With the immigration debate heating up in Washington, D.C., President Obama heads south of the border Thursday, embarking on a three-day trip to Mexico and Costa Rica as he tries to focus discussions on the economic ties between the United States, Mexico and Central America.

On his fourth trip to Mexico since becoming president, Obama will engage in conversations with newly installed President Enrique Peña Nieto that are intended to extend beyond security concerns and focus heavily on the economic relationship between Mexico and the U.S.

“A lot of the focus is going to be on economics,” Obama said during a news conference Tuesday. “We’ve spent so much time on security issues between the United States and Mexico that sometimes I think we forget this is a massive trading partner responsible for huge amounts of commerce and huge numbers of jobs on both sides of the border. We want to see how we can deepen that, how we can improve that and maintain that economic dialogue over a long period of time.”

via Obama En Route to Mexico to Talk Immigration, Drug War, Economy – ABC News.