Mexican immigrants express defiance to Trump wall plans

ATLANTA, GA (KTRK) -- Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has outlined a new plan to make Mexico pay for a wall along the border.

He's threatening to ban firms like Western Union transferring the money of illegal immigrants back home.

If you go to communities across the United States with a high concentration of immigrants from Latin America, you're going to find places like Atlanta's Fiesta Mall.

Not only is Fiesta a shopping center, but a place where immigrants, mainly Mexicans, get together.

They shop, they dine in little restaurants, and they do one more thing that is crucial for their families back home: they send money to Mexico.

"It's very important to send money because they're working really hard here," says Diana Cubillos. "Most of them have families over there. It's very hard to find jobs in Mexico."

Donald Trump's reported plan is to force the Mexican government to pay for a border wall by stopping undocumented immigrants from transferring money to Mexico.

As you can imagine, it is cause for great concern for Mexican immigrants, documented or not.

"This is complete foolishness," one woman says. "He can't do it, and we won't let him. We're going to keep on sending money to our people as we always have. "

According to Mexico's Central Bank, Mexicans abroad sent nearly $24.8 billion to their country last year, mainly from the United States.

This is more money than Mexico's total oil revenues for 2015 estimated at $23.4 billion.

This is the first time that incoming money transfers are higher than oil revenues since they started taking records in 1995.

These immigrants say no matter what, Mexicans will always find a way to help their families back home.