The White House responded to Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum’s remarks regarding a U.S. media campaign being carried out in Mexico to discourage illegal immigration, which she described as “discriminatory.”
“The President’s message is clear: individuals who try to enter our country illegally will be found, deported, and will never return to the United States,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told The Epoch Times via email on April 22.
“The era of Joe Biden’s open border is over, which is why border encounters are lower than ever before.”
In recent weeks, videos of U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have appeared on Mexican television during soccer games, on social media, and on the country’s most-watched programs.
“Let me deliver a clear message from President Trump to the world: ‘If you are a criminal alien considering entering America illegally, don’t even think about it. If you come here and you break our laws, we will hunt you down. Criminals are not welcome in the United States,’” Noem says in one of the videos.
Sheinbaum described the videos as “government propaganda” and said they were “discriminatory.”
“We are going to change the law to prohibit foreign governments from engaging in political and ideological propaganda in our country,” she said during an April 22 press conference.
The Mexican president said she had received several complaints from Mexican citizens through the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination, or CONAPRED, who were unhappy with the content of the ads.
CONAPRED is a decentralized agency that is part of the Mexican government and is responsible for “resolving complaints of alleged discriminatory acts committed by private individuals or federal authorities,” according to its website.
Sheinbaum said she sent letters to Mexican media outlets, via the Mexican Secretariat of the Interior and CONAPRED, asking them to remove the ads.
“But there is nothing legal that obliges the television station or the radio station to take it down. So we are going to put it in the law,” she said.
The White House reported on April 1 that the number of people apprehended after crossing the U.S.–Mexico border illegally in March fell to its lowest level on record. Border Patrol agents encountered 7,181 illegal immigrants at the southern border last month.
Patricia “Pachi” Valencia contributed to this report.
