Revise NAFTA -excellent idea -but is Illegal immigration caused by NAFTA?

[papau]

Leo W. Gerard http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06113/684154-109.stm is the president of my former union. But in his article "Revise NAFTA" he has an incorrect analysis of the problem, and a good idea that is not a solution, but is a good idea.

As Democratic Undergrounds "skidmore" said regarding the article: "Without enforcement of the laws, there is no point to any legislation. It becomes words on paper only. We need both--trade laws that make sense for both the US and other nations in terms of regulations for the environment, labor, and human rights as well as effective immigration laws that are all enforced."

I agree. Indeed it makes political sense.

But NAFTA is not to blame for our current lack of jobs growth - Bush and the culture of greed that Reagan started that led to massive and unnecessary outsourcing is the problem.

Tariffs are costly in terms of growth but they do work to protect jobs - and that is not a bad thing. Wage destruction is occurring in both countries in the GOP/Corporate push to make labor "race to the bottom".

The facts noted:

"Factory wages in Mexico have declined 10 percent.

19 million more Mexicans now live in poverty.

The wage differential between the United States and Mexico is now more than 10 to one.

Some 10 million Mexicans are forced to subsist on a dollar per day, and 30 million on less than three dollars."

are all "wages suck in Mexico" despite "no job growth and actual wage loss in the US". When will we learn it is "excessive corporate power and a culture of greed" that is causing this, along with the related "no check on corporations by government". Changing Nafta will not change anything for us - the only change will be jobs will go to the far east rather than Mexico.

We need ALL TRADE AGREEMENTS redone to add environment, labor, and human rights to them - and to add tariffs for those industries whose protection is necessary to maintain the overall social balance between rich and middle class and poor.

[xchrom]

1. when we made the border crossings more restrictive in --

when was that -- 86? -- immigrants stopped going back in significant numbers.

a great many of these wokers would prefer to be able to work for x number of months and go back.

but as we made the crossings more difficult -- they stayed.

[papau]

3. I believe it was around '86/87 - and indeed many do indeed stay who

would prefer to go back for part of the year to their village and family and friends - staying because of the difficulty of getting back in. The Amnesty Legislation of 1986 and the tougher enforcement in 87 did indeed change the rate of illegal immigration for the worse.

Guest worker programs never work - and only screw up the two countries involved - indeed as any German if their guest worker program has worked out well for either Germany or the country that the guest worker came from.

Temporary work visa's do work - we just need to issue them more quickly - meaning a better funded , and bigger, government function.

By fighting a modest increase in the functions and size of government, the GOP is giving us a huge increase in the size of government and in the cost of government as they fund wasteful and ineffective enforcement ideas like the "wall".

[Warpy]

7. That's true, they'd rather work here temporarily, save what they can

and go back to Mexico to convert their savings into much more buying power in pesos. Some of them would stay here only a couple of years and go back with enough cash to start a small business like a street food stall or garage.

Reagan fucked that one up, too.

Now it's organized crime and big business. Mexicans are recruited for specific jobs, either brought in with H1B visas or smuggled in by organized crme, transported to those jobs, and only find out that nobody can survive on $5.15/hour when they get here. It looked like so much money when their equivalent pay in pesos on the farm was two bucks a day.

Vans and trucks crammed with Mexicans are busted on I25 and I40 in this town every day.

They used to run untaxed cigarettes and booze. Now they're running human beings.

The only way to attack this thing is to make the whole proposition unattractive to scumbag employers by raising the wage and by enforcing the laws and fines against exploitative employers who hire illegals at starvation wages because they're too cheap to pay US.

I'm not talking about ag workers. I'm talking about construction, meatpacking, garment work, janitorial services, and dozens of other jobs that WE used to do for wages we could survive on. This is what is different now, and this is why it needs to be stopped.

[thegreatwildebeest]

17. Who is we?

I'm not talking about ag workers. I'm talking about construction, meatpacking, garment work, janitorial services, and dozens of other jobs that WE used to do for wages we could survive on. This is what is different now, and this is why it needs to be stopped.

Who the hell is "we"? All I know is it doesn't include me. I'm not a big fan of restrictive immigration, or in fact, any immigration control at all. If corporations and capital can move all over the world in the blink of an eye or at a mouse' click, than I need to be able to migrate just as easily. Same goes for everyone else in the world. When labor is freed from the restrictive chains of immigration, corporations won't be able to play off "illegals" against "citizens" or try to run games of hop scotch across the world trying to find the cheapest labor, knowing that people in many countries are captives due to restrictive immigration policy.

[depakid]

9. That was in the mid 1990's (another Clinton policy debacle)

called operation Gatekeeper.

And it indeed had the unintended consequence of ecouraging seasonal workers to stay- and more than that- they sent for their extended families!

