More on NAFTA and Corn: Destroying Mexico

By David Seth Michaels from The Dream Antilles



Mexican Corn Field


Last month, both the US and Mexican officials were publicly praising NAFTA while Mexican farmers begged for help.

According to Reuters:

U.S. officials trumpeted an end to farm trade restrictions under NAFTA, the controversial North American trade deal, on Friday, while Mexican farmers vowed to take to the streets to protest liberalization they fear will run them into the ground. /snip

Mark Keenum, U.S. undersecretary for farm and foreign agriculture, said the agreement had been a win for farmers in both countries, "creating not only dramatic growth in two-way agricultural trade, but providing our farmers, ranchers and processors with the potential (for) new export opportunities."

This is some kind of a malicious joke. NAFTA is no "win win". It's really a disaster for Mexican subsistence farmers, US immigration policy, and bio diversity. The only winner is US agribusiness.

Mexican Farmers And Immigration
Mexican farmers cannot see NAFTA as a win. Not by a long shot. They recognize it as a disaster.

[T]he changes [brought by NAFTA] are deeply unpopular in Mexico, where farmers fear unrestricted imports will depress prices and stir competition in producing white corn, which has been grown since the Aztec times.

Most of Mexico's three million corn producers and half a million bean producers make a living on small farms that are a far cry from the sweeping, industrialized operations that characterize U.S. agriculture.

Corn tariffs have gradually been phased out since the trade deal was implemented, and imports of U.S. yellow corn to Mexico, mostly used in animal feed, have skyrocketed. They now account for close to 35 percent of Mexican consumption.

Some background:

*At the start of the year Mexico lifted 14 years of protection for corn, beans, milk and sugar under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that took effect in 1994. The regional trade pact groups Mexico, the United States and Canada.

* Mexican lawmakers demanded [on 1/4/08 that] President Felipe Calderon consider renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and meet with farmers, who fear a flood of cheap U.S. imports.

* "This is a national security issue," said Samuel Aguilar, of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, in a speech before the Congress. "The agricultural chapter of NAFTA could generate a social conflict." /snip

Mexico may lose as many as 350,000 farm jobs this year because of competition from the U.S.

* Some Mexican farmers say competing against highly subsidized U.S. goods could put thousands out of work on top of about 2 million Mexican farm jobs lost over the last decade.

NAFTA is a recipe for complete disaster in Mexico:

Timothy Wise, a professor at Tufts University in Massachusetts, calls unblunted liberalization in those sensitive goods a "recipe for disaster" for those who depend on Mexico's vulnerable farm sector.

"Just as the U.S. became the largest supplier of animal feed, it has the capacity to become a dominant supplier of dry beans and white corn, undermining markets in Mexico and creating a dependence on external sources for the two very clear main staple foods," he said.

Of course, this economic disaster will lead directly to the displacement of small, Mexican farmers, and act as an incentive to those farmers' forced migration to the US. In short: NAFTA's destroying Mexican subsistence farmers and forcing them through economic pressure to leave failing, subsistence farms and enter the US. I've discussed this before here and here.

A Bio-diversity Disaster
But there are additional, heavy costs. NAFTA will have a gigantic, negative biodiversity impact. There are two primary kinds of corn grown in the US, white and yellow. Yellow is mostly animal food. And in the US, unlike Mexico, corn is a genetically modified crop. "In the US, by 2006 89% of the planted area of soybeans, 83 percent of cotton, and 61 percent maize was genetically modified varieties." source. Even before the end of NAFTA, genetically modified corn presented a problem in Mexico:

Rural and urban activists throughout the Americas are calling on grain exporters, the biotech industry, and the US and Canadian governments to stop dumping untested and unlabeled genetically engineered corn on Mexico and other nations, where irreplaceable corn varieties are being damaged by "genetic pollution." In Mexico researchers have detected widespread contamination of traditional varieties of corn, caused by surreptitious imports of genetically engineered corn into Mexico by grain export giants such as Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill

source

And now, there is even greater reason to be concerned:

Those who want to introduce bioengineered corn in Mexico appear to be gaining an upper hand.

A law to allow experimental planting of GMO strains in northern Mexico was passed two years ago but was never signed. Agriculture Minister Alberto Cardenas said this week the law could go into effect in a matter of weeks.

"We don’t want to be behind. We have to start testing now," said Catalino Flores, a geneticist working with Salazar’s organization in San Salvador El Seco.

Corn yields in the United States can be more than three times those in Mexico, according to Mexican growers.

"There will be drought resistant corn in 5 to 10 years. If you don’t plant something like that when everyone else is, you’ll be down the drain," Flores said.

About half of U.S. yellow corn sent to Mexico comes from genetically modified seeds. Mexico’s agriculture minister reckons GMO seeds smuggled in from the United States are already being planted in northern Mexican states.

So what's the big deal? It's fairly simple: GMO corn threatens non-GMO corn species, undermining bio-diversity.

[S]some farmers worry that introducing GMO seeds could contaminate hundreds of wild blue, red and multicolored corn varieties planted for centuries in Mexico.

"The farmers who want to plant transgenic corn are irresponsible, they don’t care if the are putting the genetic heritage of Mexico at risk," said Victor Suarez head of a small farmers’ group that wants keep trade protections for corn and beans.

The ancient Maya, who lived in southern Mexico over 1,000 years ago, believed the gods made men from maize. The plant was adopted over 500 years ago by Spanish conquerors and spread to the rest of the world.

source.

So to make a long story short, not only will NAFTA destroy Mexican subsistence farming and contribute to migration from Mexico to the US for former subsistence farmers, it also will endanger the bio diversity of corn in Mexico (if not the entire hemisphere).

NAFTA is an unmitigated disaster for Mexico. In the US, we don't discuss its impact on Mexico, we only discuss how it opened the market in Mexico for US corn and other products. There will be huge profits to agribusiness in the US from new markets. But hidden from view in the traditional media, there will be economic devastation for small farmers in Mexico, displacement of families from their farms, and ecological destruction.

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Mexican Farmers Protest NAFTA

By David Seth Michaels from The Dream Antilles


The Megamarch In Mexico City, Jan. 31, 2008

Chanting "Sin maiz, No hay pais" (Without Corn, the country doesn't exist), Mexican farmers by the tens of thousands demonstrated in Mexico City against NAFTA.

