Washington DC - Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly put pressure on Canada and other US allies to more aggressively cut immigration levels, but Ottawa denies that such a directive was passed on.

A New York Times report alleges that Rubio ordered diplomats at US embassies in Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to put pressure on local governments to crack down on immigrants.

US ambassadors were reportedly directed not only to push for governments in other countries to lower migration levels, but also to report back to Washington if those governments "appear to be overly supportive of immigrants."

The NYT obtained a diplomatic cable sent by Rubio which instructed diplomats to "regularly engage host governments and their respective authorities to raise US concerns about violent crimes associated with people of a migration background."

The message accused migrants of being responsible for "human rights abuses" that constitute "widespread disrupters of social cohesion and public safety."

The apparent goal of Rubio's cable was to encourage countries to adopt more restrictive immigration laws, as the second Trump administration has done since January.

Earlier in November, the State Department took to social media claiming that "mass migration poses an existential threat to Western civilization and undermines the stability of key American allies."

"Western nations have endured crime waves, terror attacks, sexual assaults, and the displacement of communities," the State Department wrote.

"US officials will urge governments to take bold action and defend citizens against the threats posed by mass migration."

Days after the NYT report came out, Canada's Immigration Minister Lena Diab said she had been unaware of any such directives sent to the US Embassy in Ottawa and hadn't been pressured by the US to reduce migration levels.

Diab said she had consulted with economists and government officials for months before settling on Canada's immigration levels, and suggested she wouldn't make major policy decisions based on pressure from Washington either way.

"Quite frankly, the provinces and territories, they were my main partners because immigration in Canada is a joint provincial, territorial, federal jurisdiction," Diab said during a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday, CBC reports.

"Those are the individuals that I consult with when we develop our levels plan," she continued, explaining that the Carney government's immigration policy had been designed to meet skills shortages across the country.

"It's not something I'm familiar with," Diab said when asked about the NYT report about Rubio's directive. "Unless something happened overnight."