Jorge Antonio Gonzalez Rocha
21 April 2025•Update: 21 April 2025
MEXICO CITY
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday condemned an anti-immigrant TV spot paid for by the US government and aired over the weekend on Mexican national television.
The ad, featuring US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, was broadcast on public, open-access television. In the one-minute message, Noem delivers a warning on behalf of President Donald Trump to anyone considering to cross the US border illegally.
“If you are considering entering America illegally, don’t even think about it. Let me be clear: if you come to our country and break our laws, we will hunt you down. Criminals are not welcome in the US,” she says.
The televised message accuses previous US administrations of allowing open-border policies that, according to the ad, led to drug smuggling, human trafficking, and the entry of violent criminals.
In her daily press conference, Sheinbaum responded forcefully, calling the ads discriminatory in nature.
“No foreign government, no entity—no foreign government, in fact—should be able to pay. They are paying to broadcast these ads, this propaganda, which carries a discriminatory message, as assessed by Conapred itself,” she said.
Mexico’s National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Conapred) issued a statement demanding that the ads be taken down, citing Articles 2, 223, and 256, which regulate the broadcast of discriminatory or hateful content.
The agency said the ad contained a discriminatory message that could incite rejection or violence against migrants.
According to Sheinbaum, the airing of such spots was made possible after the 2014 repeal of a law that had previously prohibited political propaganda or ads conveying ideological messages from foreign countries.
“In any case, it will be included in the law once again. It shouldn’t have been removed. I’ve already requested an investigation into how and under what arguments that article was taken out. But we believe that our sovereignty and respect for Mexico warrant reinstating it into the law,” the president added.
