A front-runner for the 2018 Mexican Presidential election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador [profile, in Spanish], filed a complaint [press release, in Spanish] Wednesday with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights [official website] against US President Donald Trump’s proposed border security wall. Lopez Obrador announced [press release, in Spanish] his intentions to file on Monday. The complaint alleges human rights abuses by the US government. In his press release, Lopez Obrador classifies the rhetoric of the US president and his proposed border wall as discriminatory and racist. He called for action to ensure the rights and safety of Mexican immigrants would be respected by the US.

The rights of immigrants, and immigration more generally, has been a topic of much contention during the Trump Administration. Earlier this month Trump signed [JURIST report] a new immigration executive order, which contains several departures from the original January executive order. The revised order was blocked this week by two federal judges—one in Maryland on Thursday and another in Hawaii on Wednesday. Last month the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied [JURIST report] a request by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stay an appeal on Trump’s original immigration executive order. The DOJ requested [JURIST reports] a hold on the court proceedings until Trump issues a new order on immigration. Also in February the appeals court upheld [JURIST report] a lower court decision issuing a stay on the executive orders pending proceedings.