EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The President of Mexico says she will ask her congress to change broadcast law so that foreign governments can’t buy television spots to influence affairs in her country.
This follows backlash after television and online platforms ran a U.S. Department of Homeland Security ad warning migrants not to come.
“If you are considering entering America illegally, don’t even think about it. If you come to our country and you break our laws, we will hunt you down. Criminals are not welcome,” DHS Secretary Kirsti Noem says in the ad.
The video includes images of men in handcuffs being led into police cars and crowds rushing the border wall or coming across the Rio Grande.
CONAPRED, a Mexican federal agency created to root out discrimination, reported receiving complaints about the ad. The ad is at least a month old, but President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo said it recently ran during a Mexican league soccer game. Those games tend to have a big audience and stir emotions.
“We have found in our analysis that the TV spot has a discriminatory message that places human dignity in jeopardy and could encourage rejection and violence against migrants,” the agency said in a letter sent to Mexican broadcasters. “We invite you to remove the spot so we can continue to construct a society free of discrimination, as our constitution mandates.”
In her Monday news conference in Mexico City, Sheinbaum said she agrees with the assessment.
“We don’t want any foreign government or entity to pay – because they are paying – to promote these ads, this propaganda that has a discriminatory message,” Sheinbaum said.
She added that foreign entities’ access to Mexican television had been restricted until 2014. She said federal lawmakers would be asked to restore those restrictions in the next few hours.
Border Report contacted DHS for comment and is waiting for a response.
DHS on March 15 announced the launch of an “international, multimillion-dollar” ad campaign warning people not to come to the United States illegally. It also encourages those already in the country illegally to self-deport.
“President Trump has a clear message: if you are here illegally, we will find you and deport you. You will never return,” Noem said in the March 15 statement. “But if you leave now, you may have an opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American Dream.”
The controversy comes at a sensitive moment for U.S.-Mexico relations. Trump has been threatening Mexico with tariffs since early February if it doesn’t stop migrants from proceeding to the U.S. borders or rein in the cartels sending the deadly fentanyl drug north.
The administration is also unsatisfied with Mexico’s water payments under a binational 1944 treaty. An October deadline for Mexico to hand over water, which it says it doesn’t have, is fast approaching.
Sheinbaum said members of her cabinet continue to hold talks with the Trump administration to avert further tariffs and to roll back levies on auto parts, aluminum, steel, and items not covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
She also said a treatment plant in Tijuana is undergoing upgrades to reduce sewage flows into the Pacific Ocean.