A presidential hopeful visited California earlier this month to slam President Donald Trump, assure immigrants he stood by them and meet with leaders like University of California President Janet Napolitano.

That presidential hopeful is running for high office in Mexico — not the U.S.

The visit by Ricardo Anaya, 39, to California has raised eyebrows in the U.S. where it is rare to see presidential candidates from a foreign country engaging in campaign activities with Americans. (It has happened before, but we’ll get to that later.)

So who is Anaya and what did he do in California that’s captured some attention? Here’s what we know.

Who is Ricardo Anaya?

Anaya, whose full name is Ricardo Anaya Cortes, is a Mexican attorney who has had political ambitions from a young age. He ran for office in the state of Queretaro when he was 21, and over the years he has had various jobs in government, according to his website.

Anaya is running for president in Mexico under a political coalition called For Mexico in Front, or FMF. His opponents are Andres Lopez Obrador, of the left-leaning MORENA party, and Jose Antonio Meade from the current ruling party, PRI.

The election in Mexico is set for July 1.

What was Anaya doing in California?

During a visit in San Francisco on March 2, Anaya met with Napolitano “to discuss ‘Dreamers’ and the constant threats by President Donald Trump against these young people,” according to his site. Anaya later shared a photo on Twitter of him and Napolitano shaking hands.

The next day, Anaya met with immigrant leaders in Los Angeles where he voiced his support for “Dreamers” — unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children — and criticized Trump’s visit to Mexico in 2016, according to a summary of his visit published by the pro-immigrant nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS.

“After Donald Trump had been insulting and revolting at the best that Mexico has in the United States, they dared to roll out a red carpet to receive him in Los Pinos, as if he were a head of state,” Anaya said, according to his website, which published excerpts of the speech.

Anaya called that visit embarrassing. The candidate also told his audience that the Mexican government has disrespected itself and that the only way to improve U.S.-Mexico relations is through self-respect. He assured immigrants that he was on their side.

“Do not forget that you are not alone ... all of Mexico is with you and when I am President I will always be on your side,” he said.

Can a foreign presidential candidate campaign in the U.S.?

It remains unclear whether there are any rules that forbid Mexican candidates from campaigning in the U.S. Technically, he has not yet registered himself as a presidential candidate — he is considered a “precandidate” since campaign season officially starts on March 30.

Anaya’s campaign characterized his presence in California as a “dialogue” and a brainstorming visit. The pro-immigrant group CIS said Mexican immigrants in the U.S. may be a deciding factor in the elections in Mexico due to their ability to cross south of the border and vote.

“It can be expected that over the next couple of months the presidential candidates will continue their appeals to Mexican migrants in the United States. Under Mexican law, Mexican citizens outside of the country can now sign up for voting credentials through their local consulates,” the group wrote on its site.

What’s been the reaction to Anaya’s visit to California?

Anaya’s visit met some criticism, including from Daniel Horowitz, a senior editor for the Conservative Review, who characterized Anaya’s California visit as a “dangerous case of stolen sovereignty.”

“There is something fundamentally wrong when a foreign presidential candidate can come here and urge American residents to vote for him so he can use his diplomatic tools to undermine America’s laws and sovereignty,” Horowitz wrote.

Mexicans weighed in on his visit to California as well, some confused as to what he wanted to accomplish by coming to the U.S.

“This dude wants to be president of the U.S.A.?” one wrote in Spanish.

“As a graduate of the University of California, it bothers me that its president, Janet Napolitano, receives and embraces the Mexican Trump,” another Twitter user wrote. “As a Mexican, it bothers me that a presidential candidate embraces the one responsible for the mass deportation of millions of migrants under Obama .”

Have any other foreign candidates come to the U.S. before?

Yes.

In 2012, representatives for Mexican presidential candidates held a debate in San Diego, where they addressed binational issues such as energy reform, the economy, corruption, infrastructure and drug trafficking, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The candidates were not present in San Diego.

Last year in February 2017, one of Anaya’s opponents campaigned in Los Angels as well. Lopez Obrador, too, criticized Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric, Reuters reported.

And most notably in March 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu was days ahead of being elected for office in Israel when he came to the U.S. to address Congress. He was there at the invitation of then-Speaker of the House John Boehner, and at the time, Netanyahu’s visit was criticized as a breach of protocol because Boehner had circumvented the White House and the Obama administration.

Then-President Barack Obama did not meet with Netanyahu at the time “as a matter of long-standing practice and principle” for heads of state to see each other in close proximity to their elections, so as to avoid the appearance of influencing an election, then-National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said.

Now, it’s your turn to weigh in — should it be against the rules for a foreign president to campaign in the U.S.? Will you be following the Mexican elections? If so, what do you make of Anaya’s visit to California?

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

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UPDATES:

Correction: This article erroneously stated that Mexican presidential candidates held a debate in San Diego in 2012. It was rather the candidates’ representatives who attended, not the candidates themselves.

This article was originally published Friday at 5:05 p.m.