Donald Trump, Mexico Wall 2017 Latest News: Mexico Stands Against Trump's New Immigration Guidelines
Mexico has reacted negatively to the Trump administration's new immigration proposals, indicating that it will go to the United Nations in order to protect the rights of immigrants living in the United States.
According to CNN, Mexican Interior Secretary Miguel Osorio Chong did not mince words in expressing concern about the U.S. immigration measures announced this week, which have dramatic implications for Mexico.
"We do not agree on the different measures that recently were stated by the government of the United States (that) affect Mexico," Osorio Chong said.
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Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were in Mexico on Thursday, Feb. 23, in an effort to improve the United States' relationship with the Mexican government and to address their different stance on several bilateral issues such as counterterrorism, border security and trade.
However, the arrival of the new U.S. Cabinet secretaries in Mexico has been engulfed with controversy when the Trump administration introduced policies that seek to achieve the U.S. president's campaign rhetoric of vigorously enforcing immigration rules against undocumented migrants.
The Trump administration issued new U.S. immigration guidelines detailing wide-ranging directives that would enable federal authorities to more aggressively detain undocumented immigrants, thereby expanding the scope from a previous focus on criminal to every undocumented immigrant in the United States.
The memorandums unveiled by the Department of Homeland Security also enable federal authorities to restrict asylum claims by migrants. The guidelines also enable state and local law enforcement to act as immigration officers.
Another modification to asylum procedures would make it easier for immigration officers to deport non-Mexican migrants if they entered the United States through the country. This policy could lead to mass deportations, not only of Mexicans but also nationals of other Latin American countries.
With Tillerson arriving in Mexico City on Wednesday, Feb. 22, Mexico's lead negotiator with the Trump administration, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, stressed that there was no way Mexico would accept the new U.S. immigration rules, according to ABC News.
"I want to say clearly and emphatically that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept provisions that one government unilaterally wants to impose on the other," Videgaray said.
