The Buie Knife

Mexican, U.S. Workers Both Lost As Result of NAFTA, Author Asserts, and Capital Now Has Big Advantage Over Labor

"Mexico had been home to a poor agrarian sector for generations, which the government helped sustain through price supports on corn and beans. NAFTA, though, put those farmers in direct competition with incomparably more efficient U.S. agribusinesses. It proved to be no contest: From 1993 through 2002, at least 2 million Mexican farmers were driven off their land,"  Harold Meyerson in The Washington Post, citing The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future—and What It Will Take to Win It Back, by Jeff Faux.

"The experience of Mexican industrial workers under NAFTA hasn't been a whole lot better. With the passage of NAFTA, the maquiladoras on the border boomed. But the raison d'etre for these factories was to produce exports at the lowest wages possible, and with the Mexican government determined to keep its workers from unionizing, the NAFTA boom for Mexican workers never materialized. In the pre-NAFTA days of 1975, Faux documents, Mexican wages came to 23 percent of U.S. wages; in 1993-94, just before NAFTA, they amounted to 15 percent; and by 2002 they had sunk to a mere 12 percent.

Michael Hirsh, The New York Times: "Faux is clearly correct that the balance of power between labor and capital has shifted dramatically. Today, investment capital moves at blinding speed, while labor still must go by boat, train and plane—and that's if it's lucky. With much tougher immigration restrictions than existed a century ago, labor is more often confined to its home markets, waiting anxiously to see if globe-hopping capital deigns to come its way."

"The official Mexican poverty rate rose from 45.6 percent in 1994 to 50.3 percent in 2000. And that was before competition from China began to shutter the maquiladoras and reduce Mexican wages even more."

Drill Deeper:

• Behind the Debate: Propelled to Protest, Driven to Migrate (Washington Post)
• NAFTA: A Spectucular Success? (Eric Alterman, The Nation)
• DavidSirota.com: economic populism, writing from Montana.

In Mexico, High Poverty, Concentration of Wealth Among the Few, Sparks More Immigration

If you wonder why so many Mexicans seek to immigrate to the U.S., here's why: half of Mexico's population lives in poverty, and lacks economic opportunity from increasing concentrations of wealth in the hands of the few. Monopolies in oil, electricity and other industries are inefficient and corrupt. Mexico is creating just 250,000 of the one million net new jobs it needs each year to keep up with population growth. The average household income is a little more than $7,000, but Mexicans pay far more of their incomes than Americans for basic expenses. Costs for things like electricity and electronics are far more than in the U.S, according to the Arizona Republic.

Los Angeles Times: "Mexico's rich and powerful got even more rich and powerful during the six-year term of outgoing President Vicente Fox. That's the conclusion of a World Bank study released this week that said Mexico's business elite and powerful public-sector unions were a major drag on the nation's economy. The net worth of Mexico's billionaires soared, from just over 4 percent of gross domestic product in 2000 to about 6 percent in 2006, according to the study. Strong earnings at big corporations have driven the stock market to repeated highs. But those benefits haven't been widely shared. The concentration of economic power in few hands has saddled Mexican consumers with high prices, exacerbated income inequality and retarded economic growth."

Extreme Poverty in Mexico Spurs Immigration

Why do "they" -- "illegal aliens," in the pejorative -- come to the United States? Twenty million Mexicans -- one out of five -- live in EXTREME poverty. If they can find work at all, they make an average of $4 a day, and that drives about 400,000 Mexicans to migrate, mainly to the United States, each year as a matter of SIMPLE SURVIVAL, according to the Associated Press. President-elect Felipe Calderon has laid out a multi-year plan for political and economic reform. He claims his plan could boost per-capita income in Mexico from $8,000 to $30,000 by 2030. Calderon is pressing the U.S. Congress to adopt a guest-worker program, which President Bush supports.

Fence Isn't Likely to Stop Immigrants Coming into the U.S. Increased Border Security Might Help

To stem the tide of undocumented immigrants into the United States, the best Congress could do is pass a law to build a 700-mile fence along the 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico. "The estimated $2 billion price tag and the mandate that it be completed by 2008 overlook 10 years of legal and logistical difficulties the federal government has faced to finish a comparatively tiny fence of 14 miles dividing San Diego and Tijuana," The Washington Post reports. To build nine miles of that fence cost taxpayers $39 million. Ranchers and environmentalists are sure to fight the fence, The Post reports. "An array of land managers, businesspeople, law enforcement officials, environmentalists and U.S. Border Patrol agents" are highly skeptical, according to The Post.

