Did NAFTA cause the States Illegal Immigration problem?

Nate

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NAFTA was sold to the American public as the magic formula that would improve the American economy at the same time it would raise up the impoverished Mexican economy. The time has come to look at the failures of this type of trade agreement before we engage in more and lower the economic prospects of all workers affected.

While there has been some media coverage of NAFTA's ruinous impact on US industrial communities, there has been even less media attention paid to its catastrophic effects in Mexico:

NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'

NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.

Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0425-30.htm

Would abolishing NAFTA help slow the flow of illegal Mexican immigrants?
 
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'2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'


If this is so, than the answer is yes it would - somewhat - as poverty is not the only reason so many cross.
 
Did NAFTA cause the States Illegal Immigration problem?

No, a porous border and a impotent federal law did.
 
Did NAFTA cause the States Illegal Immigration problem?

No, a porous border and a impotent federal law did.

Both logical conclusions but looking at the stats(if you can believe them);

Falling industrial wages, peasants forced off the land, small businesses liquidated, growing poverty: these are direct consequences of NAFTA. This harsh suffering explains why so many desperate Mexicans -- lured to the border area in the false hope that they could find dignity in the US-owned maquiladoras -- are willing to risk their lives to cross the border to provide for their families. There were 2.5 million Mexican illegals in 1995; 8 million have crossed the border since then. In 2005, some 400 desperate Mexicans died trying to enter the US.
Immigration Flood Unleashed by NAFTA's Disastrous Impact on Mexican Economy

there was a HUGE surge of border crossings after NAFTA went into effect. I know NAFTA can't be completely blamed but looking at the condition of this issue is sure as hell did alot more damage.
 
Did NAFTA cause the States Illegal Immigration problem?

No, a porous border and a impotent federal law did.

Both logical conclusions but looking at the stats(if you can believe them);

Falling industrial wages, peasants forced off the land, small businesses liquidated, growing poverty: these are direct consequences of NAFTA. This harsh suffering explains why so many desperate Mexicans -- lured to the border area in the false hope that they could find dignity in the US-owned maquiladoras -- are willing to risk their lives to cross the border to provide for their families. There were 2.5 million Mexican illegals in 1995; 8 million have crossed the border since then. In 2005, some 400 desperate Mexicans died trying to enter the US.
Immigration Flood Unleashed by NAFTA's Disastrous Impact on Mexican Economy

there was a HUGE surge of border crossings after NAFTA went into effect. I know NAFTA can't be completely blamed but looking at the condition of this issue is sure as hell did alot more damage.

No I don't believe anything coming from commondreams, may as well be citing an article from huffingtonpost.
 
Did NAFTA cause the States Illegal Immigration problem?

No, a porous border and a impotent federal law did.

Both logical conclusions but looking at the stats(if you can believe them);

Falling industrial wages, peasants forced off the land, small businesses liquidated, growing poverty: these are direct consequences of NAFTA. This harsh suffering explains why so many desperate Mexicans -- lured to the border area in the false hope that they could find dignity in the US-owned maquiladoras -- are willing to risk their lives to cross the border to provide for their families. There were 2.5 million Mexican illegals in 1995; 8 million have crossed the border since then. In 2005, some 400 desperate Mexicans died trying to enter the US.
Immigration Flood Unleashed by NAFTA's Disastrous Impact on Mexican Economy

there was a HUGE surge of border crossings after NAFTA went into effect. I know NAFTA can't be completely blamed but looking at the condition of this issue is sure as hell did alot more damage.

No I don't believe anything coming from commondreams, may as well be citing an article from huffingtonpost.[/QUOTE]

Understandable, can't believe everything you find online. Here's a few sites that back the other;
Indeed, despite the influx of foreign-owned factories, total manufacturing employment in Mexico declined to 3.5 million by 2004 from a high of 4.1 million in 2000, according to a calculation of Robert A. Blecker, an American University economist.

As relatively well-paying jobs disappeared, Mexico’s average wage for production workers, already low, fell further behind the average hourly pay of production workers in the United States, and Mexicans responded by migrating.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/weekinreview/18uchitelle.html

Between Jan. 2000 to 2005;
Between January 2000 and March 2005, 7.9 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) settled in the country, making it the highest five-year period of immigration in American history.

Nearly half of post-2000 arrivals (3.7 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens.

Immigrants account for 12.1 percent of the total population, the highest percentage in eight decades. If current trends continue, within a decade it will surpass the high of 14.7 percent reached in 1910.
Center for Immigration Studies

The only difference, NAFTA.
 
Both logical conclusions but looking at the stats(if you can believe them);


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

there was a HUGE surge of border crossings after NAFTA went into effect. I know NAFTA can't be completely blamed but looking at the condition of this issue is sure as hell did alot more damage.

No I don't believe anything coming from commondreams, may as well be citing an article from huffingtonpost.[/QUOTE]

Understandable, can't believe everything you find online. Here's a few sites that back the other;

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/weekinreview/18uchitelle.html

Between Jan. 2000 to 2005;
Between January 2000 and March 2005, 7.9 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) settled in the country, making it the highest five-year period of immigration in American history.

Nearly half of post-2000 arrivals (3.7 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens.

Immigrants account for 12.1 percent of the total population, the highest percentage in eight decades. If current trends continue, within a decade it will surpass the high of 14.7 percent reached in 1910.
Center for Immigration Studies

The only difference, NAFTA.

It appears that both articles you cited states the influx of illegal aliens began in 2000, Nafta came into force in 1994.
 
Had to dig a little deeper in the CIS, here's what i came across;

Large-scale Mexican immigration began growing in the 1960s and "accelerated in the 1970s as the number of Mexicans in the U.S. tripled between 1970 and 1980. The number doubled again by 1990 and again by 2000. In 2004, the [Census Bureau's] March CPS shows 10.6 million people born in Mexico [and residing in America]. This figure represents more than a 13-fold increase over the 1970 census."25 Mexicans represent nearly a third of the foreign-born population; this is about three times the proportion of the next three countries of origin (China, Philippines, India) combined.26

Mexican illegal migration explains much of the growth in illegal immigration overall. "Since the mid-1990s, the number of new unauthorized migrants has equaled or exceeded the number of new legal immigrants. For Mexico, 80-85 [percent] of new settlers in the U.S. are unauthorized."27 Half of Mexicans living in America are illegal aliens
Center for Immigration Studies

Focus on the part in bold. This took place after NAFTA was enacted.
 

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