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TechnoratiM.I.A. from the Immigration Debate, Creating Economic Opportunity in Mexico
For all the talk about immigration reform on the Hill, there has been notably little discussion about what is driving Mexican immigrants to pour over the border into the U.S., let alone any debate about measures that might go to the root of the problem. According to Laura Carlsen, the director of the International Relations Center's Americas Program, the reason behind the "massive out-migration" is fairly clear. Put simply, she wrote not long ago, "Mexico is not producing enough decent jobs for its people-and the United States is hiring." It would seem, then, that one potential answer to the United States' so-called immigration problem would be an effective development policy toward Mexico (whose citizens make up 56 percent of America's undocumented population, according to the Pew Hispanic Center), including both private investment and foreign aid. As it stands, Mexico receives the bulk of its aid not from the U.S. government or corporations but from immigrants themselves.
Despite having incomes well below the national average, many Mexican immigrants regularly send a portion of their earnings home to support their families and sometimes entire communities. Remittances from immigrant workers now stand approximately equal to oil revenues as one of the two largest sources of foreign income in Mexico. According to Guillermo OrtÃÂz, head of Mexico's central bank, they totaled $23.54 billion in 2006.
These remittances - the vast majority sent from the United States, primarily in payments of $100 to $200 -- exponentially exceed foreign aid to Mexico. According to the Century Foundation, for every dollar in official foreign aid that goes to Mexico, immigrants send home $150. The bottom line is that these remittances have become a substitute-and a poor one at that-for effective development policies aimed at generating employment and stimulating rural production.
While the United States frequently grouses to the Mexican government that it ought to provide economic opportunities at home that will keep its citizens from teeming over our border, we've been less quick to provide Mexico with much help in doing so. To the contrary, the U.S. continues to exploit Mexico's resources for its own needs. Those resources, of course, include the very undocumented workers we complain about, which, like the illicit drugs we likewise condemn, would soon cease to flow north across the border if there were no demand for them here.
The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was supposed to be a tremendous boon for Mexico, as well as for the United States and Canada, creating the beginnings of a common market for the benefit of all. More than 13 years later, though, the relationship still smacks of colonialism. Howard Zinn, the author of A People's History of the United States who has documented the history of U.S. colonialism in Latin America, says of the current immigration debate, "Why should capital go freely across borders while people cannot? These are human beings trying to make a better life, for god's sake. Why is the wall on the Mexican border more acceptable than the Berlin Wall?"
Contrast all this to what's happened in the European Union, which was formed just two years prior to NAFTA, in 1992. Through the post-war years and well into the 1980s, most of the huge number of foreign guest workers in then-richer nations like Britain, Germany, France, and Switzerland came not from the so-called Third World, but from current European Union member-countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland. Instead of just employing foreign workers, though, the wealthier European nations also jumpstarted the economies of their poorer neighbors with billions of dollars in investments. As Douglas Massey, a Princeton University sociologist and co-director of the school's Mexican Migration Project, told the San Francisco Chronicle last year, if "the United States had approached Mexico and its integration into the North American economy in the same way that the European Union approached Spain and Portugal in 1986, we wouldn't have an immigration problem now."
James Ridgeway is the Washington Correspondent for Mother Jones.
© 2007 Mother Jones
60 Comments so far
Show AllYes bobr, it does seem like pissing into the wind when writing politicians which is why I laugh off every petition from MoveOn.org and its sister/brother groups. Every letter I've ever written to a politician (except Barbara Boxer of California – now that is a very enlightened lady) has been flipped off with their proverbial political middle finger.
Bob K and B Payne-Economist make the most sense on this issue I've heard yet, they ask the right and hard questions. But what really can we Americans really do about it? It takes a significantly large group participation to do anything in the glacially-slow-moving-huge-over-300-million-population. It is the cascading effect that legalizing all the illegal immigrants from south of the border will have on not only the schools, the health system, economy, but on government itself with the new electoral base these people will bring to bear for you don't think for a moment that the greatly enlarged Hispanic base will not elect those who are utterly sympathetic to their points of view. So it is a huge political problem too. The problem with language, the problem with objective education, and in many ways not even thought of at this moment will loom exceedingly large. Sort of like the snake hiding in the grass biting your ass kind of thing.
There is constantly a categorical mistake made between immigration and illegal aliens. I firmly believe America needs immigrants and it definitely needs reform. My grandparents immigrated from Europe in the early 20th century, and almost everyone I know have a similar heritage. This is a culturally rich country only because of that. And I include the immigrants from Latin and South America. It is without a doubt the corporate workforce needs these immigrants. But I find it abhorrent to include anyone illegally here to be granted citizenship out of hand!
The perennial argument that so-called native Americans or people from south of the border have some principialis capitis (original right) to this country is just plain ethnocentrically pointless. The fact is America is what it is in terms of its people now. Historically the people earned their right to be here one way or another and its borders were fiercely and bloodily fought for just as borders of every country in the entire world has been fought for and is still being fought for even to this day. But the people of this country created a legal system based on a constitution that guarantees certain inalienable rights. It is a fluid legal system that evolves just as any living organism evolves, so it isn't absolutely perfect. But it is the best one actually in the world. If the people of Mexico, etc., are so abjectly poor, then why don't they revolt as the historical way it has been done for a better life? Why risk their lives and their families by stealing across the border for all the reasons already noted in this forum. The governments of the Hispanic peoples keep their people wretched for reasons of self-interest.
I feel keenly and genuinely sorry for all of the poor in the world, and I am definitely not a racist; but the kinds of solutions offered need to be scrutinized very, very closely with a large and powerful magnifying glass because there are forces at work that have absolutely evil and greedy motives that are often hidden. There are many, many rich people in Mexico and other countries to its south. Not just ordinary rich people who have 6-digit incomes, but billionaires, which is not to talk about the number of lowly millionaires. Mexico alone has eleven identified billionaires. And this doesn not include the very wealthy Americans who lounge in their mansions in Acapulco and other resort towns and pay no taxes to the corrupt crony-riddled government (not unlike the exorbitantly rich do in America) collude to keep the population miserable. The evil has to do with the utter subjugation of other human beings to do their bidding for the sake of money and power. The few are eating the many. zooeyhall gave a poignant picture of the problem in America. Although I can appreciate some of her comments, moonraven is patently wrong about who is opposed to illegal immigration! There are plenty of ordinary garden-variety non-racist Americans who oppose it!
A question: Would an immigration reform that gives amnesty to illegals include all illegals from every country in the world, or just those from south of the border and how would the reform bill be stated that is inclusive of all illegals? Racism comes in many colors for many nefarious reasons.
