Immigration law controversy - Defiant Zedillo breaks silence

By Matthew Brayman, The News, Mexico City, Mexico, April 4, 1997

President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon pledged Thursday to use all the diplomatic and legal force at his government's disposal to protect Mexicans living in the United States, joining a growing tide of sentiment against a controversial U.S. anti-immigration law. Presidents from all three major political parties, a phalanx of federal legislators and Foreign Relations Secretary Jose Angel Gurria Treviņo have independently criticized the law, which went into effect this week and is designed to greater police U.S. borders and deport any illegal aliens...

"We will not tolerate foreign forces dictating and enacting laws on Mexicans," said Zedillo in a speech Thursday in Campeche. Congressional legislators and high-ranking Foreign Relations Secretariat (SRE) members have threatened to appeal the law in an international forum, and several formal communiques have been sent to the different branches of the U.S. government. Zedillo warned that any human rights abuses against "our brothers" living abroad will be answered with the "full force of all the legal instruments at our disposal."...