AP reports:

Led by a column of tractors, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Mexico City on Thursday to protest recent trade openings that removed the last tariff protections for ancestral Mexican crops like corn and beans.

Chanting "Without corn, the country doesn't exist!" farmers and farm activists from across the nation demanded the Mexican government renegotiate the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, to reinstate protection for basic crops.

Farmers here say they can't compete with bigger U.S. farms which receive more government support. Under the terms of NAFTA, Mexico got a 15-year protection period to improve its farms, but that phase-in period ended Jan. 1, and Mexican farms — mostly tiny plots of 12 acres or less — still lag behind.

"The truth is, we can't compete, that is why we're demonstrating ... because we're really getting hit hard," said Telespor Andrade, 44, a weather-beaten farmer from central Mexico who grows corn and beans on about 7 acres of land.

Andrade is typical of Mexican farmers who grow corn for subsistence. I've written about this extensively here and the inescapable conclusion is that NAFTA is making Mexican farmers leave their homes and emigrate the the US. That's right. US economic policy is directly forcing farmers to leave their homes and migrate to the US, with or without documents.

The demonstrations, about which you will probably not read in your local newspaper, are reported all over the Mexican press. Here's Proceso and El Universal, for example. And for good reason:

Protesters pastured their cows outside the Mexican Stock Exchange on the city's main boulevard, and burned a tractor at a nearby monument to the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

Mexican officials say farmers are getting help, and that Mexico's corn production is rising. But activists say farm policies have benefited mainly big producers, not small producers who make up the vast majority of farmers here. U.S. farmers, they say, have much better transport and distribution systems, lower costs and bigger subsidies.

"We're up against all the might of the developed countries," said Martin Perez Santiago, 60, a farmer from the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. "We can't compete because of a lack of support, a lack of subsides, technology, better seed varieties."

When Santiago mentions "better seed varieties," the sound you hear is the door in Mexico opening for genetically modified seed from the US rather than the indigenous species that have been doing quite well for centuries. In other words, not only is NAFTA a disaster in terms of immigration from Mexican family farms, it's an ecological disaster in the making.

This is an extremely important story. NAFTA has created consequences that are disastrous for Mexico. It's forcing subsistence farmers to flee to the US. It's pressuring them to introduce GMA corn. It's already requiring Mexico, the birthplace of corn, to purchase animal corn from the US. It's creating an ecological disaster.

This is an important story, but I don't expect it to be discussed in the presidential race in the US, and I don't expect it to have much of a life in the traditional US press.

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Debunking the myth that there are no jobs American's won't do

"There are no jobs Americans won't do – just jobs that don't pay enough to get Americans to do them." It's a phrase that's been repeated ad nauseum by immigration restrictionist from Lou Dobbs to Tom Tancredo.

It's claimed that no matter how backbreaking, temporary or dangerous, if they paid more, Americans would line up for jobs picking lettuce, mopping floors, plucking chickens or doing any of a myriad of other jobs currently held by the over 7 million undocumented workers in the US today.

Yet, in the wake of increased border enforcement and workplace raids we've had the opportunity to test this little theory…..and thus far it appears to have failed the test.

ALONG US-MEXICO BORDER, NOT ENOUGH HANDS FOR THE HARVEST

Arizona farmers cite tighter border security and limits on guest workers. They're paying field hands $2 more per hour.

The nature of farming is that it comes with many unknowns: weather, pests, competition from abroad, effectiveness of new machinery. Rick Rademacher isn't clear why the labor pool needs to be another one – especially since so many day laborers from Mexico would be eager to work in his lettuce fields here in the midst of America's "winter salad bowl."
…snip…

"We struggle daily," he says. "We just hope every day that we can fill the orders."

Empty stations on the harvest lines are more common this year throughout this swath of Arizona farm country, says Rademacher, who serves as president of the Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association. The reasons are many: a 40,000-person limit on the number of foreign guest workers allowed into the US, tighter borders that are discouraging illegal crossings, and rising demand for day laborers in other industries, such as higher-paying construction work.

The shortage of farm workers has been driving wages higher. Last season, base pay for day laborers working in this area was $6.50 an hour. Now it's $8.50. Rademacher says it may go higher because farmers here can't attract enough employees.

Chistian Science Monitor, Feb 22, 2007

The situation was the same last year also.

Situated between the Colorado and Gila rivers, Yuma is blessed with fertile land and abundant water.

Because of its proximity, 20 miles from the Mexico border, Yuma also has what few other agricultural regions do: access to a large pool of legal immigrant workers like Jose Navarro, 45, and Martin Contreras, 32.

They are among the thousands of Mexicans who have gained U.S. citizenship or legal permanent residence but live across the border in San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico, where the cost of living is cheaper than in the U.S.

…snip…

Navarro and Contreras said they would earn $6.25 an hour that day working the lettuce fields.

During the harvest, lettuce pickers earn a base pay of $8 an hour, plus bonuses the faster they pick. The best lettuce pickers can earn as much as $12 to $14 an hour.

…snip…

The long waits to cross the border also are driving workers to leave farmwork, while the increased presence of Border Patrol agents has scared some already in the U.S. away from Arizona.

In the past, migrant farmworkers, including many undocumented immigrants who get jobs with fake papers, followed the harvest from California to Arizona and back. Rather than risk arrest passing through Border Patrol checkpoints that ring Yuma, many migrants avoid the state.

"In the past, there were a lot of undocumented doing this work, but now there is so much border enforcement," said Glafira Sanchez, a lettuce crew foreman for Valley Pride, a vegetable harvester in Yuma.

Arizona Republic, Nov 21, 2006

While $8.50 an hour with the possibility to make $12 to $14 might not be enough to attract some native workers to the fields, one would certainly think that it would entice at least a few. The pay is certainly better than that offered by the nation's largest private employer, Walmart.

With over 1 million US employees, Walmart is the biggest employer in twenty-five states. Yet, it only pays an average wage of $8.23 an hour to sales associates, it's most common job classification, and $7.92 to cashiers, the second largest group of employees in the company. Given the company's policy to limit full time employees to a 34 hour workweek, the average associate makes $14,221 a year; a cashier makes $13,733 - far bellow the Federal poverty level for a family of four.