While I have high concern for health care, education, social security, etc., second to the illegal war in Iraq, the issue of immigration is on my list of most important social problems facing this country. I share the sentiments of gmkaakeand. I will be watching this discussion further.
Just want to say thank-you to all the commenters - my awareness has been raised on this complicated issue of immigration.
I think you've had WAY too many.
Actually, it was all YOUR fault.
Sit on those frijoles for awhile.
And it was ALL Fox's (the first democratic president of Mexico since Madero) fault? Have another tequila, please...
Corruption has been as much a part of Mexico's culture as trolls like you have been a part of Internet forums.
Same old shit.
Ahh, Moonraven, how you must long for the corruption free days of Echeverria and Jose Luis Portillo. Remember back then? Mexico was a paradise, with no inflation, no foreign debt, zero corruption, full employment, and, most of all, NO poverty at all...
Mr. d.
Ah, but there are trolls on this thread who would tell you that you're lying.
Of course, they would be terrified to cross the southern US border, but their expertise knows no bounds (only the limits of a google search).
Fox's family--and that of his little shrew Martita--was in bankruptcy when he was elected president in 2000. They became millionaires in the blink of an eye. And the little pigs that the shrew produced in mariage number one--también.
does anyone seriously doubt that the vast majority of any funds for aid or developement would end up in the pockets of "the few"? I live in mexico 6-8 months a year and see continually that the mordida extends from the smallest business deal to largest. every mexican knows this and deals with it on a daily basis. It extends from the street vendor to the president.
moonraven,
Speaking for myself, I'm so far to the left that the Democrats look like Republicans to me. As a leftist, I don't discriminate against people based on their race or nation of origin. More specifically, in case you miss my point, I don't discriminate against working class and poor Americans based on their nation of origin.
Thanks for those insights B Payne. The Republicans' cynical strategy sounds about right.
Since you're our resident economist, I wonder if you would comment on a post I made above (June 6th, 2007 6:27am). I would especially like you to tell me whether the following holds water:
"As to the economic harm, besides the direct harm done to working Americans who lose their jobs or are paid lower wages . . . there's the economic harm caused by the wages that illegal migrants send to their home countries each year. Economists tell us that each dollar of wages spent has a "multiplying factor" on the economy. In other words, when wages are spent locally it boosts local businesses and their suppliers, which then create another round of spending, and each round of spending multiplies the economic effect of the initial impact, so that each dollar of wages spent has the economic impact of at least three dollars, and as many as seven dollars. IN 2006 ILLEGAL MIGRANTS SENT $45 BILLION OUT OF THE COUNTRY, CREATING A NEGATIVE ECONOMIC IMPACT ON THE U.S. ECONOMY OF BETWEEN $135 and $315 BILLION.
WINNING THROUGH ETHNIC MANIPULATION
In the interest of shedding more light and less heat on the subject, here's three paragraphs from an article by James P. Pinkerton of the American Conservative Magazine entitled "Divide and Rule", The Republican Insiders' guide to ethnic manipulation, June 4. Read the full article at www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_06_04/article.html
"So back to Bush and his crew. American blacks don't vote Republican? The "Divide and Conquer" chapter provides a solution: bring in 10 or 20 million Hispanics and suddenly blacks are no longer the biggest racial minority. When those Hispanics arrive, praise their "strong family values" and get as many as possible into jobs that displace blacks. (As a side benefit, get those macho men into the military because Uncle Sam needs more forraje de canon —for wars such as Iraq—than native-stock mothers are willing to offer up.) Bush & Co. can hope that the Nuevos Americanos become Republicans—surely these proud working folk will shun Democrats as the party of lower-down blacks.
Which leads us to the next chapter, "Overwhelm and Defeat," detailing techniques for routing one's enemies by manipulating the immigration spigot. The 2002 movie "Gangs of New York," set in the mid-19th century, ably recaptures the ethnic dynamics of that particular time and place. An American Protestant, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, watches the "harps" clambering down the gangplank from Ireland; he derides the immigrants for their willingness to "do a job for a nickel what a n----r does for a dime and a white man used to get a quarter for."
Of course, readers of Winning Through Ethnic Manipulation have all learned that one must deny that wages can be adversely affected by competition. So even a self-proclaimed free marketeer such as Bush must swear that the market does not, in fact, work—that there's no income impact from immigration. The newcomers, the president stoutly insists, are merely "doing the jobs Americans won't do." It is therefore Bush's immovable position that incentives don't work, that wages couldn't possibly rise high enough to persuade Americans to do grunt work—or, alternatively, to persuade employers to automate more."
B Payne, Economist, Ph.D.
bbpayne@earthlink.net
Zoo:
Yes, you are going to have to learn to make do with less.
This is that moment in history.
If you don't we will all be history.
I make do with less. I live with a campesino family in a small village and I make sure that there is food on the table (and that the kids have learned to cook it) and that the kids' school expenses are met. I subsidize a theater company that promotes recovering and maintaining historical memory. I sold my car 7 years ago to start the theater company.
Being a farmer is honorable. Being a stingy malcontent is not.
The rightwing trolls are stacking up here.
I am going to let you have your train wreck among yourselves.
Anyone that disagrees with moonraven is obviously a racist, fascist pig. And, "THEY" (whoever they are) is probably paying that person also. Never mind that inflation in Mexico is at historic lows, homeownership is at historic highs, the democratically elected president is very popular, corruption, bad as it is, is at least not at Venezuelan levels, and the Mexican government is not going out picking fights with half the other elected governments on the continent. Hard core poverty and child mortality are falling... Facts are meaningless. Mexico is BAD BAD BAD!!! Moonraven said so.
Moonraven,
It's no trick to live in Mexico on a smaller salary. Try living in the U.S. on 1/8th your previous salary.
I read your comments carefully. When zooeyhall wrote from his personal knowledge of corporate insourcing as a farmer of 35 years in Nebraska, and explained in detail how meatpacking jobs were once middle-class "career" jobs, and how the plants have now become "hell-holes," and "my entire county is poorer economically," you told him the people so effected were "ordinary home garden-variety racists."
When he told you again it was a matter of economics, not race, and that "some of the most vehement anti-illegal immigrant people I know are some Mexican friends I have – who went through the hoops and came to this country legally," you said in effect that he and his friends were either racists or just greedy.
How are you arguing on the side of corporate exploiters? I've already said. You argue for corporate insourcing, which is a part of globalization, which is exploitation. You conveniently ignore the devastating effects of corporate insourcing on American working people and their families. And you smear anyone who disagrees with your corporate-friendly view as a "racist." How does that promote dialogue?
"it is an issue of not wanting to share what you have with others on the planet"
Basically what you are saying to middle-class, working-class people like me in response to our concerns about illegal immigration is: "well, we're all going to have to learn to do with less".
