The Mexican Foreign ministry on Wednesday slammed Donald Trump for his plan to deport the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
“Anyone who understands the depth of the U.S.-Mexico relationship realizes that those proposals are not only prejudiced and absurd, but would be detrimental to the well-being of both societies,” the Mexican Foreign Ministry said Wednesday in a statement to Reuters.
The foreign ministry also slammed the Republican presidential front-runner for his comments about undocumented immigrants who come into the U.S. from Mexico, whom Trump called “rapists” and “killers” when he launched his presidential bid in June.
The Mexican foreign minister had previously called out Trump for those remarks.
“We continue to stand by our position that these comments reflect prejudice, racism or plain ignorance,” Mexico’s foreign ministry said in the statement Wednesday.
Trump responded to the criticism while taking questions from reporters Wednesday night in New Hampshire, insisting that he has “a great relationship with the Mexican people.”
“If I’m running Mexico I’m saying the same thing because I have to. Because what they’re doing to the United States is unbelievable both in trade and at the border,” Trump said.
Trump hasn’t backed down in the face of criticism about his comments about undocumented immigrants and his plan to deport all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
Trump has also pledged to end birthright citizenship, which grants American citizenship to all people born in the U.S., even if the newborn’s parents are undocumented immigrants.
Trump has even gone further since that proposal, saying this week he doesn’t believe people born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants are Americans, though they do have citizenship under current law.