Between its low wages and lack of the company benefits, the average Walmart also costs the taxpayers $420,750 annually for such things as subsidized school lunches, food stamps, housing credits, tax credits, energy assistance, and health care. It's safe to say that its employees are not reaping the benefits of Walmart's preeminent position as a leading force in the global economy.

So why aren't enterprising Walmart cashiers from all over the southwest heading to Yuma for the possibility to earn nearly twice what they're making now? Even the base pay for a 40-hour workweek would translate into a 25.9 % raise for the average cashier.

Certainly, the simple "supply and demand" arguments of those like Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies would dictate that the rising wages in Yuma's lettuce fields should be attracting native workers by the droves. He speculated so much in a 2004 article in the National Review when he wrote, "If the supply of foreign workers were to dry up (say, through actually enforcing the immigration law, for starters), employers would respond to this new, tighter, labor market … they would offer higher wages, increased benefits, and improved working conditions, so as to recruit and retain people from the remaining pool of workers."

So how come none of the 300,000 odd cashiers and sales associates at Walmart are not standing in Rick Rademacher's fields right now?

The flippant answer would be; "Because THESE ARE the jobs Americans won't do." … But the real answer is of course more complex than that.

It's not only the physical nature of the job that prevents native workers from taking to the fields, since native workers are willing to take many physically demanding jobs for relatively low wages. Demographics might play a role. Agricultural work is labor intensive but takes place in rural areas not always near enough to population centers to tap into that workforce. Also, by its very nature, the work is seasonal and temporary, forcing the workforce to either migrate or find other work in the off season.

Whatever the reason, it doesn't matter to growers throughout the country who have been reporting labor shortages since last summer. Reports from around the country of fruit and vegetables rotting in the fields are not uncommon and the situation worsens with each growing period.

Of course Krikorian would argue that growers simply have not increased wages high enough yet to attract native workers.

Anti-immigration advocates like Krikorian and Lou Dobbs love to quote from a study done by Iowa State University titled "How Much Is that Tomato in the Window?" that stated that labor accounts for only 10% of the average cost for a head of lettuce and that the elimination of all undocumented workers would only increase produce prices by about 6%. They claim that given these numbers growers could easily double the wages paid to most workers with little real effect to US consumers. They argue that this small price to pay to eliminate undocumented workers, and a burden they'd be more than willing to bear.

But the real world doesn't work that way.. And Rademacher has an answer for those who say they wouldn't mind paying 5 of 10 cents more for a head of lettuce.

"We have to offer more to get the workers, but we try to keep our costs in line, too," he says. "If we set the price [of vegetables] too high, one of our competitors will get the business, or the markets will get the vegetables from out of the country."

The vegetable and fruit businesses are businesses of scale, with profits and losses made in small individual increments, nothing is bought or sold in single units. It's traded in cases, bushels, pallets, truckloads, or shipping containers. Here is where a 6% increases here and a 10cent a unit increase there starts to add up. Today the going price for Mr Rademacher's iceberg lettuce in a major East Coast produce terminal like New York or Boston is about $15 a case of 24 heads. A 6% increase would raise that price nearly one dollar. Large scale food distributors like Walmart can buy hundreds if not thousands of cases a day. Given the ready availability of foreign produce, how long would they be willing to absorb the added costs? More importantly … will the American people really be willing to pay extra for US produce when cheap foreign produce is available? From experience it certainly doesn't look like it.

Despite all the jingoistic rhetoric, and "Buy American" or "Look for the Union Label" campaigns, the American people continually flock the very same Walmarts that pay workers below poverty level wages to load up Levis made in China by workers making 31 cents an hour and strawberries picked in Guatemala for 90 cents a day. All just to save a few cents here or there. They have been complicent in the outsourcing of whole sectors of the economy in order to have "everyday low prices." It's easy for Lou Dobbs to pronounce that the American people would pay a nickel or a dime more for a head of lettuce for the chance to remove the "scourge of illegal aliens", but experience tells us something different.

The growers are well aware of this fact. They deal every day with trying to supply cost-cutting giants like Walmart looking for the lowest prices available on the one hand, while completing with Mexican, South and Central American, and other foreign growers trying to figure out ways to more effectively ship their goods to US markets on the other.

If US workers won't take the jobs done by immigrants for $8.50, $12 or $14 an hour when they're currently making $7.92, what in fact is the magic number? $18 an hour - $22? I'd like, just for once, to have Lou Dobbs or Tom Tancredo answer that question. At what point will native workers actually pack their bags and head off to the fields?

The anti-immigration camp is right when they say "There is no job Americans won't do for the right price," John McCain learned that the hard way when he claimed no one would pick lettuce for $50 an hour and thousands volunteered for the job. But at $50 an hour how long do you think it would take before the Walmarts of the world were on the phone ordering up truckloads of lettuce from Mexico or other countries.

The question should be "Are there jobs Americans won't do for a 'reasonable' price given our current globalized economy ... The answer to that question is obviously yes.

And that's the problem no one seems to want to address.

Until such time as the anti-immigration camp starts to talk about solutions to the real problems facing American workers - when they demand that Walmart stop paying poverty wages as it suckles on the teat of government social programs, and call for the unionization of all workers - those in the fields and meatpacking plants as well as those behind the counters of Walmart ...When they demand that the government start to enforce labor and safety regulations with the same new-found zeal reserved for chasing down immigrants, or force their legislators to re-negotiate trade agreements that have devastated workers on a global scale and fostered a wave of economic migration of epic proportions. ... When they stop demanding the cheapest goods available without regard for how they were produced and think of the global ramifications of their selfish disposable lifestyles ... then, and only then, might there actually be "no job Americans won't do."

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The key to immigration reform: addressing its root causes (Part I)

Over the past two years, over 900 migrants have perished making the hazardous journey through the desert to make new lives in "el Norte." Some were small coffee growers from Vera Cruz, chicken farmers from Jalisco, or vegetable growers from Guadalajara. Others were indigenous subsistence farmers from the Chiapas highlands no longer able to eek out a living. Still others were Guatemalan migrant workers who could not find work on either side of Mexico's border and jumped on El Tren de Muerte (The Death Train) in Tapachula for the first leg of their journey, boarding alongside Salvadorans escaping decades of political upheaval and Hondurans escaping crushing poverty.

