz-sobre-el-pecho/a-36573638.

21.Agence France-Presse, “Pope France to Lead Havana Mass Next to Che Guevara Portrait,” NDTV, August 4, 2015, https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/pope-francis-to-lead-havana-mass-next-to-che-guevara-portrait-1203578.

22.Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Jonathan Watts, “Pope Meets Fidel Castro in ‘Intimate and Familial’ Encounter,” The Guardian, September 20, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/20/pope-francis-meets-with-fidel-castro-cuba-visit.

23.Freire and Sydow, Frei Betto, 175.

24.Tim Stelloh, “Pope Francis Meets with Fidel Castro on Second Day of Cuba Visit,” NBC News, September 20, 2015, https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/pope-francis-visits-america/pope-francis-meets-fidel-castro-second-day-cuba-visit-n430641.

25.Gerard O’Connell, “Cuba’s Raul Castro Tells Pope Francis: ‘I Could Become a Catholic Again,’” America (magazine), May 10, 2015, https://www.americamagazine.org/content/dispatches/cubas-raul-castro-tells-pope-francis-i-could-become-catholic-again.

26.Ed Newman, ed., “Frei Betto Says ‘Pope Francis Is Making a True Revolution Within the Catholic Church,’” Radio Cuba, September 19, 2015, archived July 12, 2015, at https://web.archive.org/web/20250712094228/https://www.radiohc.cu/en/noticias/nacionales/69674-frei-betto-says-pope-francis-is-making-a-true-revolution-within-the-catholic-church

27.Castro and Betto, Fidel & Religion, 224.

28.Michael Novak, “The Case Against Liberation Theology,” New York Times Magazine, October 21, 1984.

29.Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, eds. and transs. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Orbis Books, 1973), 25.

30.Frei Betto, “Educación del Hombre y la Mujer Nuevos,” America Libre no. 12, 265. (Quote translated by Google Translate.)

31.Castro and Betto, Fidel & Religion, 49.

32.Ibid., 211, 223.

33.Gustavo Gutierrez: “La teologia de la liberacion en el contexto neoliberal,” America Libre no. 4, 67 (Quote translated by Google Translate.)

34.Dorothy Cummings McLean, “Brazilian Liberation Theologian: ‘Seize’ the Amazon Synod, It’s ‘Of the Greatest Importance,’” LifeSiteNews.com, September 26, 2019, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/brazilian-liberation-theologian-seize-the-amazon-synod-its-of-the-greatest-importance/.

35.Grossman, “Christ, Marx and Che.”

36.“Excerpts from Vatican Statement Criticizing the ‘Theology of Liberation,’” New York Times, September 4, 1984, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/04/world/excerpts-from-vatican-statement-criticizing-the-theology-of-liberation.html.

37.Anne Hendershott, “Pope Francis and the ‘Religion of Humanity,’” The Catholic World Report, June 20, 2019.

38.“Theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, Who Saw in Fidel Castro a Model for the Continent, Has Died,” Translating Cuba, October 25, 2024, https://translatingcuba.com/theologian-gustavo-gutierrez-who-saw-in-fidel-castro-a-model-for-the-continent-has-died/; Joshua J. McElwee, “Pope Meets with Liberation Theology Pioneer,” National Catholic Reporter, September 25, 2013, https://www.ncronline.org/news/theology/pope-meets-liberation-theology-pioneer.

39.Quoted in Neumayr, The Political Pope, 4.

40.Junno Arocho Esteves, “Pope Francis Bids Farewell to Father Gustavo Gutiérrez: ‘A Great Man, A Man of the Church,’” National Catholic Reporter, October 28, 2024, https://www.ncronline.org/news/pope-francis-bids-farewell-father-gustavo-guti-rrez-great-man-man-church.

41.Nicole Winfield, “Liberation Theology Rehabilitation Continues at Vatican,” Associated Press, May 7, 2015.

42.Junno Arocho Esteves, “Synodality Means Communion, Not ‘Populism,’ Pope Says,” Crux, May 26, 2022, https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2022/05/synodality-means-communion-not-populism-pope-says.

43.Neumayr, The Political Pope, 4.

44.Prange De Oliveira, “Leonardo Boff: ‘Fidel llevaba una cruz sobre el pecho.’”

45.Silvo Simonetti, “How Christian Marxism Took Root in Brazil,” Religion & Liberty Online, Acton Institute, October 26, 2018, https://rlo.acton.org/archives/104409-how-christian-marxism-took-root-in-brazil.html.

46.Novak, “The Case Against Liberation Theology.”

47.Maike Hickson, “Liberation Theologian Boff: ‘Francis Is One of Us,’” OnePeterFive, December 26, 2016, https://onepeterfive.com/liberation-theologian-boff-francis-is-one-of-us/.

48.Ivereigh, Wounded Shepherd, 204. “Boff let slip that the pope had asked him to send documents to the Argentine ambassador in Rome, a former pupil of the pope’s, rather than to the Secretariat of State, to prevent its subsecretaries intercepting and burying them.”

49.Neumayr, The Political Pope, 1.

50.Cindy Wooden, “Pope Lifts Suspension of Father D’Escoto, Former Sandinista Official,” National Catholic Reporter, August 4, 2014, https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/pope-lifts-suspension-father-descoto-former-sandinista-official.

51.EFE, “Pope Lots-O’ the Destroyer - Sends His Approval to Marxist Liberation Theology,” Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Mission (website), August 6, 2014, http://www.saintspeterandpaulrcm.com/Bulletin-Announcements/BulletinPosts, Older_Still_Current.htm; Maike Hickson, “An Interview with George Neumayr, Author of The Political Pope,” OnePeterFive, May 6, 2017, https://onepeterfive.com/interview-george-neumayr-author-political-pope/.

52.“Pope Francis Slams Market ‘Tyranny,’” CNN, November 26, 2013, https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2013/11/26/qmb-pope-market-tyranny-beck-intv.cnn.

53.Frei Betto, “Francis and the Changes in the Catholic Church,” Latin America in Movement, March 19, 2014, https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/84116.

54.Ivereigh, Wounded Shepherd, 19.

55.Ibid., 78.

56.Inés San Martín, “Pope’s Late Teacher Says His Concept of ‘People’ Just Doesn’t Work in English,” Crux, November 29, 2019, https://cruxnow.com/interviews/2019/11/popes-late-teacher-says-his-concept-of-people-just-doesnt-work-in-english.

57.Juan Carlos Scannone, Theology of the People: The Pastoral and Theological Roots of Pope Francis (Paulist Press, 2021), 11; Jon P. Radwan and Roger B. Alfani, “Communicating Transcendent Love: Interpersonal Encounter and Church-State Transitions in Fratelli tutti,” Religions 13, no. 6 (2022), https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13060532. “Beyond the socio-political context of Argentina influencing Jorge Bergoglio as an adolescent, young priest, and bishop, one should not ignore a broader influential Latin American movement: la teologia del pueblo (the theology of the people). The demarcation line between the theology of the people and its more controversial cousin, the theology of liberation, is relatively thin.”

58.Paul Vallely, “Epilogue: After Populism and Polarization—A Better Kind of Politics,” in William F. Murphy Jr., ed., Social Catholicism for the Twenty-First Century?, vol. 2, New Hope for Ecclesial and Societal Renewal (Pickwick Publications, 2024), 360.

59.Ibid., 359.

60.Scannone, Theology of the People, 96.

61.Ibid., 137.

62.George C. Leef, “The Pope and the Markets,” Regulation, CATO Institute, Spring 2018., https://www.cato.org/regulation/spring-2018/pope-francis-caring-society.

63.Ibid.

64.Francis X. Clooney, “In Another Striking Interview, Pope Francis Reflects on Europe’s Christian Roots and Relations with Islam,” America (magazine), May 21, 2016, https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/islam-gospel-and-world-conquest.

65.“The Pope, the Amazon, and Pachamama,” Francis X Clooney, S.J. (website), Harvard Divinity School, February 24, 2020, https://francisclooney.hsites.harvard.edu/blog/pope-amazon-and-pachamama.

66.Castro and Betto, Fidel & Religion, 273.

67.Kristin E. Heyer, “An Ever Wider We: Pope Francis’s Migration Ethics,” in Conor M. Kelly and Kristin E. Heyer, eds., The Moral Vision of Pope Francis: Expanding the US Reception of the First Jesuit Pope (Georgetown University Press, 2024), 119.

68.Vallely, “After Populism and Polarization,” 349, 353.

69.Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, J’Accuse: Shedding Light on My “Excommunication” (Post Hill Press, 2024), 11.

70.Ibid., 85.

71.Ibid., 12.

72.“The Dalai Lama Says There Are ‘Too Many Refugees In Europe,’” posted June 1, 2016, by Scripps News, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaEfaeN5e3I.

73.Zamira Rahim, “Dalai Lama Says ‘Europe Belongs to the Europeans’ and Suggests Refugees Return to Native Countries,” Independent, September 14, 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dalai-lama-europe-refugee-crisis-immigration-eu-racism-tibet-buddhist-a8537221.html.

74.George Soros, “The People’s Sovereignty,” Foreign Policy, October 28, 2009, https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/28/the-peoples-sovereignty/; David S. Broder, “Wealthy Benefactors Stoke Campaigns for Medical Marijuana,” Washington Post, October 19, 1998, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/10/20/wealthy-benefactors-stoke-campaigns-for-medical-marijuana/438b0ce3-f18a-43da-ae78-f9cf3738edf9/; Connie Bruck, “The World According to George Soros,” New Yorker, January 15, 1995, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/01/23/the-world-according-to-soros.

