Posted on February 28, 2014

Mexican President ‘Indignant’ at U.S. Deportations

Julia Symmes Cobb, Reuters, February 27, 2014

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said he is “indignant” at the United States’ deportation of Mexican migrants and described U.S. lawmakers as demonstrating a “lack of conscience” in failing to pass immigration reform.

In a television interview aired late on Wednesday Pena Nieto said he and U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the issue during their meeting at a North American leaders’ summit held last week in Mexico.

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“Yes it makes me indignant, and it makes Mexicans indignant,” Pena Nieto said in the interview, when asked whether deportations angered him.

“There’s a lack of conscience, something which shouldn’t only alert and worry Mexicans, it should also worry the American government and they should take up the issue,” said Pena Nieto.

Pena Nieto added that he sees a willingness on the part of the Obama administration to change immigration laws, and that reform which provides a path to citizenship should “have the backing and aid of the various political forces” in the United States.

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Mexican government officials last week criticized the U.S. Border Patrol for the use of deadly force in a confrontation in which a Mexican migrant was killed.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot the man near San Diego after being pelted with rocks while trying to apprehend a group of suspected illegal border crossers.