Between 6 and 7 million people have taken the arduous journey north, many within the last ten years, most of them coming from poor agriultural areas that are no longer able to support their growing populations. Yet, with all the debate about reforming US immigration policy and securing the borders, we have not heard one solid proposal to address the root causes of this massive migration. The question of why so many must leave their homes and families to simply survive is rarely mentioned, but remains the missing piece in the comprehensive immigration reform puzzle.

tags: immigration, NAFTA , free trade, poverty

Most people recognize that the economic conditions in Central and South America drive much of the current migration. It's widely acknowledged that most sender nations suffer from economic inequities that leave the vast majority of their populations living in abject poverty while a small elite ruling class controls most of the wealth. In Mexico for instance, nearly half of its 106 million people live in poverty, yet it has more billionaires than Switzerland. But what has fostered these inequities and in fact exacerbated them over the last ten or fifteen is not widely discussed. It is this deeper understanding of the complexities of the issue that seem to be absent from much of the debate.

From the immigration hawks we hear that a mix of government corruption and an inability or unwillingness on the part of people from these countries to effect change has led to the problems in this region. Lou Dobbs tells us that a greedy Mexican government intentionally ships its poor here to avoid upheaval. Others admonish the undocumented migrants living in the US, suggesting they return home and work to fix their own countries rather than look for acceptance here.

Those supporting comprehensive reform skirt around the issue of causation, looking instead for methods to regulate and accommodate this increasing flow of migrants. Looking to change or shuffle quotas and grant temporary worker status to a large percentage of newly arriving migrants, their plan is also flawed and incomplete. It doesn't address the reasons this migration is taking place.

No plan, be it walls and armed guards every 50 yards, or quota changes and guest workers can ever work without first looking at why the migration is taking place and figuring out what can be done, at least in this hemisphere, to curtail the poverty, political upheaval and social injustice that foster mass migration. To try to reform immigration without addressing its root causes is like trying to fix a broken pipe without turning off the water.

Certainly, one of the greatest factors in the social and economic changes that have taken place in much of Latin America in recent decades can be directly traced to the proliferation of free trade agreements coupled with an embracing of a Reaganesque philosophy of laissez faire economics and deregulation by many Latin leaders.

No country has embraced the idea of free trade and deregulation more than Mexico. Beginning in 1987 with its membership of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Mexico has signed more free trade agreements than any other country in the world. In 1994, it joined NAFTA and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Since then there have been very few trade agreements Mexico has not been part of. These agreements in general and NAFTA in particular, while helping certain segments of Mexico's economy, have had devastating effects on the rural poor, the group that makes up the bulk of the current economic migrants arriving each year in the US.

Another factor that has driven migration has been political and social instability. Fifteen years after the end of its civil war, El Salvador sends more people per capita to the US than any other country. One third of its population currently lives outside its borders, the majority of them in the U.S. and its economy is reliant on the remittances they send back. After decades of US intervention and meddling in its internal affairs, the peace accords that ended years of violence have failed to truly bring peace, leaving hundreds to flee each day to find security, both personal and economic.

The US cannot solve all the worlds problems and the leadership in these countries must shoulder much of the responsibilty for the current situation, but in many cases the problems in Latin America continue to be very much of our own making. Our policies, both economic and diplomatic, have helped to both foster and perpetuate many of the conditions that have lead to the massive migration going on today. From 600,000 Latin American coffee farmers losing their land and their livelihoods over the past five years as a result of a pricing crisis, to the loss of 2 million agricultural jobs in Mexico between 1993 and 2003, the trade policies favored by the US and embraced by our trading partners have had devastating effects on the poor and working classes on both sides of the border. There is very little difference between the US autoworker who has lost his job to outsourcing and the Mexican maquiladora worker who now finds his job sent to China.

If we are to truly reform our immigration policies we must start to look at these economic and political realities and start to craft policy that addresses these root causes of migration. We must start to see the interconnection between the effects of free trade policies on our own economy and the economy of sender nations and we must examine how our foreign policy has fostered economic inequality and political upheaval throughout the region. Until we address these problems no true immigration reform can be enacted.


Part II: NAFTA and its effects on Mexico's economy

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A comprehensive look at comprehensive immigration reform.

With the coming election, a new round of debate has opened up on the issue of immigration and immigration reform.

With both parties trying to define their positions on migrant and immigration issues, perhaps it is time to re-examine what needs to be done about this issue and perhaps re-define the goals and terms of the debate. With the emergence of a new growing populism within the progressive ranks, it is important that we not be drawn to solutions and proposals that run contrary to the basic progressive beliefs in human value and dignity.

With that in mind, what follows is a proposal for how to address this issue effectively while still remaining true to the ideals of liberal and progressive thought… a policy paper if you must… but I'd rather think of it as a starting point for meaningful dialogue.

tags: immigration, immigration policy , guest worker,immigration reform

GETTING TO THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM: COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND WORKING AMERICANS

Introduction

After years of controversy and partisan infighting, we appear today no closer to any meaningful new national immigration policy than we were nearly eight years ago when President Bush first claimed he would make it a priority upon taking office. Much of the blame for this situation clearly rests on the shoulders of the President and his party, who during six years of unopposed control of government, failed to reach any acceptable compromise.

But, there have also been divisions within the Democratic Party that have helped stall the effort. While stating a uniform policy of supporting some sort of "comprehensive reform", exactly what constitutes such reform can differ greatly within the Democratic Party.

Currently undocumented immigrants traverse the borders daily risking their lives, and sometimes losing them, in order to find work and security in the United States. Perhaps upwards to a 500,000 undocumented people each year find a way, whether it be by overstaying a visa, or crossing hundreds of miles deadly desert, to enter this country in hopes of making a better life.

Americans of diferent political stripes seem concerned about this situation, but there is great division on exactly how to solve the problem. Some have advocated a tightening of security and closing of the porous border as a solution. Others have promoted a method to regulate the flow of new immigrants and legitimization the undocumented.

But there is one thing missing in both of these strategies.

Neither contains any analysis of why this problem exists, and more importantly, why at this particular time in our history the current influx of new immigrants is causing such great concern for many Americans.

