As Americans continue to debate illegal immigration, Fernando Robledo Martinez in Mexico watches the issue from his office in Zacatecas city.

Why, he asks, is illegal immigration a problem? "Is it a racial or an economic problem?"

"If it's really an economic problem, we can have a joint solution," he says. "How much money will it cost? How much is the U.S. willing to spend?"

In fiscal 2004, the United States spent just over $33 million in foreign aid to Mexico, according to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. More is needed, Martinez says, in order for Mexico's economy to become sustainable.

"We have to look at our own way or path, to develop our nation. We could do it with the U.S. and Canada," he says. "We could create a comprehensive fund to help less developed regions, like the European Union. But we don't want to."

In the United States, fingers often point at Mexico for not doing enough to prevent migrants from traveling north, but Martinez says there's not much that can be done, as long as the American economy relies on low-skilled workers. Workers in Mexico see American jobs as an opportunity to earn more money than they can at home.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticized the U.S. Senate's failure to pass the immigration bill as a "grave error" that would cut off legal immigration, permit continued unlawful immigration and human-rights violations and decrease security on both sides of the border. But Martinez doesn't see it that way. While the Senate bill would have allowed undocumented workers already in the United States to earn legal status, it would also have dramatically changed the framework of the nation's immigration system.

Last year, 63.4 percent of the United States' nearly 1.3 million new legal permanent residents were sponsored by a family member, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Senate bill would have changed that by limiting or eliminating many family preferences for green cards in favor of a new system that would have awarded points based on qualities such as specialized skills and English proficiency.

Meanwhile, unskilled workers would be limited to temporary visas that could be renewed only by returning home for a year.

"It was designed for a certain type of migration," Martinez says. "It wasn't designed for Mexicans. It was designed to push Mexicans out of the U.S."

States take action

For better or worse, amid a lack of federal action, states are starting to send messages of their own. During the first six months of this year, states introduced 1,404 measures related to immigration, and 170 were enacted, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.