NAFTA and the Immigration Debate

The immigration issue is front and center in the current Republican primaries.'The Mexicans are taking over', they cry. 'They are draining the health care resources everywhere', they shout. 'Mexican criminals are everywhere!', they scream. Of course this plays well with some in their base who love this new form of racism.

It is stupid to put the blame on immigrants that are, indeed, streaming across the border. No, they are not coming to take advantage of the 'freedom and opportunity' in this land of 'milk and honey'. They are coming out of economic necessity. The failed U.S. trade policies pursued that only take into account corporate profits have put whole economies, for example in Mexico, in dire straits. The following article looks at this situation closely.

Francisco Cruz gave up his farm more than a decade ago.

Then 20, Cruz had been earning a living as a sharecropper in Oaxaca, giving half his harvest to the landowner. It was a subsistence living that he supplemented by working in construction.

But when his wife Azucena announced she was pregnant, he realized his fledgling family could not survive on his meager earnings from the cornfield. Cruz emigrated to Monterey County, a year after passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

His story is not unique. In the last 13 years, 2 million peasants left Mexico's countryside in search of better opportunities in larger employment centers in Mexico or in the United States, according to Mexico's Statistics Institute. The undocumented population in the U.S. is now estimated at 12 million.

Some experts believe the immigration dilemma could be better understood — and perhaps resolved — if more attention was paid to the economic circumstances that bring people here.

According to analysts, millions of farmers like Cruz are the casualties of a tide of multinational circumstance: NAFTA, the U.S. Farm Bill and a dearth of effective economic initiatives in Mexico.

The combination, which allows for the consolidation of markets, has made it easier for large corporations and farm operations to expand their reach but almost impossible for small producers to survive. These subsistence farmers in turn have abandoned their land in search of better opportunities.

Critics point to NAFTA as the biggest example. The "free trade" agreement was promoted as a win-win for both Mexico and the United States, expected to spark an economic renaissance in Mexico and slow the migration of job-hungry Mexicans to the U.S.

Instead, according to the critics, NAFTA actually launched a new wave of immigration among undercapitalized farmers in Mexico's agrarian countryside who found it impossible to compete with subsidized U.S. products.

"What essentially happened was, as peasant farmers found it harder to make a living, ... more family members were sent off the farm to make money to support the family," said Timothy Wise, deputy director of the Global Development and Environmental Institute at Tufts University. "More of those family members headed for the United States because Mexico was not creating jobs at the rate NAFTA promised."

It is ironic to watch Republicans (and some Democrats, I might add) scream about illegal immigration on one hand, and support these massive corporate policies that create the problem on the other.

Chertoff says Illegals Degrade Environment

I had to read this article twice to make sure that I read the headline correctly. This coming from our oh-so-green-government. Unbelievable!

Free Trade and Immigration

Immigration is a big topic these days. On the conservative side of the political spectrum, the tone is often fierce and vile against immigrants. The cries of 'they are stealing our jobs' and 'go home' are heard over and over again. To me this is a bit ironic since most of the politicians that these same people support have contributed to the current state of immigration today. How, you say? Easy- economic liberalization and free trade.

In the days before NAFTA, Mexico was primarily a corporatist state under the leadership of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) which ruled from 1929-2000. State owned monopolies controlled energy, utilities and basic infrastructure and Mexico had stringent controls in regards to foreign capitol. This changed beginning in 1984 when the IMF required certain conditions be met when granting Mexico a loan. Such things as financial liberalization, the reduction of trade barriers and budgetary restraints were mandated. During these years, the value of real workers' wags fell dramatically.

In time, US capitol was the driving force of Mexico’s primarily export-driven economy. Exports by multinationals increased to approximately 64% by 1998 and foreign investors, not Mexicans, were profiting from Mexican labor.

NAFTA only added to the woes of Mexicans once it was passed. On the wage front, real wages are lower in Mexico now than they were when NAFTA first took effect. Also, the flooding of the market with US subsidized food products has helped to jeopardize the livelihoods millions of Mexicans who depend on farming as a means to survive. Add to this the fact that the cost of basic goods have risen and this does not present a very rosy picture for most Mexicans. The super rich have benefited with the top 10 percent of households having increased its share of the national income while the other 90 percent have lost or seen no change at all. It is no wonder that the levels of immigration have risen to their current level.

Neoliberalization and free trade have been anything but helpful for millions around the world. Mexico is but one example of how countries are impacted by these policies. Politicians, often in the pocket of big business, and institutions such as the World Bank and IMF have advanced these policies for years always promosing the benefits are ‘just around the corner’ but, in reality, they never come. That is, unless you are lucky enough to be in the top 10%.