Neither group seems concerned with root causes.

The number of immigrants has not really changed

Throughout our history we have encountered many waves of immigration. In fact, most Americans can trace our roots back to foreign shores one way or another, albeit for some, not of their own accord. The number of new immigrants who come today, both entering through proper channels and the undocumented, is no greater as a percentage of population than at many other times during our history. From the late-nineteenth century, through the first thirty years of the last, immigrants represented about 14.6% of the total population (1) ; today that number is 12% (2).

Certainly our earlier immigrants were not rich, and most had limited education, but they, like our current crop of immigrants, had the drive and determination to seek out a better life. This influx of new vitality and ambition has been a cornerstone on which the nation was build.

So why today do we find ourselves in the middle of what some would term a crisis?


What is different today then during past immigration waves?

Historically there have always been a number of protectionists who've opposed immigration for xenophobic or racists reason, but generally, as a nation, we have accepted new immigrants, and they have eventually taken their place in the American mosaic. This not to say that the immigrant experience has not been rife with tensions, or that they have always been welcomed with open arms, history proves diferently, but over time each group has found a place. Yet, today many seem to be finding it harder and harder to accept our newest arrivals. Why do so many believe the new immigrants are putting undo pressures on our economy, creating stresses on a tight job market, and stretching already taxed social services and education systems?

Why today do we find it so hard to absorb these new immigrants? Why at a time in our history, when we are still the richest nation in the world despite our current economic difficulties, and are more educated as a population and have a higher standard of living than during past waves of immigration, do many believe that these new immigrants are putting such great stresses on our society? Perhaps we need to look at some of the changes that have taken place over the last twenty-five or so years to find the answer.

THE SYSTEMATIC ASSAULT ON WORKING AND MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS

Over the past twenty five years there's been a systematic assault upon the working and middle classes of this nation which now leaves many vulnerable and in a position where they must compete for an ever decreasing pool of resources. At one time, a family could live comfortably on the income of one earner, but today it takes two just to make ends meet. A guaranteed pension for retirement is no longer the norm. A union card no longer guarantees a lifetime of job security. Health insurance costs have become an overwhelming concern for both workers and employers and forty five million Americans in fact go without any. A job with one of the nation's largest companies no longer means yearly raises and increased benefits; in fact it doesn't even guarantee job security. An advanced degree no longer means a career in your chosen field. Today, working and middle class Americans can expect plant closings and layoffs, pay cuts and increased hours, loss of benefits and outsourcing. They can expect economists to talk about "jobless recoveries" and increased productivity. It is no wonder that many working-class Americans are feeling the added stresses of our new modern global economy and are looking for an avenue to vent their frustrations.

Our nation is sick, and the perceived "immigration crisis" is not the cause of this national illness, but just another symptom of it.

Who is responsible for this situation?

The answer is simple ... the economic and social policies of those who claim to be economic conservatives that favor an elite class of the economically privileged over the vast majority of Americans.

Of course, many working class Americans might scoff at this idea. Certainly a philosophy of smaller government, personal responsibility and free-market economics sounds appealing to many, and on face value alone is quite in line with the principles on which our nation was founded. But in practice, what these so called Conservatives have done with this philosophy has been the antithesis of what the founders had in mind. These Conservatives have used this philosophy to consolidate economic and political power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. They have turned the ideals of fair play and Christian charity upside down and transformed them into grotesque parodies.

They have taken two hundred years of struggle to raise the standard of living for the average American and thrown it to the winds, all in the name of "fiscal responsibility" and "smaller government." All along being neither fiscally responsible nor providing smaller government.

How did they do this?

How did these self-proclaimed Conservatives wage this war on the working and middle class? In a nutshell, with two policies that came to define the Reagan era; deregulation and union busting. They've continued with more failed and flawed policies right up until our present day in alliance with business interests and the economic elite who benefit most from this agenda.

Union Busting

Starting with the firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981, Conservatives have set forth an agenda through legislation and judicial decisions to slowly disassemble the American labor movement. At the time, many Americans supported the idea, feeling that unions had become too powerful, corrupt and greedy, but the results of this policy have had devastating effects on American workers. Conservatives advocating "right to work" legislation under the guise that it allowed workers free choice whether or not to join a union, have in effect allowed employers to guarantee open shops and eventually drive the unions out of many sectors of the US economy. Ever since the eighties the number of union households has been steadily declining from a high of 20.1 % in 1983 to 12.5% in 2005 (3). Today Wal Mart, the nations largest employer, continually fights against the unionization of it's employees using laws and policies put in place by conservative legislators.

At the beckoning of corporate interests, Conservatives have managed to take what was once the bulwark of working class America, the very entity that allowed millions of American workers to move themselves or their children into the middle class, and rendered it powerless.

Deregulation

Under the guise of increased competition and lower prices through free-market forces, Conservatives began a campaign of deregulation. They would no longer allow the government to regulate business, but rather leave it up to the free market. Again, on paper this practice looked reasonable, but under their control we have ended up with the reverse.

Instead of government controlling business, we now have business controlling government.

We have allowed business combinations that rival any of those of the Robber Barons of the late nineteenth century. We have seen regulated monopolies in the energy, telecom, airline and other industries destroyed, only to recombine into unregulated monsters like Enron. We have seen the merger of mega oil companies that are larger than those of Rockefeller's Standard Oil, who make profits that would make King Midis blush, while the average American can't afford to fill up his gas tank.

Globalization and outsourcing

The next logical step after domestic deregulation for Conservatives was globalization and the taking of their idea of the free market economy, without any government regulation, to a global scale. Conservatives passed legislation and trade agreements that allowed huge multinational companies to operate with impunity throughout the world. Believing that free markets, free trade, and the unrestricted flow of capital would produce the greatest social, political and economic good, Conservative policies have left our nation with record trade imbalances (4) and a national debt of over 8 trillion dollars (5) , much of it underwritten by economically rival nations like China (6,7). Hundreds of free trade agreements have been signed that have in many cases had devastating effects not only for US workers, but decimated industries in foreign countries. In Mexico in particular, free trade agreements have destroyed large sections of the agricultural sector (8), leading to increased immigration to the US. They have allowed companies like Halliburton to set up shadow entities on foreign soil to avoid paying taxes.

