MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's foreign secretary Monday leveled his country's sharpest criticism yet at U.S. proposal for a fence along parts of its southern border, condemning it as "stupid" and "underhanded."
In a radio interview, Luis Ernesto Derbez said U.S. legislators who approved the bill were turning a blind eye to the contributions millions of migrants from Mexico and elsewhere make to America's economy and culture.
"It's a law that looks underhanded to everybody ... stupid," Derbez said.
On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 239-182 in favor of an immigration enforcement bill, which includes a proposal to build 700 miles of border fencing along parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Under the measure, soldiers and police would help stop people sneaking across, and employers would have to check the legal status of their workers.
Derbez said he was confident the bill would not make it past the U.S. Senate, which he said was not as easily swayed as the House.
Reacting Sunday to the bill's approval, Mexican President Vicente Fox said "this wall is shameful," and called the plan hypocritical for a country made up of immigrants.
is there anyone here who thinks that this is a bad idea? putting up a fence so they actually have to request to work here? I disagree with the fence idea. Unless it is electrified.