Clear Evidence the Immigration System is Broken

Half of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. entered the country LEGALLY, with bona fide visas, but have over-stayed their welcome, the Associated Press reported from a study by the Pew Hispanic Center. 

And yet when they have legitimate reasons to stay -- a job, family members here -- they can't get a timely response from immigration authorities as to their status.

"Perhaps because she is trying to become a permanent resident of this country the right way, Marisa Estelrich is getting the worst of both worlds," writes Scott Sexton in the Winston-Salem Journal. She and her husband, for the past nine years, have been "stuck in limbo, spending $30,000 of their hard-earned money over the past nine years trying to legally gain permanent residency." The Immigration and Naturalization Service simply won't tell them what the status of their case is, or that of their children. "The application is sitting in Philadelphia in an immigration office ironically called a Backlog Reduction Center."

As The New York Times reported, many immigration judges have an annual caseload of 20,000. It's humanly impossible to fairly evaluate each case.

To Discourage Undocumented Immigrants, Visa or Social Security Number Is Now Necessary to Get Drivers License in NC

North Carolina was one of just six states that accepted a federal tax number, which are easy to get, to obtain a driver's license. But a new law enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly in the summer of 2006 requires anyone applying for or renewing a driver's license to show proof of a Social Security number or a valid visa. Insurance analysts tell the Charlotte Observer that as a result of the new law, fewer illegal immigrants will probably buy insurance -- potentially increasing the number of uninsured drivers involved in accidents. And the new law may encourage undocumented workers to obtain social security numbers fraudulently through the black market.

Half the Mexican Population Lives on Less Than $4 a Day

Why do so many Mexicans leave their homes and families and risk crossing the border into the United States to find work, even as undocumented workers who have no rights as workers or citizens? Mexico is a country where "half the population lives on less than $4 a day while the top tenth of the population controls nearly half the wealth," The New York Times reports. Trying to work within a political system that has long been corrupt can seem hopeless. For 71 years, until 2000, the country experienced one-party rule. The September, 2006 selection of Felipe Calderón, as Mexico's president by the nation’s highest electoral court -- after the most contentious election in Mexican history -- only reinforces the belief among many Mexicans that elections are fraudulent. "The losing candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, refused to recognize Mr. Calderón’s victory. He has threatened to continue a campaign of mass protests and civil disobedience to thwart the new president’s ability to govern," the Times reports, and may even set up an alternative government.  His supporters prevented outgoing president Vicente Fox from delivering his final state of the union address (Fox was considered a business-oriented reformer by the United States.) But as a result of the contested election, there's even talk of revolution in Mexico. The only hope for democratic reform seems to be if Calderon, who was educated at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, can succeed in his promise to fight poverty in the country and continue the economic improvements started by Fox.

Soft on Illegal Immigrants? Reagan and Wall Street Journal Editorial Page

Ed Cone: "It's kind of refreshing to have one of the booming voices of big business, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, come out with a lede piece this morning that states the case for porous borders and tweaks the 'current immigration political panic.' The editorial, called "Reagan on Immigration," claims the mantle of the Gipper for the let-them-come crowd."

Highest Immigration To U.S. Ever

More people entered the United States -- legally and illegally -- in the last five years than at any time since records were kept, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies. An estimated 12.1 percent of the population is foreign-born, or 35.2 million people. If the trend continues, immigrants will make up a larger percentage of the population than they did at the beginning of the 20th century. The report estimates that there are 9.7 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

Immigration: Emerging Political Hot Button?

Eleven million illegal immigrants now live in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. President Bush says illegal immigrants should get three-year work visas that could be extended for an additional three years. "Then, they would have to return home for a year to apply for a new work permit," according to a summary of his position in The Washington Post.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says Bush hasn't worked enough with Mexico to discourage illegal immigration. "Work with Mexico to improve economies in rural America and rural Mexico, and you will stop the flood of people wanting to come to America," Dean said. He says Bush and the Republicans will scapegoat immigrants in the 2006 elections, according to The Washington Post.

The issue will be particularly hot in places like North Carolina. "The current wave of Hispanic migration -- North Carolina had the fastest-growing immigrant population of any state during the 1990s -- has the potential to stretch the social fabric of what has historically been one of the most homogeneous states in the country," wrote Rob Christensen of the News and Observer as he recalled the history of nativist attitudes in the state.

The U.S. Census Bureau projects that North Carolina's population will double over the next 25 years, with many new immigrants being Hispanic.