While I may not be able to argue effectively with a Ph.D-- since I just have a crummy B.A (that I was told you needed to get now since the manufacturing blue collar jobs in my area have gone to Mexico, or rather, they imported Mexico up here to do the work at half-price)--is this what you are going to tell my neighbor who has lost his job to the imported H1-B IT guy from India, and who is now facing foreclosure on his home of 30 years and the eviction of his wife and kids?
I have been to Mexico, and have seen the people living in cardboard boxes on the hillsides. When our standard of living is the same in this country, would you then consider it to be "mission accomplished"?
I know I am just a farmer, and maybe not able to see the world in the enlightened way you do from your mountaintop, but I can tell you that people where I live do not have much to begin with (rural Nebraska has some of the poorest counties in the US). And that if you start telling them, like you do in so many words, that they have had it too good and need to start sharing more--well, if it were me I would get ready to run!
All I can say about the sharing comment in response to American working class concerns about illegals is: "you first!"
Bob K:
You should think things through before shooting off your keyboard.
1. Obviously, when I moved to Mexico, my salary was cut. By me. It was a voluntary decision, and the best one I have ever made. At one point I was making less than 2 bucks an hour during the economic crisis of 1995.
Singing a different tune, am I? I don't hear anything at all.
2. I worked diligently AGAINST NAFTA, saying that it would be harmful to workers in BOTH countries--and have said on these threads that NAFTA destroyed Mexico's agricultural sector.
How, precisely, is that arguing on the side of corporate exploiters?
You aren't listening, Bob--nor are you a skilled reader of other people's comments and ideas.
The point of these threads is to create dialog--not to write the first thing that crosses your mind.
"If this is not an issue of race, it is an issue of not wanting to share what you have with others on the planet."
That's an irrational argument that could be applied equally well to many criminal activities.
I'll bet moonraven would be singing a different tune if her professor's pay was cut from $65/hr to $8/hr.
I still say that globalization and NAFTA are harmful to working and poor people in both the U.S. and in Mexico. Corporate outsourcing and corporate insourcing are just two sides to the same globalization coin. You don't atone for the harmful effects of globalization on Mexico's working class by harming the American working class. You don't fix the problem by turning the U.S. into another Mexico, where nearly all the wealth is in the hands of a few dozen people.
The problem with people like moonraven is that they are arguing on the side of the globalist, corporate exploiters -- from a twisted "humanitarian" point of view which conveniently ignores the working and poor people in the U.S. -- and that has the effect of propping up corporate Democrats in the U.S. and turning U.S. voters away from Democratic and progressive candidates in general. Sometimes I think these corporate "humanitarians" are nothing more than Republican dirty tricksters being paid to influence U.S. elections in favor of the corporations and the U.S. ruling class.
Zoo--I am not a man.
I do not need to look up red herring, since I have a PhD in English and am a semi-retired professor of the same!
If this is not an issue of race, it is an issue of not wanting to share what you have with others on the planet.
Unfortunately, if you do not learn to share our species will be as dead as that of the dinosaurs.
It's your choice.
PJD,
What a ridiculous suggestion. First, the reason the illegals were brought here in the first place was to break the unions and cut wages and benefits. Second, do you think a union of foreign migrants would be able to negotiate a pay raise from $8/hr to anything like $65/hr, or even a living wage? Third, the meatpacking plants that have been raided by the INS in the last year or so have been exclusively those where union organizing was taking place.
There are economic reasons why meatpacking is not outsourced to Mexico or elsewhere. Your rhetoric of "bend over and take it or we'll send your job to a foreign country" is right out of the corporate, union-busting playbook.
Bob K--thanks for your comments.
Moonraven--
Sir--while I greatly respect your opinion, I do feel that your statement: "the majority of folks who are opposed to Mexican immigrants are...ordinary home garden-variety racists" is wrong. And it is an argument that too often is put-forth by the pro-immigrant crowd.
Yes there are some who are racist, but it is critical to understand that this is an ECONOMIC issue affecting on a fundamental level the well-being of the American middle class. Some of the most vehement anti-illegal immigrant people I know are some Mexican friends I have--who went through the hoops and came to this country legally.
And I still say that those who hit-back at people who are opposed to illegal immigrants as "racist" are using a red-herring argument. Look-up the term "red-herring" in a semantics book to find out what it means.
Bob K,
First of all--this is not an interrogation; I can answer whatever questions I want to.
Some info about me, however: I am a Native American, grew up on a ranch/farm in Eastern Washington, and among other activties spent some time in the 70s operating a farmer/consumer coop in Seattle to "save" local farmers.
I have lived in Mexico for about 15 years now. My sympathies are where my heart is--that goes without saying--and it is not in the US (not even in Wounded Knee).
Peons are frequently guys who do not own any land or have given up their ejidal rights to the communal land and hire themselves out as day laborers. In some cases they are campesinos who simply need money. Of course they go to the US for work all the time, as they are the NEEDIEST group in the neediest sector--which means, usually, that the whole family chips in to pay for the pollero--or a prestamista (loan shark) loans the money and the family pays it back at high rates of monthly interest--usually from the money that the migrant worker sends back to the family from the US.
I hope this clears up your questions.
Now they are moving to Indonesia. The maquiladora era in Mexico is over.
zooeyhall,
Thanks for that first-hand information. It will take a lot of such testimonies from Americans who have been hurt by corporate insourcing to break through to some people who see "no harm" in it, or call us racists.
However, your estimate of "equivalent to over $25/hr today" is low. Actually, $10/hr in 1965 would be $65/hr in 2007. You can do your own calculation at
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
I'm sure meatpackers would have no problem hiring Americans for $65/hr starting pay.
moonraven,
if your sympathies are entirely with the Mexican campesinos (farmers) and you care nothing about American farmers and other blue-collar Americans and their families, perhaps it is you who are the racist.
Also, you never answered my question about the "peons," whom you said harvested the campesinos' crops in Mexico. Who are they? Do they also come to the U.S. for work, or are they too poor to travel here?
Well, the obvious solution is to make common cause with the Mexicans and re-unionize the plants. Of course, then the plants would, thanks to NAFTA, move to Mexico - Just a day by truck or railroad down thst huge proposed NAFTA road/rail corridor.
I'll never forget a few years ago while working at a Transcraft semi-trailer plant, paying similar wages, I saw a sign on the lunch room door warning the workers not to think of organizing a union or the plant would be moving to Mexico.
Good points, zooeyhall, but the majority of folks who are opposed to Mexican immigrants are NOT farmers--but ordinary home garden-variety racists.
I live in rural northeastern Nebraska, where I have been a farmer for 35 years.
