Immigration reform discussions are often based on the premise that immigrants desperately want to come to the U.S. and will do whatever it takes to migrate. But this is, increasingly, an incomplete and even dated picture.

When it comes to Mexico, a place we know well as U.S. Ambassadors to Mexico for 11 of the last 20 years—one of us in a Republican administration and the other in a Democrat one—the incentives for its population to move north are fading. Mexico is on the rise, and only sensible immigration reform will allow the U.S. to continue to attract and retain the workers our economy needs to grow, many of which, if we’re smart about it, will come from our southern neighbor. This changing dynamic puts added pressure on the House of Representatives to act and to do so in a comprehensive way.

Immigrant workers will be increasingly critical for maintaining our global economic position as our labor force sees a growing exodus of baby boomers on their way to retirement. Demographics are not on our side. By 2030, 76 million baby boomers will have retired with only 46 million U.S.-born workers entering the labor force.

We must focus on educating and training Americans to fill jobs in sectors such as health care that will continue to grow as our population ages and that are already facing labor shortages. But until that happens, immigrants, especially in the short term, are vital for filling labor force gaps. In health care alone, immigrants, although 13 percent of the U.S. population, make up 28 percent of the in-home health care workforce.

via Mexico and the U.S.: Who Needs Who? | AS/COA.