They've allowed American businesses to sell American jobs to the lowest bidder on the global market all in the name of free market economics.

Rewriting the tax codes and starving the beast

Conservatives often say that the only thing wrong with government is government, and promise to lower taxes, reduce the size of government, and be fiscally responsible. Yet, after years of Conservative leadership we have the largest government in US history, a record federal deficit and a record national debt of more than 8 trillion dollars. The only part of their philosophy they seem to be able to stick too is tax cuts.

They have systematically worked over the last twenty-five years to shift the tax burden from both big business and the top 1% of the nation's wealthiest people and place it on the middle and working class.

They have consistently rewarded corporations and the rich with larger and larger tax breaks. Through cuts in funding to education, health and human services and many other state and local programs they have managed to shift the tax burden down to the local level so that average Americans now pay more in real estate, state and local, use and sales taxes than ever before. They have not given the American people "back their money" as they claim, but rather forced them to just pay more to other government agencies.

The other aspect of the Conservative tax cutting agenda has been to use cuts as a means to, as they term it; "starve the beast". It's been conservative policy to try to assure that social programs for education, childcare, healthcare and the poor are "starved to death" due to the lack of available federal funds.

Their philosophy has resulted in huge benefits for the rich while programs that poor, working and middle class Americans rely on are cut. The best example of this is public education, where Conservatives have consistently cut funding while placing ever more increasing demands upon the system.

Healthcare

Another big concern for average Americans is healthcare and its skyrocketing costs. Conservative deregulation and free market philosophies have influenced this also. While fighting vehemently against any form of a national healthcare program, they have through legislation and governmental agencies, allowed large pharmaceutical manufactures, insurance companies, and healthcare conglomerates to set the agenda.

National health policy has been written by insurance companies and other corporate interests rather than physicians and medical professionals. A policy that has left 45 million Americans without basic health insurance and millions more grossly under-insured and paying a large percentage of medical costs out of pocket

.

But What Does All This Have To Do With Immigration?

These Conservative policies that favor the economic elite have had devastating effects on the working and middle classes, yet in order to remain in power they have tried to shift the blame. Every problem that is claimed to be a result of the "immigration crisis" can be seen to have its roots in Conservative economic and social policies.

Conservatives and power elites have been trying to convince the American people that it is immigrants who have put all the stresses on education, social services and healthcare institutions and that they take jobs from American workers and drive down wages. But it must be understood that while immigrants highlight the problems of working class Americans, they haven't caused them. Those who have caused these problems have played upon race, bigotry and ignorance to further muddy the waters, and distract the American people away from the real reasons for their economic concerns and discontent. History is ripe with examples of scapegoating those not in society's mainstream, and this time it is no different.

All these problems can be seen as direct results of twenty-five years of Conservative policy. This is obvious when you look at the root causes. The Republican controlled Congress for the last ten years has exacerbated the situation by rubber-stamping every Conservative policy that has come down the pike. With each passing year they have taken more and more from working Americans and given it to their corrupt corporate masters. Now there is nothing left, and the American working man and woman knows it.

What can we do?

We, as a nation need to stop letting those who don't have our best interests at heart control the agenda. We must not allow them to divide us along lines of class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender. We must not allow them to misdirect us or mislead us with appeals to our patriotism or national pride. We must not allow them to fan the flames of racial or ethnic bigotry to distracts us. We must not let them blame the symptoms rather than the disease.

The so called "immigration crisis" is just another symptom of a far greater disease ... the disease of an agenda that favors the rich and big business over average Americans. The influx of new immigrants certainly highlights the problems of the now decimated social programs, education and health care systems, but they did not cause the national illness.

How do we "fix" immigration?

Fixing our broken immigration system will not be easy, and it will be a long hard process. Again just as in the case of working Americans, one key must be to look for the ROOT CAUSES OF THE PROBLEM. We must look at the reasons why millions of people every year risk their lives to come here? What is it about their countries of origin that make them so desperate to leave? Take the the case of Mexico. It's a nation that has the 13th largest economy in the world, ahead of 167 other nations. They also are the second largest recipients of direct investment by US companies in the hemisphere. On top of that Mexico has vast amounts of untapped natural resources and oil reserves that rival those of any Middle Eastern power. So why do so many live in poverty? Why must they come here simply to survive? Could it be precisely because they are the second largest recipients of direct investment by US big business? Could it be because US trade and economic policies have been crafted to favor the business elite and the ruling classes of Mexico, just as they favor them here? Could it be because US policies help perpetuate a system that leaves 55% of the countries wealth in the hands of 20% of its people? These are all things that need to be addressed when looking at the "immigration crisis".

WHAT SHOULD MEANINGFUL IMMIGRATION REFORM LOOK LIKE ?

Despite what many claim, support for some sort of comprehensive immigration reform is not tantamount to calling for "open borders" , unrestricted immigration" or as Lou Dobbs like to claim, "importing half the population of Mexico into the US." While some from the left, and both the Libertarian and Free Trade right, favor open borders and the total unrestricted flow of people, goods and services between nations, most pro-immigration advocates don't. They see our current "immigration problem" as a failure of our system to live up to its historical duty to allow for the reasonable flow of people from all over the world to come to this nation to make a better life, add vitality and diversity to our national mosaic, and join in the great American democratic experiment. The key phrase being: "reasonable flow".

Two economic facts must be taken as givens in any discussion of immigration reform if we are to make any real progress towards meaningful reform:

• 1. We need immigration. Currently there are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the US of which 7.5 million are in the workforce, with approximately a million more joining them each year. Additionally, we allow for roughly a million "legal" immigrants to enter each year. 98% of all undocumented immigrants eligible to work (excluding children and stay-at-home mothers of young children), do so, and the US unemployment rate floats around 5% or roughly 7 million people. We need these workers, it's just a fact





• 2. Undocumented immigrants can keep wages artificially low in a few select industries that rely on them for the bulk of their workforce, particularly effecting legal-resident and natuarlaized workers. Employers in these sectors, able to pay undocumented workers less, take advantage of a severely broken immigration system to exploit the most vulnerable members of society. The solution to this problem is not to eliminate the immigrant workforce in order to force wages up due to a lack of needed workers. The solution is to put these workers on a path to legalization in order that employers can no longer exploit them. Numerous studies show that once an immigrant attains legal status his wages and benefits go up and his employer begins to adhere to federal and state workplace regulations. It's a self policing system.

