The Right To Stay Home

The Right to Stay Home: Alternatives to Mass Displacement and Forced Migration in North America
The Right to Stay Home

Alternatives to Mass Displacement
and Forced Migration in North America
The Right
to Stay Home
$12.00
NAFTA AND IMMIGRATION 1

A Report by Global Exchange
The Right
to Stay Home
Edited by Global Exchange

The Right to Stay Home:
Alternatives to Mass Displacement and Forced Migration in North America
© 2008 by Global Exchange
All rights reserved including the right to reproduction in whole, in part, or in any form.
This edition published in the United States of America by

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ISBN: 978-0-615-25267-4
Printed in the United States of America (2008)

Published by:
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Distributed by Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store
Deep appreciation goes to all who have contributed writing and photographs to this report, as well as to the entire Global Ex-
change editorial team –Shannon Biggs, Dwight Dyer, John Gibler, Emily Keller, Ted Lewis, Hector Sanchez, and Angela Walker.
Thanks also to designers, Sabiha Basrai and Josh Warren White; and copy editor, Chris Dodge.
Front Cover Photo: Imperial County, California, USA. March 2001. Trained in hunting techniques, the Border Patrol agent
estimated that migrants had made these prints twelve hours prior. Photo by Mizue Aizeki, first published in Dying to Live: A Story
of U.S. Immigration in An Age of Global Apartheid, City Lights Books, 2008.
Back Cover Photo: Peasant tilling his field in Michoacan. Courtesy of La Jornada.
To order more copies:

www.globalexchange.org/the-right-to-stay-home
or 415-575-5541
Sonoyta, Sonora, Mexico. July 2006. Photo by Mizue Aizeki.
Table of contents
INTRODUCTION
Ted Lewis .................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
A North America That Works For All Its People

Jeff Faux ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
The Right to Stay: Reactivate Agriculture, Retain the Population

Armando Bartra ....................................................................................................................................................................... 18
Equality And Human Rights, Instead Of Displacement And Criminalization

David Bacon ............................................................................................................................................................................... 26
To Regenerate What Is Ours

Gustavo Esteva ........................................................................................................................................................................... 32
NAFTA and Immigration: Toward a Workable and Humane Integration

Laura Carlsen ............................................................................................................................................................................ 40
Contemplating Solutions to Migration Challenges

Bill Hing ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 46
Migration and Development: Moving Beyond NAFTA

Amy Shannon and Oscar Chacon ......................................................................................................................................... 56
Reinventing the Traditions of the Lower Triqui Region

María Dolores París. ................................................................................................................................................................ 62
Against the Current: Looking for Alternatives to Migration in the Mexican Countryside
John Gibler .................................................................................................................................................................................. 68
A Mexican Labor Perspective on the Issues Facing Mexican Workers in the U.S.
Bertha Lujan with Daniel LaBotz ...................................................................................................................................... 76
The Unexpected Consequences of Deepening Integration: NAFTA and Immigration

Gabriela Lemus ......................................................................................................................................................................... 84
Contributors ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 92
NAFTA and Immigration:
INTRODUCTION: The Next Immigration Debate and the
Right
To to a
ward Stay
WorHome
k a b l e and Humane Inte gration
By Ted Lewis
At the heart of the fierce national debate Altering the well-established dynam- Formulating genuine, effective immi-
over immigration reform legislation in ics that underlie Mexico’s massive out- gration reform that embodies the best
the United States lie the fates of more migration is not a simple task, and the values of the United States and is ac-
than twelve million undocumented critiques and proposals offered in this ceptable to the U.S. public and political
immigrants, more than half of whom report reflect that. Our contributors of- representatives will challenge the politi-
come from Mexico. This debate, which fer elements of an emerging blueprint for cal imagination and skills of any incom-
will return to the center of the political change on both sides of the border. They ing U.S administration. And yet while a
stage sometime after the inauguration put forward much-needed new ideas for breakthrough on immigration reform is
of Barack Obama, pivots on whether policy change at the international level, a widely shared goal, this report serves
U.S. policy should account for and ideas that are friendly to the interests of as a reminder that enduring change can-
integrate these immigrants, or reject workers and small farmers. They call for not be achieved without accounting for
and criminalize them. Yet an equally reconsideration of counterproductive as- and responding to the realities faced by
important question—often lost from pects of current trade and immigration our southern neighbors. Nor can prog-
view amidst the heated rhetoric and policies. Perhaps most importantly, the ress toward genuine reform be based
political posturing that accompany this authors examine what will be needed to on the dangerous illusion that further
issue—is what we can do to better the stimulate local economic development armoring the U.S.-Mexico border or
bleak economic conditions in Mexico in Mexico capable of keeping Mexican detaining and deporting an increasing
that compel an additional half million communities intact and reining in the number of undocumented workers can
Mexicans to leave home and enter the slow-motion exodus of recent decades. provide realistic, humane, or lasting so-
United States without documentation lutions to our common dilemma.
every year.
Durable and just immigration reform
In light of this question and Mexico’s must include a commitment to help
leading role in sending immigrants stabilize Mexico’s most vulnerable im-
to the United States, we have invited migrant sending communities. Strate-
a group of experts from both coun- gic investment of resources to concrete-
tries to join in issuing this report, The ly support the ability of Mexicans to
Right to Stay Home: Alternatives to Mass thrive at home should be central to the
Displacement and Forced Migration in goals of policy planners in both Mexico
North America. and its neighboring trade partner, the
United States. Likewise, a commitment
The report’s authors include econo- to aiding Mexico’s communities should
mists, anthropologists, law professors, compel a comprehensive review of the
journalists, and leaders of social organi- North American Free Trade Agreement
zations. In The Right to Stay Home they (NAFTA) that restores rights for work-
share an array of recent thinking about ers, people, and nature. These are the
the powerful forces driving Mexican Photo by John Gibler issues taken up in The Right to Stay at
migration north of the U.S.-Mexico Home.
border. The aim of their analysis, ideas, Deepening the conversation about the
and proposals is to stir conversation root causes of immigration is essential During the debate over NAFTA’s adop-
among the public, advocates, policy to the political viability and long-term tion fifteen years ago, North American
makers, opinion leaders, and journalists success of any true immigration reform elites hailed the pending treaty as a
who cover immigration issues, on how in the United States. Likewise it is criti- unique opportunity for Mexico to at-
to ease the crushing economic pressures cal to the futures of millions of Mexi- tract foreign investment and achieve
that have won Mexico the unenvied po- cans looking for opportunities to stay rapid development. Some of the agree-
sition of being the world’s undisputed home in Mexico, or, for those who have ment’s more Pollyannaish boosters,
leader in out-migration. already left, to return home. like Mexico’s then-president, Carlos
6 T HE R IGH T T O S T AY HOME
Douglas, Arizona, USA. June 2004. “We’re fortunate enough to live in a country where there are lots of opportunities. And
most of the people who we run into out here want to make that dream happen. Unfortunately, it’s our job to stop that dream.”
—Border Patrol Agent Elizier Vasquez, Arizona, 2007. Photo by Mizue Aizeki.
Salinas, predicted that under NAF- During the first decade and a half of (For more background, see the accom-
TA, Mexico would soon rank among NAFTA, the rate of Mexican migration panying box entitled “Mexico’s Eco-
the powerful economies of the “first to the United States has more than dou- nomic Crisis of 1982 and the Immigra-
world,” thereby eliminating economic bled, despite newly built border fortifica- tion ‘Safety Valve.’”)
motives for emigrating north. tions that have made the journey north
ever more costly, arduous, and deadly. Improving economic conditions on the
Sadly, fifteen years after NAFTA be- Since 1995, when construction of the ground in Mexico is essential to any com-
came law the new opportunities prom- post-NAFTA border fortifications began, prehensive effort to slow or reverse the
ised by its boosters have failed to ma- death rates have climbed steadily along outflow of Mexicans to the United States.
terialize. In fact, the economic gap the U.S.-Mexico border. By August 2008, The people of both our countries have a
between Mexico and the United States a total of 4,827 had died. That means common stake in making Mexico’s econ-
has continued to widen in terms of av- that since 1995, immigrants crossing the omy work for its people in ways that will
erage wages, per capita GDP, and other 1,969 miles of border between our two provide more opportunities for Mexicans
key measures. In addition, income in- countries have died at a rate seventy times to earn a living while staying home. But
equalities have widened within both higher than that of East Germans killed despite the compelling case for change,
Mexico and the United States during crossing the Berlin Wall during its twen- the initiative is unlikely to come from Fe-
the same period. ty-eight years of operation. lipe Calderon, Mexico’s current ruler.
IN T R O D U C T ION 7
Toreal
Any ward a Wo
plan for reducing rkab
economic Thel United
e and States, Humane
on the other hand, Inte
lines thegration
need for continued input and
expulsion from Mexico must include a recently concluded a presidential cam- pressure from informed citizens.
substantial and ongoing investment of paign in which the topics of NAFTA
money, time, and attention to some of and immigration have come to the fore We offer The Right to Stay Home as some-
the country’s poorest regions and com- repeatedly. The country is on the verge thing for people to think about and a tool
munities. It requires a profound shift in of a potentially significant political shift to engage their neighbors, communities,
Mexico’s public policy priorities. The that opens opportunities to recast the and political leaders in a conversation
government would need to push for immigration question in more realis- about what it will take to build a future
revision of some of the most damaging tic ways that move beyond the deeply in which North Americans are joined as
aspects of the current trade and invest- flawed legislation, poisoned national di- good and helpful neighbors, rather than
ment rules embodied in NAFTA, espe- alogue, and fatal political gridlock that separated by hostility and deadly barri-
cially the agreement’s agricultural chap- killed immigration reform efforts in the ers. Breaking the false political frame
ter. It would also need to collect more 110th Congress. that pits the rights of U.S. workers facing
revenue, especially from those at the top hard times against those of Mexicans fac-
of Mexico’s income pyramid, needed to President Elect Barack Obama ran on ing displacement by investing attention
jump-start carefully targeted regional a party platform that acknowledges the and resources to build opportunities for
economic development. Felipe Cal- need for the United States “to do more Mexicans to stay home has been the pub-
deron, a conservative and free-market to promote economic development in lic policy path less trodden. Yet despite
devotee who rose to power backed by migrant-sending nations, to reduce in- its challenges, it is the only path that
Mexico’s wealthiest citizens, has to date centives to come to the United States leads to less immigration and a healthy
shown no inclination to do either. illegally.” The platform also includes a future for our continent.
pledge to “work with Canada and Mex-
In 2006 Calderón ran for president as ico to amend the North American Free For more information and resources,
candidate of the ruling Party of National Trade Agreement so that it works better please contact us at Global Exchange.
Action (PAN). He took office following for all three North American countries,” For more copies of this report, please vis-
months of mass protest led by Andres hinting that Obama understands—or it Global Exchange’s Fair Trade Online
Manuel Lopez Obrador, the opposi- at least some on his team do—that ad- Store. We also encourage you to make use
tion presidential candidate of the Party dressing the challenges of immigration of the online version of the report, which
of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), comprehensively means thinking be- is linked to more background materials
who claimed—along with millions of yond the borders of our country. and resources: www.globalexchange.org/
his followers—that fraud had thrown the-right-to-stay-home.
the election to Calderón. The Democratic Party position offers
hope that common sense might have a Sincere appreciation to Angela Walker,
Lopez Obrador, during his campaign, had foothold in an Obama administration, Dwight Dyer, Emily Keller, and Hector
called for revision of key NAFTA clauses but the notorious distance between the Sánchez, and Michael O’Heaney for
and criticized the economic model that promises of political platforms and their their indispensable assistance in putting
originally gave rise to the treaty. Calderón, implementation as public policy under- this report together.
on the other hand, explicitly ruled out
any alteration of NAFTA, and since tak-
ing power has joined ongoing efforts by
the George W. Bush administration and
the prime minister of Canada to expand
NAFTA’s reach. Campaign pledges by
Calderón to provide extraordinary sup-
port for economic development of Mex-
ico’s most active migrant “sending com-
munities” have gone unaccomplished.
For now, change won’t come from the top
in Mexico unless there is renewed pres-
sure from below or strong encouragement
and support from its northern neighbor.
Mexico’s Economic Crisis of 1982 and the Immigration “Safety Valve”
The origins of Mexico’s modern economic woes go back more than a quarter century to the debt and
liquidity crisis that hit Mexico in 1982, which brought an end to decades of steady economic growth
and broad government subsidies for the poor.
Paradoxically, new oil discoveries in the 1970s, that promised to be founts of prosperity, ultimately
paved the way for Mexico’s financial meltdown. Easy international credit based on erroneous as-
sumptions about potential revenue from new oil production led to a huge spike in government
spending. Borrowed funds supported investment in the oil industry, expansion of social and subsidy
programs, and even went to prop up the critically weak national currency, the peso. Corruption and
misappropriation of public funds also played a big role in the government’s accumulation of more
than eighty billion dollars of debt, twenty-five billion of which was owed to U.S. banks.
In August 1982, falling oil prices, high interest rates, and dwindling foreign reserves forced Mex-
ico to default and halt payment on these loans.
As the first domino to topple in a worldwide series of defaults by more than twenty countries,
including other major oil producers, such as Nigeria and Venezuela, and large economies like
Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, Mexico’s response threatened the world financial system.
Under international pressure, Mexico rescheduled its debt and accepted a $4.5-billion dollar “res-
cue” loan from the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), conditioned on “structural man-
dates,” which included strict fiscal austerity
measures such as deep cuts in government
food and social programs and a privatiza-
tion program designed to reduce the role
of the government in heavy manufacturing,
transport, communications, agriculture, and
other key industries.
Both the “crisis” and the IMF “medicine”

caused great economic pain in Mexico.
However, even as inflation ravaged Mexican
household budgets and savings, Mexicans
suffered and complained but did not revolt.
Increased migration to the United States
became a critical safety valve that released
the potentially explosive political pressures
that had built up during that decade. Today’s
far higher levels of migration to the United
States continue to protect the government
from the ire of millions of Mexicans who
choose to flee Mexico to seek opportunity
abroad rather than stay home and fight for
their rights.
Detail of mural in Altar, Sonora—a Mexican town close to the border. Photo by John Gibler.
IN T R O D U C T ION 9
NAFTA
A North and Immigration:
America that Works for All its People
To wa rd a W or k a b l e an d Humane In te gration
Jeff Faux
Dissecting the continent-wide web of po- NAFTA’s Unfulfilled Promises widely publicized forecasts that the agree-
litical and economic interests underpin- Promoters of NAFTA would rather for- ment would generate a massive economic
ning the negotiation of the North American get it, but a major part of their argument boom south of the border turned out to
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Faux for the agreement was that it would re- be dead wrong. For example, the U.S.
links NAFTA’s failure to spur Mexican duce illegal migration from Mexico. As undersecretary of commerce predicted
economic growth and job creation to the the late political reporter Elizabeth Drew that Mexico’s growth would be “between
recent spike in undocumented migration. observed, “Anti-immigration was a sub- a supercharged 6% a year, worthy of Asia’s
Faux examines North American trade and theme used, usually sotto voce, by the tigers, and a startling 12% per year,”6 com-
labor integration from regional and global treaty’s supporters.”1 Often it was not so parable to China. Instead, Mexico’s growth
perspectives, expounding the need to recast “sotto.” At a 1993 White House rally to has averaged 3 percent, far too small to
pressure Congress to approve the treaty,
NAFTA and U.S. immigration policies provide jobs for its growing labor force.
President Bill Clinton promised that
within a conceptual framework that explic-
there would be “less illegal immigration
itly acknowledges the trade-immigration Secondly, the massive imports of subsi-
because more Mexicans will be able to
connection. Focusing on improved Mexican dized grain, beans, and other commodi-
support their children by staying home.”2
economic competitiveness and income dis- Said ex-president Gerald Ford: “We don’t ties from the United States and Canada,
tribution as key to reducing immigration want a huge flow of illegal immigrants encouraged by NAFTA, has destroyed the
incentives, he proposes EU-model “cohesion into the United States from Mexico. . . . livelihood of at least two million farmers
funds” to encourage institutional reforms If you defeat NAFTA, you have to share and devastated the communities that de-
and stimulate investment in Mexican in- the responsibility for increased immigra- pended on them. Migration off the farm
frastructure and social development. Faux tion into the United States, where they was nothing new; it has been going on
concludes with a call to develop and imple- want jobs that are presently being held by in Mexico, as in most of the world, for
ment a common legislative agenda, includ- Americans.”3 Another ex-president, Jim- decades. What turned it into a crisis was
ing a North American Bill of Rights and a my Carter, added that if Congress turned the impact of NAFTA and the Mexican
Continental Development Strategy. down NAFTA, “illegal immigration will government’s brutal legal attack on small
increase. American jobs will be lost.”4 landholders that accompanied it, which
Introduction produced the sudden and massive dislo-
Immigration, by definition, is a phenom- The anti-immigration card was not just cation of farm families. The dislocation
enon of both sides of a frontier. Yet in played by U.S. leaders. When Mexican was deliberate. Behind their rosy rheto-
the United States it is commonly seen as president Carlos Salinas came to Wash- ric, Mexico’s neoliberals and their U.S.
ington to promote NAFTA he asked:
an issue that should be addressed by uni- collaborators were pursuing a large-scale
“Do you want our tomatoes or our to-
lateral U.S. government decisions. Thus program of government social engineer-
mato-pickers?”5 At the time, illegal im-
framed, the public’s understanding of ing aimed at forcing Mexico’s rural pop-
migration from Mexico was not a major
the immigration is too narrow to lead to ulation off the land and into the cities,
political issue in the United States. But
sensible, humane, and lasting solutions. instead of alleviating the conditions that making way for the corporate takeover
Not all recent immigrants to the United were causing out-migration to the United of Mexican agriculture. Once in the cit-
States are Latinos. And not all Latinos States, NAFTA made them worse. Since ies, the rural migrants were expected to
come from Mexico. But the dramatic in- its implementation in January 1994, the provide cheap labor for the foreign in-
crease in undocumented Mexican work- annual immigration of undocumented vestment that NAFTA was supposed to
ers has elevated immigration to a divisive workers from Mexico has roughly dou- generate. Ten years after NAFTA, Tina
and potentially explosive issue. In the bled. In effect, NAFTA turned a modest Rosenberg wrote in the New York Times:
United States the debates for the most and manageable rate of out-migration “Mexican officials say openly that they
part ignore the conditions in Mexico that from Mexico to the United States into a long ago concluded that small agriculture
have made people so desperate that they political crisis on both sides of the border. was inefficient, and that the solution for
risk their lives to cross the border in or- farmers was to find other work.”7
der to get grueling work at low pay. Also First and most obviously, NAFTA failed to
ignored is NAFTA’s major contribution deliver on Clinton’s promise of great new In order to calm the fears of farmers, the
to the problem. opportunities for Mexican families. The Mexican government promised generous
financial and technical assistance that There were many motivations and in-
would enable small farms to increase terests that contributed to the political
their productivity in order to meet the support for NAFTA. But one surely
new competition. But after the treaty was was the concern in Washington—after
signed funding for Mexican farm pro- the Mexican presidential election of
grams was severely cut back. Meanwhile 1988—that some future leftist govern-
Congress massively increased subsidies ment might reverse the neoliberal “re-
for U.S. agribusiness. This enhanced forms” of Mexico’s governing oligarchs.
“comparative advantage” enabled U.S. By facilitating business partnerships be-
food multinationals to drive Mexican tween the rich and powerful in all three
farmers out of their own markets. countries protected by an international
treaty, NAFTA was an attempt to make
The promised demand for labor in the these “reforms” permanent, thereby
cities never materialized. So the displaced saving the Mexican elite from having
campesinos joined the swelling army of to share income, wealth, and political
unemployed and underemployed that power with their country’s people.
feeds into the migrant stream headed
north—to the maquiladora at the border After NAFTA was approved, one promi-
and beyond. nent Mexican analyst wrote that it was
“an agreement for the rich and powerful
The communities left behind, deprived in the United States, Mexico and Canada,
of men and increasingly of women as an agreement effectively excluding the
well, have been devastated. Those who ordinary people in all three societies.”8
stay are too old or too young to migrate. In this sense, “ordinary people” refers to “We had jobs in Mexico...
For the people who do remain, there the vast majority in all three nations who What we didn’t have were salaries.”
are few options. In some places narco- must work in order to maintain a decent Courtesy of La Jornada.
traffickers have stepped into the vacuum, standard of living for themselves and their
financing seed and providing protection families. But NAFTA did more than leave abandoned by government policy and
for those who would diversify into rais- them out. By providing extraordinary increasingly undercut by North America
ing marijuana. protections to private multinational in- retailers and Asian manufacturers.
vestors and undermining government ca-
Class Across the Borders pacity to protect workers, farmers, small For those at the top on both sides of the
If NAFTA had been the simple free-trade business, and others with weak market border, NAFTA has generally been a
agreement that its supporters claimed it power, NAFTA was designed to reduce great success. The story of the Citigroup
was, it could have been written on a few the bargaining power of ordinary citizens purchase of Banamex is one illustration
pages. Instead it is a thousand pages de- in the new North American common of how it worked (see text box). As this
signed to expand and make permanent market that it created. So it is not surpris- story illustrates, NAFTA has created a
the transition to neoliberal economics in ing that the growth that did occur after cross-border class of business and po-
all three countries—Canada, the United NAFTA further imbalanced the already litical elites whose power and wealth is
States and Mexico—that had begun uneven distribution of income among continental in scope. Yet the citizens of
in the 1980s. Its core objective was to regions and people. In Mexico, growth Mexico, the United States, and Canada
shift government policy away from na- has been heavily concentrated in the bor- are encouraged by their media and po-
tional economic and social development der export industries, which do very little litical leaders to think of it in exclusively
and toward the support of short-term to develop local supply networks within national terms. Thus, in a recent poll, a
profit-making opportunities through the country. Domestic industries produc- majority in each nation responded that
deregulation, privatization and erosion ing for the internal economy—where the the other two nations benefited more
of the social safety net. local multipliers are much higher—were than theirs did.
A NO R T H AME R ICA T HA T W O R K S FO R ALL I T S P EO P LE 11

In fact, workers in all three countries he has been silent about the harsh and tic market of over one hundred million
bore the costs while their elites gained brutal conditions suffered by Mexico’s potential consumers. The core problem
the benefits. In NAFTA’s first decade, own domestic labor force and migrants with the Mexican economy is that it is
real worker compensation (wages and to Mexico from Central America. ruled by an oligarchy of rich families in
benefits after adjustment for inflation) a system of hyper-crony capitalism. As in
fell dramatically behind the increase in The wife of a Mexican official exclaimed many developing countries, the largest
workers’ productivity in all three coun- recently at a private dinner party, “If the part of Mexico’s economic problem lies
tries’ manufacturing sector—which is Americans seal off the border, there will be not in restricted export markets but in
where imports and exports are concen- a revolution here.” But revolution or not, the stifling maldistribution of wealth and
trated. Workers’ productivity rose 68 Mexico cannot develop by sending its most power that restricts internal growth.
percent, 33 percent, and 81 percent in ambitious and industrious workers to the
Mexico, Canada, and the United States, United States. The people who migrate are There is a widespread assumption in all
respectively. Wages on the other hand, the working-class risk takers—those who three countries that NAFTA was a one-
inched up 2 percent, 3 percent, and 5 save up the $2,000 to pay a smuggler to time event that occurred some fifteen
percent. In the new North American in- take them across the river and who, once in years ago. But NAFTA was designed to
tegrated economy, workers have more in the United States, send home remittances be dynamic, not static.. It is the legal,
common with workers across the border out of their meager wages. Mexico needs or more accurately the “constitution-
than they do with bosses who happen to these people. It paid for the cost of their al,” framework within which the con-
share their nationality but are suppress- upbringing and education, in effect subsi- tinental political class is busy filling in
ing their wages. dizing U.S. consumers of low-wage work. more deals and agreements away from
public scrutiny. The Security and Pros-
Since Mexico’s ordinary working people Where We Are Headed perity Partnership (SPP) is an obvious
are generally poorer and live closer to On our current trajectory, things will get example. The SPP had two stated ob-
subsistence than those in the United worse for as far into the future as we can jectives. One was to integrate the mili-
States or Canada, the effect of NAFTA see. Even the Mexican government ac- tary and police functions in the “War
and neoliberal policies have hit them knowledges it; a November 2007 report on Terror.” The second was to further
the hardest. Hence the acceleration in concluded that even if the overall econ- the neoliberal agenda with policies
out-migration. omy grows steadily, low wages and so- that would promote more continental
cial inequality will continue to generate deregulation and the privatization of
Like NAFTA, increased immigration to heavy out-migration to the United States natural resources, including Mexican
the United States—legal or illegal—ben- at the current annual rate of roughly oil and Canadian water.
efits the rich and powerful on both sides 500,000—for the next fifteen years.9
of the border. In the United States, they There is nothing necessarily odious
have a source of docile inexpensive labor Mexico’s overall growth is actually flag- about governments cooperating in these
to undercut domestic wages. In Mexico, ging. The International Monetary Fund areas. Whatever you think about the War
the oligarchs get a double benefit. First, estimates that Mexico grew more slowly on Terror, it makes sense for authorities
remittances provide the economy with in 2007 than all but one country in Latin to work together to keep people from
an annual injection of over $20 billion America. For 2008 it expects Mexico to setting off bombs in public places. The
in hard currency. Second, they get to ex- be at the bottom—below even Haiti. The problem is that the SPP’s national se-
port their most ambitious, energetic, and next few years look particularly grim. The curity agenda is a creature of the U.S.
frustrated workers, who otherwise would slowdown in the U.S. economy has already military-industrial complex and is an in-
be a source of political trouble. rippled though Mexico. Remittances from strument for spreading and encouraging
Mexican workers in the U.S. have dropped the worst antidemocratic habits of the
For Mexico’s elite, the public focus two years in a row. Mexico may also be police in all three countries. The Mérida
on the condition of Mexican workers heading toward its own major financial Initiative, for example, mimics the failed,
in the United States also has the great crisis brought on by sub-prime credit-card wasteful, and disgracefully misguided
virtue of diverting political attention loans from the almost totally foreign- U.S. “War on Drugs.” It is an arrange-
from the condition of Mexican work- owned Mexican banks to consumers who ment in which Mexico gets guidance on
ers in Mexico. The current Mexican do not earn enough to pay them back. how to control the drug market within
president—like the last one—has been its borders from the United States, which
loudly indignant, and rightly so, over Mexico is a not a naturally poor coun- has proven unable or unwilling to do it
the maltreatment of undocumented mi- try. It has plenty of resources, including within its own borders. Like the War on
grants at U.S. farms and factories. But oil, hardworking people, and a domes- Drugs, it is largely a plan to fatten the
The newly built border wall at Sasabe on the Sonora-AZ border. Photo by John Gibler.
budgets of the police with money from and humane society but in a continental First, North American economic inte-
outside sources that makes them even market with robber-baron values and gration—whether it continues under
less locally accountable. without a social contract. NAFTA or in another form—is here
to stay. We cannot put the toothpaste
Neither is it necessarily wrong for gov- The result of our current political and of NAFTA back in the tube. Every day
ernments to harmonize laws and proce- economic trajectory is predictable. More more business connections in finance,
dures to facilitate commerce. After all, uneven growth and economic dislocation, marketing, and production are being
Mexico, the United States, and Canada more out-migration, more ethnic tension hardwired for the continental market.
have been trading with each other for a between the legal and illegal members of Almost 70 percent of U.S. trade with
couple of centuries, long before the ar- the U.S. working class. Mexico is within the same firm or related
rival of NAFTA and neoliberal ideology. firms producing the same final product.
But the SPP’s economic agenda is entire- Where Do We Go from Here? A wide array of manufacturers of elec-
ly in the hands of the cross-border elite Writer James Baldwin once wrote, “Not tronics, telecommunications equipment,
(its economic arm is the North American everything that is faced can be changed. textiles, and automobiles have perma-
Competitiveness Council, composed al- But nothing can be changed unless it is nent supply lines running across the bor-
most entirely of representatives of large faced.” A strategy for a change in direc- ders. For professionals from the United
corporations and banks from all three tion of trade and immigration policy States and Canada—and increasingly
countries) whose interest is not in a just must begin by facing some realities. from Mexico—career ladders are already

Maribel Ramirez and Laura and Alejandro Langley top and bag onions at sunset. Onion harvesters work in the morning and evening,
and don’t work during the early afternoon when the heat is unbearable. Photo by David Bacon.
continental. At the other end of the labor the treaty is not in the political cards. makes sense. But opposition to immi-
market, migrant workers from Mexico More importantly, polls suggest that al- gration often spills over into xenopho-
have spread to virtually every region in though most Canadian, Mexican, and bia: “Mexicans are taking our jobs,”
every industry to the north. Despite the U.S. citizens think that their country “Americans are taking over our busi-
barriers, many undocumented migrants has not benefited, most also think that nesses,” “Canadians are undercutting
move back and forth across the border. integration is a good idea.10 This makes our lumber prices.” Scapegoating
They are not as free to move back and it easy to paint opposition to integrationforeigners can make it easier to gain
forth as people from Mississippi who mi- as essentially “reactionary”—an attempt popular support but in the end it makes
grate to Chicago, but they are more free to hold back the future. it harder to create the cross-border alli-
than undocumented workers from Rus- ance of ordinary people that is needed
sia who migrate there. In all three countries, the opposition to challenge the cross-border alliance
to integration has been rooted in the of elites.
Second, it follows that simply demand- defense of national sovereignty, with
ing that NAFTA be torn up and that we a strong flavor of simple nationalism. Moreover, defense of sovereignty can also
return to the pre-NAFTA world will not Since a strong public sector is essential rationalize the neoliberal agenda. Politi-
work. Barack Obama’s quick retreat on to reclaiming democratic control over cians in all three countries have attacked
this point after his 2008 presidential pri- the market in all three countries, de- efforts to put labor rights and standards
mary campaign illustrates that abrogating fending national government authority into NAFTA and “NAFTA-Plus” on the
grounds that it violates the sovereign ue, will be heading for the border over Clearly, to be politically effective, the
right of each nation to manage its own the next decade or so. alternative must evolve out of wide de-
social policy, while at the same time hav- bate, dialogue, and discussion among the
ing happily given away the sovereign A fourth reality is that global compe- many people and institutions needed to
right to manage their financial markets tition is dramatically undercutting the make up a serious cross-border popular
and tax systems. competitive position of the United movement. One starting point for that
States and the linked economies of discussion might be a set of common de-
A third reality is that none of the Mexico and Canada, which like the mands for a revision of NAFTA.
proposed immigration reforms in the United States are losing jobs to the rest
U.S. debate lead to a permanent satis- of the world, particularly Asia. For the The foundation for a common pro-
factory solution. The generic solution last two decades, this reality has been gram already exists. It is strongest and
of the Republican Right is simple and masked by the unique status of the U.S most conscious among farmers and
easy to understand: deport people who dollar as the world’s economic reserve their organizations and political allies in
are here illegally and build an impen- currency, which has allowed the United Mexico. For several years they have been
etrable wall along the border. Deport- States to borrow from the rest of the demanding that their government rene-
ing twelve million people is absurd world in order to maintain its high lev- gotiate the lethal concessions it made in
and virtually everyone knows it. And el of consumer spending, providing the the agriculture chapter of the agreement.
while the wall and increased vigilance chief export market for both Mexico Yet each time they demonstrate and agi-
may have some short-term effect, his- and Canada. This is clearly not sustain- tate, they are told by their government
tory suggests that it cannot stem the able and is now changing. Each of the that revision is impossible because Can-
tide of desperate people. North American countries will need a ada and the United States will not do it,
strategy to prevent further erosion of a message reinforced by the statements
In contrast, the Democratic bumper- its living standards. Given the reality from the U.S. and Canadian embassies
sticker solution to illegal immigration of the economic integration, a coordi- in Mexico City.
is to legalize those who are here. This nated approach to the shared problem
is certainly a sensible proposal, since of economic growth is essential. Mexican farmers cannot win their fight
wholesale deportation is impractical. without strong allies in the United States
But it does not deal with the future. This brings us to the paralyzing and con- and Canada. But the alliance must be
Indeed, it is not unreasonable for the tradictory paradox of the evolving North based on mutual self-interest, not just
average American voter to think that American market. Given the extent of eco- a charitable impulse. Today there are
legalizing those already here would in- nomic integration, we need shared and co- constituencies in both the United States
crease the incentive for those who still ordinated policies to support a prosperous and Canada that would support a rene-
want to come. This in turn raises the economy and a social contract that extends gotiation of NAFTA in their own inter-
spectrum of unlimited immigration—a across the borders. But under current po- est. The most important are the trade
political nonstarter. litical conditions, policy coordination will unions and environmental groups that
be dominated by business and political want labor and environmental protec-
This has led some Democrats—includ- elites. These elites have little interest in tions. Polls show that a majority of
ing liberals like Senator Ted Kennedy— making their economies as a whole (as citizens in all three countries favor such
to endorse George Bush’s proposal to opposed to their particular investments) protections in trade agreements. Thus
legalize future flows with a program of prosperous, just and humane. there is a solid basis for the organizing of
temporary “guest workers.” Popular There is an old political saying: “You companion and connected demands for
resistance to such a program is high, can’t beat someone with no one.” That NAFTA renegotiation. The pledge dur-
however, and the House of Represen- is, you cannot win elections just by ing the 2008 presidential primaries by
tatives last year said no. This year the criticizing a bad candidate; you have to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clin-
Senate approved a bill that would allow have a candidate of your own. Thus, in ton (whose husband pushed the agree-
a maximum of two hundred thousand order to win the war against neoliberal ment through Congress) to renegotiate
temporary workers from all countries to integration in North America, the pro- NAFTA – which was incorporated into
work here at any one time. This is the gressive opposition needs its own pro- the 2008 Democratic Party platform
highest number that could conceivably gressive version of a just and sustain- — reflects this popular pressure in the
gain enough political support for pas- able North American economy upon United States.
sage, and it is too small to accommodate which to build a vision and politics
anything near the number of Mexican that can represent the future, not just NAFTA should be more than renegoti-
workers who, if current policies contin- protect the past. ated; it should be replaced with a new