In the 60s and 70s, local meat packing plants were major employers of people in my area. They were considered a good place to work mainly because it was known that their wages were excellent. In the 60's they paid $10/hour starting, equivalent to over $25/hr today. They had great benefits and a strong union. Yes, it was known as hard dirty work--especially when you started out. But that didn't bother farm kids and farmers around here who were used to such things. A man could work at the local packing plant as a career, he could support a good middle-class lifestyle without his wife working. Despite the work, it was fairly difficult to get employment at these plants, they didn't have much turnover. Fathers brought in sons to the company.
Then in the 1980s, the meatpacking plants began to cut wages and boost the line. Then, claiming they "couldn't find enough local workers", they started busing in Mexican immigrants.
Today things are totally different from 20 years ago. The plants pay 8 bucks an hour. The line has increased from 60 animals/hr to 200. There is no union. The packing plants are considered hell-holes that no longer offer a middle-class job for someone with a high-school education. My entire county is poorer economically.
Please--do not accuse people who oppose illegals as being racist. That is a red-herring argument. I am not a racist and neither are the vast majority of my neighbors. But when you are affected economically as much as the American middle-class has been you are going to be upset, naturally.
And don't hit back at me with the old: "well, its the greedy meatpacking corporations fault". That, too, is a red-herring argument. Corporations are going to cut expenses and find the cheapest way of doing things. But when people advocate for more illegals, they are just enabling this behaviour. It's like dealing with Dillinger or Al Capone---you aren't going to stop them by making guns cheaper to buy.
Bob K,
Of course the hoohah about immigrants in the US is an example of racism! What else could it possibly be?
I am truly amazed that folks who know nothing about Mexico (where racism is also alive and well, by the way) feel qualified to give opinions.
I agree that Redsgeway doesn't have much of a clue, but I wouldn't expect much from a writer for sold-out, neoliberal-run Mother Jones Magazine. Their name is an insult to Mary Harris Jones name.
As far as "Fork(ing) over more of our tax dollars in foreign aid." This isn't what Mr. Ridgeway proposed, it was more "investment" but isn't that already been done with all the border (and further south) poverty-wage maquilidoras?
In the case of Europe, Mr. Ridgway seems to be unfamiliar with, or was prohibited by the MJ editor from the metioning that, the success of the poorer European countries is due to old-fashoned "socialistic" government laws and programs. EU membership requires the country have a livable minimum wage - Irelands is e8.65 ($11.70) per hr. and a generous package of social benefits similar to the rich countries. They level-up rather than level-down.
plantman13 June 5th, 2007 11:44 pm
"Gramps and the politicians who came to pay homage used to have a big laugh about how clueless everybody was (and still are). Its kind of like the story about the blind men and the elephant. Everyone has an inkling of some small aspect of the nature of the beast but nobody sees the whole picture."
Recommendation: Read, "CHASING DIRTY MONEY: The Fight Against Money Laundering" by P. Reuter & E. Truman.
Plantman13: Interesting "confession." Such material makes for excellent book or film subjects. You've heard of "Confessions of a Professional Hit Man," right? I loved Dr. Robert Mendelsohn's "Confessions of a Medical Heretic" as he exposed the way the medical field operated through many unnecessary surgeries, quite a vast number directed at women who were taught to be deferential to male authorities, especially the "all omnipotent" good doctor. And then came big pharma... the mafia version of legal drug pushers.
Funeocons: Your documentary sounds very interesting. Can it embrace "both sides of the fence" and reflect the points brought up by the likes of Bob K and Paul Bramsher? Obviously there is merit in various angles of this equation, a new pox brought to us by "free" trade. Questions of economic systems and their basic rationales may supercede racist notions in this new nexus. It will only become amplified as weather events bring droughts, crop failures and other environmental challenges. How about the storm about to hit the oil fields of Oman? Last time such an event occured was l945, another WAR year. Could there be a cosmic correspondence here?
B Payne-Economist, thanks for your analysis, but I think you give the bastards too much credit when you say,
"And when Bush says immigrants take jobs that no one wants, that's code for not allowing the market to raise wages to the point a job would be wanted. The same applies to an H1b Visa, which is supposedly for jobs that cannot be filled with currently available skills. Again, that's code for not raising the pay until the job is filled."
In truth it's worse than that. The jobs the migrants take were once done by American citizens for higher wages. U.S. citizens are laid off their jobs in construction, meatpacking, etc. and then replaced by migrants who are paid lower wages and no benefits. That's why they are called "low-wage replacement workers." As to H-1B visas, it's much the same. American computer programers, engineers, etc. are laid off, while their employers simultaneously LIE that they need programmers and engineers from India with H-1B visas because no one with those skills is available in the U.S. Of course they pay the Indians substantially less. It's criminal.
As Dan Dorn said in another thread: "The fight is not against immigrants at all, it is against the manipulation of the American labor supply by big business and our government . . . It is about Americans protecting their right to work and support their families."
Regarding construction jobs and meatpacking jobs in particular, these were once coveted, single-breadwinner's jobs. In other words, one wage earner could support a family in a middle-class lifestyle with one of these jobs. Today, wages and benefits have fallen to the point that an American family must have two wage-earners working these jobs, not to provide a middle-class lifestyle, but just to provide food and shelter. This means American moms are no longer at home raising the kids. It means when the family faces a medical crisis they often go bankrupt. It means broken marriages and families. And the same is happening with many other occupations now blighted by low-wage replacement workers.
But funeocons and others think that massive, unregulated, illegal immigration does not "hurt this country," and anyone who opposes it is simply a racist.
That racist slur can be turned around. As JerryfromTijuana said to another Arizonan in that previous thread, "morally, how can you live with yourself knowing that your town's economy seems to depend on what amounts to discriminatory wage servitude perpetrated upon brown skinned people. Why is it OK for your townsmen to pay Mexicans miserable wages that they would never offer an American?"
As to the economic harm, besides the direct harm done to working Americans who lose their jobs or are paid lower wages, there's the harm done to all U.S. taxpayers. Some estimates claim that for every dollar in taxes collected from illegal migrant workers, there are three dollars in associated costs, including health care, housing subsidies, education, food stamps, law enforcement and incarceration, work injuries, automobile crashes, and social security benefits. This means that U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing criminal employers who pay illegal migrants substandard wages and no benefits. It's the Walmartization of America.
Then there's the harm done to honest businesses who pay fair wages and benefits, yet are struggling to survive because of competition from criminal companies with their wage slaves and tax-payer subsidies.
