Politics

Mexico ‘will not accept’ Trump’s new immigration ban

A defiant Mexican official on Wednesday said the country “will not accept” a new immigration plan from the White House and will even take the issue to the UN, according to a report.

“I want to make it clear in the most emphatic way that the Mexican government and the people of Mexico do not have to accept provisions that one government unilaterally wants to impose on another,” said Foreign Affairs Secretary Luis Videgaray, according to his translated remarks reported by Reuters.

“We will not accept that because we do not have to do it. It is not in the interest of Mexico,” Videgaray said, as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Director John Kelly headed to Mexico City for high-level meetings.

The official said that, if necessary, he would go to the UN to protect the rights of immigrants.

Washington’s new immigration plans are expected to be a main point of the meetings.

“This is inevitably and by conviction the first point on the agenda,” he said.

The Trump administration on Tuesday unveiled sweeping changes to its immigration policies that would allow the US to deport nearly every illegal immigrant in the country.

The new regulations would also do away with former President Barack Obama’s “catch and release” policy that allowed non-violent illegal immigrants to stay in the US after being caught.

Tillerson and Kelly are scheduled to meet with Videgaray, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and other officials and ministers Wednesday night and Thursday.