US:US president George Bush tried to reassure Mexicans yesterday that he has not given up on overhauling US immigration policy - but they are increasingly sceptical that he can deliver.
Mr Bush told Mexican president Felipe Calderón at their first summit that he would try to convince Congress to pass his plans to soften US immigration laws and allow a guest worker programme.
"My pledge to you and your government, but more importantly the people of Mexico, is that I will work as hard as I possibly can to pass comprehensive immigration reform," he said.
Mexico's economic importance to the US is unrivalled in Latin America. Yet a sense of neglect has set in as Mr Bush, who promised to make Mexico a priority when he took office in 2001, has become distracted by the Iraq war, which has made him even more unpopular in Latin America than he is at home.
Mexicans account for more than half of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the US and Mexico is upset at American plans to build a security fence along parts of the border.
"Migration cannot be stopped and certainly not by decree," said Mr Calderón, a conservative who took office last December.
Mexico poses a complex challenge for Mr Bush on the last leg of a Latin American tour aimed at countering the anti-US influence of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Mr Calderón told a Mexican newspaper he did not have high hopes for the Bush meeting and said he wanted closer ties to communist Cuba.
Mr Calderón has deployed thousands of troops against drug cartels who killed 2,000 people last year. But he complains that the US does not do enough to fight drug consumption at home or stop Mexican gangs buying weapons north of the border.