Pena Nieto focuses on crime, security in address to country

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Saturday that security is his government’s top priority, amid growing violence that is marring his fifth year in office and despite figures showing significant drops in crime-fighting results.

In his annual state-ofthe-union address, Pena Nieto said there has been progress in education reform and infrastructure projects but acknowledged the bloodshed that’s on pace to be the country’s worst in many years.

“Recovering public safety is the highest demand of the public and the highest priority for the government,” he said, adding that “all three levels of government must strengthen their efforts.”

Pena Nieto has spent much of the last year responding to President Donald Trump’s tough line on Mexico and migration, and Saturday he vowed that “we will not accept anything that goes against our dignity as a nation.”

He also sent his regards to the children of migrants who were brought to the United States as minors and were granted temporary permission to stay under an Obama-era administrative program that Trump may change.

Pena Nieto defended free market reforms passed on his watch and also took a jab at the candidate who leads in polls to succeed him in June 2018 presidential elections: leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has espoused more nationalist positions such as building more government refineries to replace U.S. imports of gasoline.

Pena Nieto defended his government’s anti-crime efforts by saying authorities have “neutralized 108 of the 127 most dangerous criminals in Mexico.”

In the first six months of 2017, authorities nationwide recorded 12,155 homicide investigations.