Mexico's foreign secretary said Wednesday ahead of talks with senior officials from the United States that his country would not accept immigration provisions that are unilaterally imposed by its northern neighbor.

Luis Videgaray made those remarks after President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday announced major changes to US immigration enforcement earlier this week.

"I want to state as clearly and emphatically as possible that the Mexican government and the Mexican people do not have to accept provisions that one government may wish to impose on another," Videgaray said during a meeting in Mexico City with the Mexico representative for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"We're not going to accept that because there's no reason for us to do so and because it's not in Mexico's interest," he added.

Under the Trump administration's new guidelines, virtually all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US could be targeted for deportation; immigration officials, however, will still prioritize the individuals they target, with serious criminals at the top of the list.

Illegal immigrants also could be immediately deported from anywhere in the country provided they have not been in the US for more than two years.

Furthermore, according to one provision of a Department of Homeland Security directive, migrants who entered the US by crossing the US-Mexico border could be sent back to Mexico even if they are citizens of other countries.

The previous administration's expedited deportation policy only applied to migrants who had been in the country for 14 days or less and were tracked down within 100 miles of the border.

In practice, only undocumented migrants from Mexico were immediately deported, while Central Americans - many of whom seek asylum - stayed in the US pending resolution of their cases.

Trump's immigration crackdown will also include adding 5,000 Border Patrol agents and 10,000 immigration enforcement officers, as well as construction of a wall spanning the entire US-Mexico border.

Videgaray said Mexico's government would do all it could to ensure protection for its people's human rights abroad, including by bringing complaints before the UN.

The immigration issue will be front and center when Videgaray meets this week with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who arrived in Mexico City on Wednesday.</s>The Mexican government made clear to visiting U.S. emissaries that it will not accept deportees from third countries under any circumstances, the interior secretary said Friday.

Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said in an interview with Radio Formula that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly asked Mexican officials during their Thursday visit if they would host deportees from other countries while their immigration cases are processed in the U.S.

"They can't leave them here on the border because we have to reject them. There is no chance they would be received by Mexico," he said of the deportees.

"They asked us that while their legal process is happening there if they could be here," Osorio Chong said. "And we told them that there's no way we can have them here during that process."

The visit by the U.S. secretaries came at a tense moment in U.S.-Mexico relations. President Donald Trump has carried his tough campaign talk about immigrants and factory jobs that moved to Mexico into the White House, ordering the building of a border wall, stepped up deportations and a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

A memo published by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week suggested that U.S. immigration officials could deport immigrants in the country illegally to the contiguous country they had entered from, which in the vast majority of cases would be Mexico.

Since 2014, the number of Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty captured at the U.S.-Mexico border has outnumbered the number of Mexicans, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. In fiscal 2016, the Border Patrol apprehended 58,819 unaccompanied children and 73,888 family units along the southwest border. Most were from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Last year, Border Patrol apprehended 408,870 people along the southwest border, a far cry from the more than 1.5 million annual apprehensions in 1999 and 2000. Mexico has also stepped up its immigration enforcement along its southern border, apprehending and deporting more Central American migrants trying to reach the U.S.

Osorio Chong also said Friday that if the U.S. government tries to pressure Mexico by threatening to withdraw funding from the nearly $2.5 billion Merida Initiative to fight organized crime, Mexico will let that money go.

The initiative that was started in 2008 is winding down with most remaining funding going to Mexican states implementing reforms to the justice system, Osorio Chong said. In its early years, Merida outfitted Mexico's military with helicopters and trained its security forces.

"If that resource could be an issue for pressure or if they want to pressure the government, honestly, we have no problem, none, if they withdraw it," he said.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and the U.S. State Department in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.</s>The Mexican government has made clear to visiting US emissaries that it will not accept deportees from third countries under any circumstances, the interior secretary said.

Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said that US secretary of state Rex Tillerson and homeland security secretary John Kelly asked Mexican officials during their visit on Thursday if they would host deportees from other countries while their immigration cases are processed in the US.

"They can't leave them here on the border because we have to reject them. There is no chance they would be received by Mexico," he said.

"They asked us that while their legal process is happening there if they could be here," Mr Osorio Chong said. "And we told them that there's no way we can have them here during that process."

The visit by the US secretaries came at a tense moment in US-Mexico relations.