vision for a people-focused North Amer- lucrative as in the richer nations—people vision that might—with debates, elabo-
ican economy. For starters, the debate preferred to remain in their own country. ration, and coordinated political work—
needs to be connected to the issue of So one aim of a new North American deal appeal to majorities in all three countries
immigration and aimed at a more fun- would be to provide for a similar fund in contrast to the reactionary agenda
damental change in the basic idea of the for investment in Mexico in exchange for their corporate-financed-policy classes
agreement. Here we can take some inspi- changes in Mexican law and institutions are pursuing. A cross-border movement
ration from the European Union. that would allow the income of Mexican with such a common program could
workers to rise as their economy grows. build on the many organizational and
The European Union is a common mar- These would include guarantees for free personal relationships that already ex-
ket that allows for the free movement trade unions, enforceable minimum wag- ist. Early steps to gain experience and
of workers across borders. When the es, and an increase in education and other trust could include joint actions against
treaty setting up the European Union social spending. The cost of such a cohe- corporate abuses that span the conti-
was being debated, there was resistance sion fund would be about $100 billion, nent. A simultaneous strike against a
and anxiety among the richer member much of it in the form of loan guarantees common employer or a protest against
countries that workers from the poorest rather than cash, not an insignificant sum a common environmental abuse could
nation—Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and but certainly affordable for a nation will- dramatize the interests that people in all
Greec—would overrun their economies. ing to waste $2–3 trillion on a hopeless three countries share. Progressives could
So the European Union was constructed war in Iraq. develop a common legislative agenda,
with a conscious “cohesion” policy. The introducing the same proposals in all
wealthier countries provided loans and This overarching vision could include a three legislatures.
grants for infrastructure, industrial de- bill of rights for citizens of North America,
velopment, and other activities designed enforceable in all countries, which would Such a political project here in North
to close the gap between richer and reassert the primacy of civil protection of America could reinforce beleaguered
poorer economies. individuals and democratic government progressives in Europe, South America,
over the extraordinary privileges that and Southeast Asia who are trying to
Despite the European Union’s continued NAFTA gives to corporate investors. It bring to life regional models of devel-
struggles over a social charter, the basic would also provide for a continental development that respect human life and
policy was a resounding success. Unlike opment strategy that shifts the economic dignity. Finally, it could help undercut
NAFTA, the poorer nations grew faster policy objectives of all three countries U.S. elites’ illusions of their moral right
than the richer ones and the gap between from subsidizing pursuit of global profits to rule the world—an imperial agenda
them narrowed. In the case of Ireland, it by corporate investors to support of great- to which elites in Mexico and Canada
disappeared. Most stunning of all is what er self-sufficiency, resource conservation, have given overt and covert support—
did not occur—the feared mass migra- and increased investment in health, edu- and force a new generation of leaders to
tion of the unemployed. As it turned out, cation, and other social goals. turn to the humbler but more produc-
when decent opportunities were created tive task of making their own part of the
at home—even if the jobs were not as This is but a sketch of the kind of broad globe a better place.
In 1982, when the peso crashed, the Mexican gov- In 1999 Rubin resigned as treasury secretary to be-
ernment bought Banamex as a way of rescuing the come chair of the executive committee of Citigroup.
bank and its Mexican owners from bankruptcy. In Two years later, shortly after the date on which for-
1991, Mexican president Carlos Salinas resold it for eigners could buy controlling interest in Mexican
$4.6 billion to a business group headed by a close banks, Citigroup bought Banamex for $12.5 billion
ally, Roberto Hernández. Two years later, Salinas plus a seat on the Citigroup board for Hernández. Re-
signed NAFTA, which—although it was scarcely cently Hernández masterminded the Citigroup tax-
mentioned—included a timetable for dismantling exempt purchase of Aero México from the Mexican
Mexico’s law against foreign ownership of its com- government in part with the money from that gov-
mercial banks. ernment’s continued subsidy of Citigroup/Banamex.
Robert Rubin, a former co-chair of Goldman-Sachs, Ironically, as even Carlos Salinas has admitted, the
who had helped finance Carlos Salinas’ privatization almost 100 percent foreign-owned Mexican banking
program, was the foremost champion of NAFTA in system has been even less responsive to the need
the Clinton White House. When another peso crisis for local business credit than it was under the old,
hit Mexico in the winter of 1994–95, Rubin, then U.S. inefficient Mexican ownership. The bankers from
treasury secretary, engineered a bailout with govern- New York and Madrid are more interested in taking
ment subsidies of the Wall Street holders of Mexican deposits out of Mexico and investing abroad, and
bonds. As part of the complex deal, Salinas’s suc- in making high-interest-rate loans to consumers to
cessor, Ernesto Zedillo, accelerated the opening of buy Chinese imports, than making loans to develop
Mexican banks to foreigners. At the same time, Ze- Mexican businesses.
dillo subsidized a rescue of Mexican banks by having
his government buying the banks’ largely worthless
portfolios of uncollectible loans on credit.
Notes
1. Elizabeth Drew, On the Edge: the Clinton Presidency (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1994), 299.
2. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks by President Clinton, President Bush, President Carter President Ford and
Vice President Gore in signing of NAFTA Side Agreements, Washington DC, September 14, 1993.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Jeff Faux, The Global Class War (New York: Wiley 2006), 37.
6. Jeffrey Garten, “The Big Emerging Markets: Changing American Interests in the Global Economy,” remarks before the Foreign Policy
Association, January 24, 1994.
7. Tina Rosenberg, “Why Mexico’s Small Corn Farmers Go Hungry,” New York Times, March 3, 2003.
8. Jorge Castañeda. The Mexican Shock (New York: New Press, 1995), 69.
9. “Conapo: la migracion hacia Estados Unidos continuará al menos 15 años,” La Jornada, November 25, 2007, 7.
10. Stephen J. Weber, “In Mexico, U.S. and Canada, Public Support for NAFTA Surprisingly Strong, Given Each Country Sees Grass
as Greener on the Other Side,” WorldPublicOpinion.org, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brlatinamericara/161.
php?nid=&id=&pnt=161 (accessed August 13, 2008).

NAFTA
The Right and Immigration:
to Stay:
Reactivate
To wa rd aAgriculture,
W or k a b l e Retain the Population
an d Humane In te gration
Armando Bartra
Focusing on the impact of free-trade policies food-grain production is increasingly Migrants have always existed but today
in the Mexican agricultural sector, Bartra forced to the sideline. they form a legion, a legion that coin-
expounds on the need to retain and enhance cides with the introduction of “structural
Mexican food and labor sovereignty to stem 1. The Ailment adjustment” programs and the launch of
the “migration compulsion” gripping ru- As tariff barriers have been dismantled NAFTA in 1994. The policies that were
ral farming communities. He outlines the to allow for free exchange of goods and supposed to carry the country into the
shortcomings of government poverty-allevi- services, walls have been built to prevent First World, have instead forced Mexi-
ation programs and the consequences of the free movement of workers, criminaliz- cans into the United States. The inter-
migration exodus—including crippling la- ing migrant access to the labor markets national treaties that were supposed to
bor shortages and remittance dependency— of the developed world. The millions of deliver us from underdevelopment have
on Mexican agricultural production and undocumented workers in the United instead made us flounder in crisis and
peasant livelihoods. Advocating the “right States are a disadvantaged army of sur- exodus. Paradoxically, NAFTA hardly
to not emigrate,” Bartra calls for a new plus labor with low wages, poor working touches on migration issues. The failure
relationship between the Mexican govern- conditions, weak unionizing rights, and of NAFTA speaks to the discrimination
ment and agricultural producers based on few if any social benefits. They represent of “human merchandise” and debunks
renewed state commitment to rural social a cheap, vulnerable workforce, willing to the hypothesis that commercial liberal-
welfare and concrete actions to stimulate lo- take the worst jobs and work to the bone. ization will stimulate Mexican economic
cal economic development. Economically profitable for employers, growth and job creation, thereby decreas-
labor illegality is socially disruptive. ing out-migration and improving wages
Introduction and working conditions in the receiving
Global and growing, migration from Migratory Mexico country’s labor markets.
South to North and East to West is not We are an abandoned and in-transit
a manageable population adjustment country, the world champions of exo- The remedy turned out to be worse than
but rather an uncontrolled human flow. dus. No country is emptying as quickly the ailment. Trade liberalization un-
It is an uncontainable demographic tor- as Mexico. Nearly thirty million Mexi- der extreme asymmetries has destroyed
rent that speaks less of a virtuous balance cans now live on the other side of the the Mexican economy. It has killed off
between labor supply and demand, and border, of which less than half were small- and medium-sized businesses that
more of plunder and brutal exclusion born in Mexico and perhaps one half serve the domestic market and provide
dramatized by legions of marginalized of that are undocumented. A country jobs, and wiped out peasant agriculture
people in movement—an ailing yet with a shattered present and uncertain that feeds nearly a quarter of the pop-
hopeful army pursuing a mirage across future means an uprooted and transient ulation—in particular, the producers
rivers, oceans, and borders, and sow- nation. Mexicans are a binational peo- of basic grains on which the country’s
ing the whole world with “aliens.” No ple. The symbiosis with our northern food security depends. The wholesale
neighborhood in the “developed” world neighbor is also evident in substantial dismantling of Mexico’s productive in-
is safe from the invasion of “southies” or and growing economic flows. Remit- frastructure has generated a growing and
“Orientals.” tances, the money sent home by mi- uncontrollable exodus.
grants, reached $25 billion in 2007—an
The remedy for this maddening amount three times the value of agri- The “Demographic Bonus”
twenty-first-century exodus is, at least cultural exports, much higher than an- Mexico’s central bank began measur-
in part, the recovery of food and la- nual tourism revenue, larger than total ing remittance flows in 1995. In 2004,
bor sovereignty in sending countries foreign direct investment, and second it recorded fifty-one million transac-
through the revitalization of agricul- only to oil exports. These remittances tions worth an average of $327 each,
tural sectors and investment in peasant greatly exceed federal expenditures on approximately $16 billion. However, this
producers. The urgency is now greater rural programs such as Alianza para el figure includes only recorded transac-
than ever: as rising oil prices signal the Campo and Procampo, even after tak- tions; we must still account for the value
end of cheap transportation and global ing into account the Ministry of Agri- of funds sent through friends and family
demand for biofuels intensifies, basic culture’s operating costs. members, as well as merchandise sent as
Former Mexican Agriculture Minister and Golf Enthusiast, Javier Usabiaga. Photo by Rocha, courtesy of La Jornada.
gifts. Citing a study by the University of remittance amounts are severely overesti- cumulative foreign direct investment be-
California, Rafael Alarcon, an academic mated and the figure should be halved. tween 1994 and 2003, they simply com-
at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, pensate for the current deficit, sustain
states that “nearly a third of remittances The difference between these calcula- the value of the peso, and stimulate the
are sent through relatives and friends.”1 tions is dramatic but the problem is not domestic consumer goods market.
If this is true, remittances are grossly un- so much with the magnitude of the re-
derestimated and the amount should be mittances as with the recipients them- Although Mexico’s population is predom-
approximately 30 percent higher. selves. Here discrepancies fade away: inately young today, in twenty or twenty-
“Remittances are a complement to or a five years it will be mostly old. There are
Jose Santibañez Romellón, president substitute for wages and not investment currently over eight million people aged
of the same academic institution, also capital,” concluded an International sixty and older, making up 7.7 percent
considers the central bank’s figure Monetary Fund (IMF) study in 2005.3 of the population. By the middle of the
“questionable”—besides remittances, Reiterating its position, the IMF states, century, there will be thirty-six million
it includes other types of transactions, “Remittances can be identified not as senior citizens—28 percent of the total
including “illicit ones,” making “the capital for economic growth, but rather population. The central problem is that
amount that actually reaches homes as compensation for poor economic the majority of Mexicans reaching work-
slightly more than half that reported by performance.” Therefore, although ing age over the last two decades have
the bank.”2 If this analysis is correct, remittances represent over half of the not joined the labor market; rather, they
T HE R IGH T T O S T AY 19
have remained unemployed, entered the to $17 billion, approximately 9 percent.
underground crime economy, or been Furthermore, these figures refer only to
forced to leave the country. the sector where most remittances origi-
nate, and do not include mixed-origin
A Banamex-Citigroup study established families or Mexican-American families.
that while 80 percent of Mexicans resid- If these groups were included, the in-
ing in the United States are between fif- come of Mexican migrants would rise to
teen and fifty-five years of age, only 55 over $400 billion.
percent of the population falls within this
age group in Mexico. The disparity is even Compared with these figures, remittanc-
starker if we focus on young adults: 30 es are pocket change. They are less still
percent of migrants are between the ages of if we consider that the $187 billion or
twenty-five and thirty-five, while in Mex- $400 billion earned by migrants is largely
ico only 15 percent of the population is wages or self-generated income. That is,
within this age range. This shows that the we must still account for employers’ prof-
percentage of young adults in the diaspora its, large figures which depend on capital
is double that in the home country. If it is stock and a capital earnings rate—factors
worrisome that, for lack of a better future, that increase as wages are driven down
one in eleven Mexicans lives in the United by the presence of migrants in the U.S.
States, it is downright alarming that one labor market. The value added accrues to
in six young adults is already on the other the U.S., not the Mexican, economy.
side of the border, while a large number of
those that remain in Mexico are desperate- The destruction of the great reservoir
ly trying to leave. The end of the migra- of subsistence productivity that was the
tory compulsion is nowhere in sight: since Mexican countryside and the disman-
current economic policies cannot sustain tling of the small- and medium-sized en-
economic growth and satisfy the demand terprises that provided employment has
for new jobs—much less make up for the caused a perverse positive feedback loop.
cumulative deficit—the pressure on the The young and more skilled labor force
labor market will remain at current levels emigrates to the United States, where
for another decade. productivity and wages are higher. Conse-
quently, the income generated by youths
Citing a recent study, Isabel Guerrero, born, raised, and educated in Mexico does
World Bank director for Mexico and Co- not serve to increase the country’s wealth
lombia, explains that the reduction in ru- and productive capacity but rather those
ral poverty since 2000 is primarily due to of our neighbor, deepening asymmetries
“the increase in direct transfers”—both that ultimately drive the exodus.
public, such as the Oportunidades pro-
gram, and private, mainly remittances.4 The Need for Strong Arms
This means that the increased income of When indigenous peoples and peasants
the poorest sectors of the population is migrate, they greatly diminish labor
“How many more? Already more than 2,000.” due to transfers, rather than an increase availability in the countryside, driving
Painted on a cross on the Mexican side of the in productivity or improved terms of up relative wages. The problem deepens
border in Sasabe, Sonora. Photo by John Gibler. trade. While the value of remittances is when remittances start arriving. Coupled
undeniably high, they represent a very with resources from “human capital de-
small share of the wealth generated by velopment” government programs like
Mexican workers in the United States. Progresa (which really only prepares fu-
According to Rodolfo Tuirán, “90% of ture migrants), remittances raise the
the income [of Mexicans in the United cost of labor even more. These transfers
States] remains in that country, and only sustain subsistence livelihoods, however
10% is sent back to Mexico.”5 Tuirán precariously, and place local wages in
adds that Mexican migrants earned some competition with the diaspora’s dollars
$187 billion in 2004 and sent back close and the government’s subsidies.
“The border is so large because we are on our knees.” Painted on the Mexican side of the border wall, directly in front of the Sonora State
Migrant Support Office in Nogales, Sonora. Photo by John Gibler.
Coffee production is an example of by migratory youth and the Oportu- peasants are substituting the dollar har-
the grave imbalances created by labor nidades money the government gives vest for the corn harvest,” concludes
market shortages. The crop is mostly away for having lots of kids, nobody Daniel Villafuerte, a professor at the
marketed internationally, and small here wants to work. We’re better off Chiapas Science and Arts University. The
growers, each managing more than cutting down the plantation.”6 situation became critical in late 2007:
half a million holdings of less than ten “The coffee sector crisis in Chiapas is
hectares (approximately 24.7 acres), And so it goes elsewhere. In Veracruz taking a turn for the worse because of the
predominate. In addition to recurring state, “bad weather, abandonment of labor shortage. Day workers—including
drops in producer prices, peasants now fields because of migration, and the ever- Guatemalans—are reluctant to come
have to deal with the shortage of labor- decreasing availability of laborers will work due to low salaries. Chiapas is the
ers willing to pick it. In 2004—despite cause a drastic drop in production, a top coffee producer in Mexico . . . but
the fact that international prices for the drop of fifty percent.”7 the sector’s current situation is very wor-
crop were high that year—a Oaxacan rying. . . . Thousands of local workers,
coffee grower stated, “Coffee growing In the mid-1990s, very few Chiapanecos including the owners of croplands, have
is very laborious. My wife and I cannot left for the United States. Today, around emigrated to the United States leaving
handle it all, but there are no workers thirty thousand people leave every year, many communities with only women,
here. Between the greenbacks sent back most of whom are indigenous. “Chiapas children, and the elderly.”8
The Mixteca region of Oaxaca is one of the poorest areas in Mexico. Indigenous Mixtec, Triqui and other groups from this region now
make up a large percentage of the migrants who have left to work in the United States. But many people try to stay on the land and farm,
despite the difficulty. Zacarias Salazar plows his cornfield behind oxen, in the traditional... Photo by David Bacon.
2. The Remedy Migrants’ Rights and the Right parents’ living conditions and could
Travels are enlightening but when to Not Emigrate hope for further improvement for their
migration is the result of a social ca- I do not want to condemn migration, offspring. This conviction was lost in
tastrophe, it is impossible to normal- which is a right, but the “right to leave” the 1980s when technocratic policies re-
ize or dignify. While the pain can be becomes a compulsion when its sym- duced options for progress by rejecting
attenuated, the real solution lies in metrical guarantee, the “right to stay,” welfare state provisions and betting on a
attacking the causes of the exodus, does not exist. The “right to stay” implies neoliberal model that cared only about
not just its symptoms. Despite being the existence of the material and spiritual exports. By giving up on the internal
very important, the issue of migrants’ conditions necessary to make staying an market, this model also got rid of any
rights does not go to the root cause of option, not a curse. This right is absent redistributive policies.
the human avalanche: the destruction when there is no security, when there
of peripheral societies’ economies. are no liberties, jobs, dignified income, Susan Gzesh, director of the Human
In the new era of globalization, na- or hopeful future. Globalization’s great- Rights Program at the University of Chi-
tions have lost the last tatters of food est gift to rank-and-file “peripheries” cago, reminds, “Any durable ‘solution’
and labor security. Countries such as has been to snuff their expectations of to the massive Mexican exodus to the
Mexico are incapable of meeting their a bright future. After the 1910 revolu- United State should include . . . mea-
population’s basic food and employ- tion, each new generation of Mexicans sures that provide . . . those not wishing
ment needs. could see some improvement over their to migrate the means to remain in their
country. Some groups advocating for hu- I do not propose autarchy. The EU
man rights are starting to focus on ‘the is the prime modern example of how
right not to emigrate.’”9 This right must countries can mutually benefit from
be guaranteed by the state. The Mexican associations that cede some degree of
Constitution’s Article 27 asserts that “the sovereignty. I also do not propose food
State will foster the conditions for inte- and labor self-sufficiency. It is not in-
gral rural development, with the purpose admissible to import some foodstuffs
of creating jobs and guaranteeing the and to say goodbye to some migrants;
peasant population’s welfare.” Article 123 what is inadmissible is to critically
is even more explicit: “Every person has weaken nations by creating absolute
the right to dignified and socially use- food and labor dependency.
ful work; to that effect, job creation and
social organization for Labor will be pro- 3. End of an Era
moted, under the guidelines established Revaluing the countryside demands
by the Law.” However, since the rest of a new rural-urban pact, and within
the article deals only with relations be- this framework, a new relationship
tween employers and workers, a bylaw is between the state and small rural
needed to guarantee the right to work. producers. The peasant movement
has been asking for this since at least
Just as the Mexican Lower Chamber the 1995 protest marches, a year after
passed the Food and Nutrition Security the implementation of NAFTA. The
and Sovereignty Planning Law in 2006, movement vindicated its demands
a similar law for labor security and sov- in 2003, then under the guise of the
ereignty should be passed. It should Countryside Cannot Take it Any-
include the principles of “democratic more movement, when the govern-
planning” and “directorship of development signed the National Accord for
ment” that the Constitution bestows on the Countryside. These demands are
Former Mexican Agriculture Minister and Golf
the state. Also, it should define criteria, heard but not answered; the pacts are
Enthusiast, Javier Usabiaga.Illustration by Rocha,
strategies, and instruments to make it in- signed but not honored. The political
courtesy of La Jornada.
clusive and egalitarian. It should guaran- class is convinced that agriculture must
tee a “dignified and socially useful job,” blindly submit to “market signals,” and
a right currently unavailable to both the that peasants do not have a place in the ripheral countries to the role of agricultural
half million Mexicans that move to the export agribusiness model. raw material suppliers and food importers.
United States every year and the equal
number who annually sink into the un- After World War II, agricultural prices This state of matters has ended. The
derground economy. started a long decline. Food prices have Economist’s food-price index is at its
dropped 75 percent in the last thirty highest point since its measurement
The free market does not provide food years. This decline is due less to new started in 1845, and cereal stocks, as a
and employment. If we want food and land being farmed—indeed large tracts share of total production, are the low-
employment security, we need sover- were subsidized out of production—and est in record. At the end of 2007, wheat
eignty in food and labor matters and more to greater productivity resulting reached $400 per ton, the highest price
consistent government action in de- from Green Revolution technologies in memory, and corn hit $175 per ton,
fense of our social welfare. Food sov- that granted producers relative indepen- a new record. The end of cheap food is
ereignty should be understood as the dence from agro-ecological conditions. inseparable from the end of cheap fuels.
nation’s capacity to foster sustainable These high prices mark the close of a
production of grains and other basic In addition to the explosive increase in historical cycle of capitalist expansion
crops, as well as the population’s capac- irrigation, there was widespread mechani- that began some two hundred years ago,
ity to earn sufficient income to pur- zation, introduction of improved seeds, a an economic order sustained by growing
chase those goods. Labor sovereignty steep hike in the use of chemical fertiliz- energy consumption (more energy has
should be understood as the capacity to ers, new herbicides, and a broad range of been used in the last twenty years than
sponsor the creation of sufficient digni- pesticides. These developments, along with in all previous human history) that was
fied jobs to ensure economic stability subsidies, turned the metropolitan coun- only possible thanks to high-density fos-
for the population. tries into the world’s granary, relegating pe- sil fuels. The impact of oil, gas, and coal
Leaving the provision of foodstuffs in
private hands in times of crisis facilitates
extractive agriculture’s final strike against
peasants and indigenous communities.
Besides not creating jobs, agribusiness
degrades soils, water, and biodiversity,
and favors mining-style land cultivation
that has already shown its limitations.
By monopolizing the means of produc-
tion, patented seed, and the marketing
system, agribusiness controls supply.
Since demand for basic foodstuffs is
inelastic, prices have no limits besides
corporate voracity and the starving con-
sumer’s willingness to pay. Excess profit
is appropriated not by local agents, but
by transnational grain companies—
businesspeople who, unconcerned with
countryside welfare, want to make the
most money in the shortest time while
establishing a predatory agricultural
model that forfeits agricultural jobs.
The local, national, and global alter-

An unemployed woman and man sit in the shade waiting to sell pumpkin seeds to unlikely native is collective peasant-household
visitors. The church in the back ground was built using migrants’ remittances through the production, operating within an institu-
federal “three-for-one” program. Photo by John Gibler. tional framework that enhances social,
environmental, technological, and eco-
combustion on a massive scale is lead- portation costs, progressive diversion nomic virtues. Household production
ing us to an irreversible environmental of agricultural lands to other uses, and can increase agricultural supply as it has
crisis. As the use of these fuels declines, intensifying global warming effects on done historically. Nevertheless, if it lacks
the associated historical development crops, depending on basic grain imports public support and confronts an un-
model will come to a close; its energy is ruinous for countries that can afford regulated economic environment, it will
characteristics are so unusual that we them and suicidal for those that cannot. end up selling at cost or below; exhaust-
are unlikely to see anything like them In the future, recovering food security ing its natural and productive resources,
again.10 and sovereignty to ensure self-sufficien- instead of conserving and increasing
cy, at least in the most highly consumed them. If agribusiness extracts excessive
With the exhaustion of oil reserves, a goods, will be not only socially and profits from society, peasant agriculture
socially destructive and environmentally politically pertinent, but also economi- pays the price and its long-term viabil-
predatory paradigm of civilization, char- cally profitable from the perspective of ity is compromised. What we need is a
acterized by unsustainable energy con- national accounts. new agreement between rural and urban
sumption, will run out of steam. The worlds in which cities recognize and re-
alternative to this seeming dead end lies However, how and by whom can the munerate the real contributions of a so-
not in the development of new energy foods needed by each country be pro- cially just, environmentally sustainable,
sources designed to maintain current duced? The answer is not agribusiness economically efficient countryside. This
levels of consumption, but rather radi- for two reasons. First, its technologi- effort must be embodied in public poli-
cally rethinking and transforming our cal model is predatory. Agricultural cies that give technical and economic
systems of production, marketing, and expansion using this model will have viability to socially and environmen-
consumption. incalculable environmental damage. tally necessary food production, govern-
Second, its economic rationality is ment actions that decisively intervene
The world needs more food but it can- speculative. It will maximize profits in the agricultural market to revitalize
not produce it the way it used to. With by cultivating ever farther and less the rural world through regulation and
high prices, low stocks, rising trans- fertile land. compensatory policies.
In its 2008 World Development Report Changing directions will not be easy pulsion. In 2003, the towns officially
agriculture section, the World Bank ac- but successful experiences point in the registered three thousand hectares of
knowledges that “it is necessary to make right direction. The state of Zacatecas, woodland as Protected Community
this sector the center of development with half its population living as mi- Area for conservation and sustainable
programs”—3 billion of the 5.5 billion grants, is an emblem of the exodus. It is development. They are now developing
inhabitants of developing countries live also a laboratory for alternative uses of ecotourism projects on this land, and
in the countryside, making “a revolu- remittances. Under the 3 x 1 Program— their words synthesize the argument of
tion in the productivity of small rural which offers federal, state, and munici- this essay: “Youth have already caught
producers” necessary. This recognition pal matching funds on a dollar per dollar the migration bug. . . . Between remit-
is welcome. However, to make such a basis—over two thousand development tances and the money the government
productivity revolution effective, these projects have been launched between passes around . . . there are fewer and
countries will need to revitalize their 1993 and 2007.11 fewer people willing to work. However,
peasant economies. Revitalization de- in Lachiguiri and Guienagati, we are de-
pends on two preconditions: the estab- The Zapotec towns of Santa María termined to resist. For example, instead
lishment of food sovereignty through Guienagati and Santiago Lachiguiri, of running to the United States to earn
a reallocation of basic foodstuff pro- Oaxaca, members of the Union of In- famous dollars working for gringos, it is
duction to reduce the energy waste of digenous Communities of the Isthmus better if the güeros come here to vaca-
the global agricultural export industry Region (UCIRI), are precursors of or- tion at the Cerro de las Flores. That way,
that privileges global markets over lo- ganic coffee production. Both have been instead of us having to go suffer in those
cal ones, and the establishment of labor exporting to the European Fair Trade places, they themselves will bring the
sovereignty to reduce the economic cost Market, which they helped to create greenbacks. Besides, we will treat them
and cultural and social erosion driving in 1988. Despite this, their inhabitants better here than they would ever treat us
forced migration. have not escaped the migratory com- over there.”12
Notes
1. Juan Balboa. “Transferencia de Bolsillo y Clubes Migrantes,” La Jornada, September 6, 2004.
2. Jose Santibáñez Romellón, “Los Mitos de las Remesas,” La Jornada, June 13, 2005.
3. Paola Giuliano and Marta Ruiz-Arranz, “Remittances, Financial Development, and Growth,” Working Paper No. 05/234, Interna-
tional Monetary Fund, 2005.
4. Roberto González Amador and Rosa E. Vargas, “Baja Pobreza Rural, Pero Crece Desigualdad,” La Jornada, August 25, 2005.
5. Alma E. Muñoz, “Los Migrantes Destinan a Remesas Casi 10% de Sus Ingresos Anuales,” La Jornada, June 18, 2005.
6. A. Bartra, R., Cobo and L. Paz Paredes, Cafetales Campesinos (Instituto Maya, 2005).
7. Andrés T. Morales. “Prevén Desplome de la Caficultura en Veracruz,” La Jornada. December 7, 2007.
8. Rodolfo Villalba. “Chiapas: Falta de Nano de Obra Agrava Crisis en la Caficultura,” La Jornada, December 29, 2007.
9. Susan Gzesh, “Derechos Humanos y Migración: Una Mirada desde Estados Unidos,” La Jornada del Campo, February 12, 2008.
10. See Jack Santa Bárbara, “The False Promise of Biofuels,” International Forum on Globalization and Institute for Policy Studies, 2007.
11. Rodolfo García Zamora, “Zacatecas: Emblema de la Migración,” La Jornada del Campo, February 12, 2008.
12. Rosario Cobo and Armando Bartra Puerta del Viento, Cerro de las Flores, Área Comunitaria Protegida (México: UCIRI, 2007).
NAFTA and
Equality and Immigration:
Human Rights, Instead of Displacement and
Criminalization
To wa rd a W or k a b l e an d Humane In te gration
By David Bacon
Detailing the economic displacement of As he points out, U.S. trade and immi- a similar agreement with Mexico, the
Mexican agricultural and manufacturing gration policy are part of a single system, commission made a report to President
workers produced by NAFTA and precur- and the negotiation of NAFTA was an George H. W. Bush and to Congress in
sory privatization and economic restruc- important step in the development of 1990. It found, unsurprisingly, that the
turing, Bacon frames trade and immigra- this relationship. main motivation for coming to the Unit-
tion policy as two parts of a single system. ed States was economic.
He argues that U.S. free-trade agreements Since NAFTA’s passage in 1993, the
with countries of unequal economic Congress has debated and passed sev- To slow or halt this flow, it recommended
strength have become a mechanism to eral new trade agreements—with Peru, “promoting greater economic integration
produce workers, while guest worker and Jordan, Chile, as well as the Central between the migrant sending countries
employment-based immigration policies American Free Trade Agreement. At the and the United States through free trade”
are designed to act as an unacknowledged same time it has debated immigration and that “U.S. economic policy should
labor supply system for U.S. industries. policy as though those trade agreements promote a system of open trade.” It con-
Highlighting the inherent contradiction bore no relationship to the waves of dis- cluded that “the United States should
between current trade and immigration placed people migrating to the United expedite the development of a U.S.-
policies, Bacon asserts that trade policy States, looking for work. Meanwhile, Mexico free trade area and encourage its
reform is as important to solving the im- a rising tide of anti-immigrant hyste- incorporation with Canada into a North
migration crisis as granting legal status, ria has increasingly demonized those American free trade area,” while warning
rights, and benefits to undocumented migrants, leading to measures to deny that “it takes many years—even genera-
workers, and calls for the unlinking of im- them jobs, rights, or any pretense of tions—for sustained growth to achieve
migration status and employment. equality with people living in the com- the desired effect.”
munities around them. To resolve any
Economic crises provoked by NAFTA of these dilemmas, from adopting ratio- The negotiations that led to NAFTA
and other economic reforms are now nal and humane immigration policies to started within months of the report. As
uprooting and displacing Mexicans in reducing the fear and hostility toward Congress debated the treaty, President
the country’s most remote areas, where migrants, the starting point must be Salinas toured the United States, telling
people still speak languages that were an examination of the way U.S. poli- audiences unhappy at high levels of im-
old when Columbus arrived from Spain. cies have both produced migration and migration that passing NAFTA would
While California farmworkers twenty criminalized migrants. reduce it by providing employment for
and thirty years ago came from parts of Mexicans in Mexico. Back home Salinas
Mexico with a larger Spanish presence, Trade negotiations and immigration pol- and other treaty proponents made the
migrants today come increasingly from icy were formally joined together when same argument. NAFTA, they claimed,
indigenous communities in states like Congress passed the Immigration Reform would set Mexico on a course to become
Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Guerrero. and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986. While a First World nation. “We did become
most attention has focused on its provi- part of the first world,” says Juan Manuel
Rufino Dominguez, former coordinator sions for amnesty and employer sanc- Sandoval, coordinator of the Permanent
of the Binational Front of Indigenous tions, few noted one other provision of Seminar on Chicano and Border Studies
Organizations, says there are about five the law. IRCA set up a Commission for at Mexico City’s National Institute of An-
hundred thousand indigenous people the Study of International Migration and thropology and History. “The backyard.”
from Oaxaca living in the United States, Cooperative Economic Development to
three hundred thousand in California study the causes of immigration to the NAFTA instead became an impor-
alone. “There are no jobs, and NAFTA United States. The commission was inac- tant source of pressure on Mexicans to
drove the price of corn so low that it’s tive until 1988 but began holding hear- migrate. The treaty forced yellow corn
not economically possible to plant a ings when the United States and Canada grown by Mexican farmers without sub-
crop anymore,” he says. “We come signed a bilateral free-trade agreement. sidies to compete in Mexico’s own mar-
to the United States to work because After Mexican president Carlos Salinas ket with corn from huge U.S. producers,
there’s no alternative.” de Gortari made it plain that he favored subsidized by the United States farm bill.
Agricultural exports to Mexico more than Poor people in Mexican cities fared no
doubled during the NAFTA years, from better. Although a flood of cheap U.S.
$4.6 to $9.8 billion annually—$2.5 bil- grain was supposed to make consumer
lion in 2006 in corn alone. In January prices fall, the opposite occurred. With
and February of 2008, huge demon- the end of the CONASUPO stores and
strations in Mexico sought to block the price controls, the price of tortillas more
implementation of the agreement’s final than doubled in the years that followed
chapter, which lowered the tariff barriers NAFTA’s adoption. One company,
on white corn and beans. Grupo Maseca, monopolized tortilla
production, while Wal-Mart became
As a result of a growing crisis in agricul- Mexico’s largest retailer.
tural production, by the 1980s Mexico
had already become a corn importer Under Mexico’s former national con-
and, according to Sandoval, large farmers tent laws, foreign auto makers like Ford,
switched to other crops when they could Chrysler, General Motors, and Volkswa-
not compete with U.S. grain dump- gen were required to buy some of their
ing. But NAFTA then prohibited price components from Mexican producers.
supports, without which hundreds of Workers labored in the parts plants that
thousands of small farmers found it im- produced them. NAFTA, however, pro-
possible to sell corn or other farm prod- hibited laws requiring foreign producers
ucts for what it cost to produce them. to use a certain percentage of local content
The CONASUPO system (Compañía in assembled products. Without this re-
Nacional de Subsistencias Populares), in straint, the auto giants began to supply
which the government bought corn at their assembly lines with parts from their
subsidized prices, turned it into tortillas own subsidiaries, often manufactured in
and sold them in state-franchised grocery other countries. Mexican parts workers
stores at subsidized low prices, was abol- lost their jobs by the thousands.
ished. And when NAFTA pulled down
customs barriers, large U.S. corporations NAFTA was part of a process that began
dumped even more agricultural products long before, in which economic reforms
on the Mexican market. Rural families restructured the Mexican economy. One Deported migrants cross back into Mexico at the bor-
went hungry when they could not find major objective of those reforms was the der between Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora.
buyers for what they had grown. privatization of the large state sector, em- Photo by John Gibler.
ploying millions of workers. By the early
Mexico could not protect its own ag- 1990s, Mexico had sold not just its mines
riculture from the fluctuations of the to one company, Grupo Mexico, owned eventually anywhere in Mexico, without
world market. A global coffee glut in by the Larreas family, but its steel mill in Mexican partners. U.S.-based Union
the 1990s plunged prices below the cost Michoacan to the Villareals, and its tele- Pacific, in partnership with the Larreas,
of production. A less entrapped govern- phone company to Carlos Slim. Former became the owner of the country’s main
ment might have bought the crops of Mexico City mayor Carlos Hanks drove North–South rail line, and immedi-
Veracruz farmers to keep them afloat or the city’s bus system deeply into debt and ately discontinued virtually all passenger
provided subsidies for other crops. But then bought the lines in the 1990s at service, as railroad corporations had
once free-market strictures were in place public auction. done in the United States. As the Lar-
prohibiting government intervention to reas and Union Pacific moved to boost
help them, those farmers paid the price. Rich Mexicans were not the only benefi- profits and cut labor costs, Mexican rail
Veracruz campesinos joined the stream ciaries of privatization. U.S. companies employment dropped from over 90,000
of workers headed north. were allowed to own land and factories, to 36,000. The railroad union under left-
EQ U ALI T Y AN D H U MAN R IGH T S 27

