Xavier Becerra’s foreign ties are well documented. From his advocacy for a cartel-linked drug dealer to his close relationships with Mexico’s U.S. consulates, Becerra has shown a willingness to align himself with a nation that uses subversion as a weapon.
The question is simple, even if the answer isn’t: why?
Is Becerra just another politician angling to score big in an upcoming election? Or is something else driving him? To understand his Mexican affiliations, you have to start with an outfit most Americans have never heard of—the Pacific Council on International Policy.
A Think Tank With Global Ambitions
The Pacific Council is an LA-based foreign-policy NGO with a mission to amplify Los Angeles and California’s influence around the world. The group has collaborated with USAID and embraces a worldview aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Its “Mexico Initiative” calls for greater coordination with Mexico and pitches an immigration approach that prioritizes “cooperation” over enforcement.
In 2004, the Pacific Council picked up the tab for Becerra to fly to Mexico City for a series of meetings built around a new transnational vision. On the docket: the evolution of North America “politically, economically, socially, culturally, and institutionally” over the following 10 to 15 years.
For Becerra, the trip was a chance to connect with like-minded global players — Mexico’s U.S. ambassador, Mexico’s consul general in Chicago, Rockefeller Foundation’s Mexico City representative, and the director of the Mexican nonprofit Institute of Mexicans Abroad.
Enter MALDEF
He wasn’t the only American in the room. Representatives from prominent U.S. NGOs serving migrants attended too, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. According to Peter Schweizer’s new book The Invisible Coup, Mexican leaders sought out greater coordination with MALDEF in 2024.
MALDEF — which has pushed migrant policy alongside Mexico’s consulates — carries serious political weight at home. Schweizer notes that in 1998, MALDEF founder Mario Obledo received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton.
Obledo was never shy about his vision for the state: “We’re going to take over all the political institutions in California.” And: “California is going to be a Hispanic state, and anyone who doesn’t like it should leave… they ought to go back to Europe.”
Becerra’s own ties to the group go back decades. He worked at MALDEF as a law student at Stanford. The organization later worked closely with his offices when he was California’s attorney general and championed his nomination as Biden’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The Web Tightens
MALDEF’s links to the Pacific Council run even deeper. PCIP board member Vilma Martinez served as MALDEF president for decades and was a longtime Becerra friend. She chaired a 1999 PCIP study advocating North American integration through NAFTA and emphasizing Mexico’s potential impact on California.
Also on that report: Antonia Hernandez, the sitting MALDEF president who — according to congressional testimony — participated in the same 2004 PCIP conference Becerra attended. And another name: Luis G. Nogales, a MALDEF founder and prominent PCIP member.
Nogales was a fixture in American boardrooms — Coors, UPI, Univision, Edison International, the Ford Foundation, and the J. Paul Getty Trust. His influence spanned both parties: he served in the Nixon administration and donated to George W. Bush, while also backing Democrats including Becerra.
The family footprint widened from there. Luis’s brother, Alex Nogales, led the National Hispanic Media Coalition and frequently turned up alongside Becerra at events. NHMC honored Becerra and advocated for him during his HHS confirmation.
In 2001, Luis Nogales and his wife donated $1 million to MALDEF to advocate for the rights of illegal immigrants. Nogales also served as MALDEF’s president of the board at one point, though exactly when isn’t clear.
The Grocery-Store Twist
But it’s Nogales’ business dealings that truly stand out. In 2009, his investment firm bought Numero Uno Markets, an LA grocery chain founded by George Torres — the businessman at the center of DEA investigations tied to Becerra’s friend and campaign contributor, Horacio Vignali.
The timing is hard to ignore. Torres had just been convicted on 55 counts of murder, racketeering, and bribery — 11 days before Nogales closed the deal. Nogales told reporters he’d been in talks with Torres about the purchase for years.
Most observers chalked up Becerra’s Vignali advocacy to simple quid pro quo. But the Nogales connection raises a different question: What if the ideology came first?
Back to 2004
To answer that, we have to return to that Mexico City meeting. For MALDEF and Mexico, the Pacific Council’s 2004 gathering offered a fruitful blueprint for shaping the future of Mexico, California, and the U.S. to fit their own political agenda of “silent integration.” But what did that vision mean for the American people?
According to one 2005 account, the Council’s interests weren’t all benign. Hudson Institute’s John Fonte testified that the goal was to gradually subordinate U.S. sovereignty to a shared, EU-style system with dual citizens holding allegiance to both the U.S. and Mexico.
The Council declared that Mexicans, Americans, and Canadians were increasingly acting as “North Americans” with a “transnational identity.” It cited U.S. residents of Mexican origin campaigning for office in Mexico as evidence of emerging “transnational political identities.”
Becerra’s seat at that table sheds light on his political activities and affiliations. Fonte described the group’s endgame as a “North American Condominium” — where decisions would no longer be made solely within the framework of the U.S. Constitution, but shared across borders.
Connecting the Dots
That cross-border sentiment surfaces again and again within the Becerra-linked NGO network, reflected in these groups’ willingness to coordinate with Mexico’s 50-plus consulates in the U.S. It may even illuminate Becerra’s advocacy for Carlos Vignali back in 2001.
Take a step back. The through line connecting Becerra’s network, California’s migrant NGOs, and the Mexican government is the Pacific Council. His trip to Mexico City on PCIP’s dime reflects an ideology that puts Mexican integration ahead of U.S. sovereignty.
Becerra has never been seriously asked to account for any of it. Californians deserve to know what his ties to Mexico mean for their state, should he become governor. And he should explain how this ideology has shaped his political career and his broader ambitions.