Then there's the economic harm caused by the wages that illegal migrants send to their home countries each year. Economists tell us that each dollar of wages spent has a "multiplying factor" on the economy. In other words, when wages are spent locally it boosts local businesses and their suppliers, which then create another round of spending, and each round of spending multiplies the economic effect of the initial impact, so that each dollar of wages spent has the economic impact of at least three dollars, and as many as seven dollars. IN 2006 ILLEGAL MIGRANTS SENT $45 BILLION OUT OF THE COUNTRY, CREATING A NEGATIVE ECONOMIC IMPACT ON THE U.S. ECONOMY OF BETWEEN $135 and $315 BILLION. (Perhaps B Payne-Economist can weigh in on this.)
I yield to JerryfromTijuana who said "this is not about helping the poor immigrant, nor is it about "lazy Americans" who will not do certain jobs. This is all about a bunch of rich Republican farmers and business owners teaming with a bunch of rich Democratic yuppie types who employee nannies, gardeners and other domestic staff. Both of the above groups greatly enjoys having a captive labor force to whom they can pay sub-minimum wages and exploit at will."
Here are some of the best comments from that other thread. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/26/1470/ They say it better than I can.
AdeleTheCzech: "Now even Mother Jones is selling out low-income working families!" Mother Jones' claim that "these 12 million undocumented workers . . . are vital to the profits of American agribusiness," is "the same snake oil Corporate America keeps spewing. We're supposed to care about the profits of AGRIBUSINESS?"
Yellow Horse: "I would prefer to pay more for my lettuce, and chicken breasts, and avoid cheating some fellow American out of a decent living."
JerryfromTijuana: "If the immigrants left . . . whatever [extra] you pay for the lettuce will be more than offset by what you are no longer paying for schools, emergency rooms, incarceration, and all the myriad other costs illegal immigration imposes on the economy."
wdmax3: "Take away the immigrant worker (illegal or not) and farmers will be forced to innovate and improve," and "nannies, janitors, restaurant workers and other unskilled jobs will be done by the same unskilled American workers that used to do them."
JerryfromTijuana: (If the illegals left) "unskilled American Citizens might find a way to use a job like a unionized janitor gig to climb into the middle class. Like they once were able to do."
phelicks: "The farmers in my area will not hire Americans . . . Instead they tell our kids who are fresh out of school that they're overqualified to do the work, or they already have enough workers." "Their #1 fear they claim is the potential of union organization." "None of them are paying any income, SS or medicare tax on their wages and the farmers are not paying into the unemployment system either."
JerryfromTijuana: To Dixie of Arizona, your "most Anglos are not accustomed to working in this heat" rationalization is "almost an exact paraphrase of the original justifications in the 17th Century for bringing African slaves to Virginia." "Illegal Mexicans . . . coming from the highlands of Oaxaca, Chiapas, or the central area around Mexico City," are also not used to the heat.
randall_burns: "I'm really not willing to accept the problems associated with mass immigration just so you can hire yard workers at $15/hour instead of $30/hour."
Dan Dorn: "Is it fair for an American to invest thousands of dollars and years of time and hard work to prepare for a career that will not be there, because it has been given to a foreign worker here on a visa who will accept lower wages? This is exactly what happened in The Information Technology field."
JerryfromTijuana: "There is nothing more disheartening than driving through a village in Zacatecas or Michoacan where NO ONE works, VERY FEW men are about, and everybody waits for the money transfers to hit each week."
matthood: "Allowing 13 millions illegals to stay in America because of the deliberate incompetence of our officials—and allowing corporate america to destroy labor by bribing congress—is fascism by default."
Yellow Horse: We should "make it a felony to hire someone who does not have the proper ID."
I have written my senators repeatedly that "comprehensive reform" must include making it possible for people to live and work in their home countries, and we have a responsibility to help because our "free trade" agreements have undercut and impoverished so many farmers and workers in Mexico and Central America. Of course, I only receive form letters in reply that restate their already staked out position on immigration.
I favor greatly expanded development assistance to Mexico. For this to work, it must be done carefully and creatively outside the of channels corruption.
Development assistance alone can't immediately make a reasonable US immigration policy. Increased development assistance might mean that stricter enforcement of US immigration laws wouldn't come at the expense of the poorest of Mexicans and Central Americans. This may important in getting broad popular support on both sides of the border of different immigration policies. Most Americans want less overall immigration unless they are wealthy or politically influential.
The gap between Mexico and the US is larger than any EU nation had. Turkey is close to Mexico in development measures-and its integration is faces stiff resistance. Also, Illegal aliens are only secondarily driven by remittances. The big transfer of wealth takes place when a Mexican become a US citizen and obtains citizenship that is enormously more valuable than that of Mexico. Illegal Employers effectively pay in immigration rights which cost them nothing.
Bob K.,
I didn't say the whole country would shut down, I said that my STATE, AZ, would shut down. The whole place is run on the backs of immigrants -- all you have to do is walk into the kitchen of ANY restaurant, drive through any neighborhood, walk onto any construction site, and you would see. And I said, "I THINK the US benefits 10 times more" -- as in my personal opinion/observation, not a statistical fact, just based on my experience of recently traveling through Oaxaca and Chiapas and border towns, and living in a border state that is heavily reliant on immigrant labor. Shit, the US government was even caught using illegal labor to build the frickin' wall!
Since the economic arguments about how immigration "hurts" this country does not hold water when you look at the statistical facts, it comes down to simply wanting to keep out the brown-skinned other (not just the US, but Europe, too). Of wanting one's free trade cake and eating it, too. There is no rational fear of Mexicans coming into our country -- by opening up our borders more (the way we are able to go, say, to Mexico, start businesses, own property and condos, etc.) and allowing them to live and partake in all of the necessities, a lot of the problems associated with undocumented immigration would be drastically reduced. Immigrants, even illegal ones, consume here, create wealth, and contribute in really important ways. But I hate this argument that all boils down to whether we benefit from them - as if their only value is as "worker". I believe strongly that all people should be free to live wherever they want to on this planet. But trust me, the majority of the immigrants who come here from Mexico are not coming because they want to, but out of economic necessity. That is a tragedy that should not happen, and we should put our energies into fixing the causes. Any country that claims to believe in inalienable rights of man and at the same time limits that to persons born on a certain patch of earth is nothing but hypocritical. If we were to allow Mexico to elect who it wants for its leaders, allow Mexico to invest in its infrastructure (say, relieve Mexico of its debt payments to the World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs -- to invest that money into their country instead of paying off the rich north for their "aid"), that would go so much further than any wall or border enforcement. By allowing Mexico to enter into trade deals that would protect their campesinos and vulnerable populations, by allowing them to require that foreign manufacturers use a certain amount of Mexican produced materials in their operations (like they did before NAFTA) the growth in the Mexican economy would benefit a lot more people than it does now.