US President Donald Trump has carried his tough campaign talk about immigrants and factory jobs that moved to Mexico into the White House, ordering the building of a border wall, stepped up deportations and a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

A memo published by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week suggested that US immigration officials could deport immigrants in the country illegally to the contiguous country they had entered from, which in the vast majority of cases would be Mexico.

Most of the immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border in recent years have been Central Americans.

Mr Osorio Chong also said that if the US government tries to pressure Mexico by threatening to withdraw funding from the nearly 2.5 billion US dollar Merida Initiative to fight organised crime, Mexico will let that money go.

The initiative that was started in 2008 is winding down with most remaining funding going to Mexican states implementing reforms to the justice system, Mr Osorio Chong said.

In its early years, Merida outfitted Mexico's military with helicopters and trained its security forces.

"If that resource could be an issue for pressure or if they want to pressure the government, honestly, we have no problem, none, if they withdraw it," he said.</s>US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R) is set to meet with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to smooth over tensions (AFP Photo/PEDRO PARDO)

Mexico City (AFP) - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meets with Mexican leaders on Thursday to try to calm a row over President Donald Trump's trade and immigration policies.

Trump has outraged Mexico by vowing to build a wall along the border to keep out migrants, whom he branded rapists and criminals during his presidential campaign.

His government on Tuesday issued new orders to the authorities to begin arresting and deporting illegal immigrants, many of them Mexicans.

Trump has also threatened to put up barriers to Mexican exports, shift jobs from that country back to the United States and even halt remittances by US-based Mexicans back to their families.

Now he has sent Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to Mexico City to smooth over tensions -- and discuss with Mexican Enrique Pena Nieto how to curb cross-border migration and drug-trafficking.

"It's significant that the president is sending the secretaries to Mexico so early in the administration. It's symbolic of the meaningful relationship that our two nations have," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on Wednesday.

"These are important meetings regarding the president's agenda to improve the quality of lives for both people of Mexico and the United States by combating drug traffickers and finding ways to bolster both our economies through a broader relationship that promotes commerce and legal immigration."

Tillerson and Kelly were scheduled to meet with Pena Nieto at 1900 GMT after talks with Mexico's ministers of foreign affairs, finance and government.

Trump's stance on Mexico has driven the countries' relations to their lowest point in years.

Pena Nieto canceled a planned meeting with Trump in Washington last month over the US leader's vow to make Mexico pay for the wall.

US government officials said Tillerson and Kelly will aim to convince Mexico that it values their bilateral ties.

Spicer insisted Mexico and Washington have "a very healthy and robust relationship with the Mexican government."

But Maureen Meyer, an expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, a US human rights advocacy organization, said "relations have been severely strained by the Trump administration's rhetoric and actions."

"Secretary Tillerson has an opportunity to set relations on a more sound footing based on mutual respect," she said in a statement.

The US immigration authorities have arrested hundreds of people across the country as part of Trump's pledge to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Kelly on Tuesday issued new orders to step up the detentions.

Speaking in Guatemala on Wednesday before traveling to Mexico, Kelly said "my sincere advice to any citizen considering moving to the United States in crossing our boundaries irregularly -- migration -- my best advice is to not do it."

Mexico has hinted it could use border cooperation as a bargaining chip.

"We have been a great ally to fight problems with migration, narcotics," Mexico's Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo told the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.

"If at some point in time things become so badly managed in the relationship, the incentives for the Mexican people to keep on cooperating in things that are at the heart of (US) national security issues will be diminished."

But Mexico has a lot to lose: it relies on the United States as a trading partner, sending 80 percent of its exports to its northern neighbor.

The United States has meanwhile allocated $2.6 billion worth of aid to Mexico for fighting crime under the 2008 "Merida initiative," US officials say.

Vowing to protect US industry, Trump has called for a renegotiation of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.

Pena Nieto has promised to defend Mexico's interests and called for respect from the United States.

"Neither confrontation nor submission: the solution is dialogue and negotiation," he said last month.

"Mexico does not believe in walls. Our country believes in bridges."</s>The Trump administration offered two very different perspectives on the U.S.-Mexico trade relationship on Thursday.

President Trump, speaking to CEOs of American manufacturing companies, said America's trade deals are "unbelievably bad." His first example was Mexico.

"With Mexico we have $70 billion in deficit. ... It's unsustainable. ... We're not going to let it happen, can't let it happen," Trump said.

