“There will be less illegal immigration because more Mexicans will be able to support their children from their own homes,” were the words of Ex-President of the United States Bill Clinton, in the spring of 1993.
The economy has always been a science that a very few experts understand and manipulate, and because of this the majority of the citizens don’t dare to give our opinions about it, or we realize at some point that our knowledge is limited and vague about the different aspects that concern it.
Outside of this, however, one point that we can discuss now that we see the results with our own eyes, is that the economy is a key factor that has forced, throughout history, the migration of the people. Thousands of people migrate year after year in search of more or better job opportunities that their own countries or cities cannot offer, or in many cases deny them.
Since 1994 some sectors of Latin American countries have been involved in the struggle against free trade agreements. Remember that in that year, Canada, the United States and Mexico signed an agreement called NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), which established a free trade zone between the three countries. At that time, more specifically on January 1st, 1994, the indigenous people of southern Mexico in Chiapas rebelled, partially in response to the signing of NAFTA, reclaiming their lands in what they called “the war against forgetting,” of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), headed by Subcomandante Marcos. In turn, after NAFTA, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) appeared; however, its negotiations were interrupted at the beginning of 2004 due to the conflicts between the United States and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). In spite of this, eight countries have now entered the trap of free trade with the United States: Canada, Mexico, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras.
In Mexico NAFTA was presented as an engine of development, an instrument to attract foreign investment, which would bring more and better jobs to the region, but the real result of these investments and commercial opening is that millions of Mexicans have migrated in recent years because they have not found the jobs promised them during the negotiation of the treaty.
NAFTA allows everything to cross the border with the United Status, - except for people. The consequence is that merchandise crosses from one side to another; investments multiply, although, in the case of Mexico, they are destined, more than anything else, to buy public and private assets; and the profits made by businesses end up in fewer hands on both sides of the border. The rich become richer, but poverty grows and deepens. This mechanism means that every day more Mexicans have to go to try to make a living in the United States, where now more than 10% of the population of the country is concentrated.
The combination of free trade and the subsidies of the United States paralyzed the Mexican agricultural sector. According to the Economic Policy Institute, at the end of 2004 there were 6.8 million unemployed agricultural workers in Mexico.
Between the years 2000 and 2005, Mexico had a principal role with respect to global migration, exceeding that of India, the Philippines and Turkey. During that time, the number of Mexican illegal immigrants grew from 1.5 million to 6.2 million, with an estimated 500,000 undocumented Mexicans who enter the United States annually. In 2006, illegal immigrants, the majority Mexican, formed 4.7 percent of the labor force in the United States.
The economic model that the free trade agreements has been accompanied by a scheme of privatizations of businesses that have essentially passed social wealth to private hands. An example of the consequences of the privatizations inside Latin America is Argentina, which in 2001 left more than 500,000 workers in the street, in addition to raising the prices of privatized public services. According to Victor De Gennaro, General Secretary of the Center of Argentine Workers, “Privatization of public businesses is the consummation of the transfer of the social heritage accumulated by the people to very small but very powerful economic groups.”
In order to put an end to these injustices that Latin America continues to suffer, the VII Hemispheric Meeting on the Fight Against Free Trade Agreements and For the Integration of the People was held in Havana, Cuba. The president of the Organizing Committee, the Cuban economist Osvaldo Martinez, qualified them as useful meetings because of what they have meant in the popular struggle, first against the FTAA and now against other free trade agreements.
Immigration has always existed and will continue to exist. What is necessary to consider is under what circumstances it will happen. Often the immigrant must not only suffer a complete change of his or her customs to better adapt to a new place, but also go through discrimination and humiliation, and of course, this is if he or she is lucky enough to get through the attempt at displacement alive.
Uniting in brotherhood the countries of Latin America continues to be one of the most important forces against the neoliberal politics that have long been imposed upon us. Politics that marginalize millions of brothers and sisters who migrate in search of a better life, while a few continue to benefit from and take advantage of the so poorly understood “economy.”
Notas:
(1)Meyerson, Harold. The Washington Post Company. A19February 8, 2006.
(2)Lopes, Gilberto. "El NAFTA acentuó pobreza en México." Un Mundo América Latina. 28 Febrero 2007.
(3)"Pew Hispanic Center fact sheet." “2005 American Community Survey and Census Data on the Foreign Born by State.” March 7, 2006.
(4)"The Labor Force Status of Short-term Unauthorized Workers." Migration Policy Institute, Feature Story “Regional Migration in the Limelight.” December, 2006. Pew Hispanic Center (2006). April 13.
Fuentes:
•Hill, Jacob. "COHA Research Associate." July 18th, 2007.
•Spieldoch, Alexandra. "A Fair Farm Bill and Immigration." July 2007. IATP Trade and Global Governance Program and Communications.
Artículo publicado en el libro: Student world 2008, de la Federación Universal de Movimientos Estudiantiles Cristianos.
