Mexico Could Demand Its Stolen Land Back from the US


Published 10 March 2017 (7 hours 48 minutes ago)

The U.S. confessed to forcing Mexico to cede what is now 50 percent of U.S. territory back in 1848. Now a lawyer wants to invalidate the accord.

A Mexican politician filed a demand on Friday to annul the agreement that forced Mexico to give up more than 50 percent of its national territory to the United States.

The demand would recuperate the states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma ceded in the treaty officially called the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic.

Former Mexican presidential candidate and founder of the democratic socialist party Cuauhtemoc Cardenas and lawyer Guillermo Hadman found several legal arguments that would allow them to nullify the Guadalupe Hidalgo Agreement of 1848, imposed under U.S. military occupation.

One of the judicial arguments, Hadman said, is that the U.S. exerted pressure against Mexico to sign the agreement signed. His demand includes confessions from U.S. soldiers that the then-president and “national traitor” Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was forced to sign.

If the demand fails, Mexico would then ask the U.S. for indemnification for the use of those territories over the last 168 years.

The case could eventually be presented to the International Court of Justice, but would depend on approval by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, according to Hadman. He prepares to present him the documents with a march to his office in which he invites all Mexicans to join.