January 6, 2016
James Barragan

Carlos González Gutiérrez, the consul general of Mexico in Austin, sounded off on Donald Trump, the assignment of the National Guard to the southern Texas border and the state’s denial of birth certificates to children of undocumented parents during a visit to Mexico City.

González Gutiérrez, who became Mexico’s top foreign official in Austin last May, made the statements to a Mexican new outlet during the annual reunion of Mexico’s foreign ambassadors and consuls.

Speaking of Trump’s anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican comments, González Gutiérrez said in Spanish: “We are under very strict instruction to respond with firmness to this type of rhetoric that is always seeking short-term benefits that will help during elections.”

He added that the subject of Trump was broached at the gathering and that the attendees discussed which kinds of responses to the real estate mogul and Republican front-runner were most effective.

González Gutiérrez drew a connection between Trump’s rhetoric and increasingly restrictive measures by state governments, such as Texas’ denial of birth certificates to children of undocumented parents. A lawsuit filed by several immigrants, in which the Mexican government filed an amicus curiae, is set to go to trial in December 2016, he said.

The consul lamented that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had extended the National Guard’s presence at the state’s southern border with Mexico last month, prolonging a controversial mission that began in 2014 when unaccompanied children from Central America began pouring into the country.

“We don’t believe that this type of unilateral move helps and we’ve made that known to him and publicly,” González Gutiérrez said.

While signaling that Abbott had expressed his desire for better relations with Mexico, which is one of the state’s biggest trading partners, the deployment of the National Guard to the border is an area of friction between the two governments.

“We should be able to develop a relationship with the government of Texas where a single issue doesn’t dominate the entire relationship and we never lose the dialogue that had been previously ruptured and that, now, with this administration is constant,” he said.

http://somos.blog.statesman.com/2016...nnual-meeting/