produced shrank during U.S. reces-
sions. In 2000–01, four hundred thou-
sand jobs were lost on the U.S.-Mexico
border, and in the current recession
thousands more will be eliminated.
All of these policies produce displaced

people who can no longer make a living
or survive as they have done before. The
rosy predictions of NAFTA’s boosters that
it would slow migration proved false. Be-
tween just 2000 and 2005, Mexico lost
nine hundred thousand jobs in the coun-
tryside, and seven hundred thousand in
the cities. Since 1994, six million Mexi-
cans came to live in the United States.
Another million went to work in the ma-
quiladoras. In just five years, from 2000
to 2005, the Mexican population living
in the United States increased from ten
to twelve million. With few green cards
or permanent residence visas available for
San Diego, CA. Expensive homes in a new development overlook the “La Gallinita” Mexicans, most of these migrants were
camp, made by indigenous Mixtec and Zapotec farm workers from Oaxaca, on a hillside undocumented.
outside Oceanside. Photo by David Bacon.
People were migrating from Mexico to
wing leaders Demetrio Vallejo and Val- Vasquez, an activist with the Frente In- the United States long before NAFTA
entin Campa had been so strong that its dígena de Organizaciones Binacionales was negotiated. Juan Manuel Sandoval
strikes challenged the government in the (FIOB) in Fresno, California, says, “The emphasizes that “Mexican labor has al-
1950s. The two spent years in prison for lack of human rights itself is a factor con- ways been linked to the different stages
their temerity. Facing privatization, rail- tributing to migration from Oaxaca and of U.S. capitalist development since the
road workers mounted a wildcat strike to Mexico, since it closes off our ability to 19th century—in times of prosperity,
try to save their jobs, but they lost and call for any change. by the incorporation of big numbers of
their union became a shadow of its for- workers in agricultural, manufacturing,
mer presence in Mexican politics. In NAFTA’s first year, one million Mexi- service and other sectors, and in periods
cans lost their jobs when the peso was de- of economic crisis, by the deportation of
After NAFTA the privatization wave ex- valued. To avert the sell-off of short-term Mexican laborers back to Mexico in huge
panded. Mexico’s ports were sold off and bonds and a flood of capital to the north, numbers.” But from 1982 through the
companies like Stevedoring Services of U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin NAFTA era, successive economic reforms
America, Hutchinson, and TMM now engineered a $20 billion loan to Mexico, produced more migrants. Ejidatarios who
operate the country’s largest shipping which was paid to bondholders, mostly lost their land found jobs as farm workers
terminals. The impact on longshoring U.S. banks. In return, Mexico had to in California. Laid-off railroad workers
wages was devastating. In Manzanillo pledge its oil revenue to pay off foreign traveled north, as their forbears had dur-
and Lazaro Cardenas, the two largest debt, making the country’s primary ing the early 1900s, when Mexican labor
Pacific coast ports, crane drivers made source of income unavailable for social built much of the rail network through
$100–160 per day before privatization in needs, and foreign capital took control of the U.S. Southwest. The displacement
the late 1980s. Today they make $40–50. the Mexican banking system. of people had already grown so large by
In 2006, spreading poverty and the lack 1986 that the commission established by
of a program to create jobs and raise liv- As the Mexican economy, especially IRCA was charged with recommending
ing standards ignited months of conflict the border maquiladora industry, be- measures to halt or slow it.
in Oaxaca, in which strikes and dem- came increasingly tied to the U.S. mar-
onstrations were met with repression ket, Mexican workers lost jobs when Its report urged that “migrant-sending
by an unpopular government. Leoncio the market for what those factories countries should encourage technological
modernization by strengthening and as-
suring intellectual property protection
and by removing existing impediments
to investment” and recommended that
“the United States should condition bi-
lateral aid to sending countries on their
taking the necessary steps toward struc-
tural adjustment. Similarly, U.S. support
for non-project lending by the interna-
tional financial institutions should be
based on the implementation of satisfac-
tory adjustment programs.” The IRCA
commission report even acknowledged
the potential for harm by noting that “ef-
forts should be made to ease transitional
costs in human suffering.”
NAFTA, however, was not intended

to relieve human suffering. “It is the
financial crashes and the economic di-
sasters that drive people to work for
dollars in the United States, to replace
life savings, or just to earn enough to
keep their family at home together,”
says Harvard historian John Womack.
“The debt-induced crash in the 1980s,
before NAFTA, drove people north. .
. . The financial crash and the Rubin-
induced reform of NAFTA, New York’s
financial expropriation of Mexican fi-
nances between 1995 and 2000, drove
the economically wrecked, dispossessed
and impoverished north again.”
Displacement is an unmentionable word

On May Day immigrants and their supporters filled the streets of Los Angeles twice in one day --
in the Washington discourse. But not
a huge march downtown, and another through the Wilshire district’s Miracle Mile. There were
one immigration proposal in Congress
so many people that those participating said they were sin numero -- uncountable. Marchers of
in 2006 and 2007 tried to come to grips
all races and nationalities protested the bills in Congress that would criminalize...
with the policies that uprooted miners,
Photo by David Bacon.
teachers, tree planters, and farmers, in
spite of the fact that legislators voted for is intensive in capital, which is the Immigration policy determines the rules
these policies. In fact, while debating bills American economy. One economy is under which that labor is put to use.
to criminalize undocumented migrants intensive in labor, which is the Mexican
and set up huge guest worker programs, economy. We are two complementary President George Bush says that the pur-
four new trade agreements were intro- economies, and that phenomenon is im- pose of U.S. immigration policy should
duced, each of which would cause more possible to stop.” When Calderón says be to “connect willing employers and
displacement and more migration. “intensive in labor,” he means that mil- willing employees.” He is simply re-
lions of Mexican citizens are being dis- stating what has been true throughout
Today displacement and inequality are placed, and that the country’s economy U.S. history. U.S. immigration policy
deeply ingrained in the free-market econ- cannot produce employment for them. does not stop people from coming into
omy. Mexican president Felipe Calderón To Calderón and employers on both the country, nor is it intended to. Its
said during a recent visit to California, sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, migra- main function is to determine the sta-
“You have two economies. One economy tion is therefore a labor supply system. tus of people once they are here. And an

Mixtec men from Etla, a town in Oaxaca, Mexico, wait for work early in the morning. They live in the Los Peñasquitos canyon on the
north edge of San Diego, and work as day laborers and farm workers — wherever they can find work. Photo by David Bacon.
immigration policy based on providing a produced them. Instead, the producers California fields, and New York office
labor supply produces two effects. Dis- themselves are called illegal. buildings.
placement becomes an unspoken tool
for producing workers, while inequality Companies depend not just on the work- Former Mexican president Vicente Fox
becomes official policy. ers in the factories and fields but also boasted that in 2005 his country’s citi-
on the communities from which they zens working in the United States sent
Some twenty-four million immigrants come. If those communities stop send- back $18 billion. Some estimate that in
live in the United States as either citi- ing workers, the labor supply dries up. 2006 that figure reached $25 billion.
zens or with documents, and twelve Work stops. Yet no company pays for a At the same time, the public funds that
million without them. If migrants ac- single school or clinic, or even any taxes, have historically paid for schools and
tually did go home, whole industries in those communities. public works increasingly leave Mexico
would collapse. And employers benefit in debt to foreign banks. Remittances,
from large numbers of undocumented In the tiny Mexican towns that now as large as they are, cannot make up for
people, since illegality creates an inex- provide workers, free-market and free- this outflow. According to a report to the
pensive system. So-called “illegal” work- trade policies exert pressure to cut the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, remit-
ers produce wealth but receive a smaller government budget for social services. tances accounted for an average of 1.19
share in return—a source of profit for The cost of these services is now borne percent of the gross domestic product be-
those who employ them. No one claims by workers themselves, in the form of tween 1996 and 2000, and 2.14 percent
that these excess profits are “illegal” remittance payments sent back from between 2001 and 2006. Debt payments
and should be returned to those who jobs in Nebraska slaughterhouses, accounted for 3 percent annually. By
partially meeting unmet and unfunded “The governments of both Mexico and
social needs, remittances are indirectly the United States are dependent on the
subsidizing banks. cheap labor of Mexicans. They don’t say
so openly, but they are,” Dominguez
At the same time, companies dependent concludes. “What would improve our
on this immigrant stream gain greater situation is real legal status for the peo-
flexibility in adjusting for the highs and ple already here, and greater availability
lows of market demand. The global of visas based on family reunification.
production system has grown very Legalization and more visas would re-
flexible in accommodating economic solve a lot of problems—not all, but it
booms and busts. Its employment sys- would be a big step,” he says. “Walls
tem is based on the use of contractors, won’t stop migration, but decent wages
which is replacing the system in which and investing money in creating jobs in
workers were directly employed by the our countries of origin would decrease
businesses using their labor. Displaced the pressure forcing us to leave home.
migrant workers are the backbone of Penalizing us by making it illegal for us
this system. Its guiding principle is to work won’t stop migration, since it
that immigration policy and enforce- doesn’t deal with why people come.”
ment should direct immigrants to in-
dustries when their labor is needed and Changing corporate trade policy and
remove them when it is not. stopping neoliberal reforms is as cen-
tral to immigration reform as gaining
Guest-worker and employment-based legal status for undocumented immi-
visa programs were created to accom- grants. It makes no sense to promote
modate these labor needs. When de- more free-trade agreements and then
mand is high, employers recruit work- condemn the migration of the people
ers. When demand falls, those workers they displace. Instead Congress must
“We have a problem. In order to build the anti-
not only have to leave their jobs but the end the use of the free-trade system as
immigrant fence, we need to hire thousands of illegal
country entirely. Today employers and a mechanism for producing displaced
workers.” Cartoon by Fisgon, courtesy of La Jornada.
the Department of Homeland Secu- workers. That also means unlinking im-
rity call for relaxing the requirements migration status and employment. If
on guest-worker visas. Although there employers are allowed to recruit contract thing.” To raise the low cost of immi-
are minimum-wage and housing re- labor abroad and those workers can only grant labor, immigrant workers have to
quirements, the Southern Poverty Law stay if they are continuously employed, be able to organize. Permanent legal sta-
Center report “Close to Slavery” docu- they will never have enforceable rights. tus makes it easier and less risky to orga-
ments the fact that the requirements nize. Guest worker programs, employer
are generally ignored. “These workers The root problem with migration in the sanctions, enforcement, and raids make
don’t have labor rights or benefits,” global economy is that it is forced mi- organizing much more difficult.
Dominguez charges. “It’s like slavery. If gration. A coalition for reform should
workers don’t get paid or they’re cheat- fight for the right of people to choose Corporations and those who benefit
ed, they can’t do anything.” when and how to migrate, including from current priorities might not sup-
the derecho de no migrar (the right not port a more pro-migrant alternative
New guest-worker programs are the to migrate—the right for an alternative but millions of people would. Whether
heart of the corporate program for U.S. to migration). they live in Mexico or the United States,
immigration reform and are combined working people need the same things—
with proposals for increased enforce- At the same time, migrants should have secure jobs at a living wage, rights in
ment and a pro-employer program basic rights regardless of immigration their workplaces and communities, and
for legalization of the undocumented. status. “Otherwise,” Dominguez says, the freedom to travel and seek a future
Proposals based on this three-part com- “wages will be depressed in a race to for their families.
promise are called “comprehensive im- the bottom, since if one employer has
migration reform.” an advantage, others will seek the same

Regenerating Our Own Path
To ward a W o r k a b l e and Humane Inte gration
Gustavo Esteva
Esteva exposes and debunks a set of en- needs to stop this leakage of highly century a similar complex prejudice has
trenched misconceptions and myths that trained individuals. focused on the peasantry: there are too
guide Mexican and U.S. development poli- • Temporary, contract migration—Over many of them. It is a widespread attitude
cies and ultimately drive peasant migra- the years, groups of Mexican peasants among the Mexican elite who have ad-
tion. Drawing on historical examples and and U.S. agricultural producers have opted U.S. society as a model and who
logic, Esteva tackles the notion that the road established stable arrangements for fail to take into account the reality and
to “progress” requires industrialization and contracting labor during harvest sea- aspirations of a majority of Mexicans.2
urbanization, rejects the “American way son. Producers require security in avail-
of life” as a universally valid development ability of labor during critical periods, Starting with José López Portillo’s presi-
blueprint, and challenges the economic thus preferring stable and trustworthy dential campaign in 1976, this prejudice
principle of comparative advantages. Es- arrangements. Peasants get appropri- was stated clearly: Mexico will be unable
teva’s alternative development vision focuses ate salaries and working conditions: to become a modern, advanced country, as
on rebuilding food sovereignty and self- in two to three months’ work, they long as a third of its population remains
sufficiency of rural communities through receive the income they need for one in the countryside.3 The United States is
the revitalization of small-scale peasant ag- whole year and are able to keep grow- capable of being the main agricultural
riculture. Specific policy proposals include ing their own crops and perform other producer in the world, using only 2.5
improved land tenure security, technologi- activities in their own communities. percent to 4 percent of its labor force, it
cal innovation, ecological restoration, and • Urban migration—A growing share of was argued. The model implied that to
support for sustainable farming practices. Mexican migrants to the United States modernize agriculture, Mexico needed
comes from cities. This population de- to rid itself of peasants. As soon as he
Introduction mands specific initiatives and policies. was sworn in as president, López Porti-
This essay concentrates on the analysis llo adopted an aggressive modernizing
of initiatives and policies that foster the Prejudices rural policy, rooted in that conviction
permanence of peasants in their own The Mexican government’s policy frame- and on the new oil wealth. This policy
communities in Mexico. It focuses on work is based on deeply rooted preju- soon “awakened ‘deep Mexico’ into re-
economically feasible, socially just, and dices (misconceptions), which are shared action,” as Interior Minister Reyes Her-
ecologically sensible ideas for peasants by their U.S. counterparts, by the media, oles expressed with concern in 1978.
to find appropriate and dignified ways and by wide sectors of Mexican society, Thus policy took a sharp turn with the
to earn a living so that they will not be especially among the middle and upper Mexican Food System (1980–82). Even
forced to migrate. It does not discuss the classes. It is worthwhile to first examine though this program had spectacularly
following aspects: this framework, which is the principal successful results and should be taken
obstacle to creating sensible policies, into account when considering other
• U.S. policy—The United States could measures, and initiatives aimed at stop- policy changes, the shift to the current
contribute to mitigating temporary ping migration. policy in 1982 dismantled the system of
and permanent immigration from state supports for agriculture, built over
Mexico, according to its own inter- the previous fifty years, discouraged peas-
ests, without recourse to repressive Surplus Population, Urbaniza- ant producers, and sought to reduce the
measures. The most important thing tion, and Development rural population.
would be to disseminate trustworthy For a long time, but especially over the
information about the phenomenon last half-century, a marked prejudice has This policy rests on a conviction that the
in order to fight existing prejudices.1 arisen regarding the existence of a surplus road to progress necessarily requires in-
• “Brain drain”—A growing number of population in rural areas. In the nine- dustrialization and urbanization, which
Mexican professionals and scientists teenth century it was a common thing take place to the detriment of the rural
are migrating to the United States. to hear that Mexico had too many “Indi- population. This orientation was clearly
Generally, they are welcome in the ans”: it was critical to educate them into stamped on the policies of the Mexican
United States and have little trouble extinction (as “Indians”), transform them governments in the last half century.
regularizing their legal status. Mexico into “regular Mexicans.” In the twentieth As peasants were settling in the land
redistributed by president Lázaro Cárde- to stimulate production in areas where
nas (1934–40), who put half the coun- Mexico has comparative advantages, and
try’s arable land in the peasantry’s hands, discourage it in those where competition
official policy focused on “green revolu- with its main trade partners, especially
tion” goals and on the artificial creation the United States, seems impossible.
of a “modern agriculture” in the coun-
try’s north. The aim was to meet labor In keeping with this orientation, Mexi-
demand through accelerating industri- can authorities strive to steer commercial
alization, urbanization, and “liberating” agriculture toward export crops of high
rural areas from their “surplus” popula- economic density or toward crops for
tion. Thus the country went through a internal consumption that have inter-
demographic transformation. In 1945, nationally competitive returns. At the
75 percent of the population was in the same time, they discourage peasant ag-
countryside; fifty years later, only a third riculture, which they consider inefficient
of the population remained. and unable to compete with commercial
producers in national and international
Lastly, the aforementioned prejudices markets. The current policy tries to
are part of one that established over the achieve a positive agricultural trade bal-
last fifty years that economic and social ance, as close as possible to a production
development is a necessary and universal style that mirrors the contemporary ideal
social aim for countries like Mexico. The of “agriculture without people.”
predominant concept of development
is clearly associated with the “American The prejudice is generally accepted that
way of life” as the universal definition consistent application of the principle of
of a good life. Recognition that extend- comparative advantage will be beneficial
ing this way of life to the whole planet to Mexico and all of its inhabitants, de- Cartoon by Helguera, courtesy of La Jornada.
is not feasible in economic and ecologi- spite the great sacrifices it will demand of
cal terms led to policy changes aimed at certain sectors in the short run. several decades thanks to strong pressure
meeting basic necessities, to guarantee from the peasantry, lay down the neces-
certain minimal standards of welfare, but It is not possible to review all of the theo- sary foundations for an adequate indus-
assuming this adjustment was considered retical and historical issues needed to trialization process. Generally, however,
a transitional stage. counter the dominant prejudices. Before the last half-century’s policies system-
discussing alternative initiatives and poli- atically dismantled the rural sector, eco-
In sum, Mexico’s economic, political, cies, however, we must first take the fol- nomically, socially, and ecologically. This
and intellectual elite share the premise lowing into account. orientation’s irrationality is akin to that of
that there are too many peasants, that the a contractor using ground-floor materials
rural way of life is inferior and backward, The Role of Agriculture for building an edifice’s upper floors.
and that it should disappear as the coun- History shows that industrialization rests
try develops. on a strong agricultural sector. Today’s The Ideal of Urban Life
industrially advanced countries were able Truly, modernization has manifested it-
Comparative Advantages to base this process on an agricultural self everywhere as accelerated urbaniza-
The theory of comparative advantage sector capable of sustaining it. Countries tion, creating an ideal of the urban life.
supports the promotion of free trade cannot grow like eucalypti, with a great Immense population centers were thus
throughout the world. This theory pro- canopy and a shallow root. created, Mexico City claiming first place
vides the fundamental orientation of the globally with over twenty million people,
Mexican government’s policies, which, In Mexico, the land reform policy of the a fifth of the country’s total population.
besides sponsoring free trade, attempt 1930s, which continued over the next Presently, however, these megacities keep
R EGENE R A T ING O U R O W N P A T H 33
growing only in the global south. There advanced countries and has pernicious
is growing conscience in “advanced” collateral effects. This is why true free-
countries that modern cities are unsus- trade agreements have never been fully
tainable; giant population centers are be- implemented in any country and all re-
ginning to shrink, as rural and suburban sort to regulation and protection. Nev-
lifestyles are vindicated as real options, ertheless, a large share of the Mexican of-
despite the fact that productive activities ficials involved in commercial opening,
are still tied to cities. At the same time, for the last twenty-five years, did not take
numerous studies following a strict cost- into account historical precedents and ad-
benefit analysis demonstrate that peasant opted the doctrine of comparative advan-
agriculture is more efficient than com- tages with dogmatic fundamentalism.
mercial production.
Such fundamentalism reverberates wide-
The Myth of Development ly in attitudes and policies, which can-
Starting in the 1980s, the myth of devel- not all be examined here. However we
opment has been subjected to penetrating must underline a very relevant aspect
criticism and the concept of post-devel- for migration. The theory and principles
opment has been established concurrent- of comparative advantages do not apply
ly. Academic institutions and pragmatic, at all for the majority of Mexican peas-
everyday actions of millions of people ants, because they do not produce for the
have converged to rid us of the notion market and they reject that the fruits of
of a universal definition of the good life, their labor, maize in particular, be treated
as associated with the American Dream, as commodities. The implicit economic
and to vindicate the multiple alternative rationality of the theory of compara-
ways of defining the good life. In contrast tive advantages has no bearing on them,
with conventional development thinking because their behavior is motivated by
centered on economic growth, a multi- principles other than those established
tude of policies and initiatives now focus by the theory.
on materializing alternative definitions of
the good life that are economically and What Is to Be Done
ecologically feasible and socially just. Revalue and support economically feasi-
ble, socially just, and ecologically sensible
The Myth of Comparative ways of rural life. Policies or programs
Advantages conceived and implemented for the rural
Starting with David Ricardo’s original sector as a totality should be abandoned
formulation, the theory of comparative and substituted for those addressing
advantages argues in favor of free trade the heterogeneity of the reality on the
under the assumption of complete and per- ground, which requires differential treat-
fect mobility of all factors of production. For ments for every rural actor.4 Official pol-
the principle of comparative advantages icy and social efforts must be oriented to
to be valid, there should be free circula- prioritize peasants. Commercial agricul-
Jumping the Fence. Tijuana. A worker looks over tion of labor, capital, and goods between ture must be let to fend for itself, under
the fence between Mexico and the U.S., trying to trading countries. This is how the United market pressures.
find a moment when the Border Patrol may not be States was built, once barriers between
looking so that he can cross. Photo by David Bacon. the original thirteen colonies were torn Despite the permanent hostility to
down. This is the principle that is success- which they have been subjected for
fully applied in the European Union. This over five hundred years, there are now
principle, however, has not been a part of more peasants in Mexico than ever
the North-South free-trade negotiations. before, in absolute terms. This is a
deeply vital sector, fully committed to
It is well known that free trade, which its way of living, as evinced especially
theoretically benefits all countries, is al- by indigenous peoples. The only so-
ways more beneficial to more industrially cial indicator that has not shifted in
Gloria Merino (r), a Triqui curandera, or traditional doctor, her niece, Catalina Ramirez Merino (l), and a third Triqui woman in a
traditional huipil, together with a group of Triqui children. Photo by David Bacon.
the last half century in Mexico is the Food Sovereignty This policy implies that the agricultural
number of small rural communities The general policy change could start chapter of NAFTA be renegotiated, un-
(those of up to 2,500 dwellers), which with an emphasis on food sovereign- der terms that address the needs of mil-
amount to over 110,000. Every year, ty.5 This term is contaminated by its lions of Mexican peasants. Corn and
some communities disappear, but are association with the state but in pres- beans should be protected fully. At the
replaced by new ones. The defense of ent usage, as it applies to communities, same time, the notion of food sover-
this way of life is supported by a grow- regions and the entire nation, it signi- eignty and its legal expression should be
ing number of urban dwellers that fies self-determination of diet guidelines discussed in a nationwide debate.
flock to these communities, fleeing and how to satisfy them. The aim is that
the nightmare of living in large cities. people, communities, and the country Food Self-sufficiency
Instead of attacking peasants, seeking in general determine for themselves the Food sovereignty is expressed in practice
to expel them from the countryside quantities and quality of their food, and as food self-sufficiency, which involves
and their productive activities, they that the whole population has access to three distinct elements:
should receive massive support from sufficient foodstuffs to satisfy their basic
the government and society. This pol- necessities, according to their own defi- • Capacity to produce enough food for all
icy would substantially abate peasant nitions of the good life, their customs, • Capacity to achieve this production with
emigration to the United States. and traditions. the country’s resources and technology
Altar, Sonora. The path through the desert to the border to cross into the US starts here, north of Route 2, which goes through the
Sonoran desert just south of the line. Photo by David Bacon.
• Self-reliance of producers, commu- National self-sufficiency objectives practices, ecologically sensible at the
nities, regions, and the country as a should be carefully examined. Peasant scale they were implemented for centu-
whole, all along the food production agriculture cannot be expected to meet ries, turned destructive once they could
chain and covering all of its processes. the cities’ demand for food; it will be able not be implemented in the traditional
to meet the needs of the rural popula- way.6 Policies and actions aimed at en-
Self-sufficiency does not mean autarchy tion and generate some surpluses. Urban vironmental regeneration can contribute
and must be defined in relative terms, both needs must be tended to by commercial substantially to abate peasant emigra-
in its component parts as in its levels. It agriculture and imports. tion. Policies in this area include the
does not discard imports but keeps them to following:
a reasonable minimum on basic foodstuffs. Environmental Regeneration
Also it tries to keep market forces from de- Habitat destruction is a major factor • Revaluation of empirical knowledge.
termining rural production. For very differ- pushing peasant emigration. Irrespon- Peasants have great knowledge about
ent reasons, “advanced” countries apply this sible practices by public and private how to maintain a sensible relation
principle by strongly subsidizing their rural developers and the expansion of livestock with nature. This knowledge has been
sectors. A central motivation for peasant breeding on agricultural lands largely systematically marginalized and un-
emigration is their inability to grow enough eroded or destroyed the peasantry’s pro- dervalued.
food to feed their families. Restoring this duction conditions and its capacity for • Emergency regeneration. Large ar-
ability should be a central policy objective. autonomous subsistence. Some of their eas of the country suffer extreme
environmental degradation, and they
must be urgently dealt with to avoid a
greater catastrophe.
• Protection of production. Many en-
vironmental protection measures are
often planned to the detriment of
peasants, who are turned into “envi-
ronmental stewards” at best. Using
the appropriate technology, it would
be possible to treat the areas that re-
quire protection without displacing
peasants. The same principles could
be applied to the entire set of peasant
productive activities.
• Cultivation of water management. Security in Land Tenure emigration as much as democratic con-
Very special attention must be paid The effects of the 1992 constitutional solidation.
to all aspects of water extraction, amendment that opened ejido and com-
storage, safety, and distribution. munal lands to market forces have not Reintegrating the Structure of
The water wars have already started met expectations about modernization, Production
and, in general, peasants are on the production, or productivity. On the con- Colonial heritage and insensible industri-
losing side, thanks to the economic trary, it has produced a great deal of in- alization clearly separated primary sector
and political pressure of more pow- security and conflict. The arbitrary and production and final demand. Process-
erful groups, many of which use wa- corrupt application of the new agrarian ing agricultural products on an adequate
ter irrationally, monopolizing and laws has led to the continuous plunder scale can be the link to reconnect them,
destroying its sources. Appropriate of peasant communities, particularly avoiding traditional commercial chains
technologies that would meet peas- indigenous ones, leaving them with no and waste. In addition to raising the val-
ants’ needs with modest investments other option but migration. This issue ue of peasant production, processing ag-
and changes to current practices is of enormous significance and calls ricultural products can be a strong source
are already at our disposal but usu- for large legal and institutional changes, of employment for peasant youths, espe-
ally face the interests of dominant which will only be possible if a different cially in the off-season. This would help
structures. A policy that would give policy orientation is adopted. to create sources of dignified income for
peasants preference over water use those who, unable to find them in rural
rights and help them use it sustain- Democratic Practices communities, would otherwise be forced
ably would have immediate effects Although Mexico is formally a democra- to emigrate.
on their capacity for autonomous cy, it lacks many of the characteristics of
subsistence and, hence, lower emi- a truly democratic society. Social strug- Technology policy needs redefining. Re-
gration pressures. gles are currently working toward: orienting technology policies to support
• The saving of forests and jungles. the adoption of so-called “appropriate
Mexico has lost half of its forest and • Perfecting representative democracy to technologies,” which are adequate for the
jungle coverage. There are multiple eliminate fraud, fine tuning electoral conditions under which peasant produc-
examples, many internationally rec- processes, and insuring the applica- ers operate and which can be appropri-
ognized, that demonstrate autono- tion of the rule of law and checks and ated by them, is of special importance.
mous communal organizations’ ca- balances It is critical to stimulate technological
pacity to adequately manage forests • Representative democracy: plebiscite, innovation, as well. There is a wide field
and jungles. Their activities compare public referendum, recall elections, of possibilities, where a modest invest-
favorably with those of forestry firms, public office accountability, participa- ment can translate into solid productive
if ecological, economic, and social tory budgeting, transparency, etc. opportunities.
criteria are strictly applied, and not • Subordinating these forms to radical
only those of maximum profit. This democracy, where citizens make the 1. Among the main prejudices we seek
activity can offer wide possibilities decisions that affect their lives and to fight are: 1) the conviction that
for peasants’ employment and in- steer the work of public officials. undocumented workers negatively
come, but it needs to be supported, affect the salaries and jobs of U.S.
not attacked. Few policies would contribute to reduce citizens; 2) the general conviction
that extreme poverty is the root pez Portillo’s campaign, Edmundo thesize the main consensus on the
cause of Mexican migration to the Flores formulated the candidate’s issue, but eventually contradicted
United States; 3) the conviction of policy in these terms. See, among substantive aspects.
U.S. citizens that people the world other sources, Revista del Consejo 6. Numerous studies show that raze
over want to live in the United Consultivo del IEPES, nos. 1–3. and burn practices that were ap-
States, in pursuit of the American 4. Numerous studies show that even plied for centuries in tropical areas
Dream; 4) the general conviction policies demanded by all peasants, allow appropriate regeneration of
that the United States is the result such as guaranteed, minimum sup- the vegetation, because cultivated
of English colonization and that the port prices, have very negative con- areas are abandoned cyclically and
presence of Hispanics in the territo- sequences for those who need them new ones are opened up. When
ry was irrelevant, which helped cre- most. Equal treatment to unequal peasants are forced to cultivate
ate an anti-Hispanic “black legend” partners is unjust and counterpro- a patch of land indefinitely, a vi-
that feeds broad prejudices against ductive. cious spiral of cultivation and
today’s immigrants. 5. The notion of food sovereignty erosion arises. This circumstance
2. They adopted this model even to has been widely vindicated in both worsens when livestock breeders
name the country: United Mexican academia and political struggles, occupy the land, as has happened
States. the world over. In Mexico the con- extensively in Chiapas. For exam-
3. In the Consulting Council meet- cept enjoys broad recognition. The ple, see Víctor Toledo, Ecología,
ings of the PRI’s Institute of Politi- LIX Congress recently passed the Espiritualidad, Conocimiento
cal, Economic, and Social Studies, National Food Sovereignty and (Morelia: Jitanjáfora Morelia Edi-
which handled key tasks during Ló- Security Act that attempted to syn- torial, 2006).
Aguaxaca: The Common Task of Conserving the Rio
Atoyac-Salado Water District
The name “Aguaxaca” evokes the sacredness of wa- community leaders, NGOs, academic researchers,
ter. Through this initiative, society and government and private think tanks.
seek to protect the natural resources on which water • Design of financial mechanisms to establish a fair
availability depends, while attempting to improve price for urban water-use rights and to reimburse
the living conditions of city and rural dwellers. rural communities for aquifer conservation ser-
vices.
Aguaxaca encompasses the drainage area of the • Establishment of demonstration centers that show-
Atoyac and Salado rivers, from the mountains to the case permaculture techniques, waste disposal,
urban areas, where some six hundred thousand peo- water management, soil conservation and organic
ple live. Rapid urbanization fosters the uncontrolled horticulture, and raise environmental awareness
rise of demand for water, while reducing the collec- in the population.
tion surface. The combined Atoyac-Salado is one of • The “Innovations in Efficient Irrigation and Sus-
the country’s most polluted rivers, the principal con- tainable Production” project created a financial
taminant being raw sewage. mechanism to assist small producers in investing
in greenhouses and irrigation systems that save
Under the auspices of the Oaxacan Nature and So- water, increasing and diversifying agricultural pro-
ciety Institute, and working hand in hand with its duction and taking care of the environment. To-
community and institutional allies, Aguaxaca aims gether, they help build a green belt around the city
to conserve the “natural sponges” that remain; to of Oaxaca to constrain its growth and to ensure its
restore cities’ and towns’ potable water networks; water supply.
to improve rainwater collection; to make agricultural • The Water Festival promotes environmental aware-
irrigation more efficient; to promote saving and ra- ness through a poster competition, videos, week-
tioning urban water use; to establish a fair price for ly radio shows, and the Song for Water contest.
potable water service and to support the communi- Aguaxaca was a Kyoto World Water Grand Prize
ties that insure the flow of water; and to return safe, finalist in 2006. The accomplishments presented in
treated water to the environment. Kyoto included:
To accomplish its goals, Aguaxaca integrates: • The increased social and natural knowledge of the
• The Picture: to capture the natural and social set- Atoyac-Salado river drainage area
ting of the drainage area, through participatory • The consolidation of the Oaxacan Water Forum as
research and a holistic approach. a plural and multidisciplinary space for planning
• The Panel: to involve all the institutional and local and discussion
actors, through the Oaxacan Water Forum. • Widespread reforestation of the river’s drainage
• The Plan: to consensually set the rules of the area
game. • Establishment and operation of pilot centers for
• The Tools: to take concrete and demonstrative ac- soil conservation and regeneration and stream
tions to foster conservation and social welfare, restoration
and to build capacity by linking traditional knowl- • Dozens of workshops on alternative technologies,
edge with modern techniques. such as ecological toilets, efficient wood-burning
• The Voice: to inform about water issues in the com- stoves, efficient irrigation systems, and sustain-
munities and the city, and to facilitate consensus able production practices
democratically. • Diffusion of the project and its aims; fostering hori-
zontality in policy discussions; and local, national,
Examples of strategy implementation: and international cooperation
• Public policy discussions at the Oaxacan Water • Education of the rural population and awareness
Forum involving local, state, and federal officials, creation in the urban population.
NAFTA and Immigration: Toward a Workable and
Humane Integration
By Laura Carlsen
Carlsen expands on narrowly trade- This storm has decimated the Mexican and performance requirements for foreign
focused evaluations of North American countryside. It has created unemploy- companies regarding technology transfer,
free-trade policies to offer a broad-based ment, inequality, and insecurity on both backward linkages, or adoption of state-
critique of NAFTA that links deepening sides of the border and left the U.S. im- of-the-art environmental practices.
economic and social disparities between migration system in shambles. Until U.S.
the U.S. and Mexico with increased mi- trade and immigration policies change Measured by the degree of integration,
gration flows. Exposing the agreement’s direction, the storm will continue to the NAFTA experiment has been ex-
structural biases, Carlsen contrasts the gather force. tremely successful. The U.S.-Mexico
benefits accrued by transnational corpo- border has become the most highly in-
rations with rising unemployment and Unequal Integration tegrated region of the world and a labo-
insecurity experienced by Mexican work- and Borderline ratory for economic integration—$35
ers and peasants. Carlsen’s reform propos- The misnamed North American Free million of goods cross the border ev-
als offer a broad array of interconnected Trade Agreement actually sought to “lock ery hour.5 The International Monetary
changes in both trade immigration poli- in” a broad range of economic reforms,2 Fund reports that total trade among the
cies, including state-led protection of weak including tariff elimination but also in- three NAFTA countries has more than
economic sectors and the “common good,” vestment guarantees, a stringent intellec- doubled, while total merchandise trade
movement toward a fair-trade frame- tual property regime, and rules limiting between the United States and Mexico
work through grassroots-inspired and government involvement in the economy. nearly tripled, from $81.6 in 1993 to
community-led development solutions, In Mexico, many of these reforms began $266.6 by 2004.6
expansion of viable paths to citizenship, with the 1982 debt crisis, expanded with
and improved adherence to international 1986 GATT membership, and extended But there are serious signs that the exper-
human rights and labor standards. when then-president Salinas de Gortari iment is failing. Although the U.S. econ-
carried out market reforms to prepare the omy was more than fifteen times larger
Introduction Mexican economy for NAFTA.3 NAFTA than Mexico’s and the Mexican economy
Every hour, Mexico imports one and a established a new bar for market access suffered from major disadvantages,7
half million dollars’ worth of agricultural and foreign investor guarantees. Tariff there was no weight given to a need to
and food products, almost all from the barriers were a small part of the overall compensate for the disparities between
United States. In that same hour, thirty agreement, since Mexico had already the two, as was done in the European
people—men, women, and children— unilaterally lowered many tariffs. Union.8 Despite claims that NAFTA
leave their homes in the Mexican coun- would bring about convergence between
tryside to take up the most dangerous Up against a compliant Mexican negoti- the U.S. and Mexican economies, eco-
journey of their lives, as migrant workers ating team committed to the interests of nomic disparities between these nations
to the United States.1 No matter what its own economic elite—and behind the have actually increased over time.9 As the
one’s stance on these two defining char- backs of both publics—U.S. negotiators following graph shows, the enormous
acteristics of our age—economic integra- achieved terms favorable to large corpora- gap between Mexican and U.S. GDP
tion and immigration—one thing is ab- tions, such as investment promotion pro- per capita has actually widened slightly
solutely clear: they are related. visions, intellectual property protection, since NAFTA—the opposite of what was
new markets, and access to resources, in- blithely predicted. During the NAFTA
For the past fifteen years, the market- cluding cheap labor. The result was a trade period, U.S. GDP per capita rose while
based trade and investment policies em- agreement that was unprecedented in the the Mexican rate essentially flatlined.
bodied in the North American Free Trade world.4 Even strategic products and servic-
Agreement (NAFTA) have led to a mas- es were slated for tariff and barrier elimi- NAFTA also failed to bring about con-
sive South-North flow of immigrants, nations under NAFTA, and the Mexican vergence in wage levels as promised. In
while restrictive immigration laws in the state relinquished basic development 1993 Mexican manufacturing workers
United States create a North-South push- policy tools, such as government procure- earned on average 14.7 percent of the U.S.
back. Like opposing wind currents that ment preferences to support local indus- hourly manufacturing wage; by 2003 the
confront forces, the result is a storm. try, management of the basic food chain, figure had dropped to 11.3 percent.10
Under NAFTA, the real minimum wage It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The basic goods, economic insecurity, and ris-
in Mexico has decreased to a level that no promises of NAFTA supporters in the ing inequality.
longer can sustain workers. early nineties assured citizens of both
Mexico and the United States that con- There is an ongoing debate over to what
The U.S.-Mexico border in many ways vergence, employment, and a robust degree these evident economic woes can
is the eye of the storm referred to earlier. Mexican economy would result in a be attributed to NAFTA. Since eco-
From the Pacific Ocean, through Arizona more prosperous and harmonious North nomic restructuring measures predated
deserts, to the Gulf of Mexico, the region America, where undocumented migra- NAFTA and domestic policy plays a role,
has become an area of intense interaction tion would be a thing of the past. So it is not possible to completely untangle
between the two countries, but also of in- why does the current situation look so the causes of the current situation. But
creasing violence, hostility, and conflict. different? the main point to bear in mind is that
NAFTA was not just a trade policy for
The rapid transformation of the Mexican The Debate: Is NAFTA to blame? Mexico. It was the cornerstone of its eco-
economy under NAFTA has displaced There is a basic consensus that the post- nomic restructuring, designed to lock
workers and eroded livelihoods. In a se- NAFTA era has not seen significant gains in an export-oriented, market economy.
ries of socially coerced conversions, farm- for the Mexican people. For the major- After NAFTA, Mexico went on to sign
ers and factory workers have become mi- ity, promises of higher standards of liv- forty-two trade agreements modeled on
grants, migrants have been pronounced ing have not been borne out. Instead, NAFTA, making it the free trade cham-
criminals, and these “criminals” have Mexico faces an employment crisis and pion of the world. However, these are
been forced underground. flat real wages, price hikes—especially for largely irrelevant given that 90 percent of
Mexico’s trade is with just one country,
the United States.
Mexico bet the house on export-led,

