Mexican President Felipe Calderón is visiting Chicago today as part of a four-day U.S. tour. Some of his countrymen will demand he renegotiate NAFTA and press harder for U.S. immigration reform. We report from our West Side bureau.

After stops in New York and Boston, Felipe Calderón is spending the day in Chicago. But few of the roughly one million Mexicans in our area will get a glimpse of the president.

Calderón is meeting with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. He’s got closed-door sessions with a few dozen Mexican community leaders and businessmen. And Mexico’s Chicago consulate says a 1,700-person guest list for a gathering this afternoon at Little Village High School is closed.

The president’s local supporters, meanwhile, are dampening hopes that Calderón will blast U.S. immigration policies. Gonzalo Gradilla is president of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce.

GRADILLA: Our president of Mexico has some say-so and maybe some influence in what happens in the United States for his people, but he is limited to what he can do.

At least three groups are planning protests outside the high school. Chicago labor activist Jorge Mújica says they’ll demand a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and a legalization of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

MUJICA: The Mexican community is crying out loudly for defending Mexican workers and mothers and fathers who are being deported and leaving their kids behind. And we don’t see Calderón doing anything effectively in this field.

President Calderón says he supports rights for Mexicans in the United States, even if they entered the country illegally. After Chicago, he’ll head to Sacramento and Los Angeles.