US homeland security chief heads to Mexico for high level talks

MEXICO CITY: US Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly is traveling to Mexico Wednesday for high-level talks on trade and security and ahead of a meeting between the US and Mexican presidents, officials in both countries said.

Kelly will be in Mexico City July 5-7 for “discussions on issues of importance to the US-Mexico relationship including confronting transnational criminal organizations and promoting regional security and economic cooperation,” the DHS said in a brief statement.

In Mexico City, a government official told AFP that Kelly will meet Wednesday with President Enrique Pena Nieto.

This is Kelly’s second official visit to Mexico. He earlier visited Mexico in February with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, just weeks after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Trump pledged during his election campaign to build a border wall that Mexico would pay for, and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of which Canada is also a member.

Trump and Pena Nieto are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the July 7-8 G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, and five months after the first official meeting between the two leaders was aborted in a diplomatic spat.

In his February trip, Kelly promised there would be no mass deportation of undocumented Mexicans living in the US as Trump had suggested.