75.Kevin J. Jones, “Leaked Documents: Soros Foundations Aimed to Exploit 2015 US Papal Visit, Influence 2016 Elections,” National Catholic Register, September 1, 2016, https://www.ncregister.com/news/leaked-documents-soros-foundations-aimed-to-exploit-2015-us-papal-visit-influence-2016-elections.

76.Ibid.

77.Vigano, J’Accuse.

78.Paola Totaro, “The Fallible Reformist,” The Australian, LEXIS, March 28, 2018; Piero LaPorta, “Sotto la cenere cova la battaglia per le finanze Vaticane,” La Verità, July 4, 2017; Claire Giangravé, “Ex-Vatican Auditor Libero Milone Seeks to Bring Case, and Evidence, to the Pope,” Religion News Service, July 31, 2025; Alessandro Rico, “Democrat Fingers in the Vatican Pie: Did Obama Force Benedict’s Abdication?” OnePeterFive, August 11, 2017, https://onepeterfive.com/obama-benedict-abdication/.

79.Heyer, “An Ever Wider We: Pope Francis’s Migration Ethics,” 121.

80.Luis Ricardo Fraga and Kiku Huckle, “Pope Francis and Latino Communities in the U.S.: Spiritual Empowerment in the Americas Through Language,” in Bingemer and Casarella, eds., Pope Francis and the Search for God in America, 210.

81.Ibid., 216, 217.

82.R. R. Reno, “The Return of Catholic Anti-Modernism,” First Things, June 18, 2015, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/06/the-return-of-catholic-anti-modernism.

83.“Pope Francis: Migrants Bearing Brunt of ‘Aggressive’ Nationalism and ‘Radical Individualism,’” Catholic World Report, May 6, 2021, https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/05/06/__trashed-271/.

84.Justin McLellan, “Migrant Morality: Pope Doubles Down on Message of Acceptance,” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, August 30, 2024, https://www.usccb.org/news/2024/migrant-morality-pope-doubles-down-message-acceptance.

85.Rebecca Falconer, “Pope Francis on US Border Crisis: Migration ‘Makes a Country Grow,’” Axios, May 20, 2024, https://www.axios.com/2024/05/21/pope-francis-cbs-interview-highlights.

86.Vigano, J’Accuse, 84.

87.Anthony Annett, “Laudato Si’ and Inclusive Solidarity: The Ideology of the Market and the Reality of Inequality,” The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, accessed August 22, 2025, https://www.pass.va/en/publications/studia-selecta/studia_selecta_01_pass/annett.html.

88.Manoel Ricardo Fiuza, “Brazil 2015—What Comes Next?” Tradition in Action, January 23, 2015, https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/i99ht_079_Brasil.html.

89.“February 16–19, 2017, Modesto, CA: World Meeting of Popular Movements,” World Meeting of Popular Movements (WMPM), accessed August 22, 2025, http://popularmovements.org/.

90.Cassidy Klein, “People Power: Community Organizing and Synodality Go Hand in Hand,” US Catholic (magazine), LEXIS 790564138, May 1, 2024.

91.Ibid.

92.In a 1972 Playboy interview, Alinsky also explained that he would choose to go to Hell. “Hell would be heaven for me,” because it was full of “have-nots. They’re my kind of people.” Aaron Blake and Frances Stead Sellers, “Hillary Clinton, Saul Alinsky and Lucifer, Explained,” Washington Post, July 20, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/20/hillary-clinton-saul-alinsky-and-lucifer-explained/.

93.Paulo Fernando Carneiro de Andrade, “Pope Francis and Popular Movements in Latin America,” in Bingemer and Casarella, eds., Pope Francis and the Search for God in America, 95.

94.“Pope Francis Rails Against Corruption, ‘Idolatry of Money,’” NBC News, July 11, 2015, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/pope-francis-rails-against-corruption-idolatry-money-n390661.

95.Ivereigh, Wounded Shepherd, 228.

96.Andrea Gagliarducci, “Here’s What Pope Francis Is Likely to Tell the US Congress,” Catholic News Agency, September 21, 2015, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/32665/heres-what-pope-francis-is-likely-to-tell-the-us-congress.

97.Ivereigh, Wounded Shepherd, 221.

98.Ibid., 230.

99.Ibid., 230.

100.“Faith, Grassroots Leaders to Mobilize to End ‘Economy of Exclusion’ as Part of Worldwide Grassroots Movement Called For by Pope Francis,” State News Service, LEXIS, February 16, 2017.

101.William F. Murphy Jr., “Introduction: New Hope for Ecclesial and Societal Renewal,” in Murphy Jr., ed., Social Catholicism for the Twenty-First Century?, vol. 2, New Hope for Ecclesial and Societal Renewal, 13.

102.Alejandra Molina, “Faith Groups Among Those Granted Money from Billionaire Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott,” Religion News Service, June 16, 2021, https://religionnews.com/2021/06/16/mackenzie-scott-billionaire-philanthropist-donates-money-to-faith-groups-jeff-bezos/.

103.Charlotte Allen, “Soros and Simony,” First Things, December 30, 2016, https://firstthings.com/soros-and-simony/.

104.Damian Thompson, “How the Democrats Infiltrated the Catholic Church,” The Spectator, October 19, 2016, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-the-democrats-infiltrated-the-catholic-church/.

105.Faith in Action (PICO National Network), InfluenceWatch, accessed August 22, 2025, https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/pacific-institute-for-community-organizations-pico-national-network/; “Faith for Liberation,” campaigns and programs, Faith in Action, accessed August 22, 2025, https://faithinaction.org/issue-campaign/la-red/.

106.Faith In Action (PICO National Network); “RISE + VOTE,” campaigns and programs, Faith in Action, accessed August 22, 2025, https://faithinaction.org/issue-campaign/riseandvote/.

107.“Disrupting Donald Trump,” La Croix, LEXIS, August 8, 2017.

108.Pope Francis, “Message of His Holiness Pope Francis on the Occasion of the World Meetings of Popular Movements in Modesto (California) [16–18 February 2017],” The Holy See, February 10, 2017, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2017/documents/papa-francesco_20170210_movimenti-popolari-modesto.html.

109.John Sniecgocki, “The Revolutionary Implications of Medellin and Pope Francis,” in Susie Paulik Babka, Elena Procario-Foley, and Sandra Yocum, eds., “You Say You Want a Revolution?” 1968–2018 in Theological Perspective, vol. 64 (Orbis Books, 2019): 196.

110.Pope Francis, “Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti of the Holy Father Francis on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” The Holy See, October 3, 2020, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20201003_enciclica-fratelli-tutti.html.

111.Allen, “Soros and Simony.”

112.Brian Roewe, “In Powerful Speech, San Diego Bishop Challenges Organizers to Disrupt, Rebuild,” National Catholic Reporter, February 19, 2017, https://www.ncronline.org/powerful-speech-san-diego-bishop-challenges-organizers-disrupt-rebuild.

113.Quoted in Roewe, “In Powerful Speech.”

114.“World Meeting of Popular Movement Gathering in Modesto,” Catholic Labor Network, February 27, 2017, https://catholiclabor.org/world-meeting-of-popular-movement-gathering-in-modesto/.

115.Jenny Goldsberry, “Pope Francis Promotes Critic of Trump to Be Archbishop of DC,” Colorado Politics, January 6, 2025, https://www.coloradopolitics.com/pope-francis-promotes-critic-of-trump-to-be-archbishop-of-dc/article_526ecf35-aa49-5c68-b23b-4d15d9b671c0.html.

116.“Responding to Refugees and Migrants: Twenty Pastoral Action Points,” Integral Human Development, accessed August 22, 2025, https://migrants-refugees.va/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/20-Pastoral-Action-Points.EN_.pdf.

117.Heyer, “An Ever Wider We.”

118.Fabio Baggio, “Introduction,” in Fabio Baggio and Agnes M. Brazal, eds., Faith on the Move: Toward a Theology of Migration in Asia (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008), viii.

119.Marcelo Menna Barreto, “Surpresa com papa norte-americano e esperança entre progressistas,” Extra Classe, May 9, 2025, https://www.extraclasse.org.br/politica/2025/05/surpresa-com-papa-norte-americano-e-esperanca-entre-progressistas/.

120.Clara Simão, “Novo papa será um contraponto a Trump, afirma Frei Betto,” CBN, May 8, 2025, https://cbn.globo.com/programas/ponto-final-cbn/entrevista/2025/05/08/novo-papa-sera-um-contraponto-a-trump-afirma-frei-betto.ghtml.

121.Júlia Motta, “Frei Betto: ‘Podemos considerar que temos um segundo papa latino-americano,’” Revista Fórum, May 9, 2025, https://revistaforum.com.br/brasil/2025/5/9/frei-betto-podemos-considerar-que-temos-um-segundo-papa-latino-americano-179002.html.

122.Virginia Saldanha, “Pope Leo XIV—Second Pope from the Americas,” Matters India, May 13, 2025, https://mattersindia.com/2025/05/pope-leo-xiv-second-pope-from-the-americas/.

123.Jordi Ruiz, “León XIV: un puente entre el norte global y el sur. Pero . . . ¿Qué intereses son los que circulan por ese puente?” Canarias-Semanal.org, February 1, 2025, archived May 14, 2025, at https://web.archive.org/web/20250514052610/https://canarias-semanal.org/art/38006/leon-xiv-un-puente-entre-el-norte-global-y-el-sur-pero-que-intereses-son-los-circulan-por-ese-puente.