open-market economic development
tied to the U.S. economy. Exports grew,
but who really benefited? Only 1.2 per-
cent of Mexico’s three million registered
businesses engage in non-oil exports. The
Ministry of the Economy reports that in
2005 37,344 businesses exported under
NAFTA and divided among themselves
Figure 1: GDP per capita, current dollars PPP. Graph by Global Exchange. $186 billion dollars reported for that
year. Even within this small group, bene-
fits concentrate in a handful: 601 compa-
nies—1.6 percent of exporters and only
0.02 percent of all businesses, mostly
transnationals—receive 76.3 percent of
the export value, or $142 billion.11 Nice
work, if you can get it.
To benefit these lucky few, Mexico gave

up its right to adopt policies to support
sectors that provided strategic services to
the country but were unable to compete
on the world market.
Figure 2: Mexican Real Wage Index. Graph by Global Exchange.
NAF T A AN D IMMIG R A T ION 41

A new policy would assure predictability • Renegotiate NAFTA´s agricultural
and stable markets for U.S. producers, chapter. The terms of NAFTA must
guarantees—not privileges—for U.S. in- be modified to permit government
vestors, and basic rights for workers every- regulation of basic food production
where. It will imply a more active role of and supply, and provide policy instru-
governments in balancing a competitive ments so poor Mexican farmers are
open-market system with protection of not forced to compete with subsidized
weaker sectors and the common good. large companies for their own markets.
The petition to withdraw corn and
It will also mean denying some of the beans from the free-trade agreement
demands large corporations make in and support small farmers and food
the name of competitiveness. This is sovereignty is not a blow against free-
not necessarily negative—it is past time trade precepts but a common-sense
to break up powerful monopolies that demand for public policy that places
distort the terms of trade. If there is one livelihoods and jobs first.
thing we have learned from NAFTA, it
is that “trickle down” does not work un- • There must be mechanisms of flexibil-
less you squeeze at the top. Companies ity when the terms of trade threaten
must recognize responsibility for the livelihoods, food security, or health.
communities whose labor and resources This flexibility has been lacking in
go to make the products they sell and the NAFTA and other FTAs. Negotiations
profits they reap. have been inflexible, with developing
countries finally giving in to terms
On top of the broccoli machine, pulled behind a U.S. regional trade policy has sent many they know will harm part of their pop-
tractor, women pack the heads of broccoli cut by the of our communities into crises. New ulation. The pound of flesh exacted
men working below. They wear bandannas around trade and immigration policies can help from poor countries in exchange for
their faces to protect them from breathing dust, and pull them out, and avoid a similar fate access to the U.S. market in the end
as a shield from the sun. Many workers in this crew for other communities. The Bush ad- hurts both partner countries and the
are indigenous migrants from Oaxaca and Guerrero. ministration is pushing hard to pass United States, since the terms of the
Photo by David Bacon. the three free-trade agreements (FTAs) agreements exacerbate inequality and
before Congress—Colombia, Panama close off opportunities, leading to in-
Recommendations and South Korea—as part of creating a creased immigration and potential so-
historic legacy and leaving in place pro- cial unrest.
1. Trade corporate policies that are difficult to re-
What we already know about NAFTA- verse. This creates an unavoidable battle • Do unbiased and comprehensive im-
style free-trade agreements is that along in the short-term that could very well be pact studies. There is a false dichotomy
with increasing trade, they generate in- won by a broad (not detail-oriented) op- presented to us: protectionism, seen as
equality. One study shows that urban position with unity of purpose. an evil of the past, and free trade, seen
wage inequality grew from 0.408 in 1989 as the only path to the future. The
(Gini index) to 0.46 in 2000.12 Adopt- • Call a moratorium on all new FTAs, Bush administration has presented
ing a trade policy that widens the gap including the three before Congress unmitigated free trade as if it were syn-
between rich and poor here and abroad now. The moratorium should last un- onymous with freedom in the politi-
does nobody a service in the long term. til new studies have been thoroughly cal realm, even though there are many
Unless we change course, the social costs evaluated on the immediate and long- historical experiences that prove that
of our current trade policy will grow over term impact of FTAs in the United the two do not automatically correlate.
the years and what we already see—un- States and signing countries to deter- In Latin America, the administration
employment and underemployment in mine whether this model works. The has used this erroneous assumption
our communities and abroad, environ- South Korea, Colombia, and Panama to divide nations between allies that
mental degradation, natural resource de- FTAs before Congress should be re- are “democratic, open-market sup-
pletion, and growing gaps between those jected not just for the particular cir- porters” and enemies that supposedly
who benefit and those who are harmed— cumstances of each case but because threaten U.S. security. In reality, many
could develop into more serious problems the FTA model is seriously flawed as of the latter are countries searching
of instability and widespread poverty. trade and foreign policy. to diminish the polarizing effects of
trade and investment liberalization. for everyone. Increased international
Until we reject ideological posturing trade in itself is not a measure of suc-
and analyze the real impact of FTAs cess. Families with economic security,
we will never arrive at more just and children with food in their stomachs
viable trade policies for all our coun- and a roof over their heads—these
tries and a more prosperous and stable should be the yardsticks for measur-
hemisphere. To develop a sustainable ing success and they should be applied
and fair trade policy, the debate must not only within the United States but
become less dogmatic and more prag- to our partner countries as well. If the
matic. It’s time to take a close look at immigration problem has taught us
what is really happening under free anything, it’s that in a globalized world
trade agreements and be open to cor- the inequities experienced in one
rections or creative changes in course. country will spill over into the next.
For years, governments have ignored Turning away from an orthodox free-
or sought to patch over the serious trade model in no way means rejecting
problems generated in the United or reversing all liberalization measures.
States and Mexico by NAFTA. There But it does mean that each country, in-
now exists abundant information cluding the United States, has a right
on trade flows from the office of the to develop national economic policies
United States Trade Representative but that view the international market as
little on the impact of FTAs on human a tool, not a holy grail. Strategic sec-
lives. Congress should call for studies tors require protection, workers’ rights
that report the trade and investment must be actively defended, and more
data, but also provide information on flexible mechanisms such as special
social indices and concrete examples, products, safeguards, and exemptions,
even where direct cause and effect with should be allowed in order to promote
NAFTA is difficult to ascertain. development.
• The results then should be heeded. One • Promote grassroots solutions. Commu-
of the very few studies on the impact nities have already begun to develop “In free trade democracies, what matters is not
of NAFTA in Mexico was done by the community redevelopment projects democracy, just free trade.” Cartoon by Fisgon,
General Accounting Office in 2005. to deal with the damage caused by courtesy of La Jornada.
The study concluded that there was NAFTA, as well as demanding modi-
an urgent need for rural compensa- fications to the agreement. A new coffee to handicrafts, community-run
tion funds.13 Nothing was done. Since trade policy can find many pointers credit unions, and a myriad of other
then, many of the negative impacts in these local experiences (see Esteva small-scale endeavors. These require
predicted in the study have been borne and Bartra in this volume). In the little resources and can have major ben-
out with no policy response whatsoev- United States, funds for community eficial consequences. They should be
er. The decimation of the campesino redevelopment led by residents would supported.
economy in many parts of Mexico as a be far more effective than the current • Support family farmers in all countries.
result of economic integration without NAFTA Adjustment Assistance pro- Worldwide it is the smallholder farm-
transitions or support has resulted in gram. People themselves are best at ers who feed us. With over 200,000
millions of farmers forced to migrate. defining the skills they need to rebuild farmers forced out of farming in the
in a new environment and the kind of United States and millions in Mexico,
• Regulate trade, don’t mandate free projects that will provide jobs, gener- it’s time to take a careful look at their
trade. The free-trade model devel- ate income and serve a real need in the overall contribution to society. U.S.
oped in the 1980s and 1990s has community. farm policy should assure farmers
proven unsuccessful in solving the everywhere a fair price by enforcing
major challenges of decreasing pov- In Mexico, grassroots solutions include antitrust legislation to break the stran-
erty, leveling inequality, and promot- community organizations working on en- glehold of agribusiness over our food
ing sustainable development. There is vironmentally sound farming practices,14 production, and ban dumping that al-
no longer (if there ever was) a global fair-trade cooperatives that make direct lows them to undermine food produc-
or national consensus that FTAs work links to consumers in everything from tion in Mexico and other countries.15

formed public. The SPP, in which being. By holding deportation and
only business representatives and blacklisting over the heads of workers,
government officials define the exten- these programs have led to employer
sion of NAFTA rules, should be reject- abuse, and there are documented cases
ed in favor of open discussions, access that border on slavery conditions.17
to all information on rule changes and
proposals, and active participation of • Suspend enforcement programs that
affected sectors, including labor, envi- include deportation, raids, racial pro-
ronmentalists, and human rights and filing, militarization of the border,
civil liberties groups. and fencing. End criminalization of
migrants and militarization of the bor-
2. Immigration16 der. These are lose-lose policies costing
Basic Demands: millions of taxpayers’ dollars with the
• Provide legal residency visas to immi- visible effect of dividing communi-
grants currently in the United States ties and endangering human lives and
who meet basic criteria. This will per- without eliminating illegal border
Agricultural laborers at grain depot. mit them to move between jobs, with crossings.
Photo courtesy of La Jornada. security for themselves and their fami-
lies, and travel out of the country. This • Strengthen a single standard of labor
• Accompany trade policy with aid for flexibility, now impossible due to their rights, defending all workers, both
sustainable development. U.S. aid to unrecognized status and the enor- native and foreign born (see Lujan in
Mexico should be used to encourage mous backlog of visa and citizenship this volume).
efforts like the grassroots solutions requests, would make it possible for
discussed above and compensate for those who may choose not to remain • Separate security and anti-organized
damage done by NAFTA. NAFTA’s in the United States to return to their crime measures from immigration en-
extension, the Security and Prosperity places of origin without losing the op- forcement. Customs and Border offi-
Partnership (SPP), has gone off in the tion to return. In the past, migration cials should be concentrating on illegal
complete opposite direction. Instead patterns were often cyclical. Today drugs and arms traffickers, rather than
of directing aid and programs to re- restrictionist measures have made that spending a significant amount of their
gions negatively affected by the agree- impossible, thus increasing the num- resources on pursuing undocumented
ment, it has facilitated business for ber of permanent migrants, whether immigrants in the desert. Reducing
transnational corporations—the only authorized or not. the number of unauthorized entries
sector of society directly represented by expanding work visas and family
in its negotiations. Most recently, the • Facilitate and broaden family reunifica- reunification permits, and supporting
SPP process has led to Plan Mexico, tion measures. Family ties are among Mexican development and revamping
a proposal to dramatically increase aid the strongest motivators of mobility in trade policies are first steps, but poli-
to Mexico, but for law enforcement, the world. If we turn our backs on the cies must also distinguish between mi-
intelligence, and military equipment. need to allow families to be together, grants and organized crime in order to
This creates a grave danger of milita- we create an incentive for illegal immi- be more effective and avoid a public
rizing a politically polarized Mexico gration. Access to family reunification perception that migrants are common
and increasing the potential for con- visas must be expanded and funding criminals.
flict. Creating healthy employment in released to expedite processing of re-
the United States and Mexico would quests pending. • Strengthen human rights guarantees
have a far greater impact on reducing and protect civil liberties of migrants,
the illegal drug trade than surveillance • Develop a viable path to citizenship for including stringent measures against
planes, and would also be more ef- long-time immigrant workers and resi- human trafficking and slavery, signing
fective in reducing immigration pres- dents in the United States. and upholding the UN Convention on
sures. the Rights of Migrants, restoring due
• Expand the number of green cards process for immigration charges, and
• Open up the debate. Trade and inte- available. Guest-worker programs that entering into binational agreements
gration policies affect all citizens and permit only seasonal work and visas that limit the use of arms and vio-
define the course of the nation. They based on a specific employment sepa- lence against undocumented workers
should be broadly debated by an in- rate the labor power from the human and respect rights and humanitarian
concerns. The raids must be ended work opportunities, and work toward and other causes. These are routinely
immediately as a violation of basic legalization of current workers, full- denied in the United States. They
principles of justice. Violators of im- employment, and livable wage pro- should be thoroughly reviewed and
migration law should receive due grams. The right to organize must be judged on their merits.
process and the integrity of families honored in all workplaces, with com-
should be respected. Local enforce- panies liable for intents to undermine Entering the Final Phase
ment agents should not be involved in or deny that right. NAFTA has now entered the last stage
immigration prosecution, since their of implementation, with the elimination
job is to fight crime in communities. • Restore a real refugee program that of tariffs on corn, beans, and other sensi-
gives credence to refugees facing dan- tive agricultural products. With severely
• Reject guest-worker or temporary ger in their home countries. Mexican negative impacts predicted for Mexican
worker programs, skilled or unskilled. requests for refugee status in Canada farmers and an accumulation of social
Guest worker programs create two- have increased sharply, related to problems in all three countries, this
tiered labor pools and encourage the threats from drug cartels, domestic phase obliges us to finally take NAFTA
violation of labor rights for immigrant violence, threats of hate crimes against to task for how it has affected the daily
workers. Instead we must expand legal homosexuals, government repression, lives of North American citizens.
Notes
1. “El campo mexicano en el laberinto neoliberal,” La Jornada del Campo, October 9, 2007.
2. Laura Carlsen, “North America Doesn´t Exist,” America’s Policy Program Report, July 3, 2008, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5343.
3. The most important of these was the 1992 reform to Art. 27 of the Constitution that allowed parceling ejidos and indigenous communi-
ties and selling individual plots.
4. See Maxwell A. Cameron, The Making of NAFTA: How the Deal Was Done (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000).
5. U.S. Commerce Department official David Bohigian, October 20, 2006, as reported in Eric Green, “U.S. Seeks To Balance Trade,
Security Concerns on Mexico Border,” America.gov, October 20, 2006, http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2006/October/2006
10201721221xeneerg0.9683802.html.
6. Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott, NAFTA Revisited (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2005).
7. In 1993, the Mexican GDP was $402.2 billion USD, compared to the U.S. GDP of $6.58 trillion.
8. John Cavanagh and Sarah Anderson. Lessons from European Integration for the Americas, (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies,
2004).
9. See Laura Carlsen, “El mito de la convergencia,” Programa de las Américas, September 15, 2005, http://www.ircamericas.org/esp/629.
10. Blecker, Robert “North American Economies After NAFTA”, International Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 33, #3, Fall 2003. p. 19
from World Bank, World Development Indicators ; and U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “International Compari-
sons of Hourly Compensation Costs for Production Workers in Manufacturing, 2003” and “Supplementary Tables, 1975-2003,” http://
www.bls.gov/fls/home.htm.
11. Statistics from Auditoría Superior de la Federación 2007, cited by Carlos Fernandez Vega, La Jornada. July 10, 2007.
12. Samuel Freije, et al., “Changes in Urban Wage Inequality in Mexico, Before and After NAFTA,” Third Annual Conference of the Euro-
Latin Network on Integration and Trade, Kiel, Germany, October 21–22, 2005, http://www.iadb.org/intal/aplicaciones/uploads/ponen-
cias/foro_elsnit_2005_02_freijeetal.pdf.
13. General Accountability Office, “U.S: Agencies Need Greater Focus to Support Mexico´s Successful Transition to Liberalized Agricul-
tural Trade under NAFTA,” U.S. Government Accountability Office, Washington, DC. March 2005. http://www.gao.gov/highlights/
d05272high.pdf.
14. See Laura Carlsen, “Building a Future in the Mixteca,” Americas Policy Program, Voices of the Countryside #2, October 12, 2006,
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3593.
15. Dennis Olson, Trade Deals Ignore Agricultural Impacts on Immigration (Minneapolis, MN: Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy,
2007), http://www.iatp.org/iatp/publications.cfm?accountID=500&refid=100988.
16. These recommendations are based on my own thoughts and suggestions from a number of sources, including David Bacon, Tom Barry,
“Over-Raided, Under Siege” (by the National Network on Immigrant and Refugee Rights), and others.
17. See Mary Bauer, Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States (Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2007),
http://www.splcenter.org/legal/guestreport/index.jsp

Contemplating Solutions to Migration Challenges
Bill Ong Hing
Analyzing the relationship between In addressing the phenomenon of labor about 4.3 percent of the civilian labor
NAFTA and Mexican undocumented and other migration across the U.S.- force—approximately 6.3 million work-
labor immigration, Hing presents a com- Mexico border, a need to contemplate ers out of a labor force of 146 million.1
prehensive suite of strategic labor reforms new responses is evident. We must begin Although they can be found in many
that transform immigration policy into to consider closely the forces of globaliza- different sectors of the economy, un-
a meaningful tool to address concerns tion on this border. In essence, we need documented workers tend to be overrep-
about regional integration on both sides to develop a new vision for the border. As resented in certain occupations and in-
of the border. Hing focuses on long-term we develop that vision, we should remain dustries. They are much more likely to be
demographic and social trends generat- cognizant of our historical as well as con- in broad occupation groups that require
ing U.S. labor shortages and triggering tinuing economic and social relationship little education or do not have licensing
a growing need for unskilled Mexican with Mexico. We would also be well requirements.2 Three times as many un-
workers. He explores the European Union served to consider the social, economic, documented immigrants work in agricul-
open trade–open labor model as a means and political strategic needs in the con- ture, construction, and extraction as do
to create an efficient labor market and text of our place in the world regionally, U.S. citizens.3 In contrast, undocument-
meet U.S. labor demands, while reduc- not simply nationalistically. ed immigrants are conspicuously under-
ing migration pressures and maintaining represented in white-collar occupations.
border control. Hing emphasizes the need A new vision of the border should While management, business, profes-
to couple such open labor policies with embrace the following elements: sions, sales, and administrative support
development assistance programs that de- • Open labor migration akin to that in account for half of native citizen workers
crease disparities and address structural the European Union (EU) (52 percent), less than one-quarter of the
asymmetries between the U.S. and Mexi- • Substantial investment in Mexico’s undocumented workers are in these areas
can economies. He concludes that immi- economy and infrastructure to enable (23 percent).4
gration policy reforms should be designed Mexico to create jobs and maintain its
to respond to actual, demonstrated labor ability to compete on the global eco- The undocumented workforce ought to
shortages, while maintaining restrictions nomic stage thus aiding its primary be viewed in the context that the U.S.
that protect regional labor markets and trading partners—the United States labor force will be decreasing in the
providing meaningful and enforceable and Canada. This would also reduce foreseeable future due to demographic
health, safety, and labor laws. migration pressures. trends. There really is something to the
• Immigrant enterprise zones that are pro-immigrant claim that immigrants
Introduction exempt from standard immigration are filling important job needs. The U.S.
Understanding the effects of NAFTA quotas Chamber of Commerce cites these data:
and other aspects of the globalized • Broadening of the permanent visa sys-
economy provides us with the founda- tem to reflect the real visa demands for The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
tion to develop a better approach to the labor and family reunification estimates that the number of people
flow of Mexican workers to the United • Revision of harmful policies on trade; in the labor force ages 25 to 34 is pro-
States. The failure of current militarized crafting of meaningful international jected to increase by only three mil-
and racialized enforcement strategies to labor standards; and work with unions, lion between 2002 and 2012, while
further stem that flow challenges us to corporations, and community organi- those age fifty-five years and older
step back and address the issue more zations around the globe to promote will increase by 18 million. By 2012,
thoughtfully. In the United States, we better jobs, living standards, and stable those aged forty-five and older will
tend to hear about the job losses suffered communities everywhere. have the fastest growth rate and will
by U.S. workers because of NAFTA, but be a little more than 50% of the labor
we do not hear much about Mexican job Unless such steps are taken, the pressure for force. According to estimates . . . by
loss or consider the fact that the United undocumented immigration will persist. the United Nations, the fertility rate
States very well may need immigrant in the United States is projected to fall
workers—even those who are low skilled The Need for Immigrant Workers below “replacement” level by 2015 to
and low-wage. Undocumented immigrants account for 2020, declining to 1.91 children per
woman (lower than the 2.1 children will add more than 1.8 million jobs
per woman rate needed to replace between 2005 and 2015, an increase
the population). By 2010, 77 mil- of 15%. However, the U.S. labor
lion baby boomers will retire and, by force is only projected to increase
2030, one in every five Americans is 12% during the next ten years,
projected to be a senior citizen. which will make it more challeng-
ing than ever for restaurants to find
At the same time, we have, fortu- the workers they need. . . .
nately, projected job growth, includ-
ing in lower-skilled occupations. Our own surveys, not surprisingly,
Most jobs in our economy do not reflect the problems these employ-
require a college degree. Close to ers have in finding the workers that
40% of all jobs require only short- they need. . . . Difficulties in finding
term on-the-job training. In fact, both entry-level and skilled workers,
of the top ten largest job growth and developing solutions for this
occupations between 2002 and problem, ranked extremely high in
2012, all but two require less than a importance to those surveyed.5
bachelor’s degree. At the same time,
six of the top ten occupations only The Cato Institute concurs:
require short-term on-the-job train- While the fastest-growing occupa-
ing. Some of these top ten occupations in the next decade in percent-
tions that only require short-term age terms will require high degrees
on-the-job training include: retail of skill and education, the largest
salespersons, nursing aides, janitors growth in absolute numbers will be
and cleaners, waiters and waitresses, in those categories that require only
and combined food preparation and “short-term on-the-job training” of Cartoon appeared the day after the migrant-led protests
serving workers. one month or less. In fact, of the of 2006. Cartoon by Fisgon, courtesy of La Jornada.
top thirty categories with the larg-
However, shortages of essential est expected growth between 2000
workers are not limited to the larg- and 2010, more than half fall into
est growth occupations. In fact, that least-skilled category. . . . Those million by 2010, a net increase of
the need for essential workers cut categories include: combined food 7.7 million jobs.
across industry sectors. . . . BLS preparation and servicing workers,
projected an increase in jobs be- including fast food; waiters and Meanwhile, the supply of Ameri-
tween 2002 and 2012 for roofers of waitresses; retail salespersons; ca- can workers suitable for such work
over 30,000, while at the same time shiers; security guards; nursing aides, continues to fall because of an aging
there would be attrition in this oc- orderlies, and attendants; janitors workforce and rising education levels.
cupation of about 40,000—a net and cleaners; home health aides; The median age of American work-
deficit of 70,000. The Construction manual laborers and freight, stock, ers continues to increase as the large
Labor Research Council issued a and materials movers; landscaping cohort of Baby Boomers approaches
labor supply outlook . . . where it and groundskeeping workers; and retirement age. From 1990 to 2010,
found that the industry would need manual packers and packagers. . . the median age of U.S. workers
185,000 new workers annually for . Across the U.S. economy, the La- is expected to increase from 36.6
the next ten years. bor Department estimates that the years old to 40.6. Younger and older
total number of jobs requiring only workers alike are now more educated
The National Restaurant Association short-term training will increase as the share of adult native-born men
projects that the restaurant industry from 53.2 million in 2000 to 60.9 without a high school diploma have
CON T EM P LA T ING S OL U T ION S 47

to “harmonizing” labor standards, in
terms of wages, workweek, and other la-
bor-cost factors.8 Economic development
aid was provided to poorer countries like
Spain and Portugal, to enhance broader
economic opportunities throughout the
region (and lessen pressure to migrate),
although meeting labor needs through
movement also was contemplated.9 In
order to enhance mobility of workers,
the European Social Fund provides vo-
cational training and retraining. This fa-
cilitates adaptation to business needs in
different member countries.10 The idea is
that to really integrate the member na-
tions’ economies, the free movement of
workers is necessary, and they should
have the right to accept employment in
any member nation.11 The workers’ fami-
lies have the right to follow and establish
new residence with the workers.12
The EU approach to labor migration has

been thoughtful and deliberate. At the
outset, leaders and planners knew that as
open migration was contemplated a nec-
essary underpinning was the reduction
of economic difference between various
regions of Europe. Beginning with the
1973 enlargement to include Denmark,
Ireland, and the United Kingdom, the
Strawberry workers in Oxnard, most of whom are indigenous immigrants from the British pushed for an approach to aid
Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Michoacan. Photo by David Bacon. poorer regions. When Greece (1981),
Portugal (1986), and Spain (1986) were
added, all three countries as well as Ire-
plunged, from 53.6 percent in 1960 Labor Movement in the European land received infusions of capital and as-
to 9.0 in 1998. During that same pe- Union and Lessons for NAFTA sistance with institutional planning. This
riod, the share with college degrees In contrast to the failure of NAFTA to shared-responsibility model was based
has gone up from 11.4 percent to incorporate labor migration in its pro- on “a commitment to the values of in-
29.8 percent. visions, the development of the EU has ternal solidarity and mutual support.”13
proceeded with the movement of work- The new member countries also enacted
With the number of low-skilled ers clearly in mind. For that reason, social legislation aimed at assisting the
jobs expected to grow by more looking to the European experience for unemployed.14
than 700,000 a year, and a shrink- guidance or even as a model is appeal-
ing pool of Americans willing to ing, especially given the sense that the
The adhesion-fund approach worked.
fill those jobs, Mexican migrants EU permits open labor, engages in de-
The gap between the poorer and richer
provide a ready and willing source velopment assistance to poorer nations
nations narrowed. By the beginning of
of labor to fill the growing gap be- to reduce migration pressures, and yet
the new millennium, Ireland’s economy
tween demand and supply on the maintains border control.7 had transformed, and its per capita GDP
lower rungs of the labor ladder.6 was above the EU average. Incredibly, Ire-
Within the EU, a central component of land—a country that for years had been
Without a doubt, we need immigrant economic integration is the mobility of a constant source of emigrants—began
workers of all stripes. persons. This is done with a commitment attracting immigrants. The feared “mass
migration of the unemployed” fizzled.
People stayed in their own countries be-
cause work opportunities were created.
Only 2 percent of EU citizens looked for
work in other EU countries.15
The United States can learn from the

successes of EU investments in candidate
countries. Given the need to rethink the
U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. investment in
Mexico must be part of the strategy. To
begin, the United States should consider
comprehensive funding that covers all
areas of Mexico’s economy, as well as its
social and political infrastructure. Such
investments will ensure Mexican eco-
nomic growth, as well as political and
social stability and progress.
The lesson of the EU is that with open

trade, limits on the number of migrant
workers are a mistake. Open migration
of workers creates the most efficient la-
bor market, allowing the flow of workers
to properly follow job demand. In this An elderly man play songs from the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 for tips before crowds
way, workers remain above ground, earn- of migrants waiting for dawn in Altar, Sonora. Photo by John Gibler.
ing a protected wage and helping both
the local and their home country econo-
mies. Such an open border policy helps recognizes that migration has become lead to lack of confidence on the part of
to guarantee workers’ rights and ensure part and parcel of the economy and so- the public and even anti-immigrant sen-
that migrant workers are not doomed to cial life of countries, and that sending timent. More walls and fences are essen-
substandard living conditions. and receiving countries often become tially an admission that the system is not
dependent on migration that is difficult working.22 And, curiously, restrictions
Considering Open Borders (Mi- to stop. In spite of that, the conven- on mobility curtail circularity, which can
gration without Borders) tional wisdom is that an open border is lead to the undocumented residing more
Many individuals have raised the idea of not feasible because massive migration permanently. Open borders enable mi-
open borders for serious consideration. would result. But Pecoud submits that grants enter but to return as well.23
For example, after his landslide victory for such fear is not grounded on any em-
the Mexican presidency in 2000, Vicente pirical understanding.18 We actually do In his influential article on open
Fox advocated an open-border concept, not know what would happen if borders borders,24 Kevin Johnson outlines the
acknowledging that Mexico could not of- were opened, but we do know that the most salient points in support of a new
fer its workers the same salaries or living results of immigration policies are hard way of looking at immigration. Under
standards offered in the United States but to predict.19 As the UNHCR has stated: liberal theory, closed borders are an-
arguing that Mexican workers were able “It may be assumed that, unless he seeks tithetical to the rights of non-citizens;
to fill much-needed job openings north of adventure or just wishes to see the world, liberals ought to be supportive of “rela-
the border.16 Political philosophers such a person would not normally abandon tively unrestricted immigration.”25 The
as Mark Tushnet, Joseph Carens, and R. his home and country without some moral grounds to exclude “ordinary,
George Wright have argued that restrict- compelling reason.”20 And as we know peaceful people, seeking only the op-
ing law-abiding immigrants is antithetical from the EU experience, massive migra- portunity to build decent secure lives”
to the notion of an open society.17 tion from poorer countries does not oc- are simply hard to locate.26 Our reli-
cur.21 Continued undocumented immi- gious foundations also provide a “moral
As if speaking about the U.S.-Mexico gration flow and the apparent inability imperative” to treat immigrants in a
border specifically, Antoine Pecoud of a government to control the flow can humanitarian way.27