You can see the trend rather clearly with the INS stats- although when looking at them we need to recognize that there was also synergy with NAFTA going on:

Immigrant Surge is Tied to the Failure of NAFTA
The trade agreement left rural and urban Mexicans worse off than they'd been.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0422-28.htm

Immigration Flood Unleashed by NAFTA's Disastrous Impact on Mexican Economy

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

[papau]

11. Greedy Corporations ignoring human rights to get lowest wage is a problem

Walmart's chinese under-priced goods destroying Mexican businesses, subsidized corn being imported into Mexico from the United States, all resulting in an over-supply of workers, followed by Mexico's decision to crush of union organizing drives as government policy. and the US decision under Bush to not demand tariffs on China for all of NAFTA because China was needed to finance the Bush debt all caused the post-NAFTA surge in Mexican illegals.

But there were 2.5 million Mexican illegals in 1995, and the Reagan border policy of 87/88 began the direction of US policy on this, IMO.

The idea in 93 was China being replaced by Mexico as the low cost labor area that US business would use. No one thought US corporate greed would brush away Human rights concerns about China so easily in all those US Boardrooms.

[FreakinDJ]

2. but but...... Regan proved deficits don't matter in Merika

Republicans have a series of failed logic towards this

Free Trade on the backs of workers, American and Foriegn, that is not really "free" is just one of them.

[papau]

5. Sadly this chart uses the governments CPI adjustment to real wage level

The government has done a number of things to the calculation of the CPI that result in low inflation being asserted - but for the average worker these changes to the CPI calculation do not reflect the change in the real life cost of living FOR HIS CURRENT STYLE OF LIVING to the worker.

Bush even has the CPI published on the "old" pre 2001 basis- but it is never reported in the media. Beyond the Bush adjustment, the Alan Greenspan adjustments for "improved product that reduces calculation of the CPI" and for "substitution (eating hamburger rather than steak allows the same cost of living - you just have a lower lifestyle)" and for "cost of shelter being rent with no reflection of purchase cost of housing" have all covered up the real rate of inflation.

In effect Greenspan has reduced "inflation" by ignoring reduction in lifestyle.

[Greyhound]

13. Substitution in the CPI removes the baseline, ensuring that "official"

inflation will never again go beyond about 3% - 4%. Bastards.

[LiberalFighter]

4. But they claimed that the gap in wages would narrow and...

wages in Mexico would go up

[papau]

6. It would have been true - a narrowing gap - if outsourcing to the far east

had not grown so fast.

No expected the culture of Greed that Bush has brought back from the Reagan era.

[jety2k]

15. What????

I seem to remember a fair amount of corporate greed going on all during the Clinton era as well (starting with NAFTA). This is when you started seeing massive outsourcing and temporary worker visas explode (H1). Sun, HP, IBM were laying off older more expensive American workers in favor of cheap labor from India, China and Eastern Europe.

I saw it first hand it is not a new phenomenon.

There were many Dem leaders that were only too happy to watch it happen because this kind of legislation helped garner lobby money from foreign governments and corporations. Go check and see exactly what Dem and Repubs belong to INDIAPAC for instance.

It is time to make them all accountable.

[upi402]

8. NAFTA is a DINO outcome.

Until we get DINO's out there will never be fair trade. Without Clinton/Gore it would never have passed. Same with welfare degredation ("reform").

Only free trade, as in 'give away the farm' trade agreements. The corporatocracy feeds on us until we are bled pale. Like vampires, they need to keep us alive. But just barely.

[Robert Oak]

10. yup

Every single one plus redefine the corporate laws to force them to be patriotic.

And to put in an automatic leveler on wages so Americans don't have to compete against a 20:1 wage (PPP) ratio.

Then, in the US simply enforce the law.

What few realize is that lobbyists, including the notorious Harris Miller actually started the encouragement of illegal migration and it was done to union bust.

Talk to the Farm Workers Union in the 1980's.

[Greyhound]

12. Caused? No. Exacerbated? Certainly. NAFTA has been a universal

disaster for everybody except the corporations for whom it was written. I can't even believe some still try to justify or excuse it, just because it was foisted on us with the help and blessings of Clinton and Gore.

[Kolesar]

14. US Agribusiness forced Mexicans off their farms by underselling them

I am in the process of reading Brown's "Myths of Free Trade" (2004). The interview question below comes close to the explanation.

When you hear some pundit howling about how another countries trade barriers are hurting America's farmers, think of it in terms of my subject line above.

Q&A with Sherrod Brown

You’ve said that America won’t fix its immigration problem until it fixes its trade problem. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Every five years we’ll have this debate over how high the wall should be and how many soldiers and agents we’ll have at the border until we do two things. One is actually invoke employer sanctions when employers are violating U.S. labor law. Second, and probably more importantly, when NAFTA passed , there were 3 million undocumented workers in the United States. Today there are roughly 11 million. Today there are 19 million more Mexicans living in Mexico below the poverty line. As long as Mexico’s economy stagnates and Mexico continues to get poorer and as long as people see opportunity to the north to feed their families, they’re going to try to get here. a more prosperous Mexico brought on by a repaired, improved, rewritten NAFTA, the whole immigration debate will be different.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13502821/site/newsweek/

[FoxOnTheRun]

16. It's done for Nafta

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAeEc23_7Ig