The immigration reform bill that passed the Senate would almost double the number of H-1B visas. These temporary work visas allow employers to hire foreigners for jobs they say are hard to fill, like tech jobs and positions teaching math and science. But the visas aren’t a magic bullet and can be a nightmare for workers like Ingrid Cruz.

Mexicans are much more likely to have a degree before going north than they were seven years ago, and the number of years of schooling of 15-19-year-olds is now pretty similar to that in United States. If more educated workers emigrate, it raises their earning capacity, which gives them and their families even more chance of rising up the ranks of the middle class when they and the money flow back to Mexico. In which case, even fewer will need to go to el Norte. That is real progress.

Au pair agencies have joined summer camp operators, hotels and an array of other companies that rely on cultural-exchange programs to provide their businesses with overseas labor to lobby against provisions in the Senate immigration bill aimed at regulating recruitment practices.

Landing a job at a summer camp or at an amusement park is a rite of passage for many young Americans. Those jobs also appeal to foreigners participating in a cultural exchange using J-1 visas. But with U.S. youth unemployment at 25 percent, Congress is now taking a close look at the J-1 visa exchange program.

Barack Obama's recent visit to Mexico, the fourth of his presidency, represented an important, deliberate attempt to shift the focus of Mexico-U.S. relations from security to economic improvement. But it also represented much more -- a chance to allay the public's profoundly negative conceptions of Mexico by shifting the conversation to education, labor, environment, and other human-scale issues that are truly vital to the future of both countries.

Members of diaspora communities are grassroots ambassadors, often returning to their countries of origin or heritage to speak about America's values. For such communities, supporting higher living standards, economic growth, and political stability is about helping their friends and families, not simply a matter of traditional policy or diplomacy.

As the immigration reform debate is in full swing in U.S. Congress, all relevant parties are making sure their voices get heard. As part of that, tourism, a big stakeholder with thousands of jobs at stake tied to easing of the immigration and visa policies, has so far had a smaller voice at the table.

Once upon a time migrants left their old countries and severed ties with their homelands, but today with cheaper and more frequent travel and communication that facilitates and defines what we have come to know as globalisation, migrants maintain ties with the countries they came from.