MEXICO CITY _ Mexico will take legal measures to protect Mexican nationals in the United States after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday killed at least three Mexicans, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said.
The country's "indignation" will be translated into effective and expedited legal action that will demand conditions to protect Mexicans in the U.S., Ebrard said in a video posted on Twitter Sunday.
"Mexico expresses its deepest rejection and condemnation towards this barbaric act where innocent Mexicans lost their lives," Ebrard said in the video. "What happened is inadmissible, and I'll be announcing the first legal steps we've taken in accordance with international law."
Police on Saturday arrested a 21-year-old Texas man suspected of opening fire with an assault rifle at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, killing at least 20 people. Authorities are investigating a possible link to an anti-immigrant document, with anger directed against immigrants and specifically against Mexicans. Three Mexicans were killed, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a Twitter video.
Less than 24 hours after the El Paso shooting, a gunman in body armor killed at lest nine people and injured dozens of others in Dayton, Ohio. Ebrard said no Mexicans were hurt or killed there.
Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., Martha Barcena, was among the many who condemned the attack. "The intentionality of the attack against the Latino and Mexican community in El Paso is frightening," she tweeted Sunday. "Xenophobe and racist discourse has to stop. No to violence. No to hatred."
The U.S. Justice Department is treating the case as domestic terrorism, spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said on Twitter. A conviction could entail the death penalty.