The message I got from the Mexicans in Mexico was not so much that they wanted the US to give them aid, but rather simply to leave them alone to solve their problems their own way. Our greedy government/corporations just want to control everything, everywhere.
My grandfather was in charge of organized crime in our part of the world. Among the multitude of illegal things I did thirty years ago before I got an education
and left the life, I smuggled illegal aliens. There was alot of money in it but I can assure you the people we delivered to their respective jobs saw little of it.
Besides the big savings in salaries, employers also save a chunk on social security payments, workman's comp, vacations, sick-leave, etc. I could go on but the point is that just like drugs, gambling, prostitution and a slew of other social vices, certain big people make alot of money from the situation...and I mean ALOT. There are semi-loads of drugs traveling on the interstate highways every day...ever hear about any of them getting busted? Sure, maybe some fool gets accidently pulled over once every five years, but the hundreds of loads a day go untouched and always will.
All you will hear about are the dime bag boys on the street corner. The same goes with illegals...semi-loads...hundreds a day. My grandfather never had so much as a parking ticket, and neither did I. Wake up people. Gramps and the politicians who came to pay homage used to have a big laugh about how clueless everybody was (and still are). Its kind of like the story about the blind men and the elephant. Everyone
has an inkling of some small aspect of the nature of the beast but nobody sees the whole picture. Start by questioning the motivations of those who are shouting the loudest about solving "the problem." They are usually the ones getting everyone to look in the wrong direction while the real trick goes on elsewhere.
HORIZONTAL VERSUS INPUT COMPETITION
When Wal-Mart purchases wholesale goods from China for sale in the US, this does not stimulate competition at the retail level against Wal-Mart in either country. Wal-Mart is just reducing its input cost.
The same goes for labor from Mexico, which reduces labor costs to US firms, whether those firms are located in Mexico or the US.
Trade deals are driven primarily by existing firms with sufficient market reach and power to avoid most direct competition. The real competition occurs downstream among the inputs, like Wal-Mart's wholesale goods that displace US manufacturing and Mexico's labor that displaces US labor.
When US firms do invest in Mexico, as Wal-Mart does in China with new stores, that's one step above simply acquiring cheaper inputs for ultimate sales in the US because it provides new investment as described by Ridgeway.
But serious investment that effectively provides competition at all levels is still emerging in China while it sputtered out in Mexico. At various tipping points, such as occurred in the US steel industry, the pendulum of political power swings from sellers to buyers of steel, which brought down the tariffs after Bush had delayed their removal.
Considering that the prior head of Mexico was a Coca-Cola executive and Bush crony, recall that today's immigration problems would have been greatly accelerated absent 9-11, which put the brakes on much of it.
And when Bush says immigrants take jobs that no one wants, that's code for not allowing the market to raise wages to the point a job would be wanted. The same applies to an H1b Visa, which is supposedly for jobs that cannot be filled with currently available skills. Again, that's code for not raising the pay until the job is filled.
Speaking of shortages and surpluses, why don't 40 million US citizens with no health care insurance constitute a "shortage" of health care? Why aren't foreign doctors allowed into the US on the same grounds as landscape workers to alleviate this shortage?
Obviously current US doctors are not interested, i.e. per the Bush standard, these are "jobs no one else wants", so what's the problem? Of course if this were seriously entertained, there would be howls of objection from the entrenched medical establishment about safety and credential problems, the same one that kills 200,000 patients a year in hospitals from mistakes.
Besides, when one considers Alberto Gonzales in the context of Bush's paternalistic,condescending view of Mexicans and others as people below even his laughable level of comprehension, it all fits in nicely with the constant refrain of "these are hard working, sincere people that just want to work". It's a statement of contempt, masked in a shroud of smirking self-deprecation and juvenile cowboy values long stale and irrelevant to the current issues.
B Payne, Economist, Ph.D.
bbpayne@earthlink.net
There's a fundamental asymmetry of freedom and mobility in the era of globalization. Corporations (fictitious individuals) enjoy virtually free movement across borders whereas real individuals do not. It's become a modern day version of serfdom -- in which the lord of the manor may come and go as he pleases, but the serf must remain where he's at, walled in by the bastions of racism and class warfare.
It's illegal for them to work for a US company on our soil, but not to work for a US company that relocates there. Why the double-standard? Any sort of protectionism must address both issues, and any sort of "free trade" must address both issues. Corporations are free to offshore their labor, whereas nobody is free to offshore his living expenses. Most ordinary people need to work near to the place they live.
What makes an American worker so expensive relative to a Mexican laborer, in addition to our consumer lifestyle in general, is the criminally inflated cost of real estate. With modest homes typically in the $175-250K range, it's clear that a job that pays much lower than $20-25/hour is a perpetually landless job. Little more than slavery with a gratuity.
The racists would blame the Mexicans, but the same class warfare was conducted against poor Europeans who immigrated here by the hundreds of thousands in the latter 19th century.
This is probably neither a racial nor cultural issue. It's class warfare. As others have indicated, their billionaires and our billionaires speak the same lingua franca, whereas common people do not. Our division has been the wedge they play.
funeocons,
Your post started with some good information and then took a turn into nonsense opinions. "The US benefits from it (illegal migrants) 10 times as much as they are hurt by it. Bottom line, the fabricated "immigration problem" in this country really boils down to racism." That's total BS. And so is your opinion that our economy would "shut down" without the low-wage replacement workers.
Many informed people weighed in after an earlier Mother Jones article on illegal immigration was posted on CommonDreams. Rather than trying to repeat it all, you can read it here:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/26/1470/
You don't have to *save* thousands of dollars to come across the border with a coyote. It's called human trafficking, aka slavery. I live in AZ, a border state, and they hold them until someone comes and pays them off ( a relative on this side of the border) OR, they can work it off. The only problem with "working" it off is that the human slave traffickers charge them just about every penny they earn for "room and board" and take all their money even after they profit off them from hiring them out through bogus "staffing" companies. The staffing company is a legal entity and protects the employers from being responsible for hiring undocumented immigrants.
And it is true that Mexicans come to the US for a wide variety of reasons, BUT, the huge increase we have seen lately is due to NAFTA and the total drop in coffee prices (when liberal trade agreements did away with the previously agreed upon minimum fair rate). Example: coffee growers used to get $150 for a 92 lb bag of coffee -- and then all of sudden they were getting $30 - $40, which is less than the cost to produce it.
