Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Monday said barriers could not stop the movement of migrants and the fusion of cultures.

Pena Nieto said this while addressing world leaders during the first-ever high-level UN summit on migration.

He stressed that migration reflected people’s “instinct for survival, vital energy, their ardent desire to excel’’ and that it had enriched societies over history.

“Neither natural, nor artificial barriers hold sway for every river, there has always been a bridge; for every obstacle, there has always been a way forward,’’ Pena Nieto told world leaders.

The Mexican president said he was proud of his country’s diverse society, noting that Mexico was a country of origin, destination, transit and return.

Pena Nieto said Mexico would actively engage in the creation of a global framework to govern orderly and safe migration worldwide.

The target date for the adoption of such a document is 2018.

“Mexico will continue working to have migrants recognised as agents of change and development, to ensure their human rights are respected and to do away with statements of hate and discrimination against migrants,’’ he said.

The comments came after a heated presidential race in the U.S., home to millions of Mexican migrants, during which Republican U.S. president nominee Donald Trump promised to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico if he is elected U.S. president.