In Johnson’s view, the special relationship and Canada were opened. However we generation.42 In essence, the EU was able
between the United States and Mexico should not forget that the life-altering to reduce the volatility that would prey
suggests a greater moral obligation to immigration decision is not made eas- most heavily on weak economies. The key
Mexican migrants.28 That relationship ily, and a floodgate should not be the was to narrow the disparities in income
has led to a culture of migration from assumed response.35 Most undocu- between its rich and poor members.43
Mexico (built on economics and fam- mented workers from Mexico want
ily reunification), and, as such, broad to work in the United States tempo- Investment was part of the NAFTA de-
immigration restrictions are impossible rarily to finance projects back home, bates. President Clinton favored the
to enforce because they run counter to like building a house, purchasing land, establishment of a North American De-
migration pressures.29 Those restrictions buying consumer goods; if given the velopment Bank (NADBank). Resources
have led to policies such as the institu- opportunity, they would work on tem- were limited, however, and when the NA-
tion of Operation Gatekeeper and other porary trips to the United States and DBank became operational, the mandate
militarization at the U.S.-Mexico border retire back home to “enjoy the fruits was limited to loans for environmental
that has resulted in an untenable death of their labors in the United States.”36 border projects.44 Furthermore, NAD-
toll among border crossers.30 Demographic changes also suggest Bank’s mandate is to lend at market rates
some slowing of migration to the of interest for “sustainable” projects. Most
Johnson observes that today’s immigra- United States from Mexico over time. Mexican communities cannot afford to
tion laws contribute to racism in the The Mexican birth rate is dropping, take on the kind of debt needed to fund
United States, and their enforcement the population growth rate is lower, projects; there simply is no revenue to re-
leads to civil rights harms.31 In con- and fewer youngsters are approaching pay such loans, and charging higher utility
tributing to an environment conducive working age.37 rates to residents to fund is not possible.45
to discriminatory sentiment, the cur- Mexico’s infrastructure needs attention.
rent regime has led to a large pool of Investing in Mexico A national plan for infrastructure and
undocumented workers who are subject Economic development in Mexico is transportation has not been developed.46
to exploitation by U.S. employers.32 often cited as the real way to stop un- Reducing geographical disparities within
documented migration.38 The idea is Mexico would likely decrease pressures
There also are national security reasons that economic development would cre- to emigrate, and a first priority should
for being more flexible in our approach ate more jobs, and the availability of be improving the road system from the
to the border.33 More liberal admissions more jobs would provide less reason for U.S. border to the central and southern
policies across our southern border Mexicans to come to the United States parts of Mexico.47 If that were done, in-
would enhance our country’s security to find work.39 The question is whether vestment could be attracted. The states
because we would know the identities the idea would work, and what it would of Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Michoacan, and
of those who cross; resources currently take to work. Guanajuato, in the central and southern
wasted on border militarization could parts of the country, have the highest un-
be spent on really ferreting out those As noted in the EU experience, the estab- employment rates and are the primary
who may be attempting to enter to do lishment of the European Social Fund ap- sources of migrants to the border and to
harm to the nation. Robert Pastor, di- peared to moderate significant immigra- the United States.48 Yet, in spite of the
rector of the Center for North Ameri- tion from poorer countries to wealthier growth in trade under NAFTA, signifi-
can Studies, also argues that NAFTA nations and may be something to emu- cant investment in transportation and
had a national security purpose that late. For example, the fund boosted living infrastructure has not occurred. Before
should not be neglected. The hope was standards in Spain, Portugal, and Ireland NAFTA, Mexico invested in poorly de-
to lesson migration pressures by sup- as they entered the EU.40 President Vicen- signed toll roads under the Salinas ad-
porting a stable Mexico. Thus he sub- te Fox urged all three NAFTA countries ministration (1988–94), and the roads
mits that we should act to prevent a (especially the United States) to contrib- charged hefty tolls that few were willing
“serious internal crisis” in Mexico that ute to an analogous North American de- to pay. As Mexico’s debt rose, investment
could lead to massive migration; thus velopment fund, but the timing was bad, in infrastructure was slashed from about
we should help Mexico, for example, coming shortly before September 11, 10 percent in the 1980s to less than 2
to develop its natural gas and oil indus- 2001.41 Among other things, the funds percent in 1998. So all transportation
tries for economic development as well would have been used for highways to sectors—roads, rail, air, and ports—face
as for security purposes.34 bridge the three countries better, for de- serious challenges.49
velopment in rural parts of Mexico, and
No one knows for sure what would to boost the Mexican education system in Taking a cue from the EU’s European
happen if the borders with Mexico order to uplift opportunities for the next Social Fund, Robert Pastor has made a
similar proposal. He believes that the earn working.58 About 2.5 million rural Consider the Mexican state of Zacatecas,
three NAFTA countries should estab- families received $1 billion through the a major source of labor migration to the
lish an investment fund to invest in program in 2000. The percentage of stu- United States. Some estimate that about
roads, telecommunications, and post- dents that go from elementary school to a million dollars in remittances flow into
secondary education in Mexico.50 Re- high school has increased by 20 percent the state each day. Yet local assembly
call that the EU invested huge sums under the program.59 Other data indicate plants had to close for lack of workers.64
in roads and education in new, poorer, that Mexico is taking its responsibility to An open border could hurt Mexico psy-
member states, narrowing their income support education seriously. The average chologically as well. Workers could focus
gap with the rest of Europe, providing adult education level of seven years is more on their plan to leave Mexico, than
workers an incentive to stay home.51 up from three years twenty years ago.60 on how to use their talents in Mexico.65
Mexico lacks the capital to build the School enrollment for children (ages
infrastructure that is necessary to help six to fourteen) reached 92.1 percent in Mexican migrants are among the coun-
narrow the gap with Canada and the 2000, compared to 85.8 percent in 1990 try’s most able workers, who leave for
United States.52 Pastor argues that if and 64.4 percent in 1970.61 Students better wages—not necessarily because
its northern neighbors contributed 10 are required to complete nine years of they are unemployed. Their income in
percent of what the EU spends on aid, school and, in general, enrollment has the United States is better than what they
with wise investments in infrastructure increased more than 80 percent at the were making in Mexico but it is unclear
and education, Mexico could experience primary level.62 if the productivity—measured in part by
growth at a rate twice that of Canada their remittance—is higher than what it
and the United States. “The psychol- One thing that NAFTA has taught us is would have been if they had remained
ogy of North America would change that if we expect employment growth in in Mexico. That is a hard question to
quickly, and the problems of immigra- Mexico to materialize as a result of trade answer, so an open border does not nec-
tion, corruption, and drugs would look agreements, investments have to be tar- essarily mean that Mexico benefits.66 By
different. North America would have geted. We have to seriously determine concentrating on investments in Mexico
found the magic formula to lift devel- how to help Mexico’s domestic industries, to create more jobs, even if labor move-
oping countries to the industrial world, for example by using domestic parts and ment is opened up, fewer than expected
and that would be the twenty-first-cen- supplies in production exports.63 Local Mexicans would migrate, because incen-
tury equivalent of the shot heard round industries must be strengthened. tives for able Mexican workers to remain
the world.”53 By building up the central home will have been created.
part of the country, border congestion In order for any significant effect on mi-
could be relieved, and the whole system gration from Mexico to take place, sig- Immigrant Enterprise Zones
could be better managed.54 nificant investment in new technologies In spite of tensions over immigration
in small- and medium-sized industries that have arisen in some communities,
Focusing on the educational system in is a must. Some of this can be achieved certain areas of the United States regard
Mexico is also key. Mexican students fall through tax incentives to spur economic immigration as an answer to regional
near the bottom in cross-country com- growth in the country’s interior. Fruit economic problems. They understand
parisons on basic literacy, math, and sci- and vegetable production development that immigrant workers have been ex-
ence.55 While the adult education level can absorb some of the rural workers tremely beneficial to many parts of the
in the United States is almost thirteen that have been displaced. And Mexico’s country. Thus, efforts are under way
years, in Mexico, the level is about sev- public infrastructure should be a big pri- in many regions to recruit more immi-
en.56 This low education level has severe ority. grants.
implications for competitiveness and
standard of living for Mexicans, whether While open labor migration must be Iowa is one example. Like states and
they remain in Mexico or migrate to the considered, Mexico’s future also must be cities in other regions of the country,
United States.57 kept in mind. Given what we now know a considerable part of Iowa’s popula-
about NAFTA as well as the recent po- tion has disappeared over the past two
Infusing new energy and investment litical-economic history of Mexico, we decades. A large portion of its high
in education in Mexico can bear fruit. definitely need some flexibility at the school graduates leaves the state each
Mexico’s “Progresa” or “Oportunidades” border. Our special relationship with year shortly after graduation. But even
program gives poor families incentives Mexico justifies that flexibility. However, if Iowa were able to retain every high
to keep their children in school, pro- setting up a system where Mexico loses school senior after graduation, Iowa
viding grants that are the equivalent of large numbers of its able-bodied workers would still face a 3 percent decline in
about two-thirds of what they would cannot be good for Mexico. its adult workforce within five years.

Iowa also ranks third in the nation for Many Philadelphia leaders believe that sources of labor find other jobs or remain
elderly citizens; an average Iowa farmer the city must act to maintain its residen- in school. Initially, migrant workers ar-
is fifty-eight years old and the average tial base and explore ways to attract resi- rived in Kentucky to cut tobacco on their
assembly-line worker at the Maytag dents from other regions of the country swing through the country before head-
Company in Newton, Iowa, is fifty-sev- and from around the world. They believe ing home for the winter. They became
en. Iowa’s loss of its young homegrown that this is critical for revitalizing many invaluable when other workers could not
population comes at a time when the neighborhoods in addition to increasing be found. Kentucky’s chief demographer
state has enjoyed a vibrant and growing local tax revenues. Their plan includes: put it a little differently, as he recognizes
economy the past decade, with annual • Assisting immigrants in finding hous- immigrant labor as a hedge against the
unemployment of only 2 percent. Iowa’s ing and health services graying of Kentucky: “I don’t think we’re
farms employ fewer workers than ever; • Working with local colleges and uni- going to have an indigenous labor force.
its population is aging, at a time when versities in Philadelphia (the city has Boomers are done having kids. The
it needs younger workers and the state developed an overall recruitment plan boomlet is over.”67 Louisville officials also
wants to attract high-tech industries. for foreign students to help increase want to attract immigrants. The city’s
the foreign student population) population fell 5 percent in the 1990s
As Iowa is losing people, it wants immi- • Working with the major technological and would have dropped more had it
grants to replace them. A bipartisan state and e-commerce business entities in not been for the approximately twenty
commission, established when Tom Vil- the city to develop a comprehensive thousand immigrants and refugees from
sack was governor, is composed of thirty- plan to recruit highly educated and places like Cuba, Somalia, and Vietnam
seven prominent Iowans. Its mandate skilled workers during the decade. A new city office of
was to devise a plan to improve the state’s • Through the school district, working to international and cultural affairs plans to
economy by the year 2010. Having set ensure that the children of immigrants post a list of interpreters on the Internet
their economic goals, members realized are enrolled in school and are offered for community service providers to use.
the state did not have the population to language classes and assimilation ser- Efforts to help immigrants establish their
meet them. This “2010 Commission” vices, and expanding the curriculum own businesses are also underway.
concluded that Iowa’s population needed to require all native-born students to
to increase about 10 percent by 2010. study a second language Broaden the Permanent Visa
Some of its recommendations: • Through the Office of New Philadel- System
phians, developing a comprehensive The U.S. immigration system requires
• Make Iowa technologically competitive plan on how new immigrants can help comprehensive reform that serves every-
by developing non-agricultural indus- to contribute to the positive redevel- one who lives and works in the United
tries opment of distressed neighborhoods. States. The country’s outdated immigra-
• Establish “diversity welcome centers” to tion policy is incapable of dealing with
help immigrants locate housing, learn Not to be outdone across the state, Pitts- twenty-first-century immigration pat-
English, and find health care burgh is also embracing new strategies to terns and economic realities. In effect, it
• Designate Iowa an “immigrant enter- attract immigrants. While Philadelphia undermines the very ideals and values the
prise zone” and seek a federal exemp- was losing 4 percent of its population country was built on and serves neither
tion from immigration quotas in the 1990s, Pittsburgh’s population business nor workers.
• Assist Iowa companies to recruit pro- fell by 9.5 percent. Local organizations
spective employees from abroad. have received foundation grants to help Each year, approximately five hundred
attract immigrants with jobs, encourage thousand immigrants—the majority
The city of Philadelphia faces similar foreign students to stay after graduation, without authorization status—are ab-
challenges. During the past decade, the and teach the community about diver- sorbed into the U.S. labor force. These
city lost over 68,000 residents—about 4 sity. The city hopes to remake its out- numbers will continue to burgeon until
percent of its population. This contin- dated smoky image, in order to attract U.S. immigration laws are reformed to
ued a downward trend in the population immigrants to thousands of jobs in new adequately address the global economic
that began in the late 1950s. As more health-care, biotechnology, and comput- realities of the twenty-first century.
and more residents depart—primarily er software industries.
middle-income residents looking for bet- Given the risks, why do migrants from
ter schools and safe neighborhoods—the Kentucky is a state whose reliance on Mexico continue the harrowing trek?
city faces a further erosion of its already immigrants appears to be understood The attraction of the United States is ob-
shrinking tax base and potential reduc- in similar terms. Farmers have come vious. The strong economy pays Mexican
tions in its federal dollar allocation. to depend on immigrants when native workers, for example, eight to nine times
more than what they can earn in Mexico. that the economic incentives are in place Lawmakers must choose to revise harmful
For many, it is a matter of economic des- for U.S. employers to hire U.S. workers policies on trade, to craft meaningful in-
peration, and some observers think that first. Businesses should be required to ternational labor standards, and to work
migrants would continue to come even if search widely for workers already in the with unions, corporations, and com-
we mined the border. In a sense, they do U.S. and wage rate requirements should munity organizations around the globe
not have a choice. Besides, jobs are plen- be high enough to make jobs attractive to promote better jobs, living standards,
tiful here, because a variety of industries to U.S. workers. Access to the program and stable communities everywhere, oth-
rely on low-wage migrant workers. The should be frozen in areas with high unem- erwise the pressure for undocumented
migrants may know the risks but figure ployment, and the employer application immigration will persist. We can craft
that the risks are outweighed by the ben- fees for hiring new foreign workers under trade policies in an era of globalization
efits of crossing. the program should be significant. This while respecting the rights and dignity
approach would satisfy employers’ needs of working people and their families
Motivations for continued migration call for workers. More importantly, it would throughout the world.
into question the effectiveness of build- prevent the creation of an underclass of
ing more walls or expanding Operation workers since immigrants would have full Too often, when companies in search of
Gatekeeper if the goal is to discourage employment rights and access to a per- cheap wages and weak labor laws cannot
border crossers. Beyond the economic manent future in the U.S. community, export jobs, they import workers to cre-
situation in Mexico, a socio-economic economy, and democracy. ate a domestic pool of exploitable labor,
phenomenon is at play. The phenom- effectively importing the labor standards
enon involves the long, historical travel Additionally, under the current visa pro- of developing nations into the United
patterns between Mexico and the United gram, families often have to wait five to States. Immigration reform must provide
States, coupled with the interdependency twenty years to be reunited with their meaningful and enforceable penalties for
of the two regions. Migration from Mex- family members. The visa limits and companies that violate health, safety,
ico is the manifestation of these econom- structural delays must be revamped to and labor laws, regardless of the status
ic problems and social phenomena. The end the separation of families and reduce of their workforce. The resources and
militarization of the border does nothing the number of undocumented immi- investigative authority of the U.S. De-
to address these. Instead, it traumatizes grants entering the country. At the end of partment of Labor and the Occupational
individuals who are caught up in them. the day, family reunification must remain Safety and Health Administration should
a high priority to be fair to the workers be expanded to allow for the consistent,
Instead of short-term “guest worker” vi- that we need and recruit. coordinated, and adequate enforcement
sas, labor shortages should be filled with of health, safety, and labor laws.
workers with full rights, a path to per- Revise Harmful Policies on Trade
manent residence, and, if they choose, and Craft Meaningful Labor Conclusion
citizenship. Congress has arbitrarily set Standards The debate over trade and migration
the number of employment-based ad- Economic globalization and harmful needs to be reframed. We need to un-
missions for permanent visas at one hun- U.S. trade policies are at the root of derstand that NAFTA and similar agree-
dred forty thousand visas annually. This our failed immigration system. U.S. ments have had tremendous influence
number falls far short of satisfying the trade policies have consequences for on migration pressures from Mexico. We
actual need for visas based on the U.S. de- workers around the world. Thirteen must understand that Mexico requires
mand for labor and family reunification. years of NAFTA have resulted in the infrastructure and economic assistance.
loss of millions of U.S. jobs. In Mexi- We need to be open to a new vision of
The number of visas available should co, real wages have declined by 20 per- the border and labor migration. In short,
respond to actual, demonstrated labor cent, millions of farmers have been dis- we need to stand back, take a careful
shortages. The new visa program must located, and millions more consigned look at the challenges, and craft solutions
ensure that U.S. workers are the first ones to poverty, fueling the labor flight into that will be beneficial to both the United
to be considered for available jobs and the United States. States and Mexico.

Notes
1. Jeffrey S. Passel, Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Charac- 20. Ibid.
teristics (Washington DC: Pew Hispanic Center, 2005), http:// 21. Ibid.
pewhispanic.org/files/reports/46.pdf. 22. Ibid., 6.
2. Ibid. 23. Ibid., 14. In fact, in the United States, stricter border enforce-
3. Ibid. ment after 9/11 has reduced circularity, and many undocu-
4. Ibid. mented people who would regularly return home no longer feel
5. The Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Serving Our that they can do so. In many respects, this has increased the
National Economy, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Im- undocumented population.
migration, Border Security and Citizenship of the Senate Com- 24. Kevin R. Johnson, “Open Borders?” UCLA Law Review 51
mittee on the Judiciary, 109th Congress 3–5 (2005) (statement (2003): 193. See generally, Kevin R. Johnson, Opening the
of Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Im-
Commerce). migration Laws (New York: NYU Press, 2007).
6. Daniel T. Griswold, “Willing Workers: Fixing the Problem of 25. Johnson, 205 (citing Mark Tushnet).
Illegal Mexican Migration to the United States,” Cato Institute, 26. Ibid., 208 (citing Joseph Carens).
Center for Trade Policy Study 19 (October 15, 2002), http:// 27. Ibid., 205–6.
www.freetrade.org/pubs/pas/tpa-019.pdf. 28. Ibid., 230–32.
7. Jason Ackleson, “Achieving ‘Security and Prosperity’: Migra- 29. Ibid., 244–52.
tion and North American Economic Integration,” Immigration 30. Ibid., 221–22.
Policy in Focus 4, no. 2, (2006), 1. 31. Ibid., 216–17. Consider racist sentiment directed at Latinos
8. Jennifer E. Harman, Mexican President Vicente Fox’s Proposal in the United States and the increased discrimination and hate
for Expanding NAFTA into a European Union-Style Common crimes directed at Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians after 9/11.
Market—Obstacles and Outlook, Law and Business Review of 32. Ibid., 226–30.
the Americas (2001): 207, 216. 33. Bill Ong Hing, Deporting Our Souls—Values, Morality and
9. Ackleson, 4-5. Immigration Policy (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge Uni-
10. Bradly J. Condon & J. Brad McBride, “Do You Know the versity Press, 2006): 158.
Way to San Jose? Resolving the Problem of Illegal Mexican 34. Pastor, 189.
Migration to the United States,” Georgetown Immigration Law 35. Johnson, 208 (citing Dowty).
Journal 17 (2003): 251, 291. 36. Douglas S. Massey, “An Exercise in Self-Deception,” Newsweek,
11. Christopher J. Cassise, “The European Union v. the United January 19, 2004.
States under the NAFTA: A Comparative Analysis of the Free 37. “Northward, Ho! Fox and Bush,” Economist, August 31, 2001.
Movement of Persons within the Regions,” Syracuse Law Review 38. Kevin R. Johnson, “Free Trade and Closed Borders: NAFTA
46, (1996): 1343, 1349. and Mexican Immigration to the United States,” U.C. Davis
12. Ibid., 1354. Law Review 27 (1994): 937, 960 (citing Congressman Robert
13. Robert Pastor, Toward a North American Community: Lessons Matsui).
from the Old World for the New (Washington, DC: Institute for 39. Mexico and the Migration Phenomenon, Embassy of Mexico,
International Economics, 2001): 29. distributed at MPI Immigration Task Force meeting (Washing-
14. Pastor, 55, 81. ton, DC, February 28, 2006): 2, 6.
15. Jeff Faux, The Global Class War: How America’s Bipartisan Elite 40. Harman, 220.
List Our Future—And What it will Take to Win it Back (Hobo- 41. Ibid.
ken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006): 224. 42. Ibid.
16. Ginger Thompson, “Mexican Leader Visits U.S. with a Vision 43. Pastor, 9.
to Sell,” New York Times, August 24, 2000. 44. Ibid., 76.
17. Mark Tushnet, “Immigration Policy in Liberal Political Theo- 45. Ibid., 77.
ry,” Justice in Immigration, ed. Warren F. Schwartz, (Cambridge, 46. Ibid., 93.
MA: Cambridge University Press, 1995): 147, 155; Joseph H. 47. Ibid., 137.
Carens, “Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders,” Re- 48. Ibid.
view Policy, 49 (1987): 251, 270; R. George Wright, “Federal 49. Ibid., 93.
Immigration Law and the Case for Open Entry,” Loyola of Los 50. Ibid., 136.
Angeles Law Review 27 (1994): 1265, 1266. 51. Thomas L. Friedman, “Out of the Box,” New York Times, April
18. Antoine Pecoud, Migration without Borders: Essays on the Free 4, 2004.
Movement of People (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007): 1, 4. 52. Pastor, 145.
19. Ibid., 13. 53. Ibid., 191.
54. Ibid., 139. the Committee on Finance, Sept. 11, 2006, Carnegie Endow-
55. Condon & McBride, 255. ment for International Peace, www.carnegieendowment.org/
56. Ibid. files/naftaoraltestimony.pdf.
57. Ibid., 267. 64. Pastor, 125.
58. Ibid., 267–68. 65. Ibid. As long as incomes in the United States range from four
59. Ibid. to thirty times those in Mexico, the incentives to migrate will
60. Ibid., 256. be compelling. Until that differential can be reduced by about
61. Ibid. half—and, under very optimistic projections, that could take
62. Pastor, 141. Portugal and Spain, with EU help, established thirty to forty years—a deliberate decision to relax U.S. im-
small colleges in rural provinces. These colleges served as mag- migration laws would have serious adverse consequences for
nets that attracted professionals from more advanced regions, Mexico’s economy.
and they also radiated their influence into the wider rural com- 66. Ibid., 126.
munity, helping to upgrade their education. Ibid.,141. 67. Butch John, “Immigration’s Local Impact: Hispanics, Asians
63. Sandra Polaski, NAFTA at Year Twelve, Oral Testamony at the Flowing In; Their Growth is Eight Times That of Whole Popu-
United States Senate Subcommittee on International Trade of lation,” Louisville Courier, September 6, 2000.

Migration and Development: Moving Beyond NAFTA
Oscar Chacón and Amy Shannon
Framing migrants as key social actors the promises of regional integration still is high time to break out of the policy
who comprise a transnational constitu- ring hollow for most Mexicans and for silos that separate migration from its root
ency with an important role in defining many other Americans. cause, which is the lack of sustainable de-
a new approach to regional integration, velopment, and to seek policy solutions
Shannon and Chacon propose ways in During the debate about NAFTA in that recognize the degree to which our
which Mexican immigrants can leverage the early 1990s, proponents argued that future well-being is already deeply depen-
their experiences and emerging political the trade agreement would slow migra- dent on that of our neighbors. We also
clout to achieve more sustainable and tion, beef up tri-national environmen- must engage migrants and their families
people-centered North American devel- tal protections, and create new jobs for as key social actors who comprise a trans-
opment. They present an overview of mi- all. The experiences of the past decade national constituency in a new approach
grants’ diverse roles, detailing their eco- have proved quite different. In spite of to regional integration.
nomic, social, and cultural contributions increasingly harsh border restrictions,
to both receiving and sending countries. millions of Mexicans have fled sput- Policy Silos: Migration and its
Emphasizing the paucity of policymaker tering rural economies to seek work in Root Causes
consultation with migrant populations, the United States. The dominant role of The question of human mobility across
Shannon and Chacon describe the exclu- China in world manufacturing strongly borders is deliberately omitted under the
sion of migrant perspectives from trade suggests that Mexico is not going to NAFTA model of trade and economic
and immigration policy discussions. The make economic leaps forward through integration, despite the obvious connec-
policy proposals Shannon and Chacon low-cost labor and simple maquila tions between profound economic and
offer include the establishment of strin- manufacturing. The lure of the econo- production shifts and migration. In con-
gent human and labor rights standards, my on the U.S. side of the border, with tradiction our national debate around
acknowledgement and mitigation of so- its strong demand for agricultural work- immigration policy in the United States
cial asymmetries between potential trade ers, service employees, meat and poultry consistently ignores the fundamental
partners prior to signing trade agreements, processors, and other manual labor jobs, question of why people find it necessary
and investment in environmental protec- is pulling us ever more quickly into an to leave their homelands in the first place.
tion and education to meet the challenges integrated hemispheric labor market, a As politicians debate the relative merits
of a globalized world. reality not contemplated under NAFTA. of border security and militarization,
At the same time, working-class people earned legalization, and enforcement,
Introduction in the United States have witnessed a little attention is paid to what drives
All over the hemisphere, governments constant erosion of their quality of life. migration from Mexico and around the
are struggling with an uncomfortable Millions lack access to health care, send world: deep inequalities, insecurity, and
reality. Although increased trade has their children to substandard schools, lack of opportunity.
brought economic growth in some sec- and struggle to make a living wage. The
tors, growth has not translated into social ills of unchecked economic glo- If we are to develop policies that will
increased economic opportunities for balization have a strikingly similar ap- lead to long-term sustainable develop-
many of the region’s poor people. To the pearance across the hemisphere. ment in our hemisphere and provide
contrary, many countries in Latin Amer- economic opportunities for people in
ica are experiencing dramatic increases in As we look back at nearly fifteen years un- their own communities, we must rec-
economic inequality, with the poorest of der NAFTA, we should ask policy mak- ognize the interconnected nature of fac-
the poor at the losing end of the equa- ers hard questions about the purported tors that are causing so many people to
tion. A recent World Bank briefing paper benefits of export-oriented, growth-at- leave their places of origin in search of
suggested that while trade liberalization all-costs trade agreements. Perhaps more a better life in another country. Current
may drive growth, it tends to concentrate importantly, we should begin to craft patterns of economic globalization and
wealth and may have the unintended ef- policies that respond to the realities of technology have both increased pres-
fect of exacerbating poverty.1 Over the our increasingly globalized world and sures to migrate and made it easier to do
past fourteen years since Mexico, Cana- put people-centered sustainable devel- so. The economic push and pull factors
da, and the United States signed NAFTA, opment at the center of our agenda. It for migration are amplified by increased
homogenization of cultural expectations, around a particular town or region of more than a decade of experience in
driven by global media communications origin. This has led academics to call them infrastructure investment and collec-
conglomerates and fueled by television Hometown Associations (HTAs), though tive charitable donations in communi-
and the consumer culture of the north. they most often call themselves “clubs” ties of origin. In recent years, some mi-
Migration continues to be driven as well or “committees.” In the case of Central grant organizations have begun to take
by the healthy human impulse to reunite Americans, the organizations often have a more aggressive role in pressing for
families. Migration will remain a sig- a more national or ethnic bent. For ex- development policies that create jobs
nificant factor in the economic, cultural, ample, Centro Romero in Chicago, Cen- and economic opportunity in their
and political future of our hemisphere tral American Resource Center in Hous- places of origin.
for the foreseeable future. Rather than ton, and Centro Presente in Boston all • Providing services in communities of
denying it, we should focus on ways to trace their history to a committed group arrival to help immigrants integrate
leverage the experiences and emerging of Salvadoran émigrés who organized to more fully into the social, economic,
political clout of migrants toward a more support the burgeoning refugee commu- political, and cultural fabric of soci-
sustainable and people-focused vision for nity that began arriving from El Salvador ety. These services include: English-
our hemisphere. during the war in the 1980s. The strong language training, vocational training,
sense of local or national identity that computer training, civic participation,
Transnational Community Orga- propels immigrant organizing does not financial literacy, after-school care,
nizations: Current and Potential mean that the organizations cannot form youth organizing, health services, and
Roles alliances with others when circumstances cultural preservation—dance, music,
Over the past two decades, as immigrants require it. The National Alliance of Latin theater, etc..
have arrived in the United States from American and Caribbean Communities • Becoming more visible advocates for
Latin America in record numbers, many (NALACC) coordinates national and in- political changes in the United States.
new organizations have formed within im- ternational-level advocacy efforts of more One of the striking aspects of large im-
migrant communities. These organizations than seventy-five community-based, Lati- migrant mobilizations in the spring
have diverse expressions. Some of them no-immigrant-led organizations around of 2006 was the degree to which im-
provide community services to newly ar- the country, on issues ranging from immigrant-led, locally based organizing
rived immigrant communities. Others migration reform to civic engagement drove the process. The larger national
emerged in the wake of natural disasters to and sustainable development. organizations, including labor unions,
funnel charitable donations to the affected lagged behind local communities
regions. In some cases organizations form Latino and Caribbean immigrants and in grasping the potential to channel
from existing or newly developed social their organizations already play a strong popular unrest into large, visible pub-
connections—groups of migrants get to- and visible role in their countries of ori- lic actions. In the wake of the 2006
gether to play soccer or meet others from gin, and are beginning to assume a more marches, many immigrant-led organi-
their community and end up forming an visible role in the United States. Among zations have continued and deepened
organization to help out in their old home- other things, immigrants are: their engagement in immigration re-
town or solve a problem in their new one. In form advocacy.
general, first-generation Latino immigrant • Pumping a lot of money into local • Pressing for political changes in coun-
leaders, who have firsthand experience of economies in Latin America. Even as tries of origin. Until recently, actions
the impacts—both good and bad—of the they build their communities here in in this area have tended to coalesce
changing global economy, form these civic the United States, Latino immigrants around civil rights, including the
and community-based groups. have continued to care about and right to vote and the right to politi-
support their communities in their cal representation. In 2006, Mexican
Many recently arrived Latino immigrants countries of origin. Migrants are only immigrant activists finally won a long-
tend to organize around some aspect of too aware that the lack of economic standing battle to allow Mexicans liv-
ethnic or national affinity. In the case of opportunity in the home country is a ing abroad to vote in federal elections.
immigrants from Mexico, the self-orga- key driver of migration. Some Mexi- Unfortunately, the Byzantine “vote-
nized immigrant groups often revolve can hometown associations now have by-mail” process made it difficult for
MIG R A T ION AN D D EVELO P MEN T 57

