Texas Independence Movement Seeks Breakup of Mexico

A leading Texas nationalist group has warned Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador it will begin actively supporting secessionist movements in his country in response to what it argues is his failure to control illegal migration into the Lone Star State.

Daniel Miller, president of the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM), delivered the message to Obrador in videos published on social media in both English and Spanish. The TNM is campaigning for Texas to leave the United States and become a fully independent nation.

There has been growing interest in what would happen if Texas did vote to become independent, as it was for nine years between declaring independence from Mexico in 1836 and joining the United States in 1845. Such calls have been intensified by tensions between authorities in Texas and the federal government over how to handle migration across the Mexico border.

There were 68,260 encounters between suspected illegal migrants and law enforcement along the Texas-Mexico border in January 2024, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

In his message Miller accused the Mexican government of "turning a blind eye to illegal border crossings," which had led to "a humanitarian disaster, a surge in criminal activity and a strain on Texas resources and public services."

As a result he said "the Texas Nationalist Movement believes that the only way to secure our border with the United States of Mexico is to no longer share a border with the United States of Mexico" and thus would begin offering aid to secessionist groups in the north of the country.

Miller commented: "Many years ago I learned of a movement that was developing within the northern states of Mexico whose goal was to separate from the United States of Mexico and become self-governing independent nation states.

"I am announcing that the Texas Nationalist Movement is offering its full support to this movement in its mission to assert the independence of the northern states of Mexico...We pledge to provide assistance, expertise and solidarity to our neighbors in their pursuit of a peaceful democratic and legal pathway to independence.

"Our support will be aimed at helping these states organize a powerful movement towards self-determination, focusing on peaceful dialogue, legislative action and advocacy to secure and win a referendum for independence. The actions of the Mexican government have brought us to a crossroads in this defining moment."

Newsweek contacted the Mexican Department for Exterior Relations for comment by email at 8:45 a.m. ET.

Miller accused the Mexican government of having "forgotten the lesson that Texas taught it on the San Jacinto battlefield," a decisive Texan victory in 1836 that occurred during the state's fight for independence.

He also noted the 1835-36 Texan revolution was accompanied by campaigns for independence or autonomy in other Mexican states "such as Zacatecas, Yucatan and Nuevo Leon."

Speaking to Newsweek Miller said the TNM was ready to work with other secessionist movements across the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

He said: "The central government in Mexico has made it their official policy to assist the U.S. government in destablizing our border. Their president is engaging in an extortion racket to get money and additional political influence within the United States.

"It's time for Texas to exit from a corrupt and failing federal institution. We intend to do everything we can to assist the other states and territories of the United States, the states of Mexico, as well as the provinces of Canada in seeking their right of self-government."

A survey conducted exclusively for Newsweek in early February by Redfield & Wilton Strategies found 23 percent of eligible Texan voters would support the state becoming an independent nation in a hypothetical independence referendum, versus 67 percent who would opt to remain "a state within the United States."

However, in concerning news for supporters of the Union, the poll also found the migrant crisis has made 44 percent of Texans more likely to back independence, against 16 percent who said it made them less likely to support secession and 35 percent for whom it made no difference.

Some political analysts have described the Texan secessionist movement as little more than a pipe dream.

Reacting to the poll results in February, James Henson, who heads the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told Newsweek: "I think the results confirm what we've seen in the public discourse around the fantasy of secession: the idea of Texas secession taps into the symbolism of Texas independence, which speaks to a minority share of the state's residents, especially when there is no consideration of the what the costs and trade-offs would be in such a scenario in either the poll question or the policy discussion, such as it is."

However, others said that the level of support for an independent Texas was encouraging for the movement's supporters when compared with other secessionist movements in their early stages, such as Brexit in the United Kingdom.

Update, 4/9/24, 11:30 a.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.

Update 4/11/24 3:45 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with comment from Daniel Miller.