124.Iacopo Scaramuzzi, “Prevost, il cardinale americano cosmopolita e schivo che può essere l’outsider,” La Repubblica, April 25, 2025, https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2025/04/26/news/robert_francis_prevost_cardinale_conclave_papabili-424147258/; Íñigo Domínguez, “Leo XIV: The First Pope from the United States, a Figure in the Spirit of Francis,” El País, May 9, 2025, https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-09/leo-xiv-the-first-pope-from-the-united-states-a-figure-in-the-spirit-of-francis.html.

125.Leonardo Boff, “León XIV, su gran desafío: la desoccidentalización y despatriarcalización de la iglesia,” Religión Digital, May 11, 2025, https://www.religiondigital.org/leonardo_boff-_la_fuerza_de_los_pequenos/Leon-XIV-desoccidentalizacion-despatriarcalizacion-Iglesia-primavera-machismo-mujer_7_2778392138.html.

126.Richard Szczepanowski, “Cardinal McElroy Says Election of Pope Leo XIV Was a ‘Moment of Real Grace’ for the Church,” Catholic Standard, LEXIS, May 15, 2025.

Chapter 9: The Surge

1.Todd Bensman, Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in US History (Bombardier Books, 2024), 168–69.

2.Quoted in John Wahala, “Critical Theory and Mass Immigration,” Center for Immigration Studies, April 19, 2021, https://cis.org/Wahala/Critical-Theory-and-Mass-Immigration.

3.“How Mexico Outfoxed Joe Biden on Illegal Immigration, Knowing He’d Never Fight Back,” States News Service, LEXIS, March 10, 2023; Bensman, Overrun, 169.

4.Bensman, Overrun, 170.

5.Daniel Borunda, “Paso del Norte Bridge Blocked After More Than 100 Cuban Migrants Show Up at El Paso Border,” El Paso Times, December 30, 2020, https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/immigration/2020/12/30/Cuban-migrant-surge-blocks-el-paso-paso-del-norte-border-bridge/4087083001/.

6.Jacqueline Charles and Syra Ortiz Blanes, “Biden Administration Issues Warning to Those Involved in Nicaragua-Bound Migrant Flights,” Miami Herald, November 6, 2023, https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article281504018.html; Agence France-Presse, “African, Asian Markets Seek Nicaragua Shortcut to US,” Voice of America, December 29, 2023, https://www.voanews.com/a/african-asian-migrants-seek-nicaragua-shortcut-to-us-/7418273.html; Jeff Ernst, “Plane Detained in France Sheds Light on Nicaragua’s Role in US Migrant Crisis,” The Guardian, January 1, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/01/france-detained-plane-nicaragua-us-migrants-crisis; Emily Green, “Migrants from Around the World Are Trying to Reach the US Via Charter Planes,” NPR, September 27, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/nx-s1-5108732/migrants-nicaragua-haiti-charter-flights-immigration.

7.Tibisay Zea, “Nicaragua Is Helping Tens of Thousands of Migrants Reach the US,” The World, January 5, 2024, https://theworld.org/stories/2024/01/05/nicaragua-helping-tens-thousands-migrants-reach-us.

8.Wilfredo Miranda Aburto, “Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega Profits Handsomely from Vulnerable Haitian Immigrants,” El País, November 8, 2023, https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-08/nicaraguas-daniel-ortega-profits-handsomely-from-vulnerable-haitian-migrants.html.

9.Juan Montes, “The Country That Is Helping Tens of Thousands of Migrants Head to the US,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/the-country-that-is-helping-tens-of-thousands-of-migrants-head-to-the-u-s-afb838af.

10.“Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar Calls for Nicaragua to Be Included in List of Terrorist States,” Noticias Financieras, LEXIS, July 3, 2021.

11.“A New Charter Flight from Libya Landed in Managua Amidst Threats from the US,” La Prensa, May 20, 2024, https://www.laprensani.com/2024/05/20/english/3321735-a-new-charter-flight-from-libya-landed-in-managua-amidst-threats-from-the-u-s.

12.Alexandra Mendoza, “Muslim Shelter Opens in Tijuana,” San Diego Union-Tribune, June 16, 2022, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2022/06/16/muslim-shelter-opens-in-tijuana/.

13.“Migrant Route to US Leads Senegalese to Nicaragua,” VOA Africa, March 3, 2024, https://www.voaafrica.com/a/migrant-route-to-us-leads-senegalese-to-nicaragua/7511881.html.

14.Moussa Ngom, “Nicaragua, a New Pathway to the US for Senegalese Would-Be Emigrants,” Le Monde, September 18, 2023, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-africa/article/2023/09/18/nicaragua-a-new-pathway-to-the-us-for-senegalese-would-be-emigrants_6137511_124.html; Jake Offenhartz, Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos, and Renata Brito, “Thousands More Mauritanians Are Making Their Way to the US, Thanks to a Route Spread on Social Media,” Associated Press, August 19, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/mauritania-immigration-west-africa-united-states-tiktok-route-bbef5afc25680ad7f2704afa76f44cea; Agence France-Presse, “African, Asian Markets Seek Nicaragua Shortcut to US.”

15.Sakshi Venkatraman, “What’s Behind the Rise in Undocumented Indian Immigrants Crossing US Borders on Foot,” NBC News, November 14, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/rise-undocumented-indian-immigrants-crossing-us-borders-foot-rcna123874.

16.Montes, “The Country That Is Helping Tens of Thousands of Migrants Head to the US.”

17.“CBP Enforcement Statistics Fiscal Year 2023,” US Customs and Border Protection, accessed August 23, 2025, https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics-fy2023.

18.“Padilla, Menendez, Booker, Luján, Ocasio-Cortez, Casar, Grijalva Lead Bicameral Push Against Expansion of Title 42 and Proposed Asylum Transit Ban,” Senator Alex Padilla (website), press release, January 26, 2023, https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/padilla-menendez-booker-lujan-ocasio-cortez-casar-grijalva-lead-bicameral-push-against-expansion-of-title-42-and-proposed-asylum-transit-ban%EF%BF%BC/.

19.Alfredo Martínez de Aguilar, “Detrás de la Noticia: Migración, Arma Silenciosa Socialista para Invadir EEUU,” Escaparate Político, June 10, 2023, https://www.escaparatepolitico.com.mx/detras-de-la-noticia-migracion-arma-silenciosa-socialista-para-invadir-eeuu.

20.Stephen Dinan, “Smugglers Selling Access to Mayorkas’ ‘Parole’ Program for $5,000,” Washington Times, March 18, 2024, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/mar/18/smugglers-selling-access-to-alejandro-mayorkas-par/.

21.Todd Bensman, “UN Budgets Millions for US-Bound Migrants in 2024,” Center for Immigration Studies, January 24, 2024, https://cis.org/Bensman/UN-Budgets-Millions-USBound-Migrants-2024.

22.Timothy D. Sisk, “Migration, Multiculturalism and Democracy: A Resource Guide,” International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2017.

23.Merrill Matthews, “Matthews: Illegal Immigrants Double Under Biden—and That’s Just the Start,” The Hill, January 23, 2024, https://thehill.com/opinion/4423296-matthews-illegal-immigrants-double-under-biden-and-thats-just-the-start/.

24.Ronny Reyes and Jennie Taer, “US Immigration Surge Under Biden Administration Is Biggest in US History—Outpacing the Days of Ellis Island,” New York Post, December 11, 2024, https://nypost.com/2024/12/11/us-news/us-immigration-surge-under-biden-administration-is-biggest-in-us-history/.

25.H. A. Washington, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 7 (H. W. Derby, 1861), quoted in Daniel E. Horowitz, Stolen Sovereignty: How to Stop Unelected Judges from Transforming America, (WND Books, 2016) 152.

26.John Gramlich, “Migrant Encounters at US-Mexico Border Have Fallen Sharply in 2024,” Pew Research Center, October 1, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/01/migrant-encounters-at-u-s-mexico-border-have-fallen-sharply-in-2024/.

27.“‘Question 30: Do you know of any affiliated gangs or groups that helped the facilitator?’ Zetas 20%, Diez y Ocho 14%, Cartel de Noreste 3%, Mara Salvatrucha 34%, Gulf Cartel 29%.” Gary J. Hale, et. al, “Uncovering Human Smuggling Patterns From Guatemala to the United States,” Voir Dire International, 2017.

28.Miriam Jordan, “Smuggling Migrants at the Border Now a Billion-Dollar Business,” New York Times, July 25, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/us/migrant-smuggling-evolution.html; Stephen Dinan, “DHS: Cartels Earn Up to $6 Billion a Year from Smuggling Migrants,” Washington Times, August 4, 2021, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/4/dhs-cartels-earn-6-billion-year-smuggling-illegal-/.

29.Bensman, Overrun, 175.

30.Jack Gillum and Michelle Hackman, “US Officials Wanted to Avoid Trump’s ‘Kids in Cages’ Problem. Doing So Created Another Dilemma,” Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/us-news/biden-migrant-children-temporary-guardians-trump-cages-e4d115f1; Marianne Levine, “DHS Officials Tell Senators Migrants Are ‘Renting Babies’ to Cross the Border,” Politico, June 6, 2019, https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/06/dhs-migrants-renting-babies-border-1356307; “Bombshell Report Confirms Grassley Oversight of Biden-Harris Admin’s Failure to Protect Migrant Children,” US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, February 4, 2025, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/bombshell-report-confirms-grassley-oversight-of-biden-harris-admins-failure-to-protect-migrant-children.