A lot of immigrants are coming from the southern most states of Mexico, especially Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, but also many others. Frequently they migrate to the Mexican border towns to work in the maquilas or US owned factories, but while they are there, sooner or later they will be approached by a human trafficker who will tell them for $2000, they will take them to the US, and it's okay if they don't have the money now, they can pay them after they are making 5-10 times as much as they are for the same work in Mexico. While the wages are much higher on the border than they are in the south - a typical maquila wage is still only $40 - $75 per WEEK, the cost of living on the border can be as high as it is in the US. I am making a documentary film on this, and I interviewed a fair trade coffee operation in Chiapas and Agua Prieta, and the main goal of their Fair Trade cooperative is to prevent migration. The saddest part of migration is what it does to Mexican communities and families. I think the US benefits from it 10 times as much as they are hurt by it. Bottom line, the fabricated "immigration problem" in this country really boils down to racism -- all other arguments do not pan out empirically.
We need to abolish the WTO and the "free slave" agreements (let's call them what they are!) and encourage countries to develop local economies, rather than putting all their eggs into an export economy.
As for my state, AZ, if you stopped the immigrants from coming, the place would shut down faster than you could blink an eye. Restaurants, hotels, construction, landscaping, agriculture, nursing homes, and any place that uses professional cleaning services (just about everywhere), would no longer be able to function. We already have virtually no unemployement, and our entire economy is dependent on growth.
I think the middle class (teachers, nurses, doctors, etc.) have relatively easy access to visas and don't have to come here illegaly.
And while it is true that undocumented people place a stress on our education and health care systems, that is largely due to the inadequacies of these systems to begin with and the stupid laws that prevent immigrants access to vital services like insurance, bank accounts, etc. It is just easier to blame it on the immigrants.
Bob K. June 5th, 2007 1:57 pm
"Yes, globalization and NAFTA have hurt Mexico's poor. But again, it's not Mexico's poor who come here for work, it's Mexico's middle class. And when they return home with their fortunes in American dollars, they further distort the gap between rich and poor in Mexico."
Bob K. Take a look around you. NAFTA and all the other "free trade" agreements are destroying the middle class in both countries. "Ethnic rivalry" is deliberately used as an excuse to cover-up a treasonous, global economic system, run by elitists, and designed to keep the poor in poverty and destroy the middle class.
Why has Congress been so secretive about their deliberations on "fast track"?
Thanks moonraven,
I'm trying to establish whether those coming to the U.S. are desperately poor, as some U.S. politicians and corporate media claim, or whether they are not Mexico's poor.
Since you say they are "campesinos" (farmers) and their crops are harvested by "peons," I take it these campesinos own land and businesses, but are struggling, as U.S. farmers are struggling, with the effects of corporate agriculture and globalization. The "peons" are clearly poorer than the campesinos. Do peons migrate to the U.S. also, or are they too poor to make the trip?
Bob K,
If you will remember, Zapata was an agrarian leader.
The folks in Anenecuilco are campesinos.
Unemployed is not a relevant term to use for peasant farmers.
They can't afford to farm their fields. Since NAFTA, the US has been dumping their highly subsidized agricultural products in Mexico. That has completely destroyed the agricultural sector of the economy, as by the time they pay for seed, fertilizer, lime, PESTICIDES and the labor of the peons who harvest the crop, they have lost money that cannot be recovered selling the product for less than it cost to produce it.
I was able to help a group of campesinos form a livestock association a few years ago, and I still provide techical assistance when needed.
The did not have a tradition of raising livestock, so it's been a learning experience--but now there are about 60 associates.
This is not enough to keep folks in their villages. And yes, hunger is an issue where Ilive--even though it's not considered to be a zone of extreme proverty.
Nobody is going to the US for a get-rich-quick scheme. And now more women are going--especially if they were working and not making enough to pay the mortgages on their "social interest" housing.
Moonraven,
Since you live in Anenecuilco, Mexico, will you tell us why the men leave that village to come to the U.S. to work? Is it because they are unemployed in Anenecuilco? Is it because they are going hungry? Is it because they want to make a lot of money in a short time, much like the gold-rush situation I described in Alaska in the 1970s? Or is there some other reason?
Mexico is an ENORMOUSLY rich country.
The problem is that all the wealth produced by those riches ends up in only 20 pockets.
NO AID--it will just go into the the same 20 pockets.
Mr. Ridgeway argues that Mexico would be better off if only we were to fork over more of our tax dollars in foreign aid. This argument leaves much to be desired.
Contrary to popular opinion, Mexico is not a poor country when judged by world standards; seventy percent of the world's countries are poorer.
Mexico has huge oil reserves that have been woefully mismanaged.
Mexico also has many of the world's known silver deposits, and other resources too numerous to mention here.
Mexico has some very pretty, lucrative tourist spots, as anybody who has been to Cozumel or Puerto Vallarta can attest to.
Mexico has ten billionaires. One of them, Carlos Slim, is now the world's second richest man, second only to Bill Gates. And their fortunes are measured in dollars, not pesos. Neither Mr. Slim, nor any of the other nine billionaires, have done anything substantive to raise the living standards of their own people.
The reason none of these fortunes seem to matter in lifting Mexicans out of poverty is that in Mexico the rich and powerful don't pay taxes. And this is a conscious decision on the part of these people. They know that any taxes they pay will be lost to corruption or squandered on ill-conceived projects. If Mexican billionaires aren't willing to pay for their own government, why should I be forced to? But Mr. Ridgeway feels that the average American taxpayer, many of them struggling to stay out of poverty themselves, should subsidize these billionaires. I disagree.
It is also not true that the illegals in the US are Mexico's poor. This makes sense if we recall that it takes thousands of dollars to make a trip north illegally for transportation, coyotes, etc. The poor just don't have the money. Rather, these illegals come strictly for economic reasons: they don't like what jobs pay in Mexico, so they come up here and lower wages for people like you and me. If foreign aid is to be increased, why not tax these remittances to do so?
It is true that Mexico itself has a problem with illegal aliens. These are the poor from Central America and South America who are flooding across Mexico's southern border. They are willing to do the jobs Mexicans won't do. And illegal aliens in Mexico aren't treated well to say the least. Would Mr. Ridgeway advocate taxpayer largesse for these nations poorer than Mexico?
Mr. Ridgeway mentioned Mexican remittances. They really do exceed foreign aid many times over. But Mr. Ridgeway doesn't even ask the question of the effect that these remittances have had on Mexican living standards overall. He doesn't ask because they've done precious little.
The reason money, anybody's money, doesn't seem to make a difference in Mexican living standards is terrible corruption and an economic system that caters only to elites. If foreign aid was increased to match remittances, does anybody really think the money is going to do other than wind up in the pockets of corrupt government officials--the same pockets the billions in oil revenues wind up in?
No, the best thing we can do for Mexico is to respect Mexico and Mexicans enough to let them solve their own problems. And America needs to start taking care of Americans. We thought we knew best--that we could solve Iraq's problems--and look at where we are now.
