North American leaders to meet this week

NEW ORLEANS, April 20 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush and leaders from Canada and Mexico will meet this week to tackle such thorny issues as free trade and immigration, officials said.

Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be in New Orleans Monday and Tuesday for their fourth annual three-nation summit, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported Sunday.

In addition to security, the trio is also expected to discuss ways to make their economies more competitive in the global marketplace and their food products safer, the newspaper said.

Observers say Calderon is eager to tout the role his 30,000 countrymen played in the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, said New Orleans is a good place for Calderon to remind Bush of Mexican workers' contributions to the U.S. economy.

"I will expect the president to touch on the economic contributions of migrants to the U.S. economy, particularly to an area like New Orleans, where I understand a big part of the cleaning and reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina has been done by immigrants -- not just Mexicans, but immigrants in general," Alday said.