Later, John Kelly, Trump's secretary of Homeland Security, praised the U.S.-Mexico trading relationship.

"This dynamic trade relationship has also helped create millions of jobs on both sides of the border," Kelly said, during a visit with Mexico's president, foreign minister and other leaders. "The relationship between the United States and Mexico is among, I believe, the most critical in the world."

Kelly added that every day about $1.5 billion in trade crosses between the United States and Mexico.

Related: Mexican senator ready to hit Trump where it would hurt: Corn

Kelly is correct. According to several studies, millions of U.S. jobs are supported by trade with Mexico, as are millions of jobs in Mexico. Figures on the U.S. side vary between roughly 5 million and 6 million jobs.

Trump is also correct. The U.S. had a $63 billion trade deficit with Mexico last year, according to the Census Bureau. However, that does not mean Mexico took $63 billion from America. Instead, it means that the U.S. bought more goods and services from Mexico last year than Mexico bought from America.

But Trump is right that the U.S. has lost some jobs to Mexico. Robert Scott, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, estimates the U.S. lost roughly 800,000 jobs to Mexico between 1997 and 2013.

Trump blames NAFTA, the free trade deal with Canada and Mexico, for a flood of jobs to Mexico. However, a 2015 congressional nonpartisan study concluded that it was not responsible for an exodus of jobs to Mexico.</s>Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly will spend Wednesday night and Thursday in Mexico City, meeting with government officials including Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

As the first visit of US officials to the neighboring country since President Trump’s inauguration, which has strained U.S.-Mexico relations, it will be a stark reminder of the complexities that shape the relationship between the two countries. Before leaving for the trip, Tillerson met with President Trump at the White House.

These discussions could not be more timely: on Tuesday, DHS rolled out new guidelines for cracking down on illegal immigration which included making it easier for “expedited removal.” This is the latest in a series of administration policies that have offended Mexico. A new order on immigration is also expected next week.

Tillerson and Kelly are expected to dive into new border and deportation plans head on. Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said on Wednesday that the new proposals will definitely be a part of a conversation. He said that Mexico will not accept new “unilateral” U.S. immigration proposals.

In board terms, according to senior administration officials, the conversation will touch upon security, especially as it relates to drug trafficking and counterterrorism. They will also discuss migration along the southern border and management of that border as well as economic relations, including trade.

The genesis of the visit can be traced back to Trump’s phone call with Pena Nieto on January 27th when they talked about working together to stop drug trafficking and other avenues of mutual interest. The conversation was a brief flash of bilateral hope. Yet just a few days later Pena cancelled his planned visit to the White House due to a tweet from Trump calling, again, for Mexico to pay for the border wall.

U.S.-Mexico relations had entered a golden hour before Trump and Pena both came into office, say experts. “What Mexico and the U.S. had been building for the last 20 years was the result of NAFTA and 9/11,” explains Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s former Ambassador to the US from 2007-2013.

The positive momentum grew exponentially with the 2008 Merida Initiative, a joint agreement to confront transactional crime and drug trafficking. The initiative, backed by congress and providing financial assistance directly to Mexico to combat drug trafficking, was expanded by Obama in 2011. It also allows for the financial backing of Mexican programs that help the U.S. to fend off illegal immigrants before they get to the US border.

Two people riding a tandem bike: that’s the metaphor Ambassador Sarukhan uses to describe the working U.S. and Mexico relations over the last decade. “The problem is that if one of two riders stops riding or stops pedaling both riders are going to fall and the bike is going to hit the ground,” he says. Now, he says, the U.S.-Mexico relationship is now at the lowest point since the 1980s.

Kelly gave Mexicans a hopeful sign in his confirmation hearing by endorsing the need for a dynamic approach to the US-Mexico border.

“A physical barrier in and of itself will not do the job,” Kelly told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “Certainly it has to be a layered approach.”

He added that border security “starts 1,500 miles south of the Rio Grande in the jungles of Latin America.”

DHS has increased apprehensions along the southern border in recent years. From 2015 to 2016 there was an increase of 10-15,000 apprehensions along the southern border a month, according to DHS, bringing the total a month to over 46,000 apprehensions monthly.

Yet just as important are reports that show that Mexico is also cracking down. One study by human rights groups in 2015 found that 168,000 migrants were detained in Mexico from July 2014 to June of 2015, a 73 percent increase the previous 12-month period. Many of Mexican detainees are “Golden Triangle” migrants, from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, that have bene coming to the US in recent years in higher numbers than ever before.