Powerslave--Since you are so big on statistics, why not tell us about the huge growth in Mexico's economy--how it's in triple digits and Venezuela's is only a little over 10% a year (only the highest around these parts, but then--what do you care?)
Now, smartass, post those Mexican Internal Brute Product stats.
Bob K,
Actually the biggest group of folks that cross the border looking for work in the US ARE poor--poor campesinos. We have never been able to stage the complete version of "La muerte de Zapata" in his birth village where I live--because there are not enough men between the ages of 18 and 45.
You haven't met poor Mexicans because you don't move in those circles.
principessaflamenco,
Thanks for your comments. I too dislike U.S. foreign policy.
It seems you only disagree with me on one thing. You say "most of those who migrate undocumented to the US, are from rural areas . . . they sell everything and save for years to gather the money."
But, are these Mexico's poor? In the U.S. poor people could never save thousands of dollars (I guess $10,000 would be the equivilent in the U.S.) no matter how many years they saved. They live day to day, with no savings and nothing worth selling. Do these rural Mexicans come to the U.S. because they are going hungry? Or is it to make lots of money and become relatively wealthy in Mexico?
Also, do you disagree that middle-class Mexicans leave their jobs and businesses in Mexico to come to the U.S. and work as roofers, and in meatpacking plants, etc. I've personally met many who say so, and I've read and seen many reports in the U.S. which say the same.
And, since you are middle-class Mexican, why do you want to emigrate to another country?
I look forward to your comments.
If, over the last five years, the United States had sent the equivalent in aid to the total remittances sent to Mexico; about $150 billion in aid for economic development for the poor, and if NAFTA had been repealed; that would be about 10% of what the US will eventually spend to kill people in Iraq. It would have created a market for goods manufactured by US workers, and helped raise living standards here as well. The shortsightedness, not to mention criminality, of the ruling elites here is mind-boggling. But they would rather exploit the desperate and promote racism than participate in rational solutions to anything.
Bob K,
I am a mexican middle class like all of my family, and I can tell you that none of us want to move to the US. It is true, wages in Mexico are very low for everybody, professionals and non-college educated.
But most of those who migrate indocumented to the US, are from rural areas (the most affected sector by NAFTA), and despite your comment that they have no money to pay the coyote, it happens that they sell everything and save for years to gather the money.
Middle class in Mexico is not doing great by any means, but we don't see the US as an option at all anymore, since we do not agree with its foreing policy. Instead we look forward to immigrating to countries like Canada or Europe.
Ah, moonraven, still whining about Calderon? I supplied statistics, which were suppressed, about Mexico's declining infant mortality rate (22 per thousand live births) vs Venezuela's rising rate (23 per live births). Also Mexico's murder rate is 13 per 100,000 vs 30.5 per 100,000 in Venezuela. Inflation under the spurious presidents has been single digits, and this year is 4%. Inflation in Venezuala the last years has varied from 16% to 30%. But, why argue with facts, when you can just suppress them.
bob k, 6 million (of the 12 million, 50% of which are mexicans) people have fled mexico's middle class? some, no doubt, and some are fleeing violence, it's not all economics. but i think most immigrants had extended family pool some resources to get a person here to send back remittances. that does not require you to be middle class.
in any case, the point of the article is correct. immigration is an economic problem, yet we get law n order solutions, like most social problems in the US. we all know whose interest is served w/that.
Mother Jones' James Ridgeway must be living in the same Washington D.C. bubble that George Bush is living in. Neither appear to have a clue about what's going on in the real world.
Ridgeway continues to promote the popular myth that "the reason behind the 'massive out-migration' is" . . . "Mexico is not producing enough decent jobs for its people." As if the illegal aliens here are poor people forced to flee Mexico because they can't support themselves and their families in Mexico.
Yet when the illegal aliens working here are asked "what was your job in Mexico?," you hear answers like "accountant," "medical doctor," and "bank manager." I've never heard one who says he was unemployed in Mexico. The fact is that it's not Mexico's poor who come here for work, it's Mexico's middle class. Mexico's poor can't even afford to travel from their homes to the U.S. border, much less pay a coyote $1000 U.S. dollars per person to smuggle them across.
The real reason they come, of course, is that in Mexico wages and prices are 1/10th what they are in the U.S. In a matter of months or a few years, Mexicans willing to live in barracks-like conditions and do nothing but work, eat and sleep can send home a small fortune. This is a gold-rush phenomenon, much like what happened in Alaska in the 1970s' with the construction of the oil pipeline. It wasn't homeless people who rushed to Alaska seeking work, it was employed people who quit decent jobs because they saw an opportunity to save enough to buy a house for cash in just a couple of years.
Howard Zinn, the leftist historian who also promotes the same myth, is quoted as saying "These are human beings trying to make a better life." Zinn, who opposes globalization, argues in effect that globalization is a bad thing and therefor we should remove all laws and other impediments to it. Sure, out of the frying pan, into the fire. That makes sense.
Yes, globalization and NAFTA have hurt Mexico's poor. But again, it's not Mexico's poor who come here for work, it's Mexico's middle class. And when they return home with their fortunes in American dollars, they further distort the gap between rich and poor in Mexico.
When will people understand that corporate outsourcing and corporate insourcing are just two sides to the same globalization coin? Both are harmful to working and poor people, in both the U.S. and in Mexico.
More evidence that the United States lacks a viable left wing. The Democrats, especially the leadership, have become centrists, abandoning progressive principles in actuality if not rhetoric. Their embrace of "free trade" is just one example.
NAFTA was promoted heavily by Bill Clinton (the most successful Republican president since Ronald Reagan). My own representative, that radical, Nancy Pelosi, voted for it over the strenuous objections of her own labor and environmental constituents.
caught between the neo-cons and the neo-liberals. the threat is, you will be taken by military force or economic force if you do kowtow. is the answer a simple no?
Wealth can attack other wealth, those with the most resources win, it's called a currency attack. Available where "futures" are sold. (AND SOLD OUT)
NAFTA has been a complete disaster for Mexico--especially in the agricultural sector.
Nobody talks about the reasons behiund immigration because then the US government would have to own up to having deliberately destroyed Mexico's economy!
They would also have to take the current (spurious) president to task about the money from the windfall petroleum profits all ending up in the pockets of those in power.
And they don't want to do that because Mexico is the US' stooge in Latin America.
Of course it is easier stir up anti-Mexican prejudices and scapegoat immigrants than it is to admit that NAFTA and so-called free market solutions like neoliberalism are at the root of the economic crisis that is causing Mexican's to come north. Cancelling NAFTA, the mequiladora program, and insisting that US companies pay a living wage worldwide if they want to import what they produce would go a long way to addressing the problem. You'll never hear that from the corporate media or their syncophant candidates.