based organizations that form the NAL-
ACC have engaged in a policy dialogue
related to promoting long-term, sustain-
able development. Emerging from this
dialogue, the following ideas could be
a first step in moving toward a new ap-
proach to regional integration and devel-
opment in our hemisphere.
• Recognize the urgent need to modify

the trade and development policies that
the United States has pursued in Latin
America for the past twenty years. Cur-
rent policies have largely failed to lift
the majority of people out of poverty
and have deepened economic inequal-
ity in the region. Instead of moving
“Of course we are indignant! It’s one remittance less!” “SRE” is the Spanish acronym for forward with more ill-conceived trade
Mexico’s foreign Ministry. Cartoon by Magu, courtesy of La Jornada. agreements, U.S. development assis-
tance policies should strengthen local
economies and lay the groundwork for
many voters to register but the trend Although dwarfed in comparison to long-term, sustainable development.
toward absentee voting has pushed the amount of individual remittances The collapse of rural economies is
down to the state level. received, collective remittances used as one factor driving people to migrate.
donations or for project investment are Given the importance of local agricul-
Beyond Remittances: Immigrants also on the rise, as migrant organizations tural production to the livelihoods of
as a Constituency for Sustain- consolidate and develop more ambitious many Latin Americans, we should give
able, People-centered Develop- agendas aimed at influencing the trajec- priority to building strong local and
ment Policies tory of their hometowns. However, more regional markets and environmental
Often, discussion of migrants’ roles in and more migrants are seeing their ef- sustainability by revising U.S. subsi-
development in their countries of origin forts thwarted by the broader economic dies to agricultural production.
devolves to a relatively simplistic focus context, including the emphasis on the • The United States must move forward
on remittances. Certainly, the aggregate export-driven development model codi- with immigration reform. As long as
numbers are impressive. But taken one fied in NAFTA. Migrant investors are tens of millions of people live in fear at
at a time, these private transfers that have frustrated by the lack of a supportive the margins of society, they will con-
captured the imaginations of govern- economic policy context for small and tinue to be effectively blocked from
ments and multilateral agencies average medium-sized entrepreneurs. Credit, es- being fully productive and civically
less than $500 per month per family. pecially in rural areas, is both hard to get engaged members of society. A sen-
and expensive. Technical and marketing sible, workable immigration reform
According to the Inter-American Devel- assistance is virtually nonexistent. Many must include a path to legal perma-
opment Bank (IADB), more than $300 migrants have tried to invest in sectors nent residency, with a prompt and
billion will flow into Latin America in the they know, such as agriculture, but find fair citizenship option for those who
next ten years from family remittances.2 themselves outcompeted by larger-scale, already live, work, and raise families
To get a sense of the relative magnitude of subsidized operations in the United in the United States. It must also deal
these transfers, it is worth noting that total States that are able to use the privileges with the shocking backlogs, some
remittances have come to match or surpass afforded by NAFTA to dump products stretching over a decade, for family re-
total foreign direct investment across the on the Mexican market. Many migrant- unification petitions. Finally we must
region, and in some countries, remittances led organizations are asking hard ques- come to terms with the reality that
far outpace FDI as a percentage of GDP.3 tions about the best way for migrant more workers from abroad will flow
According to IADB data, Mexico received investment to create long-term economic into our economy over time. We need
about $24 billion in remittances in 2007, opportunities in places of origin.4 a set of rules that will support the full
eclipsing all sources except petroleum in protection of these workers’ human
the generation of foreign exchange. Over the past two years, the community- and labor rights, and allow those who
end up working for several years in the
United States the right to apply for le-
gal permanent residency status.
• Because all the countries in our hemi-
sphere are now experiencing migra-
tion in ever more complicated dynam-
ics, we should work across borders
to establish minimum standards of
treatment for migrants in sending,
receiving, and transit countries. These
standards should be based on the prin-
ciples of respect for human rights and
human dignity. Migration should be
decriminalized in all countries as a
first step toward reducing the extreme
vulnerability of migrants to exploita-
tion and abuse.
• In addition to reassessing our economic
policy approach over the longer term,
immediate steps should be taken to
address the economic asymmetries
that drive migration, including:
• A moratorium on new bilateral or
multilateral trade agreements without
taking into account the significant
asymmetries between the U.S. econ-
omy and the economies of potential
partner countries, and building in ap-
propriate compensatory mechanisms,
as well as protections for labor and
the environment. Immigrant-led as-
sociations can and should be a part of
a national dialogue to rethink the way
in which trade relations should be re-
defined and implemented. A group of recently deported migrants line up to be searched by police before being admit-
• Enabling poor families to build assets ted into a private shelter that provides a free meal, blanket and serves as a contractor for
by increasing access to appropriate fi- local maquiladoras. Photo by John Gibler.
nancial services for immigrants with-
out access to banking services in the
United States and for their families in pealing as a potentially renewable en- young people for the demands of the
countries of origin. This will require ergy source, large-scale agribusiness twenty-first century. Our schools are
investment in innovative, appropriate monoculture for biofuel may turn out failing to meet the needs of a global-
financial technology such as bination- to be just as (or more) damaging to the ized world. Our education system is
ally linked credit and other commu- planet from a global warming perspec- failing both immigrants and native-
nity financial institutions. tive. The damage to local food systems born students, particularly within
• We must engage our neighbors in shared by large-scale conversion to fuel crops racial minorities. Key skill sets that
strategy for dealing with environmental should also be a cause for alarm. Al- our country should be nurturing,
challenges, including climate change, though NAFTA set up a tri-national such as multi-lingual capabilities and
water management, and pollution. facility for addressing environmental multi-cultural competencies are be-
There will be no silver bullets to magi- issues, the entity has been perpetually ing squandered as a result. We live in
cally solve these problems. The recent underfunded and lacks a meaningful a de facto regional labor market. We
flurry of interest in biofuels should enforcement mechanism. should be working together with our
serve as a cautionary tale. While ap- • Invest in education that will prepare neighbors, including Canada, Mexico,

and countries in Central America and “race to the bottom” in wages, labor pro- local cultures and peoples’ sense of pride
the Caribbean, on vital issues such as tections and environmental protections, about their own identity. The mean-
workforce development strategies for all while extracting record-breaking prof- ing of successful ways of life should be
equitable and sustainable economic it margins that become ever more con- pluralistic, rather than Hollywood-man-
growth with universal benefits. centrated in fewer pockets in the United ufactured. Ultimately we must strive to
States and abroad. significantly decrease the profound so-
Final Thoughts cial and economic asymmetries between
The trade and development policies em- A policy framework for lasting changes peoples in rich nations in North America
bodied in NAFTA have failed to lift the must prioritize sustainable, local eco- and Europe on one hand, and peoples in
majority of people out of poverty and nomic development, placing a priority developing nations in Asia, Africa, and
have deepened economic inequality in on building small- and medium-sized Latin America on the other. If people
many countries. Proponents of “free enterprises and creating opportunities for do not see any hope for their children
trade” as the antidote to poverty may meaningful, dignified work. The collapse in their places of origin, migration will
have had the best of intentions but it of rural economies is one key factor driv- continue to be the only option for many
just hasn’t worked. Unfortunately, many ing people to migrate, so we must pay at- families around the world.
corporations have seized the opportunity tention to developing healthy rural econ-
to exploit trade agreements as they lead a omies. It will also be crucial to strengthen
Notes
1. “Does More International Trade Openness Increase World Poverty?” World Bank Briefing Paper, http://www1.worldbank.org/econom-
icpolicy/globalization/documents/AssessingGlobalizationP2.pdf.
2. ”Sending Money Home,” Inter-American Development Bank, http://www.iadb.org/mif/remesas_map.cfm?language=English&parid=5&
item1d=2
3. Foreign Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2004, United Nations ECLAC, 2005.
4. For more detail on migrant-led dialogue on sustainable development, see Raúl Delgado Wise and Héctor Rodríguez Ramírez , “The
Emergence of Collective Migrants and Their Role in Mexico’s Local and Regional Development,” Canadian Journal of Development
Studies 22, no. 3 (2001), http://www.migracionydesarrollo.org; Rodolfo García Zamora, “Migración Internacional y Desarrollo Local:
Una Propuesta Binacional para el Desarrollo Regional del Sur de Zacatecas,” Red Internacional de Migración y Dessarollo, http://www.
migracionydesarrollo.org; Amy Shannon, “Investing in Hope: Transnational Communities as Social and Political Entrepreneurs,” Enlaces
América, http://www.enlacesamerica.org/articles0303/newsletters/edition10Fall2005/InvestingInHope.htm
Calexico, California, USA. June 2004. This canal hugs the boundary between the United States and Mexico.
Photo by Mizue Aizeki.

Political Violence and Migration in the Lower
Triqui Region
María Dolores París Pombo
The author offers a ground-level perspec- substituted the “labor hooking” system. The land’s fertility and bounty have been
tive on the forces reshaping the lives of the Political violence and insecurity in their a permanent source of conflict. Triqui
indigenous Triqui nation and propelling original lands pushed the Triqui to stay lands have been repeatedly invaded or
their migration from Oaxaca to northwest- in the northwest and to migrate across fought over by mestizo ranchers and
ern Mexico and the United States. Owning the border in search of better living con- Mixtecs from nearby towns. Despite the
fertile lands but standing at the bottom of ditions. Thus Triqui migration is shaded struggle to enforce their property rights,
the social and political system has made the by political exile and at the same time between 1970 and 1990 the Triqui lost
Triqui the target of systematic attempts by responds to the development model in- 33 percent of their land, while their
authoritarian state officials and their allies stituted in Mexico a quarter of a century population grew 49 percent.3 As a result,
to deprive them of their livelihoods, often ago. In addition to drops in the price of smallholdings were divided even more
violently. Economic hardship, imposed by commercial crops, such as coffee, and the and massive emigration ensued.
the vagaries of commodity prices under total absence of rural development poli-
globalization, made the Triqui easy prey cies, migration is fed by generalized vio- Starting in the 1980s, continuous con-
for agribusiness labor contractors, who first lence stemming from territorial disputes frontations between caciques and popu-
hooked them to work in northwestern Mex- and the struggle for political control of lar organizations spurred emigration.
ico. Since then, the Triqui have dispersed the region. In particular, corrupt popular leaders,
throughout North America, working as ag- the authoritarian and repressive state
ricultural laborers following the crop cycle, Disputed Territory government, its mestizo rancher allies,
and learning to organize transnationally Surrounded by forests, traversed by small and indigenous caciques allied with
to defend their rights and their traditions. rivers, and fed by abundant rain, the the Partido Revolucionario Institu-
However the same process of adaptation Lower Triqui lands are fertile. A palette of cional and the Triqui Unification and
poses new challenges for an ancient culture, green colors the landscape. Yams, herbs, Struggle Movement (MULT) fanned
and the outcome still hangs in the balance. and wild roots grow on the hillsides and political conflicts. From the creation
are part of the daily diet of the popula- of the MULT in 1981 to the close of
Introduction tion. Until the 1970s, the Triqui lived the century, eight hundred Triqui suc-
The Lower Triqui region lies on the west- by planting maize for self-consumption, cumbed to political violence.4 These
ern part of the state of Oaxaca, at the in- by picking wild roots, and by growing deaths are fundamentally related to
tersection of the Upper and Lower Mix- fruit trees, including mangoes, mameyes, the institutional vacuum: absent are
teca Sierras. Fifty years ago, the region’s oranges, and guava, in small family land- not only the agrarian authorities but
main town, San Juan Copala, stopped holdings. The production and sale of also the judiciary, which compounds
being a county seat and become an agen- traditional garments and the commer- impunity. Lastly, since the 1990s, the
cy of Santiago Juxtlahuaca. International cial sale of coffee and bananas sufficed to creation of paramilitary groups tied to
migration in this region is relatively re- earn enough income to buy industrialized party and governmental interests made
cent. Thirty years ago, migratory work products and to pay for school supplies or shootings, ambushes, murders, vendet-
was a domestic and seasonal undertaking celebrations. Coffee was grown in small tas, and armed conflicts ordinary occur-
that served to complement monetary in- plots, with primitive techniques and a rences. Vendettas and murders are also
comes from the sale of coffee, bananas, much lower productivity than that of the common among members of the same
and the beautiful garments woven by Putla valley coffee growers.1 However, lo- organization, as they seek to control
Triqui women on waist-held looms. Back cal intermediaries and hoarders consid- the resources and power of the move-
then, agribusiness bosses from the state ered coffee a source of great wealth, since ment. Since the 2003 creation of the
of Sinaloa, wishing to reap higher profits they bought cheap, often in advance or in Partido de Unidad Popular (PUP) un-
in their new export horticulture planta- exchange for hard liquor and guns, and der the auspices of then-governor José
tions, started hiring workers directly in sold at higher prices in regional markets. Murat, the rise of internal dissent in
the poorest and most isolated parts of In order to control grain production and the movement helped violence flare up.
the Mixteca, eventually fostering family keep their margins high, these merchants In 2006, the movement splintered and
and communal migration to northwest- disrupted the creation of alternative mar- the MULT-Independiente came into
ern Mexico. Later, migrant networks kets or coffee mills, often violently.2 being. This organization participated
Commemoration of First Year under Autonomous Municipal Rule, San Juan Copala, Oaxaca. Photo by Luis Alberto Cruz.
with two other ones, until recently tied ing its first year, it has been under attack The Creation of “Multilocal”
to the PRI—Unidad de Bienestar Social by the state government, police forces, Families and Communities
de la Región Triqui (UBISORT) and and paramilitary groups tied to the PRI In the last few years, school completion
Confederación Nacional Campesina and the PUP. The autonomous authori- rates have increased considerably in Co-
(CNC)—in the creation of the autono- ties have tried to break their isolation pala.5 Yet, unlike the situation two de-
mous municipality of San Juan Copala by establishing links to civic organiza- cades back, it is the girls who finish high
in 2007. The MULT-I participated in tions and academic institutions in other school and go on to college.6 In contrast,
the massive protests led by the Popu- states in Mexico, in the United States, most boys leave for the North as soon
lar Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca and in Guatemala. Triqui migrants have as they finish junior high. Every year,
(APPO) that rocked the state of Oaxaca been instrumental in weaving these ties. hundreds of teenagers embark on the
undocumented, dangerous journey to
in 2006. They have also supported the building
the United States. Anticipation to “jump
of roads, infrastructure projects, and ser-
the line” stirs the anxiety and emotion
The new municipality is governed under vices through remittances. Nevertheless
of a rite of passage: walking for hours in
the “Traditional Usages and Customs” the daily insecurity and political tension
the Arizona desert, following the coyote,
rules and includes seventeen of the thir- in the Lower Triqui region keeps pushing hiding from the migra, avoiding vicious
ty-six communities in the region. Dur- tens of families north. bugs and cacti, waiting for the raitero to
P OLI T ICAL VIOLENCE AN D MIG R A T ION 63

show up, and finally making it to a job
aca and Mexico City. Threats to their lives population. Many families can be found,
that their relatives have found or prom-
and the burning down of their homes in at the same time, in the Copala area, in
ised to find for them in California, Ore-
Copala forced many families that worked the other towns in the region (Putla, Juxt-
gon, Washington, Georgia, Florida, New
Jersey, or New York. the tomato harvest in Culiacán Valley to lahuaca and Oaxaca), in Mexico City and
stay in Sinaloa. Some of them looked for its environs, in the agricultural regions
work in California, where salaries are ten and cities of northwestern Mexico, and
Without a doubt, migration is a disruptive times those in Mexico.10 in several states in the United States. In
process that has radically changed gender response to oppression, exploitation, and
and intergenerational relations among Triqui laborers’ experience in Baja Cali- discrimination by other ethnic and na-
the Triqui. Presently, 30 percent of the fornia was fundamental in extending the tional groups, Triqui communities often
region’s original population lives in other migratory networks to the United States. encapsulate or self-segregate. “Daughter”
states in Mexico7 and over 10 percent live Proximity to the border, which helped communities—like those in Camalú or
in the United States.8 The majority lives cut transportation costs, and their ties Colonia Triqui, both in Baja Califor-
almost permanently in the northwestern to fellow laborers who had crossed the nia—maintain a close and continuously
states of Sinaloa, Sonora, and Baja Cali- border previously and to subcontractors renovated relationship with the mother
fornia. Many have crossed the border to and supervisors who had interests in the community in Copala, through phone
work the fields in West Coast states. The United States, opened up multiple op- calls that ferry news about weddings,
prevalence of family and communal mi- portunities for young males, and later births, deaths, anecdotes, and gossip.
gratory patterns accounts for the fact that whole families, to risk the trip to the Bilingual radio, which broadcasts daily
nearly as many Triqui women as Triqui United States and look for better-paid updates of families in Oaxaca and the
men live in northwestern Mexico.9 In jobs. The creation of the northwestern United States, is very popular in north-
California and Oregon, most Triqui mi- circuit also supported the emergence of western Mexico. In Fresno, California,
grant laborers are young men who follow a migratory culture based on the consoli- the Radio Bilingüe station occasionally
the fruit and vegetable harvest and live in dation of multilocal communities linked broadcasts in Triqui. Youths make daily
subhuman conditions in trailers and bar- by family ties, information flows, and use of e-mail and online chat rooms to
racks. These laborers return home during solidarity. Additionally, the Triqui in the keep in touch with friends and family
the winter, to reunite with their families north continued their long tradition of thousands of miles away.
in northern Mexico. political organization and resistance.11
Triqui migration is also characterized
The Triqui started migrating to north- Despite the long absences of family mem-by the great mobility of single males, of
western Mexico in the 1960s. The main bers, the permanent flow of information heads of household (both male and fe-
destination was Sinaloa but with the de- has allowed a sense of continuity to flour-
male), and occasionally of whole fami-
velopment of export horticulture in Baja ish between the communities in Oaxaca lies, all of whom follow the crop cycle.
California and Sonora many agricultural and their offshoots at different destinations
For children, this means the continuous
laborers started migrating cyclically to all on both sides of the border. Communitiesinterruption of the school cycle. Whole
of those three states. Initially, they were become detached of their original terri-families are affected by this instability,
“hooked” by labor subcontractors, who tory, but reconstitute themselves at thesuffering growing problems in family in-
paid for their transportation from their destinations through networks, everyday tegration and extended separation of par-
hometowns to the fields in the north. Be- interactions, and cultural or political par-
ents and offspring. The absence of males
cause salaries were low, ever more family ticipation. Thus the concept of belonging
makes it difficult for female heads of
members joined the flow. Shortly thereaf- to the Triqui nation is in flux, since many
household to make sure teenage daugh-
ter, migratory networks, based on family, adults were born in northwestern Mexico ters attend high school in Copala or San-
neighborhood, or regional ties, formed and and many of their offspring were born tiaga Juxtlahuaca. Male youths learn to
partially substituted the subcontracting ar- in the United States. Some of the adultsenjoy the trip north, getting used to the
rangements. Laborers then had to cover born in Culiacán or Ensenada speak only liberties the journey entails, to earning
their own and their families’ transportation Triqui or very little Spanish. Meanwhiledollars, to purchasing electronic gadgets
costs. Being hard up for extra resources Triqui children born in California or who
and wearing brand-name clothing, and
led many to seek other jobs at the destina- arrived there very young do not learn their
to meeting other youths of different
tions to extend their stays and to save some mother tongue, but rather a combination ethnic groups or to joining gangs. For
money. In the 1980s, political violence of Spanish and English.12 them it is increasingly difficult to accept
forced hundreds of families off the land in paternal authority in an extended family
Copala neighborhoods, who then settled The quick rise of migration has spurred environment or to take on family or
down in Santiago Juxtlahuaca, Putla, Oax- an enormous dispersion of the Triqui communal commitments.
Monetizing Traditions
In addition to the politics that over-
shadow the Triqui exile, their culture
has adopted important changes related
to migration through the networks they
have built over thirty years and the ever-
increasing cost of keeping their traditions
alive. Indeed, serving as civic and reli-
gious officials, organizing celebrations,
and arranging marriages have become
very costly undertakings which can only
be met by spending family savings earned
over years of salaried work in the fields.
As migration redefines community be-

longing and participation, money plays
an ever more important role in keeping
traditions alive. Religious celebrations
involve days-long feasts, which bring
together people from the whole region,
not only from Copala.13 Mayordomos, the
officials in charge of the events, take on
all sorts of expenses, ranging from paying
for the cattle to be slaughtered, to pro-
viding alcoholic beverages and arranging
firework displays.
Despite the distance, many indigenous

migrants remain linked to their commu-
nities through economic contributions,
return trips during celebrations, and civ-
ic or religious duties. At the same time,
many Triqui are often forced to emigrate
to meet the debts that come with carry-
ing on these traditions. Agustín, a sixty-
year-old man from Santa Cruz Río Verde,
tells his story:
Back [in] 1982, I was municipal

agent for the town. I spent a lot of
money. I go to Huajuapan, I go to
Oaxaca and spend lots of money. I
borrow from people. I am chosen
municipal agent and serve one year.
Next year, I stop being agent, but
where do I find money? I owe a lot.
I talk to everybody and say “I go to
Culiacán, I go to where I can find
work, and I pay.” Everybody says,
“No, no, don’t go, you work well,
don’t worry.” But I want to pay back
money. When I stop being munici-
Aurelia Dominguez, an indigenous Triqui farm worker from San Juan Copala, Oaxaca,
pal agent, I went to Culiacán. I owe
picks cherry tomatoes on a farm just outside of Fairfield. Photo by David Bacon.

money, I talk to people, I came to family, listened to the conversation, evi- north. Triqui identity has thus gained
Sinaloa. There I picked tomatoes. I dently upset by it, and determinedly as- spatial plasticity. Migrant populations
remained many years. Some fields sured she would never marry for money. have retained their cultural heritage to
I work for a year, others for four If years ago young women respectfully create extensions of their home com-
months, changed work, Ensenada, acquiesced to their parents’ marriage ar- munities; they re-signify the destinations
Camalú—I remained there with my rangements, today the strong patriarchal with their own culture. As in Copala, the
kids working.14 rule is constantly under attack by the new women weave huipiles, bags, coats, and
generations’ nonconformity and discon- cloth napkins, thousands of miles from
Other commitments also force whole tent, particularly by young women who home. Whether in Sonora, Baja Califor-
families to emigrate in search of money. have emigrated to the North or who have nia, or California, migrants use Triqui
In order to get married, young men need finished high school or college. Thus Ana herbs and healing rituals, and celebrate
to come up with substantial savings. This finished high school in Santiago Juxtla- weddings, baptisms, and other religious
has propelled large numbers of youths to huaca and later got her parents’ permis- events.
seek work in California’s fields, for ex- sion and support to study architecture at
tended periods of time, before they can the Universidad Tecnológica de Juchitán. At the same time, the notion of belonging
come back and “ask for the bride.” Her father, uncles, and brothers work in to the Triqui nation is quickly changing.
New Jersey, while her mother and aunts Migration is disaggregating local cultures,
Despite constant contact with other cul- live in Santiago Juxtlahuaca, where they disintegrating families, and uprooting
tures, the Triqui respect and reproduce produce Triqui textiles. Indeed, it is un- cultural referents, especially among the
their traditions jealously. As has been the likely that Ana will keep Triqui marriage youth. In Oaxaca and elsewhere, Triqui
case for generations, wedding arrange- traditions. She has also lost the excep- youths increasingly identify with north-
ments hew close to tradition. Accompa- tional Triqui weaving skills, which passed ern symbols and consumption models.
nied by an elder relative, a man interested from mothers to daughters until recently.
in a woman visits her parents’ home to However, her family is proud of her scho- Gender relations have also undergone
ask for her hand in marriage. Negotia- lastic achievements. radical transformations. Migration,
tions ensue regarding “the bride’s price,” schooling, and exposure to mass media
and, once settled, the groom’s family pays Conclusions all are contributing factors. Men fre-
with beer, tortillas, tlayudas, chickens, a Triqui lands have been at the center quently express distress at the weaken-
goat or a cow, and money. The funda- of intense political disputes fanned by ing of traditional forms of control over
mental change that has taken place with attempts to control regional markets women. Greater mobility and growing
migration is “inflation” of the tradition. and to gain access to the more fertile female autonomy intensify feelings of in-
While marriage arrangements used to areas. Due to the generalized violence fidelity and heighten domestic violence.
reinforce solidarity and soften rivalries and the continuous violation of human We can observe both the monetarization
between families in the community, they rights, the Triqui are living a modern- of tradition and the disarticulation of pa-
now represent an extremely costly com- day exodus. triarchal culture. On the one hand, mi-
mercial exchange. grants’ relative wealth feeds conspicuous
Domestic and international migration consumption during celebrations, may-
During a site visit in January 2008 I wit- has dispersed the Lower Triqui commu- ordomos’ growing expenditures, and the
nessed a long conversation at the Rodri- nities through central and northwestern “inflation” of traditional weddings. On
guez family house. The central topic was Mexico and the United States. This dis- the other hand, young women and men
the price for a bride who had recently persion has not diluted ethnic identities are forced to reinvent their traditions,
married in Putla. The women gingerly but rather has reorganized them geo- seeking and finding new ways to go into
commented about the eighty thousand graphically, through the colonization relationships and express commitment to
pesos the groom’s family had paid. Ana, and reappropriation of institutional and family unity and communal identity.
the nineteen-year -old daughter of the social spaces of cities and town to the
Notes
1. According to Pedro Lewin, in the 1990s producers in the Copala region harvested, at most, 400 kilos per hectare, while those near Putla
harvested 800 kilos per hectare, on average. See Pedro Lewin, “La gente de la lengua completa (yi ni nanj ni’ inj). El grupo etnolingüís-
tico triqui,” in Alicia M. Barabas and Miguel A. Bartolomé, editors, Configuraciones Étnicas en Oaxaca: Perspectivas Etnográficas para las
Aautonomías (México: CONACULTA-INAH e Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1999).
2. In early 1990, Oaxaca governor Heladio Ramirez and the Movimiento por la Unión y la Lucha Triqui (MULT) negotiated building a
coffee mill and organizing producer cooperatives to ensure fair commercialization of the beans in the Triqui region. Paulino Martínez
Delia and his nephew Bonifacio, leaders of MULT, promoted the project among Copala’s residents; on January 23, 1990, they were
shot dead by hired gunmen. As is too often the case, justice was never served. See Francisco López Bárcenas, Muerte sin Fin: Crónicas de
Represión en la Región Mixteca Oaxaqueña (México: Serie Derechos Indígenas, Centro de Orientación y Asesoría a Pueblos Indígenas/
Ce’Acatl, 2002).
3. Lewin, “La gente de la lengua completa,” 238.
4. Lewin, “La gente de la lengua completa.”
5. According to the 2005 General Population Count, only six boys and five girls between six and fourteen years of age did not attend
school.
6. Analphabetism in Copala is much higher among women (61.5 percent) than among men (32.5 percent). The figures are similar for
surrounding communities. However, today over 95 percent of girls and boys between six and fourteen years of age attend school. Conteo
General de Población y Vivienda, Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, 2005.
7. According to the 2005 Population and Household Survey, out of 32,559 Triqui residing in México, 9,767 live outside of Oaxaca. The
main destination within Mexico is Baja California, where 3,435 Triqui live.
8. According to fieldwork done since 2002 and the estimates of organizations like the United Farm Workers, the Proyecto de Ciudadanía
de la Costa Central, and the Frente Indígenas de Organizaciones Binacionales, 600 Triqui live in the Salinas Valley; nearly 1,000 live in
the Central Valley, and tens of Triqui families live in Santa María, California, and in Oregon. Some Triqui males migrate regularly to the
East Coast, specifically to New York and New Jersey. There are also Triqui in Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida.
9. For example, 1,747 Triqui women and 1,688 men live in Baja California, and 875 Triquis women and 899 men live in Sinaloa.
10. Salaries in northwestern Mexico are paid on a per kilo basis. On average, laborers earn 50 pesos per day, approximately $5. In contrast,
in California, laborers earn between $6 and $7.5 per hour.
11. In Culiacán, Triquí, and Mixtec, migrant laborers created agricultural worker unions to fight for better contracts and working condi-
tions. In Baja California, they founded the Triqui Nation Organization, which fights for better living conditions in Ensenada and San
Quintin. In California, many Triqui who live and work in the fields of the Central Valley created the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones
Binacionales, in collaboration with other Oaxacan ethnic groups.
12. Even adults adopt common terms used in the labor niche dominated by Hispanics, such as el field, la troca (the truck), and el raite (the
ride).
13. In Copala, there are eighteen celebrations spread throughout the year. The most important are Carnival, San Juan, San Jose and Santa
Cruz, Easter, and All Saints Day. See Agustín García Alcaraz, Tinujei: Los Triquis de Copala, 2nd ed. (Mexico: Ciesas, 1997): 160–67.
14. Interview with Agustín, Greenfield, April 15, 2003. Agustín, his wife, and two kids went to Culiacan in the 1980s. Two more children
were born there. Despite having been born in Culiacan, Hortensia, their youngest daughter, barely speaks Spanish.

