McALLEN — After Donald Trump’s election, Mexican officials have launched a know-your-rights campaign to help protect Mexican citizens living in the United States, both documented and undocumented.
The campaign titled “Estamos Contigo, We Are With You,” highlights 11 initiatives by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs that will be implemented by the Mexican embassy in Washington, D.C., and the 50 consulates located across the United States.
“Paisano, these are times of uncertainty be calm,” said Claudia Ruiz Massieu, Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs, in a video message spread through social media last week. “Don’t fall to provocations and don’t let yourself be fooled. The government of President Peña and all Mexicans are with you.”
The Mexican Consul in McAllen, Guillermo Ordorica, released a video Thursday with the same message along with a list of the 11 initiatives they plan to implement at their office so Mexican citizens living in the Rio Grande Valley can avoid being victims of abuses and fraud.
“We want to inform you about the possible migratory actions, or about your belongings that could affect you as soon as February,” Ordorica said in Spanish. “We are going to bring this information closer and take these services to where you are.”
The initiatives include a 24-hour hotline, 855-463-6395, to answer any questions about immigration, or to report incidents, and the addition of mobile consulates that will travel into the communities to inform and provide services to Mexican citizens, according to a news release.
On a YouTube video Monday, Trump outlined his plan for his first 100 days in office which includes investigating visa program abuses and withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership which includes Mexico and 11 other countries.
Trump has also threatened to end the North American Free Trade Agreement, deport millions of undocumented immigrants and build a wall across the entire southern border and make Mexico pay for it.
During a Nov. 10 presentation at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Ordorica said he didn’t know how the United States and Mexico will come to terms on these issues.
“The bilateral relationship with the U.S. has always had its ups and downs,” Ordorica said in Spanish. “Having a neighbor, in this instance Mexico, with a closed door is equivalent to harakiri (a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment).”
“Right now we are victims to the fear of what could happen, but both countries have gone through very difficult and tense times in the past for a million other reasons,” he added. “However we are still here, and fortunately we are countries of institutions, and very solid traditions that I think impede anyone from stepping all over them on either side of the border.”