In public, U.S. officials have not extensively acknowledged Mexico for ramping up security and intelligence collecting. Instead, as a result of these muscular crackdowns, Mexico has been put under the limelight for human rights abuses. Amnesty International reported “frequent reports of extortions, mass deportations, kidnappings and other human rights abuses against migrants” in conjunction with the implementation of the Southern Border plan announced in 2014.

As Tillerson and Kelly sit down with Mexican officials, Mexico will have a chance to set their bargaining chips on the table in the realm of migration and border security. Alejandro Hope, a Mexican security analyst, explains that driving down Mexican efforts to stop illegals from heading to the U.S. border is one option. This would cause a nightmare for U.S, border patrol agents who already are thinly stretched.

Another possibility is refusing to participate openly with U.S. intelligence agencies regarding drug and narcotics cases. Mexico could also withhold information about non-Central American illegals that they have been sharing with the U.S. Driving a wedge into intelligence cooperation would also negatively impact Mexico but is likely to cause greater harm to the U.S.

“That could create a blind spot for the U.S.,” says Hope. He foresees this trip as an opportunity to assure fluidity of US-Mexico security cooperation.

It is important to find “soft landings” during these meetings as they will address a multitude of agendas, says Ambassador Sarukhan. These include trade, counterterrorism, climate change and a whole host of other areas for mutual benefit. Still, the possibility of the U.S. exporting non-Mexican illegal immigrants to Mexico is a barrier to these conversations — especially if the Mexicans feel their voice is being silenced.

“I can probably guess that the response will be that Mexico cannot take undocumented immigrants from other countries, deported across the border,” explains Ambassador Sarukhan. “It is Mexico. Mexico will only take Mexican citizens deported from the U.S. across our southern border.”</s>The Mexican border police officer hung from the back of the truck rumbling through the streets of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, one hand on the overhead roll bar and the other on his AR-15 rifle. Made in the USA, he said. So was his bullet-proof vest. And much of his training.

His unit is meant to help migrants, but his gear underscored the close relationship – and direct assistance – that Mexican security forces have with their counterparts in the United States, a relationship that's matured in recent years to reach unprecedented cooperation combating drugs, transnational crime and migration.

That's the reality that Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will confront in Mexico this week, as they make the hard sell to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and other officials on President Donald Trump's tough new immigration directives.

Released publicly on Tuesday, the new orders rescind most all of President Barack Obama's orders and guidance on immigration, staking out a much tougher line on undocumented migrants in the United States. They make it easier for U.S. officials to deport huge numbers of immigrants simply for having entered illegally. They also expand "expedited removal" without a hearing for those caught within two years of entering and anywhere the U.S., a clear break with the Obama administration, which only used the practice for those apprehended within two weeks of entering and within 100 miles of the U.S. border. The directives would even deport foreign nationals to countries other than their own.

"There's a misperception that because the U.S. is much bigger and in many ways more powerful, that Mexico lacks leverage," Chris Wilson, the deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, told Foreign Policy. "Right now Mexico is deporting more Central Americans than the U.S., so many would say Mexico is doing some of the United States's dirty work … all of that – and Mexico has basically stated as much – is on the line if the cooperative framework of the relationship is lost."

Under Obama, exceptions were made for immigrants brought to the United States as children and some of their parents. Despite reports of people under these programs being detained under the administration's on-going crackdown, the White House says that for now, the new directives maintain that exception. Last week, Trump said he'd "show great heart" in determining the fate of some 750,000 offered work permits under the program known as DACA.

But the White House hasn't helped allay fears. While saying immigrants who pose a threat to public safety are the priority for deportations, spokesman Sean Spicer noted Tuesday "everybody who is here illegally is subject to removal at any time."

DHS insists its goal is not "mass deportation" of the estimated roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. "We don't need a sense of panic," a DHS official said on a background call Tuesday to explain the new directives.

Trump has seriously strained U.S.-Mexico relations since before he took office, threatening trade wars, working on a border wall, and even talking of sending the U.S. military across the border to confront "bad hombres." (Peña Nieto cancelled a trip to Washington last month.) On Tuesday, Mexico's incoming ambassador to the United States said Trump's treatment of Mexico is "unacceptable."

