In a fiery speech that’s already reverberating on both sides of the border, Mexican Senate President Gerardo Fernández Noroña reignited a centuries-old debate by declaring that California, Texas, and much of the American West are part of Mexico’s ancestral territory.
The remarks, delivered Monday, were framed as a defense of Spanish-speaking immigrants amid violent deportation protests in Los Angeles—but they also carried a pointed challenge to U.S. sovereignty.
“Names don’t lie. The most spoken language in Los Angeles is Spanish,” Noroña said. “The United States government has the right to implement whatever immigration measures it deems appropriate, certainly, but they have no right to violate the dignity of immigrants. They have no right to separate families.”
At the core of Noroña’s argument is a sense of historical reclamation. Recalling a 2017 meeting with then-President Donald Trump, he claimed to have told the president, “We’ll build the wall and pay for it. But we’ll do it according to the 1830 map of Mexico.”
In his view, the Mexicans living in regions like Laredo and Los Angeles aren’t foreigners at all—they’re descendants of settlers who never left what was, in their view, always Mexican land.
“Laredo was a Mexican city,” Noroña emphasized. “We were stripped of these territories.”
The timing of his remarks is no coincidence. The city of Los Angeles is currently in upheaval over federal deportation actions that have triggered five nights of protests, violence, and dozens of arrests. Demonstrators waving Mexican flags have clashed with law enforcement, as calls grow louder against perceived federal overreach.
To be clear, Noroña did not call for policy rebellion—he acknowledged the U.S. right to control its borders. But his deeper message—one of moral and cultural legitimacy—comes at a volatile moment. His words tap into a powerful sentiment among many immigrants: that their presence on American soil isn’t an incursion but a return.
NEW: Mexican Senate president suggests Mexico should take a large amount of land from the United States because of all the Mexican names.
The comments came from Senate President Gerardo Fernández Noroña in response to the LA riots.
“Names don’t lie. The most spoken language in… pic.twitter.com/QjhSAjftUi
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 11, 2025
