Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took aim at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday, urging Hispanic people in Florida not to back the governor one day after he announced his bid for the White House.  

"All of his playing politics with migrants was because he wanted to be the Republican party candidate," López Obrador said during a news conference, translated by Reuters.  "I hope the Hispanics of Florida wake up and don't give him a single vote." 

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday called on Hispanic people in Florida to vote against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who launched his 2024 White House bid the day before, because of his immigration policies.

“Hopefully Hispanics in Florida will wake up and not give him one single vote, to not vote for those who persecute migrants, those who don’t respect migrants,” López Obrador said.

For more than three years, the federal government has turned away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, including those who are seeking asylum, using a public emergency health order known as Title 42. It was launched by the Trump administration at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and continued under the Biden administration.

Title 42 has been the subject of different court rulings, but as of now, the Biden administration is scheduled to lift the health order on May 11.

Here’s what you need to know about the law.

What is Title 42?

With Title 42’s expiration just days away, and a massive surge in migration expected to follow, the Biden administration is ramping up its tougher talk about the potential consequences of illegal entry to dissuade migrants from making the journey -- but so far they are not listening.

"Don't listen to smugglers' lies about America's immigration laws. The U.S. border is not open to illegal or irregular migration and U.S. immigration laws will be tougher as the Title 42 public health order ends," the Department of Homeland Security tweeted on Tuesday.

After more than three years, a controversial Trump-era immigration policy known as Title 42 is set to expire on 11 May.

Officials are bracing for an influx of migrants at the US-Mexico border when that happens.

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden acknowledged that "it's going to be chaotic for a little while" when the policy is lifted.

The policy has long faced fierce criticism from immigration advocates and some Democrats who believed it prevented many asylum seekers from coming into the country.

It was yet another fraught moment in a tumultuous relationship, and it didn’t end well.

Senior Biden administration officials were heading to Mexico City this month for pre-arranged talks about the fentanyl crisis as the news unfolded that drug cartel gunmen had kidnapped four Americans in Mexico, two of whom were shot dead.

But after Mexican officials quickly found and retrieved the surviving Americans — with U.S. help — the Biden officials were hopeful they could still emerge from the fentanyl meeting with something good to announce.

US Rep. Chip Roy wants Mexican drug cartels to be designated as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

The Texas Republican’s bill comes after two Americans were killed last week during a kidnapping by drug smugglers in the Mexican city of Matamoros.

Mexico’s president said Thursday that his country does not produce or consume fentanyl, despite enormous evidence to the contrary.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appeared to depict the synthetic opioid epidemic largely as a U.S. problem, and said the United States should use family values to fight drug addiction.

His statement came during a visit to Mexico by Liz Sherwood-Randall, the White House homeland security adviser, to discuss the fentanyl crisis. It also comes amid calls by some U.S. Republicans to use the U.S. military to attack drug labs in Mexico.

Mexico's top diplomat on Friday criticized comments by former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who had called for increased U.S. involvement in Mexico to tackle drug cartels, saying Mexico "will never allow its sovereignty to be violated."

Following an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal by Barr last week, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard penned his own response in the newspaper, stressing joint cooperation over U.S. military involvement in Mexico.

America can no longer tolerate narco-terrorist cartels. Operating from havens in Mexico, their production of deadly drugs on an industrial scale is flooding our country with this poison. The time is long past to deal with this outrage decisively. Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) and Michael Waltz (R., Fla.) have proposed a joint resolution giving the president authority to use the U.S. military against these cartels in Mexico. This is a necessary step and puts the focus where it must be.