Sheinbaum vows to protect Mexicans in US ahead of Trump return

PLAYAS DE TIJUANA, Mexico: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum promised Sunday to defend her country’s citizens living in the United States, a day before Donald Trump was set to return to the White House with plans to carry out mass deportations of illegal migrants.

“In this new period that arrives tomorrow with President Trump: First, we are going to defend Mexicans there,” Sheinbaum said at an event in the central state of Puebla.

Sheinbaum alluded to, but did not explicitly mention, the incoming US president’s plan to deport undocumented immigrants living in the United States, which would include millions of Mexicans.

She said her government had hired lawyers to provide support to immigrants through Mexico’s roughly 50 consulate offices in the United States.

“And if they decide to return to Mexico or come to Mexico, they are welcome here, with open arms,” Sheinbaum said.

The leftist president noted, however, that her predecessor and mentor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, got “along well” with Trump during the Republican’s first term from 2017 to 2021.

“That’s why I think we’ll reach a good understanding,” Sheinbaum said.

“But, in any case, let it be well understood, let it be heard far away: Mexico is nobody’s colony, nobody’s protectorate.”

In the run-up to his return to office, Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Mexico, threatening to impose stiff tariffs on imports from one of the United States’ biggest trading partners unless it halts the flow of illegal migrants and drugs across the border.