Against the Current: Looking for Alternatives
to Migration in the Mexican Countryside
John Gibler
Profiling a small-scale and successful fair With a population of about 7,000, Sal- coffee company that guaranteed prices
trade, organic coffee cooperative in Salva- vador Urbina is a cluster of tin-roofed for small farmers. In 1989, President
dor Urbina, Chiapas, Gibler reports on houses with open-air kitchens and simple Carlos Salinas dismantled Inmecafé as
local efforts to create alternatives to forced concrete walls that stretch up and down part of his campaign of privatizations
economic migration. Gibler interviews the thick green hillside on either side of and deregulation leading up to the
migration experts, state officials, and lo- a two-lane road running from Tapachula North American Free Trade Agreement.
cal residents in Zacatecas state to probe the to El Aguila. Coffee trees are everywhere Soon the farmers of Salvador Urbina
forces that compel people to leave their com- here, filling the surrounding hillsides, in- found that they had little control over
munities. He also interviews Gracia Goya, terspersed with banana, mandarin, South the prices of their crop and were forced
the project manager for transnational pro- American apricot (mamey) and rambu- to sell to the coyotes, or intermediaries,
grams with Hispanics in Philanthropy, and tan trees providing shade for the coffee who gather coffee from small farmers
Juan Manuel Sandoval, who coordinates and ready snacks for those tending the across the country and sell to the large
the Permanent Seminar on Chicano and coffee. Only a handful of small corn and multinational buyers, such as Nestlé.
Border Studies in Mexico City, to engage bean fields remain.
both supportive and critical perspectives on And then came the crash in coffee prices
the very possibility of local alternatives to Locals say that German immigrants first in the 1990s that created a wave of emi-
forced economic migration. brought coffee to the region, buying up gration from Salvador Urbina, mainly
vast tracts of land for cattle ranching and to other parts of Mexico like Puebla,
David Roman had been mowing lawns coffee farming and forcing the locals into Nayarit and Sonora, but also across the
in Miami for two years when he took the virtual slavery. The German who reigned border to the United States.
call from his father back in Salvador Ur- here—none remembered his name—
bina, Chiapas, a small town thirty min- would pay twelve-hour workdays with a By 2002, the coyotes paid about 350
utes from the Guatemalan border. Ro- single token that could only be used in pesos ($35) a quintal (a sack of cof-
man’s father had an offer that a migrant the German’s store. fee weighing 57.5 kilograms, or 126.5
rarely hears from back home: a job. pounds), or about 28 cents a pound. An
In the 1940s, inspired by Lázaro Cárde- average small farmer in Salvador Urbina
Growing an acre or two of coffee on the nas’s promises of land reform, a group of made about $520 a year from their cof-
lush hillsides of southern Chiapas, the job men decided to chase the German off the fee, the town’s only cash crop.
offered a fraction of the pay he earned in land and form an ejido, or communal,
Miami, but one benefit that David Ro- agricultural land holding. “The value of coffee didn’t crash, the
man valued above all. cost of a cup of coffee didn’t fall,” said
Don Santiago, an eighty-year-old cof- Ari Cifuentes, a fifty-five-year-old cof-
“Really I missed my family,” he said. fee farmer who still works his parcel fee farmer in Salvador Urbina, “but the
“Sure you can talk on the phone and from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. everyday, prices crashed because the huge coffee
keep up to date, but it is not the same as remembers how the men confused the corporations were hoarding to drive the
being near each other, being able to reach German’s wife, who wore long pants, prices down.”
out and hug them when you want to.” for the German himself and shot her in
the leg as she stepped out one morning. Ari Cifuentes and several of his broth-
And so David Roman made the trip that The German and his family packed up ers went on the road, working on a dam
most undocumented migrants make only and left. construction site in Nayarit before tak-
after being dumped on the border in ing jobs in the maquiladora industry
Nogales, with whatever they had in their The coffee farmers then founded the in the border town of Agua Prieta, So-
pockets when detained, their shoelaces town and ejido of Salvador Urbina and nora. Daniel, one of his younger broth-
stripped from their shoes so that they won’t for the first time they controlled the ers, working in a maquiladora making
make a run for it before crossing from Ari- land they worked. The farmers in Salva- seatbelts and later farm equipment for
zona back into Mexico. Against the cur- dor Urbina joined the Mexican Coffee John Deere, met and shared a bit of his
rent, he left Miami for Salvador Urbina. Institute, or Inmecafé, the state-owned story with his local minister, Rev. Mark
Freshly paved, but empty, streets in El Cargadero, Zacatecas Photo by John Gibler.
Adams, a Presbyterian with the border In 2002 a group of coffee farmers from to find a way to stay on our land and
ministry Frontera de Cristo. Salvador Urbina joined together with grow coffee, to not have to migrate,” he
family members who had migrated to said, crouched down by a recently plant-
Reverend Adams asked why so many Agua Prieta, Sonora, and the Frontera de ed Arabica coffee tree.
people from Mexico’s southernmost state Cristo ministry, and founded Just Cof-
were working in border maquiladoras fee, a worker-owned cooperative that Five years on, the cooperative has grown to
and crossing over to the United States. produces, roasts, grinds, and distributes include thirty grower members, and it sells
Daniel Cifuentes’ answer was simple: their own organic coffee. well over fifty thousand pounds of coffee a
everyone in Salvador Urbina grows cof- year. In early August 2008 they had com-
fee, and coffee prices crashed. A cup “Our goal is to develop a Chiapan owned pletely sold out of last year’s crop.
of specialty coffee in Phoenix may cost company providing viable economic incen-
three dollars but farmers did not even tives for young and old to remain on family The co-op also employs six workers, two
earn thirty cents a pound, he told him. lands,” says the cooperative’s Web site. in Salvador Urbina and four in Agua Pri-
Adams asked why this was. The coyotes, eta. “It is a good job and there is always
Cifuentes told him. Then the idea for Ari Cifuentes, now the cooperative’s work to do,” said twenty-two-year-old
Just Coffee hit them. president, echoed this goal. “We wanted Felix Perez, busy roasting the few pounds
AGAIN S T T HE C U R R EN T 69
in. “This makes it very difficult for the entirely on basic goods such as food,
farmers to invest and expand,” Cifuentes clothing and housing, not on commu-
said. nity development or local production,
while the workers sending the money
But their small-scale success has inspired back produce incredible wealth—in
coffee farmers in El Aguila, the next town terms of development and production—
down the road, to also pull together thir- in the United States.
ty members to form a cooperative and
join in with Just Coffee. And the coffee “Theories of migration always show the
itself is not their only export: Ari and his interests of the North,” said Raul Del-
brother have traveled to Nicaragua and gado Wise, the director of Development
Haiti to share their experience building Studies at the University of Zacatecas.
the Just Coffee cooperative with small “We need to create different categories to
farmers also struggling under the influ- make visible what is happening behind.”
ence of the coyotes.
For example, Delgado Wise and a team
of researchers are using statistics from the
The Factory of Migrants United States Department of Labor to
Mexico economically expels more of its calculate Mexicans’ contributions to the
own people than any other country in U.S. economy.
the world. An estimated half a million
Mexicans cross undocumented into the “Migrants born in Mexico contribute
United States looking for work every 8 percent of the U.S.’s Gross Domestic
year. Remittances, the money that Mexi- Product, about $900 billion, which is
can immigrants in the United States send more than Mexico’s entire GDP,” Del-
to family members back in Mexico, rival gado Wise said. “That should give you
the oil industry and illegal drug traffick- an idea of the scope of what we’re talking
ing as the single largest sources of cash in about, the cost to Mexico of migration,
Mexico’s economy. of depending on remittances.”
“Mexico is mortgaging its future with Delgado Wise criticizes those in the
migration and remittances,” said Rodolfo United States who fail to analyze such
Garcia Zamora, professor at the Gradu- statistical information. “The informa-
ate School of Development Studies at the tion is a burden for the United States,”
Autonomous University of Zacatecas and he said. “They do not analyze, for ex-
“—‘Sir, it’s time to reap what you sowed.’ author of Migration, Remittances and Lo- ample, how much Mexico loses, the
—‘But I didn’t sow anything.’ cal Development. “Look at the statistics: subsidy that Mexico provides to the
—‘Of course you did. Hunger and misery.’” in the ten states with the longest migra- United States through Mexican labor,
Cartoon by Fisgon, courtesy of La Jornada. tion histories, 65 percent of municipali- both skilled and unskilled.”
ties have a negative population growth.
of coffee for local distribution. Felix had This means that in the future these com-“We need to see really how much it is
worked for two years in various factories munities will not be able to reproduce, costing Mexico, how much Mexico is
in Tijuana before returning to Salvador neither economically nor socially, because
losing. Now is the time to put the num-
Urbina and taking the job at Just Cof- the demographics of migration have con- bers on the table,” he said, adding that
fee. demned them to disappear.” public opinion concerning the immi-
gration debate in the United States “is
Cifuentes said that their main problem Garcia Zamora and his colleagues at the always sustained by distorted visions
right now was that payments came back University of Zacatecas argue that the that lack any foundation in empirical
slowly to the farmers. Since they distrib- apparent wealth of remittances, the an- evidence.”
ute their own coffee in Arizona and they nual flow of some $30 billion back into
have little capital to speak of, they must Mexico, obscures the twin economic Delgado Wise, Garcia Zamora, and
repay the farmers for their crop bit by bit facts of mass migration: families spend other researchers at the University of
as the coffee sells and the money comes the money sent back to Mexico almost Zacatecas publish a scholarly journal,
Felix Perez, 22, returned to Salvador Urbina and took a job with Just Coffee after two years working in factories in Tijuana.
Photo by John Gibler.
Migration and Development, and are NAFTA, they argue, saying that the will go to work in the maquiladoras or
deeply involved in organizing what agreement restructured Mexico’s econo- enter the United States as undocument-
Delgado Wise calls “an alternative think my to provide for the labor needs of the ed laborers.
tank to the World Bank” to be called the U.S.’s own industrial restructuring.
Consortium for Critical Development A Culture of Migration?
Studies. They have produced reams “In Mexico,” Garcia Zamora said, “we Many in the Mexican government see
of books, essays, and reports arguing have exported the factory of migrants.” no problem with the NAFTA model
that to understand the massive wave of nor the mass Mexican emigration it has
migration from Mexico to the United Both Garcia Zamora and Delgado Wise produced; they dismiss critics such as
States, one must critically analyze theargue that the supposed increases in Delgado Wise and Garcia Zamora as “fa-
model of U.S.-Mexico economic in- Mexican manufacturing exports are a talists.” Cliserio Pinero, the spokesper-
tegration that began in the 1980s and ruse: the increases all come from the son for the Zacatecas state Department
reached its maximum expression with maquiladora sector where Mexico only of Planning and Development, shooed
NAFTA, which came into effect on adds labor to assemble imported parts away political criticisms of the impacts
January 1, 1994. into exported commodities. The real ex- of migration on the countryside, saying,
port factories are the Mexican families “We have a migration culture; we see it
Very little was genuinely “free” about raising the young men and women who as something cultural.”
“Mexico has an excess of laborers. We
complement each other.” Mario Garcia is the local municipal del-
egate in El Cargadero in charge of main-
Robledo administers the Zacatecas state taining road conditions and the heavy
government’s “three-for-one” program, machinery needed for making repairs; he
where the municipal, state, and federal is also a small farmer growing corn and
governments match each dollar supplied beans. All but one of his ten brothers
by migrants’ organizations for local de- and sisters migrated to the United States.
velopment projects. He went to California for five months to
work himself, but decided to come back.
Apart from local “three-for-one” projects
which range from paving streets to build- “In Mexico, if you work a couple of
ing new churches, the state government’s shifts, you can live okay,” he said, “with-
development plan, Robledo said, is to out so many luxuries and freeways, but
make the NAFTA model run even more you can live a more peaceful life.”
smoothly by literally paving new roads
north to the border. But he is finding that the peace comes
hard these days.
“If you had fifty million dollars in the
budget for development, would you use “This is a community abandoned by
that to increase production in the coun- migration,” he said. “I have always re-
tryside or to build an interstate high- lated migration to the government; the
way?” Robledo asked. “It is a political government should work to keep people
and economic decision.” in the country, to find jobs, to better
living conditions. They say that people
The government has decided on the have a better quality of life in the Unit-
highways but few in Zacatecas’ aban- ed States, but it is a quality of life that
doned countryside agree that this is the is half slavery, where people can’t come
right choice. back and continue to build in their own
communities.”
In the small town of El Cargadero, dis-
cussed as a model of successful devel- The problem, he said, is to be found in
opment based on remittances and the the empty fields and the vicious cycle of
“three-for-one” program, paved streets abandonment created by NAFTA.
and freshly painted houses greet visitors
but few people do. Eighty-five percent “We need to analyze more closely free
of the population has moved to the trade,” he said, “because free trade might
United States. be benefiting everybody but Mexico.
There might be a few new millionaires,
Don Santiago, 80, a member of the Just Coffee coop-
“Look how it is now, nothing,” said Jose but there are a lot more people who got
erative, works his land everyday from 6 am to 11 am.
Ortiz Martinez, behind the counter of shafted; it is not even. Before NAFTA
In the photo he is drying individual coffee beans that
a store with empty shelves, selling only we produced tons of peaches, and the
ripened early in the season. Photo by John Gibler.
a few packs of cigarettes, chewing gum, national markets all shouted out for
and bottles of soda. “Sometimes hours go peaches from Zacatecas. But with NAF-
by without a single person walking out TA, U.S. companies started exporting
in the street to buy some chewing gum. peaches from Chile and Brazil and the
Fernando Robledo, the director of the Before we grew a lot of avocadoes here; prices fell. We couldn’t sell our peaches
governmental Zacatecas State Migra- now there is nothing left, just a bunch of anymore and people starting leaving to
tion Institute, also rejected the criti- old folks here in town.” look for work in the U.S.”
cisms of Delgado Wise and Garcia
Zamora, fully embracing the politics of There was one taco stand but it closed “The countryside is broken,” he contin-
migration: “The United States econo- down last year and its owner went to look ued. “The rural economy needs to be re-
my demands cheap labor,” he said. for work in California. activated. Zacatecas is very dry, but can
produce many fruits and beans. Here
the opposite of what happened in Cali-
fornia is taking place: rich agricultural
land is being turned into desert by lack
of investment and support and because
the people aren’t here. The workers who
make things happen are all in the United
States and here we are left in abandon. It
is a huge problem.”
I ask him what alternatives could be

implemented in the United States
and in Mexico to address the broken
countryside.
“The solution here would be for the Mex-

ican government to build strategies to put
the brakes on this, so that the countryside
can produce again,” he said.
But the Zacatecas state government,

rather than putting on the brakes, is step-
ping on the gas. Robledo said that Za-
catecas’s top development priorities were
constructing highways north toward the
border and building greenhouses for ex-
port crops in the countryside.
“We are changing the production

system in the countryside, building
greenhouses and changing crops,”
Robledo said.
Gracia Goya, the project manager for

transnational programs with Hispan-
ics in Philanthropy, disagrees with that
approach. She said that Hispanics in
Philanthropy is seeking local productive
projects for funding and to thus help
communities create, from the grassroots
up, alternatives to emigration.
“We do not want to change the voca-

tions people have in their communities,”
Goya said. “We need to respect these and
strengthen them. These people know how
to work the land and raise livestock; what
they are looking for is support in doing
what they already know how to do well.”
Hispanics in Philanthropy started

working in Mexico funding produc- Ari Cifuentes, 55, is the president of the Just Coffee cooperative. In the photo he is tending to a
tive projects linked to migration in recently planted Arabica coffee tree. Photo by John Gibler.
2006. They received seventeen pro- and the economic forces that propel actually had a job in Mexico. They left
posals that year and chose only one; people to emigrate agree that such grass- Mexico, he said, because the jobs they
the others did not meet the strict pro- roots alternatives can be effective. Juan had offered poverty wages and no ben-
duction requirements. Manuel Sandoval, a Mexican academic efits or pension plans.
and activist working on migration and
“We realized that Mexican organiza- border issues, said that no real alterna- I briefly described the experience of Just
tions, and especially in Guanajuato, do tives exist without first jettisoning NAF- Coffee and asked his opinion.
not have that much experience in pro- TA. “If some local productive project
ductive projects,” Goya said. works, whom does it benefit? Very few “Yes, it is possible that a community,
people,” Sandoval said. “There are no exclusively through its own effort, may
In 2007, Hispanics in Philanthropy be- real local community-level alternatives. attain minimal living conditions,” he
gan funding a goat cheese cooperative in There aren’t any such alternatives be- said. “But those who seek isolated, local
Guanajuato state, in conjunction with cause the external pressures are so strong alternatives have not yet grasped the re-
the local nongovernmental organization, they impede them.” lation between migration and so-called
CHOICE (Centro Humanitario para las free trade. There is no real alternative
Obras y el Intercambio Cultural y Edu- Sandoval, who coordinates the Perma- without a change of the economic and
cativo). They awarded CHOICE and nent Seminar on Chicano and Border political regime.”
the cooperative a grant for $220,000 Studies in Mexico City and is a member
over three years. of the board of directors of the National When I arrived in Salvador Urbina,
Network for Immigrant and Refugee Chiapas, a coyote’s van had just left for
Goya said that Hispanics in Philanthropy Rights (USA), said that people in the the border with twelve young men off
is not interested in three-for-one type Mexican countryside cannot compete to seek work in the United States. Da-
infrastructure projects; all projects must with the transnational corporations. vid Roman, who joined Just Coffee two
create a good or a service, they must be years ago—accepting the cooperative’s
productive. She said that the government’s “So what can they do?” he asked. “They rules for producing organic, shade-
three-for-one initiatives largely displaced have to move. They can go work in a grown coffee and the promise to deliver
the task of development onto the poorest. maquiladora, but that is no alternative. fifteen quintales, or just under two thou-
There are no possible local or commu- sand pounds of Arabica coffee a year—is
“They are worthy projects,” she said, nity-level alternatives while such in- still waiting for last year’s payments. He
“but we see a problem there in that the tense pressures from the large corpora- works year round, produces over four
focus is on taking on the functions of tions continue to exist. It is impossible thousand pounds of coffee and makes
the Mexican state. We do not want to to visualize a panorama for communi- $2,400 a year, or $200 a month. But he
substitute the functions of the state in ties, cities, [or] the entire country while is back with his family, he said, working
any way. These projects create some neoliberal politics remain dominant. his own land.
comforts, but they do not stimulate pro- What is needed is a change in the eco-
duction, stimulate the economy. What nomic regime.” “There is a lot of work still to be done,”
we want to do is help generate change he said, “but it is good to be back
from the grassroots.” Every year some half a million Mexi- home.”
cans keep crossing the border to look
The Alternative for work in the United States, Sandoval
Yet not even all the critics of NAFTA said, adding that eight out of every ten
Further Reading
Gibler, John. “Mexico’s Ghost Towns.” In These Times, June 2008.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3693/
Red Internacional Migracion y Desarrollo (an excellent electronic archive in Spanish and English):
http://www.migracionydesarrollo.org.
Regan, Margaret. “Roasting Revolution.” Tucson Weekly, February 8, 2007.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Yum/Content?oid=oid%3A92309
Sandoval, Juan Manuel, “Mexican Labor Migration and the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA): 1994-2006.” Paper presented during the “Push and Pull: Immigration and Free
Trade” national speaking tour organized by Global Exchange, April 15 through May 2, 2007, http://
www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/speakers/SandovalNAFTA.pdf.
Wise, Raul Delgado. “Migration and Imperialism: The Mexican Workforce in the
Context of NAFTA,” Latin American Perspectives 33, no. 2
(March 2006), 33–45.
Zamora, Rodolfo Garcia. Migración, Remesas, y Desarrollo Local. Zacatecas: Universidad Autonoma
de Zacatecas, 2003.
In Cerrito de Agua, Zacatecas, freshly painted concrete houses—most of them empty, their owners working in the U.S.—
stand in contrast to the town’s unpaved, though also empty, streets. Photo by John Gibler.
A Mexican Labor Perspective on the Issues
Facing Mexican Workers in the United States
Bertha Lujan Uscanga with Daniel La Botz
Acknowledging the complex economic and of jobs and the deep decline in workers’ instead focus our efforts on getting leg-
social interdependence of North Ameri- wages’ purchasing power. The inequi- islative bodies to develop policy changes
can countries, Lujan and Labotz explore table distribution of wealth falls hardest and laws that would begin to alter our
how progressive U.S. labor and immigra- on working people, the poor, the elderly, political-economic system to the benefit
tion policies can affect and benefit workers women, and children. Millions in Can- of all workers. The U.S. Congress can
across the continent. The authors detail the ada, Mexico, and the United States live do much to improve the situation of
deleterious effects of globalization and free- in poverty from which they see no hope Mexican working people and Mexican
trade policies on national labor movements, of escaping. migrants.
expound on the need for upward harmo-
nization of labor standards, and advocate How can we begin to change the direc- NAFTA as a Touchstone
for a policy approach that capitalizes on tion of the continent’s political economy At the center of the tri-national relation-
the NAFTA framework to develop systemic in such a way as to better the lives of ship is NAFTA, which has had a pro-
solutions to the immigration crisis. Focus- working people? We cannot do so from found and negative impact on working
ing on the influence of U.S. policies, Lu- Mexico alone, for much of our economy, people since 1994. In Mexico, NAFTA
jan and Labotz call on Congress to enact society, and politics has come to depend led first to the bankruptcy of many thou-
an Employee Free Choice Act, establish a upon the United States. Since signing sands of small businesses and in some
tri-national legislative working group to NAFTA, Mexico has become increasing- cases of entire industries, throwing tens
chart and evaluate labor policy reform in ly integrated into the economic sphere of of thousands out of work, and later to
the NAFTA region, improve regulation of the United States. We depend on loans the collapse of thousands of small farms,
foreign-operating U.S. corporations, uphold from U.S. banks and have an indebted- adding over a million and a half more
UN labor union standards, and develop a ness of $140 billion, mostly to them. We to the ranks of the unemployed. Many
continental open-labor-migration policy. are integrated into the U.S. system of in- Mexican farmers or peasants, no longer
dustrial production, providing resources able to make a living in the countryside,
Introduction and raw materials—most importantly have joined the search for jobs in Mexi-
What legislation can U.S. Congress pass oil—to their economy. We produce com- co’s cities or left for the United States to
to improve the lives of Mexican workers? ponents for U.S. manufactured goods, seek work.
This may seem like a strange question. such as electrical and auto parts. And we
We usually think of the Mexican Con- are an export platform for U.S. corpora- Some Mexican migrants enter the
gress helping Mexican workers and the tions in industries such as automobile United States as H2A or H2B visa
U.S. Congress helping U.S. workers. But manufacturing. We have also become an workers. Many more cross the border
today our situations have become so in- increasingly important market for U.S. without papers, exposing them to the
terdependent that we must look to both wholesalers and retailers, as witnessed by worst forms of labor exploitation. At
political powers to do their part to im- the spectacular growth of Wal-Mart— the same time, conservative forces in
prove the lives of all of us. now our largest single employer. Those the United States have held immigrants
of us in Mexico therefore have a deep responsible for the country’s economic
Mexico and the United States, together interest in and a great concern about de- ills and whipped up nationalism and
with Canada, have become linked to- velopment in the United States. racial animosity. Government authori-
gether in a complex economic, social, ties have carried out raids to arrest and
and political system that has distorted all Recent discussions of the U.S.-Mexico deport undocumented immigrants, of-
three countries’ development and harmed relationship have focused on immigra- ten breaking up families. What policy
working people in each of them. All of us tion controls, border enforcement, build- proposals could be submitted to the
are experiencing increasing concentra- ing a wall between our two countries, and U.S. Congress that would change the
tions of wealth in the hands of individu- even the militarization of our common situation in Mexico, the United States,
als and corporations, while the majority frontier. These measures are not only ex- and Canada in such a way as to help
of working people have seen their stan- tremely expensive, but they also generate these Mexican workers, and at the same
dard of living decline. In Mexico, the fall a lot of ill will and attack symptoms rath- time to help workers in the other coun-
in living standards results from the lack er than proposing solutions. We should tries as well?
Although NAFTA contributes to these
problems, it can also be used as a touch-
stone for thinking about issues of trade,
workers’ rights and interests, and social
justice. NAFTA provisions require that
all three partner countries maintain high
labor standards and strive to improve
those standards. As we turn to examine
labor issues, we should keep in mind that
our countries have pledged to maintain
and improve standards governing work-
ers rights. We sometimes call this the
harmonization of labor standards based
on international humanitarian principles
such as those of the United Nations.1
When looking for labor standards, those

in the United States should consider that
Article 123 of the Mexican Constitution
of 1917 states that Mexican workers are
entitled to a job at a living wage, to the
right to organize a union, and the right
to strike. While those rights are more
often than not abused and neglected, Tough Game. Cartoon by Fisgon, courtesy of La Jornada.
they set a high and desirable standard.
The U.S. Constitution does not give
workers the right to a job, a living wage, wage language. The U.S. Congress One policy that grew out of the SPP—
labor union organization, collective bar- should also consider this important is- the Merida Initiative—furthers a long
gaining, or the right to strike. In 1998 sue: how to provide a living wage for history of U.S. involvement in the poli-
the U.S. Labor Party, made up of many workers in the United States but also tics, economy, and society of Mexico.
U.S. labor unions, called for a 28th for workers throughout North America. This involvement has often made it dif-
Amendment to the Constitution which Guaranteed jobs and living wages would ficult, if not impossible, for us to control
would guarantee workers the right to a represent upward harmonization for all our own economy and better our lives.
job at a living wage. The governments workers in North America. Today the United States spends many
of North America should all protect millions of dollars to influence the in-
workers’ rights to a job at a living wage, National Sovereignty ternal political, police, and military af-
with the understanding that if private The danger today is that our countries fairs of Mexico, pushing its own agenda
employers cannot produce enough jobs, are being harmonized by other means, and priorities, and making it impossible
then the government becomes the em- driven by the desire of corporations and for Mexicans to control their own des-
ployer of last resort. In 2007, the idea governments to exert more control over tinies. U.S. anti-drug police have been
of a continental living wage was raised resources, markets, and labor. The Se- in Mexico since 1963, and within the
and a campaign for such a wage is now curity and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) since
being launched.2 This campaign bases builds on the worst features of NAFTA 1973; in 2007 they had eight offices in
itself on the many living-wage laws and and threatens to bring harmonization Mexico.3 U.S. military aid to Mexico
ordinances that have been adopted by by expanding the power of multina- was budgeted at $1.1 million for English
cities throughout the United States and tional corporations and political and language, counterterrorism, and coun-
on the Mexican Constitution’s living- military control. ter-narcotics training and $2.5 million
A MEXICAN LABO R P E R S P EC T IVE 77

Mexico has historically had a mixed
economy made up of the state sector, so-
cial property leased in perpetuity (ejidos),
worker cooperatives, and the private sec-
tor. Such a mixed economy within the
context of a regulated market, another
historical characteristic of our economy,
is desirable for Mexico’s future economic
health. In order to create enough jobs
for its citizens and see that workers earn
a living wage, Mexico must control its
strategic resources, industries, and own
domestic market.
The ability of the Mexican people to con-

trol their own economy, and the ability
of Canadians and U.S. citizens to control
theirs, was swept away by the economic
developments of the 1980s that culmi-
nated in the implementation of NAFTA
in 1994. During the period from 1964
to the 1970s, U.S. corporations moved
Immigrant Latino workers from the Woodfin Suites hotel and their supporters rally outside the their factories from the Great Lakes re-
hotel. Hotel managers fired 20 workers, accusing them of lacking legal permission to work, and al- gion of the Midwest and established
leging that they don’t have valid Social Security numbers. Workers say the hotel is retaliating against them as maquiladoras, electronics plants
them for trying to enforce the city’s new living wage ordinance. Photo by David Bacon. and auto-parts plants located on the bor-
der. Canadian and U.S. workers lost jobs;
for counterterrorism equipment to the and high levels of out-migration—exists Mexicans gained jobs, but at below-sub-
Mexican military in 2006.4 The pro- within a broader political, economic, and sistence wages of $4.50 per day.
posed SPP with Mexico calls for $41.4 social context. If they were able to earn a
million in military aid.5 The Merida decent living in their own country, most For Mexico, NAFTA meant a govern-
Initiative, as it was first announced in Mexican workers would choose to stay in ment auction of over one thousand state-
March 2007, would give $400 million Mexico rather than migrating abroad in owned companies, which were sold to
in police and military assistance in the search of work at higher wages. The first private investors from Mexico, Canada,
first year. The total amount foreseen be- priority then is to create jobs and raise the United States, and Europe. We lost
ing delivered to Mexico is $1.4 billion.6 wages in Mexico. But if Mexico is to do our publicly owned telephone company
We believe that this approach will dam- this, it must have sovereignty—that is, and railroads. Carlos Slim, who has be-
age Mexico, since it makes it hard for us the ability to control its internal affairs come the wealthiest man in Mexico
to control our own affairs. These mea- free of U.S. intervention. and one of the wealthiest in the world,
sures are counterproductive from a U.S. bought the telephone company, together
point of view as well, since they do not The Mexican Economy with Southwest Bell. The railroads were
get at the political and economic roots Control of our affairs means control of sold to Union Pacific and Kansas City
of our common problems. We need so- our resources and markets. While we Railroad. So now U.S. corporations con-
cial harmonization, not corporate and recognize that the world has become trol our vital and strategic industries.
military harmonization. globally integrated and we cannot re-
turn to a period of economic national- Today President Felipe Calderón and
It is necessary to discuss sovereignty and ism, we do believe that Mexico should the National Action Party (PAN), joined
militarization in a paper about bringing be able to exert greater control over its by the Institutional Revolutionary Party
labor issues to the U.S. Congress because own economic development within the (PRI), propose a second set of economic
if U.S. corporations or the military con- global context. At the same time, we reforms aimed at privatizing the energy
trol our country, we cannot improve our should pursue globalization by and for sector—the petroleum industry and
workers’ lives. The Mexican labor prob- working people, a globalization from electric power generation. These reforms
lem—that is, the lack of jobs, low wages, the bottom up. would eliminate the last vestiges of the
Mexican people’s ability to manage their this time not as a free-trade agreement The principal labor federation in the
own economy and determine their own but rather as a fair-trade agreement United States also split, as some unions
fate. The Broad Progressive Front (FAP), aimed at improving the economic lives of left the AFL-CIO to join the new
the Party of the Democratic Revolution the working people of Canada, Mexico, Change to Win. The UNT and the
(PRD), and the legitimate government and the United States. The agricultural FAT have, in past years, engaged in co-
of Mexico of Andrés Manuel López Ob- sections of NAFTA, as Mexican peasants operation with unions in both of these
rador are leading the fight to stop the and small- and medium-sized producers federations, as well as with some that
passage of these reforms. have demanded, should be renegotiated belong to neither, such as the United
to offer protection from subsidized U.S. Electrical Workers (UE). Both U.S. la-
If Mexico is to provide for the economic agricultural products and to eliminate bor federations, as well as independent
well-being of its society, the Mexican or equalize subsidy supports. All future unions such as the UE, have moved over
government and its state companies trade agreements should include labor the last decade to represent and fight
(paraestales) must be able to control the rights elements as central topics, not as for all workers, including those who
nation’s strategic resources—above all, its side agreements, as was the case with come—with or without documents—
power generation and petroleum indus- the recently adopted Panama Free Trade from Mexico, other Latin American
tries. Petróleos Mexicanos, the Central Agreement.8 countries, or other parts of the world.
Mexican Light and Power Company, We applaud them for doing so. Still, we
and the Mexican Electrical Commis- The Impact of Neoliberalism and see a need for greater cooperation be-
sion should be free from external pres- Globalization on Labor Unions tween unions in Canada, Mexico, and
sures for privatization. These industries The neoliberal economic transformation the United States on common prob-
are essential to the well-being of Mexico of the economy on a world scale—the lems, especially around the issue of mi-
and the Mexican people, to the financial opening of markets; deregulation and grant worker protection.
health of the state, and to the workers privatization; cuts in education, health,
employed by them. The privatization of and social welfare—has had a powerful We should encourage worker-to-worker
these companies will damage the eco- impact on unions everywhere. Around meetings such as those organized by the
nomic health of Mexico, lead to the mass the world and on every continent, tri- FAT, the UE, and the CNS Quebec.
layoff of Mexican workers, and destroy partite social pacts between government, When workers sit down and talk with
the historic gains of Mexican workers in employers, and unions have been broken. each other, they overcome stereotypes,
the areas of wages, benefits, and working Throughout Latin America, governments learn about the realities of each others’
conditions. have reformed labor legislation, strength- lives, and find they have much in com-
ening the hands of employers and weak- mon. We should encourage cross-border
The U.S. government should respect ening unions and workers. Governments leadership meetings over common con-
what remains of Mexico’s mixed econ- and employers launched an assault on cerns within the same industries, corpo-
omy, and legislative means should be labor unions and contracts protecting rations and contracts with the goal of
found to deter U.S. corporations from workers. Faced with new challenges, the building union power internationally
intervening in the Mexican economy, dominant labor federations split in many to successfully combat the corporations
with an eye to promoting privatization countries. and win improvements in workers’
for their own gain. lives. And we should be meeting togeth-
In Mexico, all of these things have hap- er to discuss the immigration issue. We
If Mexico is to provide more jobs at de- pened. Labor unions and contracts have should encourage U.S. federations and
cent wages for its citizens, then Mexico been weakened, pay has not kept up, independent unions to seek a common
must have greater control over its in- and conditions have declined. But at platform on the question of immigrant
ternational economic relationships. the same time, state control over unions workers’ rights. Unions should work
NAFTA has been extremely damaging has also broken down. For decades, the for a program that gives the broadest
to the Mexican workers, peasants and Institutional Revolutionary Party con- protection to immigrants now in the
the economy as a whole.7 Mexico and trolled the Congress of Labor (CT) and United States or Canada and makes it
its partners must be able to negotiate the Confederation of Mexican Workers possible for them to live and work in
or renegotiate treaties such as NAFTA. (CTM). Today we also have a ten-year- those countries legally. The labor move-
Mexico must be able to manage foreign old independent labor federation called ment should also oppose guest-worker
investment, foreign trade, and other as- the National Union of Workers (UNT) programs that exploit immigrants. We
pects of international economic relation- in which the Authentic Labor Front should work together to create fair-
ships. The U.S. government should join (FAT), the union to which I belong, trade agreements that protect and en-
with Mexico in renegotiating NAFTA, plays an important role. hance migrant workers’ rights.