31.“HIAS Chad: Overview 2022–2023,” HIAS, accessed August 23, 2025, https://hias.org/wp-content/uploads/hias-chad-overview.pdf.

32.HIAS Grants from FY 2021, FY 2022, FY 2023, and FY 2024, USASpending.gov, accessed August 23, 2025, https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=ebec7ced222f78dc46e8409d31cd8a2d.

33.Sharon Samber, “More Than Just a Free Ride: Uber Fills a Need for Refugees,” HIAS, June 22, 2023, https://hias.org/news/what-free-uber-ride-can-mean.

34.Steven Malanga, “How the Catholic Church Became a Champion of Biden’s Open Borders,” City Journal, February 4, 2025, https://www.city-journal.org/article/catholic-church-immigration-government-funding-jd-vance.

35.Beverly Goldberg, “In the Darién, Refugees Receive Help All Along the Way,” HIAS, September 7, 2023, archived January 23, 2025, at https://web.archive.org/web/20250123110817/https://hias.org/news/cross-border-programs-provide-vital-support-gbv-survivors-and-lgbtq-people-darien-gap/.

36.Darlene McCormick Sanchez, “‘Weaponized Migration,’ a Coordinated Effort Playing Out Deep in the Panama Jungle,” The Epoch Times, March 4, 2024, https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/weaponized-migration-a-coordinated-plot-playing-out-deep-in-the-panama-jungle-5597754.

37.“2022–2023 Overview: HIAS Panama,” HIAS, accessed August 23, 2025, https://hias.org/wp-content/uploads/HIAS-Panama-Strategic-Overview-2022-2023-ENG.pdf; “The Emergency Response Fund,” HIAS, accessed August 23, 2025, https://hias.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/april22_the_emergency_response_fund_.pdf; “Cash-Based Interventions,” UNHCR, accessed August 23, 2025, https://www.unhcr.org/us/cash-based-interventions.

38.Malanga, “How the Catholic Church Became a Champion of Biden’s Open Borders.”

39.Nick Robertson, “Pope Francis Denounces Attempts to Close Southern Border as ‘Madness,’” The Hill, May 19, 2024, https://thehill.com/latino/4673538-pope-francis-denounces-attempts-to-close-southern-border-as-madness/.

40.During the Biden administration, board members included Chairman Jeff Blattner, who had served on the presidential transition teams of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton; board member Tamar Susan Newberger, who was the spouse of Barack Obama’s ambassador to the Czech Republic (she was a large donor to Obama’s campaign in her own right); Julius Genachowski, who had been chairman for Obama’s Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Policy Working Group; and Daniel Grossman and Melody McCoy, former congressional staffers for Democrats. Dennis Rodkin, “Returning Diplomat Buys $4.5 Million Condo,” ChicagoBusiness.com, September 11, 2017, https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20170911/CRED0701/170919995/former-obama-bundler-buys-lincoln-park-condo.

41.“Legal Coffee Talk: Climate Change and Forced Displacement,” HIAS, June 22, 2023, https://hias.org/events/legal-coffee-talk-climate-change-and-forced-displacement/; Jonathan S. Tobin, “Why Is HIAS Seeking to Make America’s Border Crisis Even Worse?” Jewish News Syndicate, April 19, 2021, https://www.jns.org/why-is-hias-seeking-to-make-americas-border-crisis-even-worse/.

42.Quoted in Harsha Walia, Border & Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism (Haymarket Books, 2021), 92.

43.Todd Bensman, “Biden DHS Coordinating Illegal Immigrant In-Flows with Mexico,” Center for Immigration Studies, May 10, 2023, https://cis.org/Bensman/Biden-DHS-Coordinating-Illegal-Immigration-InFlows-Mexico.

44.Bensman, Overrun, 244–46.

45.David J. Guenni Bravo, “The São Paulo Forum’s Armed Forces Agenda: Examining Venezuela and Brazil” (thesis, Missouri State University, 2022), 11–12.

46.Matthew Holloway, “NYC Illegal Immigrant Debit Card Scheme: Bank with No-Bid Contract Hands Out Thousands of Tax Dollars,” Law Enforcement Today, February 23, 2024, https://lawenforcementtoday.com/nyc-illegal-immigrant-debit-card-scheme-bank-with-no-bid-contract-hands-out-thousands-of-tax-dollars.

47.Kelly Laco, “Florida Republican Warns Cuba Is Smuggling Chinese Nationals into the US by Sea After 17 Migrants Captured in Keys for the First Time,” Daily Mail, October 29, 2023, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12676999/carlos-gimenez-warns-cuba-smuggling-chinese-nationals-us.html.

48.Philip Lenczycki, “Exclusive: Chinese ‘Cyber Police’ Agent Runs Online Network Helping Illegal Immigrants Flood into US,” Daily Caller, June 17, 2024, https://dailycaller.com/2024/06/17/chinese-police-network-illegal-immigrants/.

49.Andrew R. Arthur, “Report: CBP ‘Watering Down’ Vetting for Chinese Migrants,” Center for Immigration Studies, January 5, 2024, https://cis.org/Arthur/Report-CBP-Watering-Down-Vetting-Chinese-Migrants.

50.Lenczycki, “Exclusive: Chinese ‘Cyber Police’ Agent Runs Online Network Helping Illegal Immigrants Flood Into US.”

51.Arthur, “Report: CBP ‘Watering Down’ Vetting for Chinese Migrants.”

52.“Fact Sheet: Impact of Bipartisan Border Agreement Funding on Border Operations,” The White House of President Biden (website), February 29, 2024, https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/29/fact-sheet-impact-of-bipartisan-border-agreement-funding-on-border-operations/.

53.“A Roadmap to Rebuilding the US Refugee Admissions Program,” National Conference on Citizenship and Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, October 2020, https://ncoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Final-Report-A-Roadmap-to-Rebuilding-USRAP.pdf; Peter Schweizer, Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win (HarperCollins, 2022), 40–43.

54.Monica Showalter, “Why Is Dictator Maduro So Interested in Venezuela’s ‘Tren de Aragua’ Gang Activity in the US?” American Thinker, August 7, 2024, https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/08/why_is_venezuela_s_maduro_so_interested_in_venezuela_s_tren_de_aragua_gang_activity_in_the_u_s.html.

55.Dirk Kruijt, Cuba and Revolutionary Latin America: An Oral History (Zed Books, 2017), 131; Andrew R. Arthur, “Is Venezuela Sending Violent Criminals to the United States?” Center for Immigration Studies, March 15, 2024, https://cis.org/Arthur/Venezuela-Sending-Violent-Criminals-United-States.

56.Jennie Taer, “Turkish Migrants Flock to San Diego with the Help of Smugglers on Social Media,” New York Post, June 2, 2024, https://nypost.com/2024/06/02/us-news/turkish-migrants-flocking-to-san-diego-via-social-media-smugglers/.

57.Arthur, “Is Venezuela Sending Violent Criminals to the United States?”

58.Todd Bensman, “The Empty Promise of ‘Rigorous Security Vetting’ in New Migrant Border-Crossing Program,” Center for Immigration Studies, January 26, 2023, https://cis.org/Bensman/Empty-Promise-Rigorous-Security-Vetting-New-Migrant-BorderCrossing-Program.

59.Maryann Martinez, “Americans Warned to Brace for Second Wave of Venezuelan Gangsters Coming over the Border as Country’s Prisons as at Least 100 Inmates Are Released: ‘These Are Killers,’” Daily Mail, March 13, 2024, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/texas/article-13188843/Americans-warned-brace-SECOND-wave-Venezuelan-gangsters-coming-border-countrys-prisons-100-inmates-RELEASED-killers.html.

60.Andreina Itriago, “Venezuela’s Violent Deaths Fall to 22-Year Low on Migration,” Bloomberg, December 28, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-28/venezuela-s-violent-deaths-fall-to-22-year-low-on-migration.

61.“Operators of Large-Scale Marriage Fraud Agency Sentenced Following HSI San Diego, Partner Investigation,” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, March 16, 2024, https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/operators-large-scale-marriage-fraud-agency-sentenced-following-hsi-san-diego.

62.David North, “Bizarre Conspiracy: Aliens Claim Green Cards Because They’d Been Abused by Their Citizen Children,” Center for Immigration Studies, January 25, 2024, https://cis.org/North/Bizarre-Conspiracy-Aliens-Claim-Green-Cards-Because-Theyd-Been-Abused-Their-Citizen-Children.

63.Gabriella Sanchez, “Critical Perspectives on Clandestine Migration Facilitation: An Overview of Migrant Smuggling Research,” Journal on Migration and Human Security 5, no. 1 (2017): 11, https://doi.org/10.1177/233150241700500102.

64.Tamara Caraus, “Cosmopolitan ‘Hidden Transcripts’? Becoming In/Visible as a Strategy of Migrant Resistance,” in Tamara Caraus and Elena Paris, eds., Migration, Protest Movements and the Politics of Resistance: A Radical Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism (Routledge, 2019), 75.

65.Bensman, Overrun, 143–44.

66.RNC Research (@RNCResearch), “Biden says Hispanic immigration to the U.S. is ‘a little bit like back in the 1840s and the great exodus of Ireland’: ‘It’s even a bigger influx now in terms of Hispanic voters! Err, Hispanic citizens,’” X, May 7, 2024, https://x.com/RNCResearch/status/1787945925089927584.

Chapter 10: Fighting Back

1.See Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Challenge of Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to Counter It (Hoover Institution Press, 2017), 6.

Index

A specific form of pagination for this digital edition has been developed to match the print edition from which the index was created. If the application you are reading this on supports this feature, the page references noted in this index should align. At this time, however, not all digital devices support this functionality. Therefore, we encourage you to please use your device’s search capabilities to locate a specific entry.

