NAFTA and illegal immigration

[phonon]

Recently on the show there has been a LOT of talk about illegal immigration. I've heard, more than a few times, that it's a welfare problem, that people are coming to America specifically so they can get welfare benefits. That just doesn't seem like the case.

If the government needs to be blamed for the influx of Mexicans into the US, then welfare is not the problem.The problem is NAFTA.

Well, ok, actually, welfare IS the problem, but it's welfare for American corporations and farmers.

Here's a nice article that summarizes the effects of NAFTA on Mexico and the root reasons for the massive influx of Mexicans in the last decade.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0425-30.htm

While there has been some media coverage of NAFTA's ruinous impact on US industrial communities, there has been even less media attention paid to its catastrophic effects in Mexico:

    * NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'
    * NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.
    * Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour.

...

Falling industrial wages, peasants forced off the land, small businesses liquidated, growing poverty: these are direct consequences of NAFTA. This harsh suffering explains why so many desperate Mexicans -- lured to the border area in the false hope that they could find dignity in the US-owned maquiladoras -- are willing to risk their lives to cross the border to provide for their families. There were 2.5 million Mexican illegals in 1995; 8 million have crossed the border since then. In 2005, some 400 desperate Mexicans died trying to enter the US.

Personally, I think there shouldn't be such a thing as illegal immigration. People should be able to live wherever they like. I also think that most of these immigrants would rather stay in Mexico with their families and in the towns and neighborhoods they know. But because of NAFTA (read the US government) they can't. 

[anarchir]

Interesting.

[hellbilly]

Awesome.