Trade Agreements and Labor the Employee Free Choice Act, it would fer, and regulate profit repatriation to al-
Rights be a benefit to workers in all three coun- low foreign countries to benefit too.
Many of us in Mexico hoped that the end tries, since it would represent a lifting of
of the PRI would mean that indepen- the continental standard. Workers’ Rights
dent and democratic unions in Mexico The most important institution in the
would flourish. But after being elected, We should also ask the inter-parliamen- defense of workers’ rights and the strug-
President Vicente Fox (PAN) continued tary working groups of Canada, Mexico, gle for their interests is the labor union.
to make political deals with the corrupt and the United States, that bring togeth- Workers must have the right to labor
labor establishment. Employers, lawyers, er legislators from all three countries to unions of their own choosing, to bargain
and gangsters still have control of some discuss common issues, to take up the collectively, and to strike. All genuine
unions. Today many Mexican workers matter of workers’ rights violations. We labor unions must be truly independent
still have sindicatos fantasmas (ghost should ask them to create a binational or from government or employer control.
unions), whose very existence is un- tri-national congressional commission or Labor unions should be free to affiliate
known to them, and contratos de protec- task force on workers’ rights. Such a com- with political parties as they choose but
ción (protection contracts) that provide mission might hold hearings on these is- should not be forced into affiliation with
workers with only the legal minimums to sues in the countries involved, and make political parties.
which they are entitled without a union. recommendations to both countries or
U.S. and other foreign corporations, as to international bodies. We should see all The United Nations declarations and
well as Mexican employers, often bring such developments as opportunities to the International Labor Organization
in such unions and contracts through organize workers to fight for their rights, (ILO) conventions establish a floor for
an agreement with a gangster union of- to take the idea of workers’ rights to the international labor standards. The most
ficial or corrupt lawyer before a plant public, and to promote a vision of a so- important of these is ILO Convention
even opens. Those phony unions and ciety in which everyone enjoys not only 87, guaranteeing the right of freedom of
their worthless protection contracts keep rights, but also a decent standard of liv- association—that is, workers’ right to or-
wages low for workers and profits high ing in a healthy environment. ganize unions. Over one hundred coun-
for corporations. The presence of those tries have signed ILO Convention 87,
gangster unions also keeps workers from The U.S. Congress should also regulate but the United States is not one of them.
joining or organizing a democratic union U.S. corporations operating in other So far the United States has signed only
of their own choice. countries, for the good of U.S. workers about 10 percent of the 160 active ILO
as well as workers in Canada, Mexico, conventions. The U.S. Congress should
As mentioned above, NAFTA’s side and other countries. Why should U.S. agree to sign the ILO conventions, the
agreement on labor provides that all of corporations, held to certain standards in international standard for the protection
our labor standards should be raised to the United States, be able to treat work- of workers’ rights.10
the highest level for the benefit of workers and communities in other countries
ers in all three countries. We do see cases poorly? Why should U.S. corporations The situation of workers in the United
of such upward harmonization—for ex- be able to discriminate against the politi- States—native-born workers, workers
ample, in the recent decision by the Ca- cally powerless and poor in other coun- with visas, and undocumented work-
nadian Supreme Court to recognize that tries, often in the search for cheap wages, ers—is deplorable. A recent study found
collective bargaining forms a fundamen- a practice that is also detrimental to U.S. that guest workers in the U.S. were in
tal part of the freedom of association.9 In workers? The U.S. Congress should pass a situation “close to slavery.”11 A recent
the United States there is hope that, if a laws that hold these corporations to the Human Rights Watch report found that
Democratic Party majority results from highest U.S. and international standards U.S. labor laws had ceased to protect
the 2008 elections, the U.S. Congress everywhere. The U.S. Congress should workers, whether native-born or immi-
would pass the Employee Free Choice also regulate corporate foreign investment grant.12 The U.S. Congress should pass
Act. In Mexico, although the govern- and tax foreign corporate earnings, using and revise U.S. labor law so that workers
ment has said that it is committed to these as tools to shape foreign investment actually have the right to unionize, bar-
promoting secret-ballot union-represen- for the benefit of U.S. and foreign work- gain collectively, and strike.
tation elections and public registries of ing families. The U.S. Congress should
labor unions and contract, it has failed require that corporations investing in Once the U.S. has adopted the ILO con-
to fulfill this promise. To the contrary, it Mexico pay a living wage, protect the ventions and revised its own labor laws,
is promoting a reform to the Federal La- environment, respect international labor the U.S. Congress should insist that
bor Law that is entirely pro-business and standards, permit workers to unionize, Mexico also bring its labor laws up to the
anti-union. If the U.S. Congress passes develop programs for technology trans- international standard, and that it honor
its own Constitution Article 123, Fed-
eral Labor Law, and ILO conventions.
These measures would protect workers
in both the United States and Mexico.
The U.S. Congress should work with

Mexico and Canada to guarantee the
highest standards of workers throughout
the continent based on best standards
found throughout the world. We should
see continental labor law reform for
workers in all three countries. In Canada,
Mexico, and the United States, union
national constitutions, local by-laws, and
all contracts should be a matter of public
record and available to governments, em-
ployers, workers, and the public.
Immigrant Workers and their

Welfare
An estimated 485,000 Mexican work-
ers migrate to work in the United States
each year, of whom perhaps sixty thou- San Francisco, May 1st, 2008. On May Day immigrants and their supporters marched through
sand have work visas. The existing U.S. the streets of San Francisco. Marchers protested a growing wave of raids and deportations, and
immigration policies and policies gov- efforts by the Federal government to force employers to fire workers for lack of immigration visas...
erning migrant workers do not func- Photo by David Bacon.
tion in the interest of the United States,
Mexico, employers, or workers. The U.S. guest worker, or bracero programs are deal with tuberculosis as an international
Congress should work with Canada and not desirable). U.S.-Mexico health issue.14 There have
Mexico toward a policy of open labor also been calls for greater cooperation
migration that parallels the movement Migrant workers face serious social to deal with other infectious diseases.15
of capital and commodities (see Hing in problems in the United States, particu- The U.S. Congress, working with the
this volume). larly problems of occupational safety CDC and its counterparts in Canada
and health. Studies have found that and Mexico, should continue to develop
The U.S. Congress should work with foreign-born workers, most of them La- common workers’ health programs with
Mexico and Canada to create employ- tinos, have higher rates of fatalities and coordination across the border, improv-
ment laws that prevent employers from injuries.13 The U.S. Congress, working ing upon existing programs dealing with
evading responsibility for their workers with Mexico, Canada, the World Health tuberculosis, hepatitis, and AIDS. Em-
through subcontracting. The problem of Organization, and Pan-American Health ployers in all three countries should be
the use of labor contractors is especially Organization, should develop environ- taxed to pay for this program.
pernicious in the area of agriculture in mental and occupational health legisla-
the United States where agribusiness re- tion that establishes the same standards Families, Women and Children
lies on contractors to provide workers, and entails the same enforcement in The families of migrants, especially
thereby avoiding responsibility for their all three countries, based on the high- women and children, should receive spe-
transportation, housing, wages, benefits est standards of protection for workers. cial consideration. Canada, Mexico, and
or conditions. The system of agricultural Employers in all three countries should the United States should work to create
contract labor should be eliminated. be taxed to pay for this program. programs that support migrant workers
The U.S., Mexican, and Canadian gov- and their children across borders.
ernments should work to facilitate pro- Migrant workers also face other health
grams to help workers find jobs of their problems, for example, chronic diseases. The U.S. Congress, working with Mexi-
own choosing where employers take full The U.S. Centers for Disease Control co and Canada, should set up a migrato-
responsibility for workers as employees and Prevention (CDC) has recognized ry workers’ children education and social
(although government contract labor, the need for coordinated programs to welfare program to ensure continuity of

education and the well-being of workers’ households, provide maternity leave, and cal movement that puts the rights and the
children in all three countries. Employers create child-care centers. The aim should needs of working people first, before cor-
in all three countries should be taxed to be to make women workers’ lives safer, porate profits and political motivations.
pay for this program. more secure, and freer. Employers should The future of the continent ultimately
pay for the program. depends on working people constructing
The U.S. Congress should work with a movement that can create another sort
Mexico and Canada in developing a pro- Conclusion of society, one in which workers’ power
gram for the protection and support of U.S., Mexican, and Canadian labor and self-management and participatory
women workers in all three countries and unions, social movements, and nongov- democracy combine to create a society
those who migrate between countries. ernmental organizations should collabo- predicated upon economic equality and
The program should protect women rate to build pressure to change policies social justice.
from human trafficking, offer social sup- in all three countries. We need to work
port to women who are also heads of together to build an international politi-
Notes
1. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the United Nations
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights all contain sections defending workers or union rights. See “A Sum-
mary of United Nations Agreements on Human Rights,” Human Rights Web, http://www.hrweb.org/legal/undocs.html.
2. Richard Roman and Edur Velasco, “Mexican Workers Call for a Continental Workers’ Campaign for Living Wages and Social Justice,”
Bilaterals.org, May 20, 2007, http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=8355.
3. Office of the Inspector General, “The Drug Enforcement Administrations Internal Operations (Redacted)” Audit Report, February
7–19, 2007, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/DEA/a0719/app2.htm.
4. The aid was cut off when the United States imposed sanctions on Mexico in October 2005 after Mexico became a signatory to the
Hague-based ICC, which had been set up in 2002.
5. Laura Carlsen, “Plan Mexico,” Foreign Policy in Focus, October 20, 2007, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4684.
6. Natalia Gómez, “Otorgará Iniciativa Mérida 500 mdd a México en Primer Año,” El Universal, October 22, 2007, http://www.eluniver-
sal.com.mx/notas/456623.html#.
7. International Federation for Human Rights, “Report: International Fact Finding Mission: Mexico, The North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA): Effects on Human Rights, Violations of Labour Rights,” International Federation for Human Rights, April 2006;
Alberto Arroyo et al, “Lessons from NAFTA: the High Cost of ‘Free Trade’,” Hemispheric Social Alliance, June 2003.
8. “U.S., Panama Sign Free Trade Pact Just in Time,” Reuters, June 28, 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/
idUSN2730746720070628.
9. Glen Chochia, “Landmark Ruling Guarantees Canadian Workers Collective Bargaining Rights,” Labor Notes, http://www.labornotes.
org/node/1267.
10. International Labor Organization (ILO) Web site posts the conventions and signers: http://www.ilo.org/global/lang--en/index.htm
11. Southern Poverty Law Center, Close to Slavery: Guest Worker Programs in the United States, http://www.splcenter.org/pdf/static/SPL-
Cguestworker.pdf
12. Lance Compa, Unfair Advantage: Workers’ Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards (New
York: Human Rights Watch, 2000). Compa is also the author of a study of workers’ rights in Mexico: Lance Compa, Justice for All: The
Struggle for Workers’ Rights in Mexico (New York: AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, 2003).
13. Katherine Loh and Scott Richardson, “Foreign-born Workers: Trends in Fatal Occupational Injuries, 1996–2001,” Monthly Labor
Review, June 2006, http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2004/06/art3full.pdf; X. Dong and J. W. Platner, “Occupational Fatalities of Hispanic
Construction Workers,” American Journal of Industrial Medicine 45 (2004), 45–54.
14. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Preventing and Controlling Tuberculosis along the U.S.-Mexico Border,” Work Group
Report, MMWR, January 19, 2001, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5001a1.htm.
15. Michele Weinberg, et al., “The U.S.-Mexico Border Infectious Disease Surveillance Project: Establishing Bi-national Border Surveil-
lance,” Emerging Infection Diseases 9 (2003), http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/Eid/vol9no1/02-0047.htm.

The Unexpected Consequences of Deepening
Integration: NAFTA, Immigration, and Labor
Gabriela D. Lemus
Lemus examines the relationship between This chapter will examine the relation- authorization each year.2 The total num-
globalization and NAFTA, and their un- ship between globalization, current trade ber of immigrants from Mexico grew by
intended social and political consequences.policy models as delineated by NAFTA, 65 percent compared to the previous
First, she discusses the negative effects of
and the unintended political and social decade.3 NAFTA was supposed to solve
free trade on the U.S. labor market, par- consequences these have created. In the many of Mexico’s development chal-
ticularly on manufacturing jobs. Next, she case of Canada, the United States, and lenges and alleviate immigration. At best
turns to Mexico, noting how poverty and Mexico, deepening integration promises the results have been mixed, with some
emigration have increased since NAFTA to transform NAFTA into a mechanism states in the North experiencing growth,
started, and how the income gap between that goes well beyond the original intent while the South has suffered. The lack of
Mexico and its trade partners have wid- through the creation of the Security and investment in infrastructure and in hu-
ened. Turning to the continuing process of Prosperity Partnership (SPP).1 The pri- man capital has equally inhibited growth
integration, Lemus warns against allowing mary focus of this analysis is the bilat- and development in Mexico overall. The
it to continue without democratic oversighteral relationship between Mexico and the result is a weak and increasingly poor la-
by citizens and legislatures. Turning to al-
United States within the context of NAF- bor force that is struggling for a foothold
ternatives, Lemus advocates the creation TA, while its primary purpose is twofold: in the global economy.
of truly global unions, to counteract the first, to provide some prescriptive analy-
power of transnational corporations. The sis to contextualize the challenges cre- The United States since the Pas-
author ends by making recommendations ated by the neoliberal frameworks that sage of NAFTA
to restore the role of the state in economic
have become the prevailing measure for As a global leader, the United States is in
development, restore legislative oversight,engaging in free-trade agreements, along a much different position than Mexico.
improve accountability to the citizenry forwith the growing power of TNCs and The U.S. economy is the strongest in
further integration, and protect labor and capital; and second, to provide guide- the world, yet it has become increasingly
migrants’ rights. lines to build a sustainable global net- inhospitable for middle class Americans
work of NGOs, local leaders, and unions in the last decade. In the United States,
Introduction to counter these efforts so as to create a between 2000 and 2007 alone, the coun-
The problems related to NAFTA en- united progressive international vision try lost 21 percent of its manufacturing
compass a complex world economy that restores dignity to workers and as- jobs – the sort of high-paying blue collar
dominated by transnational corpora- sures democracy to citizens. jobs that provide retirement and health-
tions (TNCs) and transnational capi- care.4 More than forty thousand manu-
tal that can rival and often supersede When NAFTA was negotiated it was ac- facturing plants have shut down in the
government authority, although they companied by big expectations and big United States since 2000, causing the
customarily work hand-in-hand. Invari- promises. The negotiators assured that U.S. manufacturing base to slip down
ably, globalization proponents’ efforts NAFTA would reduce poverty in the re- dramatically, from almost 30 percent of
to universalize neoliberal reforms and gion, lessen income disparities and asym- the nation’s GDP in 1950, to 12 percent
drive new markets place workers in the metries between Mexico and the United in 2005.5
global North in direct competition with States, and create more and better jobs
workers in the global South. This cre- for everyone; the biggest promise was the Part of the challenge the United States
ates a structure of asymmetrical econo- reduction of migration. Today, almost faces is the stunning loss of high-paying
mies that is hard to overcome without fifteen years after the implementation manufacturing jobs and its inability in
new and creative efforts that can address of the treaty, we know that most people the last decade to sustain a steady rhythm
the very asymmetries and the advan- in the region have not seen any of these in raising median income and thus to
tages given to capital currently in place. benefits. But there is one area in particu- sustain intergenerational mobility. The
The benefits of such structures are un- lar in which NAFTA failed drastically: United States also faces difficulties in its
evenly distributed, and the working migration. Since the implementation of ability to retain its position as a leading
class in rich and developing nations has NAFTA in 1994, almost five hundred innovator in terms of research and tech-
the least access to the benefits of these thousand Mexicans on average have nology in relationship to the loss of its
global policies. crossed into the United States without manufacturing base. Income distribution
has steadily degenerated as Now we are in a bind be-
well. Between 1980 and cause of the delicate situ-
2005, 82 percent of person- ation NAFTA and other
al income gains went to the mistaken economic policies
top 1 percent of the popula- have created. The trade defi-
tion. While overall produc- cit exceeded $700 billion in
tivity increased by 71% per- 2007 and international bor-
cent, the income of the top rowing has increased to $5.6
1 percent increased by 156 trillion since 1994.11 This
percent. In contrast, median endangers U.S. economic
income compensation rose independence, especially
by only 19 percent for the when the price of energy
rest of the population.6 Since also continues to rise. Only
the passage of NAFTA, the by rapidly growing domestic
trade deficit in the United manufacturing output can
States has also steadily risen, this unsustainable situation
although in large part be- be reduced. Making a firm
cause of a combination of goal to eliminate the U.S.
other factors that will not trade deficit by 2016 would
be discussed in depth in this mean the creation of mil-
analysis, except to say that lions of new manufacturing
for every extra $1 billion of jobs, which would help al-
the trade deficit, ten thou- most all states in the union
sand jobs are lost.7 Growing because of the significance
trade deficits are responsible of manufacturing’s position
for 34–58 percent of the de- as a share of the GDP in the
cline in U.S. manufacturing U.S. economy.12
employment.8
If the United States con-
How much these chal- tinues on a trajectory of
lenges are directly related deepening integration with
to NAFTA is hard to say Mexico, Canada, and the
but overall we do know rest of the hemisphere via
that the United States has trade agreements, it is im-
lost a little over 3.3 mil- perative that it begin to turn
lion manufacturing jobs around the downward spiral
since 1998.9 Even in states of manufacturing job loss or
that depend heavily on ex- risk powerful dislocations in
ports to Mexico, job loss its own regional economies.
has been critical. In Sep- The balance between U.S.
tember 2007 alone, the exports, manufacturing jobs,
United States lost eighteen and the concomitant im-
thousand additional man- pact on Mexico’s economy
ufacturing jobs, putting and society is inadequately
employment in the sector addressed by NAFTA as a
below fourteen million for development instrument.
the first time since 1950.10 This situation becomes
Cartoon by Rocha, courtesy of La Jornada.
T HE U NEX P EC T E D CON S EQ U ENCE S 85

Mexico would catch up. While many
in the United States, including some
within then-President Clinton’s own
circle of advisors, argued that NAFTA
would be painfully unbalanced without
the addition of strong and innovative
labor and wage provisions, these con-
cerns were ultimately cast aside and
have never been revisited.14
Now, over a decade later, the people

earning the minimum wage in Mexico
– many of them in factories producing
under NAFTA rules for the U.S. mar-
ket – cannot sustain themselves. In the
first decade of NAFTA the value of the
Mexican minimum wage dropped 23
percent. Today one quarter of Mexicans
cannot buy basic foods, and Mexico has
nineteen million more people living in
poverty than twenty years prior.15 Today,
the GDP of the United States is eigh-
Local farmers, devastated by competition from U.S. industrial agriculture, scrape by in San teen times greater than that of Mexico
Martin Peras, Oaxaca. Photo by David Cilia. and wages of U.S. workers on average
are six times greater than those of Mexi-
particularly relevant when the issue of challenge. Despite NAFTA’s ability to in- can workers.16 Migration has become an
immigration is added to the equation. crease exports from Mexico to the United outlet for Mexico and U.S. businesses
States and Canada, small- and medium- as a result.
Trade, Poverty, and Immigration sized businesses have been closing at a
NAFTA opened a Pandora’s box— rapid rate. These businesses used to pro- Integration without Democracy
it brought together Canada, Mexico, duce for the national market. They can = Chaos
and the United States with no appar- no longer afford to do so. The number When only a handful of individuals
ent thought about the social and politi- of jobs created through foreign invest- make the decisions for the majority and
cal consequences. President Salinas de ment is grossly insufficient to absorb this then simultaneously fail to prepare the
Gortari stated very clearly that Mexico redundant pool of labor, and the original majority for the inevitable changes that
“would export goods, not people.” gains in real wages made in these indus- will be brought about by those decisions,
How wrong he was. Since the 1990s, tries made the corporations more willing the possibility for extreme reactions
emigration from Mexico has increased to relocate to lower-wage countries. grows larger. This has certainly been the
substantially. It is estimated that there case with NAFTA, and the impacts on
are approximately 12 million unau- Originally the asymmetries in the econ- immigration. Now, instead of learning
thorized workers in the United States omies of the United States and Mexico a lesson and opening up trade policy to
today – a vast majority from Mexico.13 were not addressed during the negotia- more scrutiny, the United States govern-
tions. Given the foreign investor guar- ment – primarily, so far, the Bush admin-
Despite denials by the World Bank and antees that were supposed to draw new istration – has proceeded with further
other NAFTA apologists, there is an ir- foreign direct investment, the trade plans to deepen NAFTA with an even
refutable connection between a liberal agreement was supposed to bring abun- less democratic process – the Security
trade policy, poverty, and immigration dant prosperity to Mexico as a result of and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). This
in Mexico. Trade liberalization policies the jobs it would help create. The bal- will inevitably create conflict. The same
combined with weak economic devel- ancing act between the two countries can be said in Mexico and Canada.
opment policies since the implementa- was supposed to happen naturally. It
tion of NAFTA have contributed to the was widely assumed that there was no Today, with the U.S. trade deficit in
growing poverty of Mexican laborers. need to compensate for the enormous such a tenuous position, all of the
Businesses in Mexico are facing a serious disparities between the two economies. North American market is at risk. The
arguments made by the North Ameri-
can Competitiveness Council (NACC),
a free trade-booster group of multi-
national corporations, suddenly may
appear more viable to some17—at least
they have a plan. However it is no lon-
ger possible to engage in business as
usual. After a decade of failure of the
current combination of undemocratic
decision-making and free-market fun-
damentalism, there is no reason to be-
lieve that more of the same will have
any significantly different outcome.
There is a serious need to rethink and
remodel current economic interactions.
To paraphrase Jeff Faux, we must pull
back from the current pursuit of corpo-
rate-dominated globalization in order to
correct the current regional economy.
In the case of the SPP, not only have

“individuals”—the citizenry—been de- Local farmers, devastated by competition from U.S. industrial agriculture, scrape by in
liberately left out of the decision-making San Martin Peras, Oaxaca. Photo by David Cilia.
processes, the U.S. Congress has not even
been engaged. The leaders of the NAFTA
countries are abrogating the mandates
they have been handed by taking the reactive. So, what can be done to restore markets to international markets where
politically expedient route of secrecy in balance to the economic development investors view a world without borders.
their discussions with large transnational process of deepening integration, while These capital investors and shareholders
corporations to deepen integration. They ensuring that discourse be created to have little loyalty to the local markets in
facilitate the terms of the latter without shape our collective future? which they operate and apparently have
any counterweights to support harmed even less interest in or commitment
sectors (labor) that are strategic to all Global Unions: Challenging the to the sustainable development of that
three countries. It is not surprising, then, Neoliberal Status Quo market.
that they are not addressing the critical The international trade union movement
issues of labor rights and the movement provides one of the possible options avail- Improving the solidarity of workers across
of peoples. In so doing, they avoid dif- able to counteract the negative effects of national borders has become a priority.
ficult and contentious social and political globalization on the working class. It Over the last couple of decades, corporate
discussions, and make it impossible that has the history, infrastructure, and orga- globalization has proven counterproductive
any changes to NAFTA will successfully nization to propose a new way forward to the well-being of workers—in effect, it
address the concerns of the vast majority to redress the problem by restoring the allows for exploitation because of the fo-
of working people in the United States, human element to today’s standard eco- cus on shareholder profits and worksite
much less in all three countries. In their nomic practices. mobility. When the value of a human be-
secrecy, they forget the lesson from NAF- ing is downgraded to that of a commodity
TA: policies that are adopted for short- In an era of globalization and global cor- within the global context, the best vehicle
term political convenience inadvertently porate lobbying, the transnational labor to empower workers to fight for universal
self-destruct. movement is critical. Today developing worker rights is better cross-border organi-
nations compete to attract investment zation and solidarity of unions.
Increasingly, the decision makers lead- by promising low wages without union
ing us toward deepening integration will representation, something that affects Yet never before has the connection
have to deal with the grievances of the workers in both developed and develop- between governments and global in-
people against their policies. Better to do ing nations. Globalization has changed stitutions (WTO, IMF, and the World
so in a proactive manner than one that is how business is practiced, from domestic Bank) been so strong and interests so

clearly tied to transnational corpora- most unions have primarily acted within firms.” Fifty-one proposals were accepted
tions. There is sufficient evidence dem- national boundaries, with only sporadic at the conference.20 This conference can
onstrating that these are not the best connections to workers from other na- serve as the foundation for the needed in-
policies for most workers in the world. tions. That must change. The reach of tellectual framework to better understand
There is a need for new international the movement must transcend national how to navigate global forces in order to
policies that allow most of the popula- borders and become global. Workers’ have a stronger and better organized in-
tion to share the benefits. struggles are a global problem that can ternational union movement.
be tackled by globalizing unions and ex-
American Federation of Labor and Con- panding on the solidarity efforts that are Recommendations
gress of Industrial Organization Secre- currently taking place. • Restore the role of the state in eco-
tary Treasurer Richard Trumka charged: nomic development. Globalization
“Global companies begat global prob- In the case of Mexico and its record of and trade policies as engaged in today
lems for worker—global problems begat systematic violations of labor rights, the affect small- and medium-sized busi-
the need for global unions—and if global government has touted sovereignty and nesses adversely. Because of the way
unions want to truly match the might intervention over national issues as an that NAFTA was set up originally, all
and power of global corporations, we excuse to prevent foreign unions from three countries have weakened their
have to undertake global research and working in solidarity with Mexican ability to engage in economic poli-
global campaigns.”18 workers. In the context of NAFTA, this cies that support job creation. Public
is unjust. policy should place the lives and live-
Despite efforts in the past, global cor- lihoods of its citizens first, and the
porate forces have been much more suc- In the United States, twelve million un- citizens should make explicit the pri-
cessful and better organized than labor, documented workers exist as an under- orities of the implicit social contract
and obviously have much greater funds class exploited by U.S. and transnational between themselves and their respec-
to invest in the promotion of their own corporations. The pressures of globaliza- tive governments.
interests. The effect has been a serious tion force companies to focus on reduc- • Restore oversight to the legislative bod-
negative impact on the economic, social, ing costs and not investing in domestic ies in all three countries. Support leg-
and political rights of workers all over the growth. These pressures simultaneously islative policies that redress the gaps in
world. decrease wages and engender job loss the ability to negotiate agreements and
in both Mexico and the United States, restore the legislatures’ role in over-
Neoliberal policies with a strong focus and have led to a decade of rapid import sight. The different legislative bodies
on market fundamentalism have proven growth of both goods and workers. should be encouraged to pursue vary-
themselves unsustainable and unwork- ing types of analyses with the goal of
able for most people. Such policies were Labor unions and organizations that creating positive policy that can restore
supposed to reduce poverty. In real- seek to protect and empower workers the local to the global. Legislators need
ity, over the last decade of the twentieth must become as ubiquitous and mobile to reengage in the dynamics taking
century, the number of people living in as TNCs, going to where the need exists place around issues like the creation
poverty in the world increased by almost and protecting workers on a global scale, of regional markets and trade policies
one hundred million; over the same pe- regardless of the country where they relo- that affect them in their hometowns.
riod, the average income in the world cate. We must join forces to prevent and They are the ones who must answer to
increased by 2.5 percent annually. The stop the inhumane exploitation of work- constituents when there are significant
benefits of such policies were not being ers worldwide, and demand and help to job losses.
equitably distributed but rather accumu- establish the de-facto observance of uni- • Engender healthy public discourse
lated in the hands of very few.19 versal labor rights throughout the globe. to the SPP process and facilitate the
building of transnational civil soci-
The movement therefore must seek to The 2006 Global Companies–Global ety dialogue and coalition building.
maximize the prosperity for the maxi- Unions–Global Research–Global Cam- Deepening integration between NAF-
mum number of people and globalize paigns conference in New York was an TA partners requires a restoration of
labor rights, human rights, and envi- effort to strengthen labor capacity for public discourse to ensure that citizens
ronmental standards. Unions have the cross-border campaigns. One of the con- of all three countries have an oppor-
capacity to serve as a multinational ference’s accomplishments was the agree- tunity to understand and halt any
force that can set the agenda to ensure ment to generate “high quality research policy that harms the public good.
certain minimum standards for work- on labor’s efforts to date at running cross- Members of the legislatures, labor,
ers all around the world. Until recently, border campaigns with transnational civil and human rights organizations,
other NGOs, academics, and public
intellectuals should be involved in the
discussions related to the SPP.
• Immigration, labor rights, and envi-
ronmental protections need to be at
the core of the discussion. By not tak-
ing into account immigration, labor
standards, and the environment in the
subsequent discussion on how we are
going to manage the North American
regional economy, we miss out on a
very rich debate whereby security and
prosperity can indeed be attained be-
cause of real partnerships and good-
will. Innovation in technology and a
shift in focus of production toward
a green economy can, for example,
create new and better jobs while ad-
dressing climate change. A general,
minimum standard of labor rights of
all workers without exception across
all three borders would lead to a more
level playing field and, one hopes,
have the effect of lessening exploita-
tion. Labor has a powerful role to play
in balancing the conditions estab-
lished by transnational corporations.
Discussions of regional markets by
their very nature should include the
social, political, and economic con-
texts because as integration deepens
traditional decision-making structures
will be put into flux.
Neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and

1990s, now largely considered the status
quo, have begun to lose their luster. The
time is right for a new plan of action.
NAFTA is not going away but there are
important lessons to be learned. The
Cartoon by Rocha, courtesy of La Jornada.
trade agreement needs to be reexam-
ined, reevaluated, and renegotiated in
certain areas, particularly as pertains to
agriculture and labor rights. The SPP
is an example of how renegotiations
happen all the time, only the public is
largely unaware that it is happening. It
is the responsibility of the citizens and
the labor movement to set the tone and
the agenda for the future of the region—
without fear.

Notes
1. Since 2005, the prime minister of Canada and the presidents of Mexico and the United States have been meeting on a fairly regular basis
to discuss the deepening integration of all three countries following the same policies. In the popular vernacular, the SPP is referred to as
NAFTA Plus.
2. Global Exchange, Rethinking the Immigration Debate: Addressing the Root Causes of Mexican Migration, http://www.globalexchange.org/
countries/americas/mexico/TM2pager.pdf.
3. Global Exchange, U.S.-Mexico Trade and Migration Fact Sheet, http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/mexico/factsheet.pdf.
4. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2008 Current Employment Statistics Survey, 2008, http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2008/Employ-
ment-Statistics-BLS4apr08.htm.
5. Michael Mandel, “How Low Can Manufacturing Go?,” BusinessWeek, November 23, 2007, http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/
economicsunbound/archives/2005/11/how_low_can_man.html.
6. Susan Helper, “Renewing U.S. Manufacturing: Promoting a High-Road Strategy,” EPI Briefing Paper #212 (Washington, DC: Eco-
nomic Policy Institute, 2008).
7. Marcy Kaptur, Comments at the conference “Linking Agriculture, Development, and Migration: A Critical Look at NAFTA Past, Pres-
ent and Future,” March 5, 2008.
8. Jacob Hill, “Evaluation of the Impact of NAFTA on Manufacturing,” Scoop Independent News, August 9, 2007.
9. Susan Helper, “Renewing U.S. Manufacturing Promoting a High Road Strategy,” EPI Briefing Paper (Economic Policy Institute, 2008).
10. Christian E. Weller, “Ignore at Your Own Peril: The Manufacturing Crisis in Perspective,” Center for American Progress, February 6,
2004, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/02/b27975.html.
11. U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, April 2008.” U.S. Depart-
ment of Commerce, June 10, 2008, http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/current_press_release/ft900.pdf.
12. Robert E. Scott, “The Importance of Manufacturing: Key to Recovery in the States and the Nation,” EPI Briefing Paper #211 (Washing-
ton, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2008).
13. Global Exchange, U.S.-Mexico Trade and Migration Fact Sheet, http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/mexico/factsheet.pdf.
14. John R. MacAurthur, The Selling of “Free Trade”: NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy. (New York: Hill and
Wang, 2000).
15. Global Exchange. Rethinking the Immigration Debate: Addressing the Root Causes of Mexican Migration, http://www.globalexchange.org/
countries/americas/mexico/TM2pager.pdf.
16. Andrew Selee, More than Neighbors: An Overview of Mexico and U.S.-Mexico Relations, (Woodrow Wilson Center, 2008), iii.
17. The North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) is made up of thirty presidents and CEOs of major corporations, ten from each
country respectively.
18. Kate Bronfenbrenner, ed., Global Unions: Challenging Transnational Capital Through Cross-Border Campaign (Ithaca, NY: ILR Press and
Cornell University Press, 2007).
19. Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003).
20. Bronfenbrenner.
contributors
David Bacon is a senior fellow at the Oakland Insti- Jeff Faux is the founder and distinguished fellow of the
tute, which provided support for this analysis. He is a writer, Economic Policy Institute. He is the author of The Global Class
photojournalist, and former labor organizer. The issues raised War, and has written and lectured extensively on the economic
in this article are discussed at greater depth in Illegal People and social consequences of globalization.
– How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Im-
migrants (Beacon Press, September 2008).
Gabriela Lemus is executive director at the Labor
Council for Latin American Advancement, and former direc-
Armando Bartra is a distinguished Mexican tor of Policy and Legislation at the League of United Latin
scholar and public intellectual. He is a professor of sociology American Citizens. She has broad experience advocating for
at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City, Latino workers and families on issues related to globalization,
the founder of the Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo trade, immigration, and border militarization.
Rural Maya, and the editor of the La Jornada del Campo
supplement of one of Mexico’s most respected and widely
read dailies. Bill Ong Hing is a professor of law at the University
of California at Davis. Throughout his career, he has success-
fully pursued social justice by combining community work,
Laura Carlsen is the director of the Center for In- litigation, and scholarship. He is the founder of the Immigrant
ternational Policy’s Mexico City-based Americas Program. She Legal Resource Center.
is one of the leading critics of the NAFTA-based development
model in Mexico and Latin America, and has written exten-
sively on Mexican society and politics. Oscar Chacón is the executive director of the Na-
tional Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communi-
ties. Amy Shannon previously served as the director of Enlaces
Gustavo Esteva is a renowned social activist and America and currently works as a consultant on development
public intellectual based in the city of Oaxaca. He is a lead- and environmental issues.
ing critic of the economic uprooting of indigenous commu-
nities across Mexico, founder of the Oaxacan Universidad
de la Tierra, and former adviser to the Zapatista movement María Dolores París is Professor of Social Rela-
in Chiapas. tions at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico
City. Her research on Mexican migration to the United States
focuses on human rights, gender, and ethnicity.
Ted Lewis directs Global Exchange’s Human Rights Pro-
grams. He writes regularly on the linkages between economic
policy and human rights. John Gibler is a Global Exchange Media fellow who
writes from Mexico. He is the author of Mexico Unconquered:
Chronicles of Power and Revolt, forthcoming from City Lights.
Bertha Luján is Mexico’s best-known independent
labor organizer and former director of the Frente Auténtico
del Trabajo, a large, democratic labor union. She is the chief la- Dan La Botz teaches history and Latin American stud-
bor advisor to the “parallel government” organization of 2006 ies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is the author of
presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. several books on Mexican labor unions, social movements and
politics, and edits Mexican Labor News and Analysis, an on-line
publication of the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) and
the Authentic Labor Front (FAT).
The Right to Stay Home: Alternatives to Mass Displacement and Forced Migration in North America
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NAFTA AND IMMIGRATION 1

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The Right to Stay Home: Alternatives to Mass Displacement and Forced Migration in North America

NAFTA AND IMMIGRATION 1

Edited by Global Exchange

© 2008 by Global Exchange

This edition published in the United States of America by

Book Design: Global Exchange and Design Action Collective

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008938059

Printed in the United States of America (2008)

To order more copies:

A North America That Works For All Its People

The Right to Stay: Reactivate Agriculture, Retain the Population

Equality And Human Rights, Instead Of Displacement And Criminalization

To Regenerate What Is Ours

NAFTA and Immigration: Toward a Workable and Humane Integration

Contemplating Solutions to Migration Challenges

Migration and Development: Moving Beyond NAFTA

Reinventing the Traditions of the Lower Triqui Region

The Unexpected Consequences of Deepening Integration: NAFTA and Immigration

Both the “crisis” and the IMF “medicine”

A NO R T H AME R ICA T HA T W O R K S FO R ALL I T S P EO P LE 11

A NO R T H AME R ICA T HA T W O R K S FO R ALL I T S P EO P LE 13

A NO R T H AME R ICA T HA T W O R K S FO R ALL I T S P EO P LE 15

A NO R T H AME R ICA T HA T W O R K S FO R ALL I T S P EO P LE 17

The local, national, and global alter-

EQ U ALI T Y AN D H U MAN R IGH T S 27

All of these policies produce displaced

NAFTA, however, was not intended

Displacement is an unmentionable word

EQ U ALI T Y AN D H U MAN R IGH T S 29

EQ U ALI T Y AN D H U MAN R IGH T S 31

Mexico bet the house on export-led,

To benefit these lucky few, Mexico gave

Figure 2: Mexican Real Wage Index. Graph by Global Exchange.

NAF T A AN D IMMIG R A T ION 41

NAF T A AN D IMMIG R A T ION 43

NAF T A AN D IMMIG R A T ION 45

Bill Ong Hing

CON T EM P LA T ING S OL U T ION S 47

The EU approach to labor migration has

The United States can learn from the

The lesson of the EU is that with open

CON T EM P LA T ING S OL U T ION S 49

CON T EM P LA T ING S OL U T ION S 51

CON T EM P LA T ING S OL U T ION S 53

CON T EM P LA T ING S OL U T ION S 55

Oscar Chacón and Amy Shannon

MIG R A T ION AN D D EVELO P MEN T 57

• Recognize the urgent need to modify

MIG R A T ION AN D D EVELO P MEN T 59

MIG R A T ION AN D D EVELO P MEN T 61

María Dolores París Pombo

P OLI T ICAL VIOLENCE AN D MIG R A T ION 63

As migration redefines community be-

Despite the distance, many indigenous

Back [in] 1982, I was municipal

P OLI T ICAL VIOLENCE AN D MIG R A T ION 65

P OLI T ICAL VIOLENCE AN D MIG R A T ION 67

I ask him what alternatives could be