Mexico has vividly opposed the new Trump immigration plans which risk deporting almost all illegal migrants.
According to the signed rules, any undocumented person stands the risk of being sent to Mexico, even if that person is not Mexican.
But the country has not taken this lightly, with the foreign minister Luis Videgaray stating that they will not be guided by unilateral decisions that one government decides and imposes them on another.
The Reforma newspaper quoted Videgaray saying “We are not going to accept it because we don’t have to accept it. I want to make clear, in the most emphatic way, that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept measures that one government wants to unilaterally impose on another.”
The US has sent two high ranking officials to Mexico to shade more light on the new measures.
Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, and the head of Homeland Security, John Kelly, are set to hold a closed-door meeting with President Enrique Pena Nieto at a time when the two neighbors are engaged in one of their most divisive moments.
The two are set to make things clear amid high tensions especially after President Trump signed the executive order for construction of the border wall. The President has also threatened to trash the 1994 Nafta free trade agreement on which the Mexican economy relies.
The former oil executive and the retired general will hold talks with the Mexican President, who changed plans to meet Mr Trump late last month due to a Trump tweet that suggested the meeting is pointless if “if Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall”.
But the Guardian reports that the President’s son in law, Jared Kushner, who also holds the position of a foreign policy adviser, has been working in the background to limit the deteriorating relationship. He is credited to have brokered a deal between the two heads of state on 27 January.
Videgaray is a close political adviser to the Mexican president and has a personal relationship with Kushner, both of whom have same interests in the business world. Diplomats say that due to their personal relationship, they have managed to keep at bay the war of words which had ensued between Trump and Pena Nieto.
The Mexican visit is being held at high stakes by Videgaray who says that any decisions made in the coming few months will be impactful on the kind of relationship the Mexicans will have with the United States.
The new guidelines exposed
According to the new rules announced on Tuesday, the US authorities have been empowered under the US Immigration and Nationality Act to deport illegal migrants to Mexico without considering their country of origin.
But questions have been raised whether the US has the ability to impose such a directive on another sovereign country.
Under the Obama administration, only immigrants convicted of crime were considered deportable.
But now provisions have been made to include any person deemed to be an illegal migrant. Those affected mostly are immigrants charged with crime, poses a risk to public safety, misrepresented themselves or acted against the programme.
Furthermore, the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement will now be able to deport people immediately.
But Mexico, as expected cannot welcome such guidelines. “We also have control of our borders and we will exercise it fully,” said Mr Videgaray.
He said his country was prepared to go to the United Nations to defend the freedoms and rights of Mexicans under international law.