Abbott, Greg, 50

ABC News, 95

Abdelmonem, Hoda, 127

Abdel-Qader, Maher, 130

Abdel-Rahman, Omar (“Blind Sheikh”), 135

Abdulghani, Usama, 135

Abdulmutallab, Umar Farouk, 125

Abrego Garcia, Kilmar, 111–112

Absolut vodka, 17–18

Abu Baker, Shukri, 119–120

Abu Basir, 120–121

Abu-Yusuf, Sami, 139

Adams, Eric, 98, 190

Adidas, 160

Adler, David, 142, 148

AeroGuard, 107

Africa, 184

AFSCME, 115–116

Agren, David, 155

Aguirre, Armando Fuentes (Catón), 18

Ahmed, Ekhlas, 31

Air China, 106

Akram, Mohamed, 118–119

Alinsky, Saul, 58, 175

AL-Khandiq, 132

All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, 80

Al Qaeda, 119

Al Thani, Khalid Bin Khalifa, 128

America Libre, 6, 166–167

American Airlines Flight 11, 119

American Association of Cantonese, 101

American Catholic Church, 171

American Islamic Forum for Democracy, 125

America Self-Guided Tour Channel, 191

Amirahmadi, Hooshang, 128

Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran), 122

Anglo-Saxon culture, 26
animators, 117

Ansari, Yassamin, 30

Arab American Association of New York, 124

Argentina, 7, 167

Arizona, 27, 29, 41

Asia, 184

Asiamchild.com, 88

Assange, Julian, 144
assimilation, 32

Associated Press, 23, 37
asylum seekers, 190, 194–196

Atta, Mohamed, 119

Attila Plan, 1–6

Austria, 137, 139

Ayala-Zamora, David, 114

Ayed, Muhammad, 136

Aztecs, 27–28, 69

Ba, Gueva, 184

Babones, Salvator, 78, 89
background checks, 74

Baggio, Fabio, 179

Baghajati, Tarafa, 138–139

Bank of China, 90
al-Banna, Hasan, 120

Bárcena, Alicia, 40

Barjas, Rafael, 153

Bayes, Jane, 36

Bayly, Jaime, 151

Beltran, Ruth, 102

Beltrán Leyva Organization, 153

Belt & Road Initiative, 81

Bender, Alan, 128

Bensman, Todd, 187–188

Bergman, Kim, 82, 173–174

Bergoglio, Jorge Mario (Pope Francis), 157–179

Berman, Howard, 92

Bernal, Andrés, 147

Betto, Frei, 6, 160–161, 163–164, 180

Bezos, Jeff, 176, 188

Bhargava, Deepak, 68

Biden, Joe, 72, 99–100, 116, 124
and drug cartels, 143–146
and immigrant rights, 40, 182–184
immigration policy, 32, 101, 185–193, 196, 199
voter mills, 59–60, 75
bin Laden, Osama, 119
birthright citizenship, 77–79, 82–91, 100–101, 112, 188, 200
birth tourism, 77–81, 84–91, 200

Blackburn, Marsha, 200

Black Caucus, 147

Blair, Tony, 66–67

Blinken, Tony, 190

Bloomberg, 194

Boff, Leonardo, 161, 166, 180

Bolivia, 7, 151, 176

Booker, Cory, 185
border controls
border walls, 172, 174

Mexican-American border, xvi, 46, 157–159, 172, 185, 191
open borders, 130, 144, 149, 152, 177, 193

Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, 34

Botero, Fernando, 150–151

Boumediene, Houari, xv

Boxer, Barbara, 95

Boxer, Douglas, 95

Bradshaw, Ric, 194

Brazil, 7

Brigham, Erin, 175

Britton, Connie, 66

Brooks, Dan, 67

Brown, Willie, 33, 94–95
brownist militancy, 55

Bukay, David, 136

Bush, George H. W., 92

Bush, Prescott, 94

Bustamante, Cruz, 21–22

Butler, Judith, 122

CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China), 104–105

CAACR (Coalition of Asian Americans for Civil Rights), 102

Caballero, Mario, 82

Cain, 158

CAIR, 126–127, 132–133

Calderón, Felpie, 34

Cali Cartel, 150–151

California, 27–29, 41, 48, 67–69, 150
marriage fraud, 194

Proposition 187, 34
white card program, 89

California Active Citizenship Campaign, 58

Cameroon, 185
campaign funding, 92–101, 198–200

Camus, Renaud, xii

Canada, 179

Cano, Gustavo, 37

El Capi, 145
capitalism, xii, 166–168

Capital Research Center, 109

Caraus, Tamara, 195

Carballo, Lindolfo, 110–111

Cardenal, Ernesto, 166

Cárdenas, Cuauhtémoc, 19

Cárdenas Palomino, Luis, 155

Caribbean, 184

Carson, André, 126, 131

Carson, Julia, 131

Carter, Jimmy, xv, 1, 4

CASA, 110–112, 116

Casar, Greg, 148, 150

Castañeda, Jorge, 32–34

Castle Air Force Base (Merced, CA), 103, 106

Castle Airport, 105–106

Castro, Fidel, 1–8, 111, 117, 160–170, 183, 193

Castro, Joaquin, 148–149

Castro, Raúl, 117, 161–162

Cathay Pacific, 107

Catholic Charities, 188–189

Catholicism, 160, 162–163

Catholic networks, 109

CBP (US Customs and Border Protection), 84, 106, 130, 191, 193

CCP (Chinese Communist Party), xvii, 79–84, 90, 94, 97–101, 191, 198

Center for Community Change, 35

Central America, 109, 187–189

Cesar, Greg, 149

Chafik, Serenade, 139

Chan, John, 102

Change to Win, 115–116

Chavelita, 116

Chavez, Al, 64

Chavez, Hugo, 7, 110, 166, 193

Chen, Danhong “Jean,” 96

Chesapeake Bay Bridge, 118

Chevy Camaro, 64

Chevy Suburban, 154

Chicago, Illinois, 150

Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America (CRTF), 109
child migrants, 188

China, People’s Republic of (PRC), 19, 158

Belt & Road Initiative, 81

Catholics in, 170
consulates, 22, 101–102, 113, 200–201
cultural revolution, 170
illegal immigrants from, 191–192

Manchurian Generation, xvii, 77–107, 198

Military-Civil Fusion strategy, 104
military hospitals, 81
pilot training, 103–107
weaponized migration from, xv–xvii, 77–107, 198–199

China Daily, 88

China Mifubaby Group (Mifu), 86

China Telecom, 90

Chinese American Museum, 83–84

Chinese Americans, 83–84

Chinese birthright citizenship, 100–101

Chinese birth tourism, 77–81, 84–91

Chinese Central Television, 90

Chinese Communist Party (CCP), xvii, 79–84, 90, 94, 97–101, 191, 198

Chomsky, Noam, 143

Choudary, Anjem, 121

Churchill, Winston, xiv

CIA, 3

Cicero, vii

Cisneros, Henry, 58–59
citizenship
birthright, 77–79, 82–91, 100–101, 112, 188, 200
congressional oversight of, 201–202
dual, 199
requirements for, 59–65, 69, 72–75, 179, 199
universal, 144

Citizenship Project, 69

Citizens United, 200

Civic Leader Education and Advocacy Program (CLEAP), 51

Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), 104–105
civilizational warfare, 158, 166. see also migration warfare

Clarke, Yvette, 69

CLEAP (Civic Leader Education and Advocacy Program), 51

Clinton, Bill, 134
immigration policy, 189
presidential campaign fundraising, 92–93
voter mills, 58–69

Clinton, Hillary, 71, 94, 97–98, 144, 172

Coalition of Asian Americans for Civil Rights (CAACR), 102
collective action, 42
collectivism, 113

Colombia, 145–146, 149
colonialism, 9, 168, 175

Communist Party of Cuba, 6

Condon, John, 187

Confucius Classrooms, 98–99

Congressional Progressive Caucus, 150

Connecticut for Justice PAC, 99

Corbyn, Jeremy, 155

Coronel, Emma, 87

Correa, Pierina, 145

Correa, Rafael, 144–145

Cortizo, Laurentino “Nito,” 190

Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), 123

Craig, Doug, 73

Cranston, Alan, 91–92

CRTF (Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America), 109

Cruz, Ted, 50

Cuauhtémoc, 28

Cuba, 110–111, 160–170

Mariel Boatlift, 1–6, 183, 199
mass migration from, 183–184, 191, 194
cultural invasion, 32
cultural revolution, 157–181

A. G. Currie Middle School (Tustin, CA), 67
da’awah (spreading Islam), 126, 134, 136

Dalai Lama, 91, 170

Daley, Richard M., 94

Dar al-Hijrah mosque (Falls Church, VA), 123

Darién Gap, 190

Daschle, Tom, 92

Dávila Pérez, Maximiliano, 151

Davis, Angela, 189

DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), 151, 154–156

Deck, Allan Figueroa, 158, 160
de la Garza, Rodolfo, 36

Deloitte, 172

Democratic National Committee (DNC), 92–93, 99, 116

Democratic National Convention, 124

Democratic Party, 118, 124, 132
campaign fundraising, 92–93
voter mills, 59–60, 64–66, 71–72

Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, 93

Democratic Senatorial Committee, 99

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), 7, 10, 70, 131, 143
demographic war, 185–186, 194–196
de Mola, Carlos Loret, 15, 18

