By David Alire Garcia and Raul Cortes
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico will continue pursuing measures to stop migrants from reaching its northern border with the United States, its top diplomat said on Friday, days after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election vowing a new crackdown on illegal immigration.
Foreign Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente stressed that Mexico's model is working and will stay in place, pointing to data that shows the number of migrants caught by U.S. authorities at the border had fallen 76% since last December.
"It's working well and we're going to continue on this path," he told a press conference.
At the same conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed that she had spoken to Trump about the border in their first telephone call a day earlier while also pointing to the sharp fall in migrant crossings.
"He raised the issue of the border... and I told him, 'Yes, there is the issue of the border, but there will be space to talk about it,'" said Sheinbaum, who described the conversation as "very cordial."
Much like he did in his previous term as president, Trump has threatened to slap 25% tariffs on all Mexican exports unless its government stops migrants and drugs from crossing the shared border.
Mexico is extraordinarily reliant on the U.S. market, which is the destination of around 80% of its exports.
Since the beginning of this year, Mexico has quietly carried out a crackdown on migrants seeking entry into the United States, including a growing program to bus and fly non-Mexican migrants far to the south.
The crackdown followed pressure from the outgoing Biden administration and contrasts sharply with the Mexican government's stated humanitarian goals, which aim to protect the human rights of migrants while creating employment opportunities for those who decide to stay in Mexico.
Sheinbaum emphasized the humanitarian focus on Friday.
"What we are looking for is not only the containment of migration in the south, but also that there can be employment," she said, stressing the need to attend to the root causes of migration.
But migration experts and advocates, who already consider the Mexican government's migration policies as too harsh, fear that these measures will only harden once Trump takes office.
"With the new U.S. government, these (Mexican) enforcement measures will grow even stronger," said Jose Maria Garcia, the director of a migrant shelter in the northern border city of Tijuana.
Darlin Castro, a Venezuelan migrant currently in southern Mexico, said she feels the country's migration policies are hypocritical.
"Mexico says it helps migrants but that is not the case," she said.