DHS chief softens Trump's talk on immigration Kelly says there will be 'no use of military force' in deportation actions.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly softened the administration’s rhetoric on immigration Thursday, contradicting President Donald Trump’s characterization of his deportation plan as he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to repair the strained relationship between the U.S. and Mexico.

“There will be no — repeat — no mass deportations. Everything we do in DHS will be done legally and according to human rights and the legal justice system of the United States,” Kelly said Thursday at a joint press conference in Mexico City with Tillerson and Mexican officials.


“And again, listen to this. No — repeat — no use of military force in immigration operations. None,” he added. “At least half of you try to get that right because it continually comes up in the reporting.”

While his message likely played well with Mexican officials, Kelly’s comments ran counter to what Trump himself had said just hours earlier. Claiming that the U.S. “for the first time” was rooting out gang members and drug lords, Trump told reporters “it’s a military operation.”

Asked about the mixed messages, White House press secretary Sean Spicer blamed the different statements on semantics.

“The president was using that as an adjective,” he said. "The president was clearly describing the manner in which this was being done."

In Mexico City on Thursday afternoon, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray highlighted the nation’s “concern” and “irritation” at policies that could harm Mexico, likely alluding to DHS guidance released this week empowering U.S. officials to detain and deport immigrants.

In what appeared to be a concerted effort from Tillerson and Kelly, both Cabinet secretaries spoke in friendly terms toward Mexico, likely in an effort to soothe relations. Tillerson, a Texas native, pointed to Mexico as “a very close neighbor” and proclaimed his “great affection for the Mexican people,” while Kelly referred to his Mexican counterparts as his “brothers and sisters” and went so far as to pitch the bilateral relationship as a story to the media.

“The relationship and the interaction and friendship down on the border is something that you all ought to do a story on because between the Mexican officials and the American officials is a friendship and area of cooperation that has to be seen to be believed,” he said.

But the presence of Kelly and Tillerson, Videgaray acknowledged bluntly, comes “in a moment where we have notorious differences” that must be resolved through dialogue — “honest dialogue, a clear dialogue, that finally can take place between two nations that have deep bonds and links of friendship and closeness.”

“I acknowledge this is a long-term process, that it won’t be necessarily simple, but we are taking steps toward the proper direction,” he continued. “And today we took some steps toward this positive direction.”

For all their praise, the officials held firm in some of their positions. Tillerson, for example, said there is “no mistaking that the rule of law matters along both sides of our border,” while Videgaray moments earlier said he had expressed Mexico’s concern about the respect of Mexicans living in the U.S. and their human rights.

“We’ve also talked about the legal impossibility of a government to take decisions that will affect another government in a unilateral fashion,” he said.

The trip came at a tough time for Tillerson and Kelly, whose visit to Mexico City comes after DHS on Tuesday released sweeping guidelines on deportations and the president’s long-promised border wall, a potentially ill-timed decision that added to the new administration’s diplomatic flare-ups with its southern neighbor. Among other guidelines, this week’s memos seek to deport all undocumented immigrants who enter through Mexico back to Mexico, regardless of their country of origin.

Even Trump predicted Thursday’s visit to Mexico would be a “tough trip” for Tillerson. “I said, ‘That’s gonna be a tough trip,’ because we have to be treated fairly by Mexico,” Trump recalled telling his secretary of state. “That's gonna be a tough trip.”

Tillerson met with Mexican officials, including its interior and finance secretaries, ahead of the news conference. He and Kelly were due to meet later on Thursday with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who last month canceled a White House visit after Trump challenged him to accept that Mexico will fund the border wall.

Trump hailed his “great team” as a roster of “all-stars” that he said his administration has “really been given credit for.”

“But he’s over there with General Kelly, who’s been unbelievable at the border,” Trump said of Tillerson, adding that “for the first time,” the U.S. is getting gang members and drug members out of the country.

“We’re getting really bad dudes out of this country — and at a rate that nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump continued. “And they’re the bad ones. And it’s a military operation, because what has been allowed to come into our country — when you see gang violence that you’ve read about like never before and all of the things, much of that is people that are here illegally. And they’re rough and tough, but they’re not as tough like our people. So we’re getting them out.”

In the lead-up to the meetings, the White House and Mexico had sent conflicting messages about their relationship. Spicer said Wednesday it was “phenomenal right now” and highlighted what he called “an unbelievable and robust dialogue between our two nations.”

“We have a very healthy and robust relationship with the Mexican government and Mexican officials, and I think they would echo that same sentiment,” Spicer told reporters Wednesday.

On Wednesday, at least, they didn't. Roberto Campa, who leads the Mexican Interior Ministry’s human rights department, characterized the Trump administration’s deportation guidance to send non-Mexicans to Mexico as “hostile” and “unacceptable.”

Similarly, Videgray expressed frustration at the Trump administration's policies. “I want to say clearly and emphatically that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept provisions that one government unilaterally wants to impose on the other,” he told reporters Wednesday, according to a Reuters report. “We also have control of our borders and we will exercise it fully.”