It's left to Kelly to do the difficult work of translating the new president's bluster into policy guidance for the frontline border patrol agents who have to implement it – and the alarmed heads of state they need to make it work.

That's especially important because the biggest immigration headache for the United States doesn't originate in Mexico – but requires Mexico's help to tackle.

Illegal crossings into the United States from Mexico have sunk to their lowest levels in four decades, and among Mexican immigrants, the flow has in fact reversed since 2009, at the tail end of the Great Recession. Rather, it's the violence-ridden countries of the "Golden Triangle" – Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador – that have been the primary drivers of migration through Mexico to the United States in recent years, as seen in spikes of unaccompanied minors at the border. And it's not just Central Americans. Global migration – from Haiti and Cuba to Cameroon and Somalia – has pushed more people to use the dangerous land route to the United States.

Under a grab bag of different programs, Washington has provided billions of dollars in assistance to Mexico and those Central American countries to stop their citizens from reaching the United States. Mexico has responded, dramatically stepping up its detentions and deportations, with removals doubling from 2013 to 2016, primarily of Central Americans. And more people are deciding to stay in Mexico and apply for refugee status there, rather than trying to cross into the United States. Trump's latest orders call for auditing "all sources of direct or indirect" federal aid to Mexico, hinting at cuts.

But the Trump administration's new rules on immigration enforcement could sour that relationship and paradoxically drive more immigration northward. The new rules could give Mexico more leverage to push back against Washington, especially if the recently-stepped up enforcement at Mexico's southern border were scaled back, or if U.S. funding dried up.

Repatriation requires the cooperation of the country of origin – and active steps to ensure the migrants don't simply turn around and try again, particularly if they are returned to areas close to the U.S. border. On Wednesday, DHS said, Kelly will observe a repatriation flight to Guatemala of recent deportees. (The cost of such flights from the United States – on average more than $8,000 an hour for charters – is borne entirely by American taxpayers.)

One new provision would enable Washington to deport undocumented aliens to the country from where they crossed the border. DHS confirmed to ProPublica that it is looking to send migrants who entered the United States from Mexico back there – regardless of whether or not they are Mexican citizens. DHS save it would save money and resources because U.S. officials would return migrants "to the foreign contiguous territory from which they arrived" to be detained there while they waited for their cases to be adjudicated.

"If you want to make a claim for asylum or whatever we'll hear your case but you are going to wait in Mexico," a DHS official said, adding the details are still being worked out with the Mexican government.

Mexico, though, would have to agree to that, and it's not at all clear it will want to hold thousands of immigrants as they await their proceedings with U.S. officials. Additionally, a 2001 Supreme Court ruling found that if a country of origin doesn't agree to take a migrant back, he or she must be released from detention.

"If the United States starts sending non-Mexicans back to Mexico, Mexico doesn't have to receive them," Wilson said. "Just like the U.S. gets to determine who is admitted, so does Mexico."

Kelly at least, though dealt a tough hand as an emissary for Trump policies that have sparked mass protests in Mexico, has substantial experience with security counterparts in the region thanks to his former leadership of U.S. Southern Command, which stretches from the Mexican border to the southern cone. He has spent time on both sides of Mexico's northern and southern borders, and worked extensively with the governments of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

That experience helped inform a more nuanced view of immigration than Trump has often espoused. But it remains to be seen how much of a tempering influence Kelly has on the president.

Officials said aides to former senator and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an immigration hardliner, drafted the latest implementation plan without input from career staffers at DHS, according to ProPublica. Kelly hinted at the Munich Security Conference last week he hadn't gotten a chance to provide input on the rollout of Trump's previous immigration executive orders, but would be doing so now.

Still, in his confirmation hearing before the Senate last month, Kelly praised the progress and importance of regional security forces to stanching the northward flow of migrants. In order to really stop drugs and people from reaching the U.S. border, he said the oft-touted "wall" should be built much farther south.

"Security of the border starts 1,500 miles south of the Rio Grande," he said, "in the jungles of Latin America."

Reporting for this article was also supported by the International Women's Media Foundation as part of the Adelante Latin America Reporting Initiative.</s>MEXICO CITY — Top U.S. officials met Thursday with President Enrique Peña Nieto for likely contentious talks about relations between the two countries that have been badly strained over trade and illegal immigration since Donald Trump's election as president.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly's meeting comes a day after Mexico's foreign minister issued a blunt warning that his country would not allow the U.S. to dictate policy on deporting undocumented immigrants to Mexico.

Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, responding to tougher immigration enforcement plans unveiled by Kelly on Tuesday, said Mexico would doggedly defend its migrants living in the United States and take its case to the United Nations if necessary.

Videgaray also rejected the U.S. plan for Mexico to take non-Mexicans expelled from the U.S. Many are Central Americans entering the U.S. through Mexico, but on Wednesday Kelly seemed to modify the U.S. position by saying in Guatemala that the United States would send deportees in the U.S. illegally back to their countries of origin.

Peña Nieto had planned to visit Trump at the White House on Jan. 31, but canceled the trip after Trump tweeted that he shouldn't come unless he was prepared to discuss the U.S. president's plan to expand a wall along the two countries' border at Mexico's expense. Peña Nieto ruled out Mexico financing the construction.

Tillerson and Kelly arrived here Wednesday night and dined with Mexico’s secretaries of National Defense and the Navy at the U.S. ambassador’s residence.

Besides immigration, the two countries are at odds over the North American Free Trade Agreement — NAFTA — which has been an economic boon for Mexico but Trump wants to renegotiate because he says it has sent too many U.S. factories and jobs to lower-cost Mexico.

Also on the agenda is drugs, an issue where the two countries seem more in sync. Mexico has waged a decade-long crackdown on drug cartels and organized crime that has cost an estimated 200,000 lives. Government statistics showed January had the highest monthly murder rate in 20 years, with homicides climbing 38% compared with January 2016.

The United States and Mexico have cooperated closely over the last decade, as the U.S. has provided Mexico with material, technical and intelligence assistance that has led to the capture of cartel kingpins and the dismantling of many drug cartels.

Mexico also has helped deter the flow of undocumented immigrants into the U.S., detaining and deporting more than 300,000 foreign nationals — mostly Central Americans — traveling through Mexico. Many Central Americans are fleeing gang violence in countries with some of the highest murder rates in the world.

In Guatemala, Kelly urged potential migrants to stay put, saying they would be detained and deported promptly if they tried to reach the U.S.

Trump has touted an expanded border wall as a way of stopping illegal immigration. However, recent estimates show more Mexicans are returning to Mexico from the U.S. than entering the country.</s>MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico reacted with anger on Wednesday to what one official called "hostile" new U.S. immigration guidelines hours before senior Trump administration envoys began arriving in Mexico City for talks on the volatile issue.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security unveiled plans on Tuesday to consider almost all illegal immigrants subject to deportation, and will seek to send many of them to Mexico if they entered the United States from there, regardless of nationality.

The tension over the timing of the rules mirrors an outcry when President Donald Trump said on Twitter Mexico should pay for his planned border wall shortly before Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was due at a Washington summit in January.

However, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in Washington U.S.-Mexico ties were "phenomenal right now" and that he expected a "great discussion." Other senior officials also put on a brave face, telling reporters the trip was aimed at building a close working relationship.

Trump, who took office last month, campaigned on a pledge to get tougher on the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, playing on fears of violent crime while promising to build the wall and stop potential terrorists from entering the country.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson landed in Mexico City on Wednesday afternoon. He was joined by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly later for talks the White House said would "walk through" the implementation of Trump's immigration orders.

Kelly signed the guidelines issued by his department on Monday.

Mexico's lead negotiator with the Trump administration, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, said there was no way Mexico would accept the new rules, which among other things seek to deport non-Mexicans to Mexico.

"I want to say clearly and emphatically that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept provisions that one government unilaterally wants to impose on the other," Videgaray told reporters at the Foreign Ministry.

He said the issue would dominate the talks on Wednesday and Thursday. Mexico will insist that the United States proves the nationality of any person it wants to deport to Mexico, he said.

"We also have control of our borders and we will exercise it fully," he said, adding that Mexico was prepared to go the United Nations to defend the freedoms and rights of Mexicans under international law.

Roberto Campa, who heads the human rights department of the Interior Ministry, said the plan to deport non-Mexicans to Mexico was "hostile" and "unacceptable."

Senators for the leading leftist opposition party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution, said Tillerson and Kelly were not welcome in Mexico and they urged Pena Nieto not to meet them.

Another potential point of friction is a review ordered by Trump of the U.S. aid Mexico receives, dominated by $2.6 billion allocated largely for security under the Merida Initiative. Some believe the order carries a threat of cutting off such support.