With these two basic premises accepted, it becomes clear what the goal of any rational immigration reform should be: Allow for a reasonable flow of new immigrants and figure out a way to allow them to enter the country legally.

What is a reasonable flow of immigration?

How do we determine what the "reasonable" amount of immigrants to allow each year should be?

For those immigrants admitted for employment reasons, the number should be determined by a floating scale that takes into account the number of available jobs, the current unemployment rate, the number of green cards issued the previously year measured against the number applied for. In other words use simple supply and demand. As long as there is a demand for increased immigration, there must be a legal way meet that demand.

At the present time we have no legal means to supply needed workers, or allow for families to remain intact, hence they are forced to enter the country illegally and live in the shadows.

Obviously we must first raise the quotas to more accurately reflect the realities of what is actually going on.

We must also eliminate the per-country cap that favors smaller nations with fewer immigrant applicants over those countries that have long traditional ties to the US.

We must raise the 5000 maximum cap on unskilled worker green cards issued each year to reflect the true needs of the national labor pool.

We need to ease restrictions on family reunification and rework the diversity "lottery" and refugee policies to better serve the needs of those who face a clear and present danger in their countries of origin.

One possible solution

Perhaps there is a better way to formulate such important and complicated policy. Perhaps we should institute an independent "immigration policy board" that is free of elected officials, made up of experts in immigration, economists, labor and immigrant advocates, that could be charged with the responsibility of formulating certain aspects of immigration policy.

At present it's basically a decision made by politicians.

As we saw during the debates over Comprehensive Immigration Reform, legislators seem to pull numbers out of thin air, check with "business" leaders, take some foreign policy considerations, think about sound bites, spin, and firing up the base, then put it all in a big bowl and mix it up and serve it to the American people as policy.

This is politics as usual, but it doesn't have to be.

There needs to be something set up independent of elected government, something similar to the way the Federal Reserve is set up, and sets interest rates. An independent "immigration policy board", charged with setting the immigration levels and working out policy. They could be the ones to determine how many of each visa class to issue each year or how many green cards etc. rather than our elected officials.

This seems to be a logical alternative to the current system. We do not allow elected officials to set the Fed interest rates because they lack the necessary expertise to do so, and we know they'd set them at 0% in election years, and 30% in off years.

The same should be true with immigration policy. Between pressure from big business, the natural tendency for politicians to pander for votes, and other political calculations, perhaps elected officials are not the best choice for formulating the nuts and bolts of immigration policy.

This policy board's mission would be to gather information, listen to testimony, call in experts, listen to lobbyists, immigrants advocates, etc., then make their recommendations for the following years "quotas". Each year they would then adjust them according to economic conditions, world events, the previous year's successes and/or failures, unemployment rates, etc.

This way the whole affair is taken out of the hands of both the politicians and the business interests that control them.

The AFL-CIO advocates a similar process in theory. They instead have called for all caps on the number of employment-based visas issued each year to be set by the U.S. Department of Labor based on economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries, not by political compromise.

Once we have determined what reasonable levels of immigration are, then and only then can we begin to look at border security. Once we remove millions of would-be undocumented immigrants from the mix by providing them a legal path to immigration, we can formulate an effective border security plan. To do the reverse, and try to secure the border before reforming the immigration system is like trying to fix a leaky pipe without turning off the water. We need to channel our immigration through legal points of entry, before we can plug the holes in the border.

ADDRESSING THE ROOT CAUSES OF MIGRATION

We need to take a complete and comprehensive approach to immigration reform, and this includes something none of the present legislation accounts for. We need to look at the reasons why millions of people each year are compelled to risk their lives to enter this country illegally. This includes an examination of the effects of US foreign policy and trade policies that have fostered poverty and political upheaval throughout much of the third world.

Why is it that Mexico, a country with the thirteenth largest economy in the world, has large portions of it's population living in abject poverty? How have we allowed US corn exports to decimate local Mexican economies? How come NAFTA and WTO trade restrictions have been allowed to cause of the collapse of the coffee industry throughout much of Central America?

The US has power to do both great good and great harm throughout the third world with its economic and foreign policy decisions and we must start to look at the long term ramifications of these policies. Rather than allowing US business interests to dictate trade and economic policy, we need to view these policies in light of their long term effects on both foreign economies and our own.

Let's look at what globalization has done to both the US and Mexican economies. At first, under NAFTA US companies outsourced American jobs to Mexico where they could find cheaper labor and less government restriction. Over time these jobs have now been outsourced from Mexico to Asia, where even cheaper labor and less government interference can be found. As long as US economic and trade policy is based solely upon the interests of big business, and the exploitation of the current cheapest labor force, this race to the bottom will continue. Until we begin to address the true causes for the mass migration of people who live in abject poverty in countries that have more than enough resources to provide a reasonable lifestyle for its entire population, we will never get a handle on the "immigration problem"

RAISING STANDARDS FOR ALL U.S. WORKERS

Many Democrats, and particularly Progressives, look at increasing the penalties for hiring undocumented workers as a panacea for solving the "immigration crisis". This of course stems from a natural distrust of corporate America by working people ....and rightfully so. Many corporations benefit greatly from our current ineffective immigration system. It allows for abuses and exploitation of workers both immigrant and native–born.

But once again we need to look at ROOT CAUSATION when addressing worker abuse.

The problem with the exploitation of workers is at its core not a problem of lack of enforcement of immigration laws in the workplace, but rather the lack of enforcement of LABOR laws in the workplace. Unfair labor practices, failures to adhere to wage and hour regulations, unsafe working conditions, lack of employee protections, harassment or obstruction of efforts to organize ...these are not immigration problems, but rather labor problems.

In order to raise the standards for all workers, both US-born and immigrant, the labor and employment laws of this country need to be more strictly enforced.

Currently "workplace enforcement" revolves around the government rooting out unauthorized workers and deporting them. The businesses rarely receive any punishments and when they do they quickly pass those costs on to consumers through higher prices as part of the cost of doing business. But the terrible working conditions that have relegated those jobs to ones that only undocumented immigrants will accept remain the same.

