An interesting problem

Over the last couple of days I have been in Mexico visiting with friends in Aguascalientes and Zacatecas. We were planning two sets of meetings with the Governor in each state for their key staff to talk about the issues of governmental accountability and transparency. The progressive governors (in this case this is not a political philosophy but rather an attention to different ways of doing business) are interested in transforming their administrations to become more responsive to their local issues. In those conversations both raised a similar problem The state of Aguascalientes has about a million people in it, at the same time the state has migrated more than 500,000 people to the US. Were all of them back in the state there could be more productive workers in the system but at the same time the cash flow of dollars that go back to Mexico from the immigrants would be reduced. Zacatecas has about 1.2 million people and 1.2 million in the US. There are a couple of interesting questions here. What and how does the state government do to a) keep in contact with those people out of the country and b) begin to think about strategies to get them to come back? Both countries ultimately benefit from the moveable workforce (despite what the xenophobic commentators in the US have to say). But Mexico would be stronger were they able to repatriate those people back to productive jobs. So with the reality - what are the right steps to improve the economic development of the state without cutting off the flow of funds from the ex-pats? There are some dynamics here that, in my discussions yesterday, the Mexican officials recognize. It reminds me of the first wave of emigrants from Ireland in the potato famines where a third each moved, stayed or died.