Mexico Will Push US for Orderly Repatriation of Migrants

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said Monday that as part of a comprehensive dialogue with the new Trump administration, he will ask that any expulsion of Mexican migrants from the United States take place in an orderly, coordinated manner.

"We will raise all the issues," he said during an official event at Los Pinos, the presidential residence.

Besides trade, migration and the border, topics of discussion will include "terrorist threats and the illegal traffic in drugs, guns and cash," Peña Nieto said.

Mexico's secretaries of foreign relations, Luis Videgaray, and economy, Ildefonso Guajardo, will travel to Washington this week for talks with President Donald Trump's administration.

Peña Nieto is due to visit the U.S. capital Jan. 31 for a meeting with Trump, who launched his presidential campaign in 2015 with a speech blasting Mexican immigrants as criminals and "rapists."

The new president vows to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and has spoken of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.

In negotiations with Washington, Mexico will seek to ensure that "any process of repatriation of undocumented migrants" is carried out "in an orderly and coordinated manner," Peña Nieto said.

"It suits the United States for Mexico to do well and equally, it suits Mexico for the United States to do well," the Mexican president said.

Acknowledging the new foreign policy "vision" in Washington, Peña Nieto said that Mexico is obliged to defend its interests "without confrontation or submission."

Mexico's guiding principles in negotiations with the U.S. will be preserving national sovereignty, respect for the rule of law on both sides of the border and a commitment to North American integration on a "win-win" basis, the president said.