by Sweejak » Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:25 am
<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.voicesmag.com/Archives/dougherty/cafta_nafta_redux_immigration_101905.htm">www.voicesmag.com/Archive...101905.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>CAFTA: NAFTA Redux on Immigration<br>By Jon E. Dougherty<br>19 October 2005<br><br>| Voices Magazine | I knew it wouldn't be long before supporters of the the Central American Free Trade Agreement touted it as a means to slow illegal immigration. I wasn't disappointed.<br><br>Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said passage of CAFTA will bring about a "rising tide of prosperity" across the region, telling attendees of the Border Trade Alliance conference in San Antonio people in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic will now stay home in droves rather than continue to flock illegally into the United States.<br><br>Cuellar was seconded by none other than embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who said, "It is in the national interest that CAFTA passes. It is good for our national security in supporting these fledgling democracies at our back door. It is good for our effort against illegal immigration. It is good for our economy."<br><br> Their rosy assessments were echoed by George Ramon, director of the McAllen-Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge and an executive committee member for the Border Trade Alliance, a non-profit U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade organization, who says the trade agreement will allow the CAFTA countries to “send more product so that they don’t send people.”<br><br>"Trade has truly transformed the United States," Cuellar gushed. "It has truly transformed the border." No truer words have been spoken.<br><br>DeLay, a House member hailing from the border state with arguably the largest illegal immigration problem of all four border states, should know better than to make such inane pronouncements about CAFTA. But as a Republican, he is a knee-jerk free trader, any harm to American workers notwithstanding.<br><br>Since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is CAFTA's older brother, the U.S. has ran consistent trade deficits with Mexico and Canada, the two countries included in the agreement. While U.S. exports to these countries has doubled since 1993, imports to the U.S. have climbed by 173 percent, from $151 billion to $412 billion. "As a result," writes CNN host Lou Dobbs, "the trade deficit with Canada and Mexico has ballooned from $9.1 billion in 1993 to $110.8 billion last year." At the same time, some 900,000 American jobs have vanished as U.S. employers sought cheaper labor markets, mostly south of the border, he says.<br><br>There is nothing to suggest the very same things will not happen under CAFTA, as a simple, sobering look at some economic data will prove.<br><br>The combination of gross domestic product of all the CAFTA countries is about $85 billion - only slightly larger than the economy of New Haven, Conn. and one-fifth that of New York City. With a total U.S. gross domestic product of $11 trillion annually, just how is this trickle of cash supposed to be such a big boon to America?<br><br>But it's not about earning, it's about generating opportunity, right? If that's the case, after a decade of NAFTA and the relocation of a large swath of U.S. manufacturing to south of the border, how come illegal immigration from Mexico is at an all-time high? Since NAFTA, the illegal immigration population in the U.S. has soared from around 8 million to, some estimates say, as many as 15 million. It has gotten so bad three of four governors of border states have declared emergencies along their southernmost boundaries or announced major initiatives to step up border enforcement and security.<br><br>"Proponents of NAFTA said it would stop the flood of illegal immigration from Mexico by creating a robust middle class," says a CAFTA policy paper by U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. "However, millions of Mexicans continue to cross the border in search of a better life. In fact both the US and Mexican government data show undocumented immigration from Mexico has soared since NAFTA.<br><br>He says that, according to statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center, 260,000 illegal<br>immigrants from Mexico entered the U.S. each year from 1990 to 1994. "After NAFTA's passage, that number rose to 400,000 per year from 1995 to 1999," he said. "And in the last four years, that figure has risen to 500,000 illegal immigrants entering the U.S. per year."<br><br>Clearly, then, CAFTA can't be about stopping illegal immigration anymore than NAFTA was. Companies that relocate to Mexico and beyond do so because labor is dirt cheap, which is the norm for third-world countries; illegal immigration has continued because despite the higher cost of living in the U.S., rates of pay and overall economic opportunities are vastly better here than at home. So, in essence, NAFTA and CAFTA are creating a sort of economic paradox in which the U.S. finds itself in a lose-lose situation.<br><br>"Americans know a bad trade deal when they see one," adds Ernest Baynard, executive director of Americans for Fair Trade. "They've already had to live through one for 10 years under NAFTA."<br><br>Amen. As Pat Buchanan notes, all this NAFTA-CAFTA stuff is really just about placating U.S. corporate interests. "To a transnational corporation, how a politician stands on quotas, abortion or school prayer is irrelevant, so long as he or she supports the right of big business to shut down plants in the United States, where the minimum wage is near $40 a day, and open plants in Mexico, where the minimum wage is about $3 a day," he wrote in 1997.<br><br>Don't get me wrong; I'm a conservative and capitalist through and through. But unlike the neo-con wing of today's Republican Party, I don't believe siding with corporations at all costs to U.S. workers is in the long-term best interests of the country. As Buchanan notes, "At bottom, what NAFTA and [similar agreements] are all about is the steady transfer of wealth from industrial America and its workers to a new financial elite."<br><br>House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and I agree about 0.001 percent of the time but she is right in regards to CAFTA when she said in July, "Trade alone, devoid of basic living and working standards, has not, and will not, promote security, nor will it lift developing nations out of poverty. Our national security will not be improved by exploiting workers in Central America."<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
