Amnesty International has slammed the Trump administration’s intentions to pay the Mexican government millions of dollars to deport irregular migrants and insisted that the move must not be allowed to happen.

This came in response to a New York Times article detailing $20million (£15m) of foreign assistance proposed by the Trump administration to US Congress for the deportation of at least 17,000 irregular migrants by the Mexican government.

The proposed funding for deportations would be included in the Merida Initiative, a foreign assistance package from the US to Mexico which is updated on an annual basis in the US Congress. This would be the first time that funds are explicitly set aside for the deportation of irregular migrants and asylum seekers.

Amnesty International recently published a report that demonstrates that the Mexican government is failing to meet its treaty obligations under international law to respect the rights of those in need of international protection.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International, said:

“It is totally unconscionable for a country with the resources that the United States has to outsource its international obligations to protect human lives and create a wall of inhumanity with Mexico.

“Instead of focusing international cooperation on attending to the human rights crisis in the region, Mexico and the United States continue to discuss ways to increase detentions and deportations of families and people fleeing for their lives from countries stricken by violence such as El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Honduras, not to mention refugees from other parts of the world.

“The Mexican government must honour its tradition as a country of migrants and refuse to play a double standard with people travelling through its country. This deportation fund must be eliminated immediately, and the US Congress must do its part to ensure this happens.”