Mexico digs heels as Tillerson lands
Mexico vowed not to let the US impose migration reforms on it as its leaders prepared on Thursday to host US officials who are cracking down on illegal immigrants.
Foreign minister Luis Videgaray sharpened the tone as he prepared for talks following a diplomatic row over President Donald Trump’s hard line on trade and immigration.
Mr Trump has outraged Mexico by vowing to build a wall along the border to keep out migrants from Latin America, whom he branded rapists and criminals during his presidential campaign. His government has issued new orders to begin arresting and deporting illegal immigrants, many of them Mexicans.
“The Mexican government and people do not have to accept measures that one government wants to impose unilaterally on another,” Mr Videgaray said late on Wednesday.
“We are not going to accept that because we do not have to do it and it is not in Mexico’s interests,” he added. He said Mexico would use “all legally possible means” to defend Mexicans living abroad, including potentially appealing to the UN.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Mr Videgaray were scheduled to meet US secretary of state Rex Tillerson and homeland security chief John Kelly on Thursday.
US officials said the talks The Mexican government and people do not have to accept measures that one government wants to impose unilaterally on another
Luis Videgaray, Foreign minister, Mexico will focus on how to curb cross-border migration and drug-trafficking and to affirm their bilateral ties.
Mr Trump’s stance has strained previously good US-Mexican relations, said Maureen Meyer, an expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, a US human rights advocacy organisation.
“Secretary Tillerson has an opportunity to set relations on a more sound footing based on mutual respect,” she said.
Mr Pena Nieto had cancelled a planned meeting with Mr Trump in Washington last month over the US leader’s vow to make Mexico pay for the wall.
But White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Wednesday insisted that Washington has “a very healthy and robust relationship with the Mexican government”.
He said Thursday’s talks aim “to improve the quality of lives for both people of Mexico and the US by combating drug traffickers and finding ways to bolster both our economies through a broader relationship that promotes commerce and legal immigration.”