Deng Xiaoping, xv
deportations, xiv, 55, 102, 111
de Queljoe, Charles, 93
d’Escoto Brockmann, Miguel, 4–5, 7, 166–167

DHS (US Department of Homeland Security), 43, 72–74, 106–107, 112, 123, 130, 135, 186, 190–192

Dingell, Debbie, 133–134

Dissent Magazine, 142

Dominican Republic, 37
drug ballads, 28–29
drug cartels, 8–9, 141–156, 187, 198

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 151, 154–156
drug lords, 87
drug trafficking, 4, 150–152

DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), 7, 10, 70, 131, 143
dual citizenship, 199

EB-5 (Employment-Based Fifth Preference) investor program, 91–96, 99–101, 105

Ecuador, 7, 37, 144–145

Edrington, Diane, 187–188

Egypt, 87, 127

Elahi, Ali, 133–134

Elbarasse, Ismail Selim, 118–119
election interference, 97–98

Electronic Immigration System, 74–75

Elibiary, Mohamed, 123

El Pais, 148

El Salvador, 37, 111–118

Emanuel, Rahm, 64, 74

Employment-Based Fifth Preference (EB-5) investor program, 91–96, 99–101, 105

English language, 199

Enriquez, Eduardo, 185

Espinal, 176

Estes, Nick, 143

Europe, 170

Excelsior, 15

Ezell, Harold, 95

Facebook, 43, 130

Faget, Mariano, 2–3

Faith in Public Life (FPL), 171, 178

Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), 109–112, 115–118, 125

Farbrother, Douglas, 60, 62

FARC, 145
fascism, 130, 141

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 3, 59, 61, 94, 100–101, 123, 192

Federal Election Commission, 93, 97

Fenglin, Jim, 83

Field Team 6, 176

Finland, 137–139

First Capital Command (PCC), 143–144

Fitzgerald, Daniel, 75–76
flight schools, 103–107

Florida Straits, 159

FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), 109–112, 115–118, 125

Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), 35
foreign-born population, xi, 77–78, 187
foreign consulates, 22, 42, 46, 101–102, 113, 200–201
foreign diplomats, 200–201
foreign governments, xi–xiii, 200–201
foreign nationals, 201
foreign organizations, 201

Foreign Policy, 146

Fountain Valley Regional Medical Center (Southern California), 85

Fox, Vicente, 16, 33–34

FPL (Faith in Public Life), 171, 178

Fraga, Luis, 173

Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio), 6, 157–179

Frankfurt School, 168
fraud, 194–196

Freedom Road Socialist Organization, 103

Freire, Paulo, 23

Frey, Jacob, 127

Frost, Maxwell, 148

FSLN (Sandinista Liberation Front), 4–7, 183

Fuentes, Carlos, 20
fundamentalism, Yankee, 14

Gamaliel Foundation, 71

Gang, Qin, 81

Garcia, Alex, 88

Garcia Harfuch, Omar, 155–156

García-Linera, Álvaro, 151–152

García Luna, Genaro, 155

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 137

Gaytán Ochoa, Carlos Demetrio, 154
gendered terrorism, 138–139

Germany, 137–139

Gibler, John, 155

Gilbert, Dennis, 24

Global Goals Foundation, 137
globalization, 173

Global Times, 82

Gochez, Ron, 55

Goings, Rick, 31

Golden, Renny, 109

Golden State Regional Center, 96

Gómez, Alberto Vieyra, 14

Gonzalez, Laura, 36

Good American Baby (Meijiabei), 88

Google, 137

Gore, Al, 58–65, 69, 91–92

Gramsci, Antonio, 174

El Grande, 154

Granma, 2

Great Britain, 22, 66–67, 90

Greater Mexico, 24

Great Replacement Theory, xii

Great South, 180
green cards, 194–196

Gregg, Samuel, 168

Grijalva, Raul, 22

Guan, Bai, 82

Guatemala, 37
guerrilla warfare, 4

Guevara, Aleida, 122–123

Guevara, Camilo, 122–123

Guevara, Che, 122–123

Gulf Clan, 146

Gulf of America, 11

Guterres, António, 186

Gutiérrez, Gustavo, 163–165, 180

Guzmán, Joaquín “El Chapo,” 87, 153–154

Hadi Institute Youth Community Center (Dearborn, MI), 135

Haiti, 184

Hamas, 122–123, 126, 135

Hamm, Patricia Escamilla, 46

Han Chinese migrants, 90–91

“Hands Off” rallies, 103

Hardt, Michael, 122

Harris, Kamala, 42, 102, 134

Hartmann, Thom, 153

Henry, Mary Kay, 108, 115

Herandez, Juan, 33

Heredia, Carlos, 36

Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, 63–64

Hernández, Anabel, 156

Herod, 158

Hezbollah (Hizbullah), 122, 132–133

HIAS, 188–189
hijrah (migration), 134

Hilsalca, Gabriel, 146

“Himno del Migrante” (Migrant Hymn), 13

Hispanics, 25–26, 37, 196

Hitler, 176

Hizbullah (Hezbollah), 122, 132–133

Hochul, Kathy, 98

Holy Land Five, 131

Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, 126, 135

Honduras, 7, 37

Hong Kong, 90

House Foreign Affairs Committee, 129, 149

House Intelligence Committee, 131

Hsia, Maria, 91–92

Huang, John, 91–92

Huckle, Kiku, 173

Huerta, Dolores, 21
humanism, 168
human smuggling, 112, 144, 187

Huntington, Samuel P., xiii

Hyatt Regency Hotel (Washington, DC), 147

IAF (Industrial Areas Foundation), 58, 61, 115–116, 175

Ibarra, Jose Antonio, 51

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), 43, 55, 107, 113, 130, 187

Ickes, Harold, 60, 63–64

ID cards, 33
identity fraud, 96, 194–196
ideological scrutiny, 199

IFM Noticias, 148

IME (Institute for Mexicans Abroad), 34–36, 52
immigrant political transnationalism, 117
immigrant rights movement, 32, 40, 71, 123–124, 157, 182–184
immigrant sanctuary movement, 108–115
immigration
for cultural revolution, 157–181
fighting back against, 197–202
mass migration surge, xiii–xiv, 182–196
weaponization of, xi–xvii, 1–10, 100–101, 112
see also migration warfare

Immigration Act, 92

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 43, 55, 107, 113, 130, 187

Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), 58, 60–65, 74–75, 95
immigration laws, 174
immigration policy, 59–60

India, 184–185

Indigenous tribes, 28
individualism, 30, 159, 173

Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), 58, 61, 115–116, 175
inequality, 177

INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), 58, 60–65, 74–75, 95

Instagram, 149

Institute for Mexicans Abroad (IME), 34–36, 52

Interbank Group, 93

International Quran News Agency, 132

Iran, 95, 127, 129–130, 133

Ireland, 196

ISIS, 184

Islamic schools (madrassas), 131

Islamic Society of North America, 121, 125

Islamist movement, 118–140, 198

Islamophobia, 125

Ivereigh, Austen, 159, 167

Jackson Memorial Hospital (Miami), 3

Jacobin, 142
janitors, 114

Jasser, Zuhdi, 125

Jefferson, Thomas, 187

Jesus, 158

Jews, 102

JFK Airport, 106

Jiménez, Carlos, 45

Jiménez, Jorge Nuño, 13
jizya, 121

John Paul II, 159, 164–166

Johnson, Brian, 105

Jones, Lynne, 108–109

Jurado, Franklin, 150

Kabbani, Muhammad Hisham, 136

Kamarck, Elaine, 61–62

Kaus, Mickey, 17

Kcho, 162

Kerry, John, 134

Khan, Adnan, 135–136

Klein, Naomi, 143

Krauze, Enrique, 20

Ku Klux Klan, 55

Kyrgyz Republic, 96
labor unions, 113–115

La Botz, Dan, 117–118

Labour Party, 66–67

“La Jaula de Oro” (The Golden Cage), 31–32

La Jornada, 21

Laken Riley Act, 51

Lara-Guerrero, Larisa, 117

La Raza (The Race), 15–16, 27

LA RED, 176

Latin America
drug cartels, 9, 146
mass migration from, 9, 197

La Patria Grande (The Great Fatherland), 159, 162–163, 169
progressives, 29

Latinos, 25, 32

Lavrov, Sergei, 185

League for United Latin American Citizens, 35

Lebanon, 133

Lechleitner, Patrick, 187

Lee, Bruce, 90

Lee, Sze-Fung, 101–102

Lena, Estefania Cruz, 46

Lennar, 95

Leo IV, 158

Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), 179–181

Levine, Mel, 92

Lewinsky, Monica, 59

Li, Dongyuan, 85–86

Li, Sherry Xue, 96
liberation theology, 109, 162–169, 177–181

Libya, 123, 184
limited liability companies (LLCs), 99

Lippo Bank, 93

Lippo Group, 92–93

Lippo Securities, 93

Lopesierra, Samuel Satander (Marlboro Man), 146

Lopez, Esther, 35

López, Octavio Paredes, 14

Lopez, Omar, 53–54

López Obrador, Andrés Manuel (AMLO)

and drug cartels, 152–155
meddling in America, 47–50, 182–183
and Mexican Reconquista, 12–13, 16, 25–27, 31, 47

