Selene Rodriguez (Moderator) – Policy Director, Secure and Sovereign Frontier, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Simon Hankinson – Senior Research Fellow, Border Security and Immigration Center, The Heritage Foundation
Andres Martinez-Fernandez – Senior Policy Analyst, Latin America, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation
Mark Morgan – Visiting Fellow, Border Security and Immigration Center, The Heritage Foundation
Welcome to our inaugural U.S. – Mexico Policy Summit event to discuss the state of affairs in Mexico, the effect on U.S. – Mexico relations, and the proper American (and Texan) response to it. On December 12, 2022, the United States and Mexico commemorated an important milestone: two hundred years of mutual recognition and diplomatic relations between the two most-important republics of the New World. The anniversary comes as that relationship descends into crisis unseen in over a century. The Mexican state is descending into authoritarianism, warlordism, criminality, and overt anti-Americanism — and federal policymaking in Washington, D.C., is slow to respond to these new realities. Both Mexicans and Americans suffer from this emerging reality, and it is past time for policymakers to react.