WASHINGTON -- The White House is conceding that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto did not call up U.S. President Donald Trump to praise his immigration policies, as Trump had claimed.

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the topic did come up, but in a conversation between the two leaders at a recent summit in Germany.

Sanders tells reporters at the White House Wednesday that Trump was "referencing a conversation that they had had at the G-20 summit " when he claimed Monday that Pena Nieto had called him to offer compliments on a reduction in border crossings.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said in a statement that Pena Nieto remarked to Trump that deportations of Mexicans from the United States had fallen 31 per cent between January and June, as compared to 2016.