Los Angeles, California, 56, 103, 114–116

Los Angeles Times, 97, 148

Los Angeles Unified School District, 23

Los Tigres del Norte, 28–29

Lowe, Rob, 65–66

Loza, Steven, 25

Lu, Weidi, 98–99

Lu Guanqiu, 98

Luján, Ben Ray, 185

Lula da Silva, Luiz Inácio, 4–10, 25, 143–144, 147

Luna, Ramiro, 41

M-19, 145–146

Ma, Felix, 93

Maas, Heiko, 138

Macedonio, Felix Salgado, 14
madrassas (Islamic schools), 131

Maduro, Nicolás, 23, 192–194

Magrelo, 143

Mamdani, Zohan, 131–133

Manchurian Generation, xvii, 77–107, 198

Manifest Destiny, 19

Mariel Boatlift, 1–6, 183, 199

Mark Surrogacy Investment LLC, 80

Marlboro Man (Samuel Satander Lopesierra), 146

Martinez de Aguilar, Alfredo, 185

Marxism, 6, 109–110, 115–116, 162–168
mass migration
for cultural revolution, 157–181
fighting back against, 197–202
illegal immigration surge, 182–196, 199

Mariel Boatlift, 1–6, 183, 199
weaponization of, xi–xvii, 1–10, 100–101, 112
see also migration warfare
matricula consular, 33

Mauritania, 185

May Day rallies, 53–55

Mayorkas, Alejandro, 72–73, 190–193

McAuliffe, Terry, 97

McCarthy, Kevin, 129

McElroy, Robert, 177–180

Mead, Lawrence, 30

Means of Production, 141–142

MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), 21–22

Media Research, 78

Medicaid, 179

Medicare, 89

Medina, Eliseo, 35, 70–72

Medina, Mario A., 13

Medina, Santiago, 150–151

Medina, Saudi Arabia, 134

Mégret, Frédéric, 112–113

Meijiabei (Good American Baby), 88

Meissner, Doris, 60–62

Menendez, Bob, 50

Meng, Grace, 98

Menna Barreto, Marcelo, 180

Mexican-American border, xvi, 46, 157–159, 172, 185, 191

Mexican American Legal and Education Fund, 42

Mexican Americans, 24, 35

Mexican-American War, 24

Mexican Civil Rights Advisory Groups (MCRAGs), 50

Mexican Migration Assistance Strategy, 50

Mexico, 158, 200–201
birth tourism, 87

Catholic networks, 109
consulates, 42, 46, 113

Greater Mexico, 24
mass migration from, 113, 182–197
migration law, 182–183
organization of militancy, xvi, 39–57

Reconquista of U.S., xvi–xvii, 11–38, 47

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 12, 14, 19, 150

War on Drugs, 152

Meza, Avelino, 51

Miami, Florida, 194

Miami Police Department, 3

Middle East, 184

Mi Familia Vota, 42

Mifu (China Mifubaby Group), 86

Migrant Anthem, 42, 52

Migrant Force (Fuerza Migrante), 51
migrant rights activists, 157

Migrant TV (TV Migrante), 42–43, 56–57
migration (hijrah), 134
migration warfare

Chinese, xv–xvii, 77–107, 198
cultural revolution, 157–181
demographic war, 185–186, 194–196
drug cartels, 141–156
fighting back, 197–202
illegal immigration surge, 182–196

Islamist, 118–140

Mexican organization of militancy, xvi, 39–57

Mexican Reconquista, xvi–xvii, 11–38, 47
progressive, 108–140, 141–156
proof of concept, 1–10
revolutionary imports, 108–140
voter mills, 58–76

Mikulski, Barbara, 92
militancy, xvi, 34, 39–57, 201

Military-Civil Fusion strategy (China), 104

Milkman, Ruth, 113–115

Miller, Arpi Misha, 115–116

Millona, Eva, 32

Milone, Libero, 172

Mississippi, 99

Mobility Capital Finance, 190

Mohamad, Mahathir, xv

Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh, 119

Monroe Doctrine, 150

Morales, Cándido, 36

Morales, Evo, 151, 175–176

Morello, Tom, 143

Morena Party, 40, 43–45, 55, 183

Morocco, 137

Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), 21–22

MS-13 gang, 111–112, 194

Muhammad, 125, 134, 139

Mujica, Jorge, 53–54

Muñoz, Cecilia, 74, 116

Murphy, Chris, 150

Muslim American Society, 123

Muslim Brotherhood, 118–140, 158

Muslim migrants, 184

MuslimStern, 139

Muslim Students Association, 121
narcocorridos, 28–29

Nasrallah, Hasan, 133

National Council of La Raza, 15, 35, 74

National Immigration Law Center, 113

National Iranian American Council (NIAC), 128
nationalism, 173, 176
national pension schemes, 179

Native Americans, 143
naturalization, 59–61, 75

Neather, Andrew, 66–67

Negri, Antonio, 122
neoliberalism, 168

Netherlands, 87

Nevada, 67, 69

New Mexico, 27, 132

New York, 68–69, 194–195

New Yorkers for Lower Costs, 132–133

New York Immigration Coalition, 124

The New York Times, 102

Ni, Pin, 98–99

NIAC (National Iranian American Council), 128

Nicaragua, 4, 7, 112, 163, 166–167
mass migration from, 183–186, 194
visa requirements, 183

Nieto, Enrique Peña, 16

Noroña, José Gerardo Rodolfo Fernández, 12, 50, 56

North American Islamic Trust, 121

Northern Mariana Islands, 77

North Korea, 95

Obama, Barack, 134, 172
and immigrant rights, 32, 123–124
immigration policy, 86–89, 115–117, 189
voter mills, 59–60, 70–75

Obledo, Mario, 68

Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria (AOC), 7, 124
and drug cartels, 142–143, 147–150
immigration policy, 185
and Mexican reconquista, 21

O’Connor, James, 93

Omar, Ilhan, 126–131

Omeish, Abrar, 123

OneLA, 115–116

Orange Bowl, 4

Ortega, Daniel, 4–5, 183–185

Ostaiza brothers, 145

Osuna, José Angel Pescador, 16–17

Pachamama, 169, 176

Pacific Leadership Council (PLC), 91–92

Padilla, Alex, 185

Palestine, 56

Palestine Committee, 126

The Palestinian American Congress Group (Facebook group), 130

Palmieri, Victor, 4

Panama, 190

Pan-American Congress, 150

Paraguay, 8

Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), 102–103

Party of the Democratic Revolution, 19

La Patria Grande (The Great Fatherland), 159, 162–163, 169

Patrushev, Nikolai, 20–21

PCC (First Capital Command), 143–144

Pelosi, Laurence, 95

Pelosi, Nancy, 95

Peña Esclusa, Alejandro, 143

Pence, Mike, 99

Penn Biden Center, 192

People’s Daily Online, 81

People’s Forum, 45

People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 95, 104–106

Pequeño García, Ramón, 155

Pérez, Genaro, 3

Perez, Thomas, 116
permanent residents, 94–96

Peronism, 167

Peru, 159, 180

Peter’s Pence, 172

Petro, Gustavo, 145–149

Petro, Juan Fernando, 146–147

Petty, Aaron, xv–xvi

PI (Progressive International), 141–147, 150–151, 155

PICO National Network, 176–177

PICO Network, 171
pilot training, 103–107, 201

PLA (People’s Liberation Army), 95, 104–106

PLA Daily, 105

Planter, Cristina, 39–40

Platinum Advisors, 95

PLC (Pacific Leadership Council), 91–92

Podesta, John, 144

Polanco, Aniceto “Cheto,” 54–56
political campaign funding, 92–101, 198–200
political transnationalism, 117

Pompeo, Mike, 129

Poniatowska, Elena, 19–20
populism, 176

Portes, Alejandro, 31

Prevost, Robert (Leo XIV), 179–181

Progressive Caucus, 147

Progressive International (PI), 141–147, 150–151, 155

Progressive International Council, 144

Progressive International (Services) Ltd., 143

Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, 69
progressive movement
and drug cartels, 141–156
revolutionary imports, 108–140, 198

Progressive Strategy Summit, 147
pro-natalism, xii
propaganda, 111

Proposition 187 (California), 34
protests, xi, 37, 40–41, 52–55, 102–103

PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation), 102–103
psychological terrorism, 51

Putin, Vladimir, 20
al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, 136

Qatar, 128, 131

Qian, Yin, 90

Qin, Shuren, 95

Qin Hui, 97–98

Qiu, Phillip, 83–84

Qutb, Sayyid, 120

R-1 visas, 135

Rabfak, 23
racial synthesis, 26

Rahim, Zara, 132

Ramirez, Delia, 30–31

Ramos, Jorges, 32
rape, 137–139

Ratzinger, Joseph, 164

Rebik, Misty, 148

Reconquista, xvi–xvii, 11–38, 47

Red Nation, 143
refugees, 109, 137, 158, 179, 192
definition of, 189
ideological scrutiny of, 199

Mariel Boatlift, 1–6, 183, 199
mass surge, 182–196

Reid, Harry, 92
religious liberty, 173
religious workers, 135

Republican Congressional Committee, 99

Republican Party, 50
revolution
cultural, 157–181
progressive imports, 108–140, 198

Reyes, Luis Gutierrez, 52

Riady, John, 92

Riady, Mochtar, 92

Riley, Laken, 51

Rivas, Armando Romero, 3–4

Roberts, Riley, 149

Robles, Alejandro, 29, 44–45, 52–53, 56

Rodriguez, Gabriela, 13

Rodriguez Maradiaga, Oscar Andres, 176

Rodríguez Orjuela, Gilberto, 151

Rojon, Sebastien, 117

Roman Catholic Church, 6, 157–181, 198

Romero, Raquel, 24–25

Romero Bonifaz, Carlos, 151

Rose, Kate, 81

Rubio, Marco, 50

Ruiz, José Jaime, 14–15

Ruiz, Karina, 40–41, 54

Russia, 43

Sabri, Basim, 127

Sabri family, 127

Sachs, Jeffrey, 141
safe countries, 179

Saffar-Harandi, Mohammad-Hossein, 123

Saipan, 77, 86

Salas Crespo, Margarita, 42

Salt Lake City, Utah, 33

Samirah, Ibraheem, 139–140

Samper, Ernesto, 150–151

Sanbrano, Angela, 35

Sánchez, Alex, 51

Sanchez, Gabriella, 195
sanctuary city movement, 108–115

Sanders, Bernie, 7
and drug cartels, 141–144, 148, 152–154
presidential campaign, 123–124

