Agreements reached last month between four Mexican state governors and Texas to beef up border security and combat illegal immigration amount to “extortion,” Mexico’s foreign minister said.
The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbottsigned agreements with its border counterparts in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas after trade between the two nations was interrupted due to the tightening of security controls to prevent human trafficking and smuggling, imposed by the American .
The episode sparked anger for Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who described Texas’ behavior as “vile” while his foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, weighed in on Saturday with his own criticism.
“Let me put this in quotes, it is the extortion scheme, rather an extortion: I close the border and you have to sign what I say, that is not an agreement, an agreement is that you and I agree on something”, Ebrard told the news network Millennium during a visit to Nuevo León.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment made outside normal business hours.
Ebrard He did not disagree with the Mexican governors and said that no alternative had been presented to them.
We are not going to be willing for a governor to extort money from Mexico, we will never allow that,” added the official.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico said that Marcelo Ebrard had been interviewed by said Mexican media.
Abbott, who is running for re-election as governor, said that Texas it had reached agreements with Mexican states to strengthen border security to curb illegal immigration.
A record number of people have been caught trying to cross the Mexican border into the United States this year.
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