Mexico president slams xenophobia after anti-gentrification protest

Friday's rally in Mexico City turned violent, with some of the several hundred protesters vandalizing businesses including a Starbucks coffee shop.

Others held signs saying "Gringo go home" or demanding that foreigners speak Spanish, pay taxes and respect Mexican culture.

"The xenophobic displays at this demonstration must be condemned," Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference.

Protesters complained that an influx of remote workers and other foreigners since the Covid pandemic had driven up rent prices and displaced Mexicans, a phenomenon known as gentrification.

As they passed street-side restaurants, some demonstrators heckled foreign diners, who either ignored them or left.

Sheinbaum, who was Mexico City mayor from 2018 to 2023, called the motive for the protest legitimate but rejected calls for foreigners to leave.

The leftist leader linked the rise in rents to the arrival of "digital nomads," many of them from the United States, as well as real estate speculation connected to online rental platforms such as Airbnb.

Mexico is home to one-fifth of the five million expatriates counted by the Association of Americans Resident Overseas in 2023.

The march came as US President Donald Trump intensifies his crackdown against undocumented immigrants in the United States.