Sanders Institute, 141

Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN), 4–7, 183

Sandinistas, 163, 166

Sandoval, Miguel, 65–66

San Francisco, California, 103

São Paulo Forum (SPF), 6–10, 117, 143, 164–166, 183, 190

Sarsour, Linda, 123–126

Saudi Arabia, 87, 121, 128

SAWs (Special Agricultural Workers), 62

Scannone, Juan Carlos, 167

Scott, MacKenzie, 176, 178, 188

Senegal, 184–185

Service Employees International Union (SEIU), 70, 114–116

Setiawan, Agus, 93
sexual terrorism, 138–139

Sharia law, 124, 136

Sheahan, Skinny, 63

Sheinbaum, Claudia, 11–13, 19, 27–29, 40, 50–53, 155

Shibly, Hassan, 126

Shi’ite Islamic House of Wisdom (Dearborn Heights, MI), 133

Sierra Academy of Aeronautics, 104–106

Simon, Paul, 92

Sinaloa Cartel, 87, 145, 155–156

Sinema, Krysten, 40–41

Singham, Neville Roy, 45
socialism, 163
social movements, 108

Social Security, 89, 179

Somalia, 130

“Somos Más Americanos” (We Are More American), 28–29

Somos Tejos (We are Texas), 41

Soros, George, 149, 170–171, 177–178

Soros Foundation, 149, 171

South America, 187
sovereignty, 170–171

Spain, 27–28

Spanish language, 34

Special Agricultural Workers (SAWs), 62

SPF (São Paulo Forum), 6–10, 117, 143, 164–166, 183, 190

Stanton, Greg, 107

Star Baby Care, 90

Stiftung, Konrad Adenauer, 9

Straw, Jack, 66
student visas, 201
subversion, xiv, 19, 45, 117, 170

Sun Bowl, 157

Sund, Joseph, 93
surrogacy industry, 80–83, 100–101, 200

Sweden, 137–138

Switzerland, 137–139

Tajikistan, 184

Taylor, D., 69

Taylor, Frederick Winslow, xii

Televisa, 18
terrorism, 51, 119, 132, 138–139, 184

Tertsch, Hermann, 150

Texas, 27, 29
textbooks, 23–24
theology of the people, 167–168

Tibet, 90–91

Tin, Tay Kim, 93

Tinoco, Alberto, 37

Tlaib, Rashida, 126, 129–133, 139

Tobin, Jonathan S., 189

Torres, Gustavo, 110
tourism, birth, 77–81, 84–91, 200
transformation, cultural, 157–181
transnationalism, 117

Travel for Care program, 87

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 12, 14, 19, 150

Tren de Aragua, 193–194

Trevethan, Lawrence, 105

TRICAMEX, 37

Trump, Donald
border policies, xvi, 46
executive orders, 11, 112, 200
immigration policies, xiv–xvi, 52, 55, 75, 86–87, 102, 111–112
political campaign funding, 96
resistance to, 15, 39, 42–48, 51–55, 101–103, 117–118, 125, 132, 141, 152, 159, 172, 177–178

Trump International Hotel (Honolulu), 84

El Turco, 146

TV Migrante (Migrant TV), 42–43, 56–57

Uber, 188

Ucedo, Favio, 18

UnidosUS, 15, 27, 32–33, 42

Union del Barrio, 55–56
unions, 113–115

United Arab Emirates, 137

United Front Work Department, 80, 98, 101

United Kingdom, 66–67

United Nations, 146, 178–179, 186, 189, 195

United Workers of Washington, 10

UNITE HERE, 69

Unity and Justice Fund, 132–133
universal citizenship, 144

Universal Muslim Association of America, 124

University of Arizona, 22

Uruguay, 8

USA Happy Baby, 90

US Air Force (USAF), 103

US Army, 104

US Border Patrol, 106, 183, 188, 191–193

US Census Bureau, 187

US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), 65, 72, 186

US Conference of Catholic Bishops, 188–189

US Constitution, 72

First Amendment, 200

Fourteenth Amendment, 77, 88, 200
preamble, 202

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), 84, 106, 130, 191, 193

US Department of Defense, 5, 60, 105

US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 43, 72–74, 106–107, 112, 123, 130, 135, 186, 190–192

US Department of Justice, 60–61, 64–65, 73, 85, 95

US Department of State (State Department), 3, 75–76, 79, 94, 145

US National Guard, 4

US Supreme Court, 200

Uzbekistan, 184

Valenzuela-Morena, Karla, 37

Vallely, Paul, 167–168

Vance, J. D., 102

Van Hollen, Chris, 112

Vasconcelos, José, 25–27

Vatican, 174. See also Roman Catholic Church

Vazquez, Rolando, 194

Vega, Miguel, 58–63

Velázquez, Nydia, 148, 150

Venezuela, 7, 192–194

Vidal, Enrique, 195

Vigano, Carlo Maria, 169–170, 172, 174

Villaraigosa, Antonio, 21–22
violence against women, 137–139

Violence Against Women Act, 194
visa fraud, 72–75, 85–86, 96–98, 135, 194–196
visa programs

Employment-Based Fifth Preference (EB-5), 91–96, 99–101, 105

R-1 visas, 135
student visas, 201
ten-year multi-entry visas for Chinese nationals, 88–89

Vladi & Marta (YouTube channel), 18

Voces Unidas, 51
voter mills, 58–76
voter registration, 63–64

W, Jack, 191

Wahhaj, Siraj, 124–125, 132–133

Wall of Lament, 177

The Wall Street Journal, 97

Walzer, Michael, 122

Wang Wenliang, 97

Wanxiang America, 98

Wanxiang Group, 98

Warchel, Fred, 106
warfare
civilizational, 158, 166
guerrilla, 4
see also migration warfare

Warnath, Stephen, 60

War on Drugs, 146, 149–150, 152

Washington, DC, 103, 110

Watson, Jack, 4

WeChat, 82

Weiner, Tim, 17

Weltman, John, 82

Western culture, 30, 162

The West Wing (HBO), 65–66

WhatsApp, 192–193

White House Task Force on New Americans, 74–75
white supremacy, 124

Widjata, Susato, 93

WMPM (World Meeting of Popular Movements), 174–177
women, violence against, 137–139

Women’s March (2017), 124

Wonders, Nancy, 108–109

World Meeting of Popular Movements (WMPM), 174–177

World Trade Center, 119, 124, 132, 135

World Values Survey, 30

Wray, Christopher, 101

Wyoming, 29

Xi Jinping, 83

Xuan, Guojun, 80–81

Xue, Aviva, 81

Yankee fundamentalism, 14

Ye, Jianyun “Tony,” 96

Yoon, John, 105

YouTube, 18

You Win USA, 84–86

Zapata, Antonio Friedl, 17

Zarif, Mohammad Javad, 128
al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 119

Zedillo, Ernesto, 15–16

Zeid, Yasser, 87

Zeman, Milos, 137

Zhiyi, Liang, 89–90

Zito, Mark, 86–87

Zócalo (Mexico City), 27

Zuckerberg, Mark, 130

About the Author

PETER SCHWEIZER is the president of the Government Accountability Institute and the author of four #1 New York Times bestsellers. His investigative work has been featured on the front pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal as well as on two segments on 60 Minutes. His books have been translated into eleven languages.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

Also by Peter Schweizer

Architects of Ruin: How Big Government Liberals Wrecked the Global Economy—and How They Will Do It Again If No One Stops Them

Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich

Extortion

Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends

Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite

Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win

Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans

Copyright

THE INVISIBLE COUP. Copyright © 2026 by Peter Schweizer. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Without limiting the exclusive rights of any author, contributor or the publisher of this publication, any unauthorized use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. HarperCollins also exercise their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception.

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FIRST EDITION

Cover photographs © Anadolu/Getty Images (protester); © Octavio Hoyos/Shutterstock (Pardo); © Xinhua/Shutterstock (Xi); © Daniel Efram/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock (Cortez); © Molly Riley/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock (Obama); © Gripas Yuri/ABACA/Shutterstock (Biden)

Digital Edition JANUARY 2026 ISBN: 978-0-06-342252-0

Version 12202025

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-342250-6

About the Publisher

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Contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Note to Readers
4. Dedication
5. Epigraph
6. Contents
7. Introduction
8. Chapter 1: Proof of Concept

9. Chapter 2: Mexico’s Reconquista of the US Is Real

10. Chapter 3: Mexico: Organizing Militancy in the US

11. Chapter 4: Voter Mills

12. Chapter 5: China: The Manchurian Generation

13. Chapter 6: Importing the Revolution
14. Chapter 7: Progressives and Drug Cartels
15. Chapter 8: Transforming America
16. Chapter 9: The Surge
17. Chapter 10: Fighting Back
18. Acknowledgments
19. Notes
20. Index
21. About the Author
22. Also by Peter Schweizer
23. Copyright
24. About the Publisher

Guide

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Introduction

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