Mexico, Colombia applaud US move on migration
Colombia and Mexico on Tuesday applauded a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's decision to open the door to migrants who want to get visas.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary committee added the measure, deemed "a favorable development" by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, to an existing bill on building a 3,200-km-long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border, increasing the number of border police and criminalizing undocumented residents in the United States.

"As much as we remain concerned by the measures which threaten to criminalize every migrant, we have to celebrate when there is a positive development," Uribe said, reiterating his "total opposition" to other measures to be included in the bill.

Mexican presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar described the U.S. measure as "good news ... but just the start."

"It is headed in the right direction, but from Mexico's point of view, it doesn't resolve the entire problem," Aguilar said.

The U.S. Senate move, if ratified, would legalize 1.5 million undocumented agricultural workers and grant 400,000 visas every year.

Mexico wants a complete legalization of all its citizens working in the United States, who are estimated at 6 million. Colombia claims 1.7 million undocumented workers out of a total of 11 million in the United States.

In 2005, Mexican migrants sent home some 20 billion U.S. dollars worth of remittances, the second largest source of foreign exchange for the country, which comes only after crude oil sales but is much more than tourism or direct foreign investment.