Homeland Security's guidance to immigration agents is part of a broader border security and immigration enforcement plan in executive orders that Trump signed on Jan. 25.

In Guatemala on Wednesday, Kelly denied the administration was embarking on mass deportations.

Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council's Latin America Economic Growth Initiative, said the Republican president appeared to have timed the unveiling of deportation measures as a negotiating tactic aimed at unsettling Mexico.

Trump was "carving out more extreme positions to be able to then negotiate a compromise solution," Marczak said.

Mexico's agenda at the talks on Thursday includes border infrastructure, deportation strategies, Central American migration, narcotics, arms trafficking and terrorism, as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement, a senior official with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Two senior Trump administration officials said the agenda included ways to tackle heroin production and strengthening Mexico's southern border.</s>Mexico's mounting unease and resentment over President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown are looming over a gathering of U.S. and Mexican leaders Thursday that the U.S. had hoped would project a strong future for relations between neighbors.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly were meeting with their Mexican counterparts in Mexico City before they were supposed to sit down with Mexican President Pena Nieto. But a top Mexican official suggested the meeting with Pena Nieto, announced days in advance by the U.S., might not take place after all.

"It all depends on the agreements that they arrive at," Mexico's Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said on a morning news show. "It all depends on the outcome and if there are important and positive things or very clear messages that need to be conveyed through these emissaries"

Even Trump, whose White House has insisted relations with Mexico are "phenomenal," acknowledged he'd sent his top diplomat to Mexico on a "tough trip."

"We have to be treated fairly by Mexico," Trump said Thursday during a meeting with manufacturing CEOs.

There is no shortage of tension points. After all, it's Kelly who's tasked with executing Trump's plan to target millions for possible deportation, and Tillerson who must explain it to the rest of the world.

As the pair arrived in Mexico City, the two countries seemed much farther apart than their close geographical proximity would suggest.

"I think Secretary Tillerson and Secretary Kelly are going to have a great discussion down there," said White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

But while Spicer said the officials would "talk through the implementation of the executive order," Mexico made clear it intended to do nothing of the sort.

"I want to say clearly and most emphatically that the Mexican government and the Mexican people have no reason to accept unilateral decisions imposed by one government on another," said Mexico's foreign relations secretary, Luis Videgaray. "We are not going to accept that, because we don't have to."

Videgaray added a cryptic but pointed warning that Mexico wouldn't hesitate to challenge the U.S. move at the United Nations or other global venues.

The visiting Americans planned to meet Thursday with Videgaray before a working lunch with Mexican officials and a formal meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

The worsening rift over deportations and illegal immigration adds to an array of disputes that have sent U.S.-Mexico relations plunging since Trump took office a month ago. Trump's insistence that Mexico pay billions for a border wall led Pena Nieto to cancel a planned Washington visit. Mexican officials are also apprehensive over Trump's pledge to overhaul the trade relationship and possible apply steep taxes to Mexican products, a move with profound impacts for Mexico's export-heavy economy.

New immigration enforcement memos signed by Kelly this week call for sending some immigrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally back into Mexico — even those from third countries who have no connection to Mexico. The memos also prioritize deportation for anyone charged or convicted of any crime, rather than just serious crimes, potentially subjecting millions in the U.S. illegally to deportation, including many Mexicans.

Those policies have raised fears in Mexico about the possibility of deportee and refugee camps emerging along Mexico's northern border. Mexican officials are also likely to seek answers about whether a forthcoming report ordered by Trump's administration that will list all current U.S. aid to Mexico is intended to threaten Mexico into compliance over immigration or the wall.

In a sign of how Trump's hard line is reverberating in Mexico, local media amplified Videgaray's forceful comments as Trump's envoys arrived in Mexico City, with combative headlines invoking a "long battle with the U.S." Meanwhile, in Washington, six Democratic senators dismayed by the deteriorating relations urged Tillerson and Kelly in a letter Thursday to strike a more cooperative tone than Trump.

Kelly arrived in the Mexican capital from Guatemala on a visit intended to deter Guatemalans from trying to enter the U.S. illegally. Though Kelly promised "there will be no mass roundups," he acknowledged that those caught will be removed from the U.S. much more quickly than in the past.

"My best advice is to not do it," he said.
Mexico states that it will reject third-country deportees.