Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government has made its first direct response to Donald Trump's pledge to build a wall along the two countries' border — and make Mexico pay for it.

Mexican Treasury Secretary Luis Videgaray says "emphatically and categorically" that it isn't going to foot the bill for the project proposed by the Republican presidential hopeful. He told Milenio television late Wednesday that "Mexico will under no circumstance pay for the wall that Mr. Trump is proposing."

The response comes after two former Mexican presidents condemned the plan and said Mexico should not and would not pay for the wall that has become a focal point in Trump's presidential campaign.

About 650 miles of the nearly 2,000 miles of border terrain between the United States and Mexico already has some kind of wall or fence estimated to have cost about $2.3 billion to build.

In El Paso, the wall spans most of the boundary, but a major gap exists near Paisano Drive at the site of Old Fort Bliss.

U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, said Trump's rhetoric is not based on hard data and facts, which show the U.S.-Mexico border "has never been more secure in the history of our two countries."

Saying that the wall's cost is closer to $7 billion factoring in maintenance over the years, O'Rourke said resources instead should address visa overstays, threats at international airports, home-grown terrorism and securing the northern border.

"I asked in open hearing and got responses from the secretary of homeland security, the director of national counterterrorism and the FBI about terrorism in the southern border," O'Rourke said. "Each affirmed there has never been terrorist plots or terrorist acts connected to the U.S. southern border."

He said about $18 billion is spent annually to secure the border, calling it a "diminishing return on limited taxpayer resources." Extending the border wall, he said, would be spending more money on a problem that doesn't exist.

The Pew Research Center reports that the number of undocumented Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. has declined over the past eight years. It reports more Mexican immigrants have been traveling south across the border than coming north into the United States.

Trump has also proposed levying tariffs on Mexico to pay for the border wall, which O'Rourke said would also hurt the United States.

"That unnecessarily antagonizes the largest trading partner for the state of Texas," he said, adding that some $90 billion of trade flows through El Paso every year.

Other presidential candidates have said they support walls or fences along the U.S.-Mexico border, but Trump's statements on immigration and Mexicans have been the most inflammatory. Supporters of Trump's wall proposal say it's a large part of a plan to stop illegal immigration and secure the border.

The wall proposal has been criticized widely and fiercely in Mexico, but the government itself has tried to avoid commenting directly on the issue until now.

Last month, former Mexican Presidents Felipe Calderón and Vicente Fox rebuked Trump's proposal.

“We are not going to pay any single cent for such a stupid wall! And it’s going to be completely useless,” Calderón said during an interview with CNBC.

In an interview with Mexican journalist Jorge Ramos, Fox said Trump should pay for the wall.

“I’m not going to pay for that (expletive) wall! He should pay for it. He’s got the money,” Fox said.

El Paso Times Senior Editor Cindy Ramirez contributed to this report.