What Donald Trump Has Said About Mexico and Vice Versa

— -- Donald Trump is traveling to Mexico today to meet privately with the country's President Enrique Pena Nieto, just hours before the Republican presidential nominee is slated to deliver a formal speech focused on immigration.

Mexico has been a contentious talking point in Trump's campaign. Here's a look back at some of the controversial remarks he has made about the country and its people and vice versa.

What Trump Has Said About Mexico

While formally announcing his presidential bid on June 16, 2015, Trump said Mexico was sending people bringing crime and "rapists" across the border into the United States.

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Trump then defended those comments in a statement on July 6, 2015. "The Mexican government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc. This was evident just this week when, as an example, a young woman in San Francisco was viciously killed by a five-time deported Mexican with a long criminal record who was forced back into the United States because they didn't want him in Mexico. This is merely one of thousands of similar incidents throughout the United States."

During the first prime-time Republican presidential candidates' debate of this cycle, on Aug. 6, 2015, Trump told Fox News' Chris Wallace that the Mexican government was intentionally sending undocumented criminals. "Our leaders are stupid, our politicians are stupid, and the Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning, and they send the bad ones over because they don't want to pay for them, they don't want to take care of them," Trump said.

Trump has repeatedly questioned whether federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel could be impartial in presiding over two lawsuits against Trump University. Trump has said Curiel's Mexican heritage makes him biased. Curiel was born in Indiana to Mexican-American parents.

"I think the judge has been extremely hostile to me. I think it has to do with, perhaps, the fact that I'm very, very strong on the border. Very, very strong on the border. And he has been extremely hostile to me," Trump said in an interview with Wallace on Fox News on Feb. 28. "Now, he is Hispanic, I believe."

Trump blasted Curiel again during a rally in San Diego on May 27, saying, "I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He's a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel, and he is not doing the right thing … So what happens is the judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great. I think that's fine."

Trump walked back his remarks on Curiel in a June 7 statement that read, "It is unfortunate that my comments have been misconstrued as a categorical attack against people of Mexican heritage. I am friends with and employ thousands of people of Mexican and Hispanic descent. The American justice system relies on fair and impartial judges. All judges should be held to that standard. I do not feel that one's heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but, based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial."

Trump has engaged in a contentious back-and-forth with Mexico's former President Vicente Fox, who has been critical of the real estate mogul and his scheduled trip to Mexico.

Fox responded:

What Mexicans Have Said About Trump

In a Feb. 25 interview with Jorge Ramos on Fusion, Fox responded to Trump's plan to build a wall between Mexico and the United States and get Mexico to pay for it.

"I'm not going to pay for that f---ing wall. He should pay for it. He's got the money," Fox said. "What is Trump? He's not a Republican. Absolutely not. Those are not the Republican principles. He's not a Democrat. He is just himself. He is egocentric."

Fox decried Trump's visit to Mexico in an interview with CNN this morning just hours before Trump's scheduled meeting with Pena Nieto.

"Trump is using Mexico, is using President Pena to push his sinking poll numbers," Fox said on CNN's "New Day." "So it's a very opportunistic move, and I hope U.S. public opinion, U.S. citizens can see this and finally, and finally see what is behind Trump, this false prophet that is just cheating everybody."

Pena Nieto has also said his country would not pay for a wall. In an interview published in the Excelsior newspaper on March 7, he likened Trump's "strident" rhetoric to that of dictators like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.

"There is no scenario," Pena Nieto said when asked by Excelsior whether there were any circumstances under which Mexico would pay for the proposed wall. "Of course I can't agree with this American politician's position."

Pena Nieto continued by attacking the tone of Trump's campaign. "And there have been episodes in human history, unfortunately, where these expressions of this strident rhetoric have only led to very ominous situations in the history of humanity," he told the newspaper. "That's how Mussolini got in. That's how Hitler got in. They took advantage of a situation, a problem, perhaps, that humanity was going through at the time, after an economic crisis."

Ramos said on CNN Tuesday night that the meeting with Pena Nieto could be a sign that Trump is "in panic mode when it comes to Latinos." Trump once had Ramos, a Mexican-American journalist, removed from a campaign news conference in Iowa for asking questions about the candidate's proposed immigration policies.

"It doesn't matter what he says tomorrow. He already lost the Latino vote," Ramos told CNN.