This paradigm needs to shift. The government needs to shift its focus from attacking the symptom of unfair labor practices, to attacking those practices themselves.

Instead of swat teams of ICE agents storming factories and meatpacking plants looking for undocumented immigrants, we need armies of inspectors from the Department of Labor, OSHA, and other agencies, looking for labor violations and evidence of unfair labor practices. This is how you raise the standards for all US workers.

Reforming immigration policy to benefit all workers

Allowing for reasonable rates of immigration and the legalization of all current undocumented immigrants would in fact start a process by which all US workers could begin to reverse the thirty-year decline in real wages and benefits. The inclusion of 7.5 million newly legal workers to the workforce would go a long way to stem this tide. This is why the immigrant's rights movements has the support of the largest unions in the country. The Services Workers, Laborers International and the AFL-CIO have all backed comprehensive immigration reform and the legalization of workers already living in the country. They realize that if they could unionize the current immigrants already in the country and add ½ million or so new members each year from new immigrants, they could possibly revitalize the workers movement, and regain much of the power they have been lacking for the past thirty years.

At the polls, these new Americans would have a voice in formulating policies more favorable to working families. Things like universal health care, education, a living wage and an equitable tax code would move to the forefront. This is one reason Bush and his big business buddies are so enthralled with his "guest worker" program. It supplies businesses with workers, while keeping them from unionizing and more importantly eventually voting. The last thing the economic elite want is a larger working class voting block to contend with. This is why they push so had for guest worker progrmas, they want them to enter as temporary workers, to be shipped back home before they can gain political clout. Contrary to what the right-wing would have Americans believe, immigrants are not the enemy of working men and women, but rather natural allies in the struggle for a better life.

CONCLUSION

While this is far from a complete analysis, or comprehensive plan to address all the aspect of this complex issue, it does represent a starting point for understanding what a plan for meaningful immigration reform entails.

• *Formulate a reasonable, humane, fair and practical method for determining the levels of immigration going forward. Perhaps by an independent policy board free from the pressures of political expediency and business interests.



• *Address the root causes of immigration, and change US policy so that it doesn't foster and produce conditions that force millions of people each year to leave their countries of origin in order to simply survive. Tie all future trade, military, and foreign aid agreements to not only worker protections both here and abroad, but also to their ability to foster economic progress for the working class and poor in sender nations.



• *Provide a path to legalization for all current undocumented immigrants living and working in the US.



• *Secure the border by first ensuring that the vast majority of new immigrants have the ability and opportunity to legally enter the country through a legal port of entry. This would curtail the flow of immigration through illegal channels, then work to physically secure the border could take place where necessary. Only after that, interior and workplace enforcement could begin to ensure compliance.




• *Opposition to a "guest worker" program on the grounds that it provides no benefit to the American people or the immigrants themselves. It only provides big business with a disposable work force that holds down real wages and prevents immigrants from becoming a viable force in the workplace or full fledge members of society.



• *Foster an immigration policy that strengthens the middle and working class through unionization and participation in the electoral process.



• *Strict enforcement of all labor and employment laws



• *Modernize and streamline the immigration process and eliminate the backlogs for those already in the queue



• *Recognize that immigration is a vital part of maintaining a healthy and vibrant America. It is what has set this nation apart from all others since its inspection. To close our borders to new immigrants is to cut off the lifeblood that has always made this nation grow and prosper.

This, I believe, is a reasonable starting point to proceed from.

FOOTNOTES


1 "From 1850 to 1930, the foreign-born population of the United States increased from 2.2 million to 14.2 million, reflecting large-scale immigration from Europe during most of this period.1 As a percentage of total population, the foreign-born population rose from 9.7 percent in 1850 and fluctuated in the 13 percent to 15 percent range from 1860 to 1920 before dropping to 11.6 percent in 1930. The highest percentages foreign born were 14.4 percent in 1870, 14.8 percent in 1890 and 14.7 percent in 1910."
US Census Bureau; "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990"; http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/twps0029.html

2 "The Census Bureau estimated that the number of foreign-born people living in the United States topped 33 million and accounted for nearly 12 percent of the population in 2003--its highest share since 1930…. The foreign-born population, as defined by the Census Bureau, refers to all residents of the United States who were not U.S. citizens at birth, regardless of their current legal or citizenship status."
Congressional Budget Office; "A Description of the Immigrant Population", November 2004; http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=6019&sequence=0

3 "In 2005, 12.5 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, un-
changed from 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics
reported today. The union membership rate has declined from a high of 20.1
percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available."
US Dept of Labor News, January 20, 2006; http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

4 "The U.S. Department of Commerce today reported that the international deficit in goods and services trade reached a record level of $726 billion in 2005, an 18% increase over 2004. The U.S. merchandise deficit alone, which excludes services, was $782 billion, also an 18% increase."
Economic Policy Institute, February 10, 2006, "Rapid growth in oil prices, Chinese imports pump up trade deficit to new record" http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_tradepict20060210

5 National debt as of June 21,2006: $8,309,177,355,316.66
National Debt Clock; http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock


6 "The growth of the trade deficit with China, which reached $202 billion in 2005, was responsible for the entire increase in the United States’ non-oil trade deficit. The trade deficit in manufactured products (net of refined petroleum) increased $46 billion, to $655 billion (an 8% increase)."
Economic Policy Institute, February 10, 2006, "Rapid growth in oil prices, Chinese imports pump up trade deficit to new record"; http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_tradepict20060210

7 Major foreign holders of US treasury securities as of April 2006; Japan – $639.2 B, China -$323.3 B, UK-$166.8 B
US Dept. of Treasury/ Federal Reserve; http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt

8 "Mexican farmers say hefty agricultural subsidies in the United States give American white corn and beans an unfair advantage over the Mexican market, which depends in large part on small-scale and mostly subsistence farmers… Mexico's agriculture minister pleaded with Canada and the United States this month to reconsider the removal of the corn and bean tariffs, but U.S. Undersecretary for Agriculture J.B. Penn flatly rejected the appeal."
ABC News, "Mexico Hopeful Takes Hard Line Vs. NAFTA", June 21, 2006; http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2089345

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