Thread: Immigration Reform - Start With NAFTA

http://www.newtownbee.com/Opinions.asp? ... 0-57p1.htm

Immigration Reform - Start With NAFTA

By William A. Collins

Immigrants,

Do still invade;

The problem is,

Too much free trade.

Talk about chutzpah! Illegal aliens working in Groton recently marched to protest their poor treatment while building housing for the Navy. No, no Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officers came by to cart them away, or even to ask questions.

The workers claimed that all employees should be treated fairly and humanely, regardless of their legal status. Who can quarrel with that? But they also claimed that Americans don't want those jobs. Hmm...let's hold up a minute on that one. Americans would happily take those jobs if they paid a decent wage and offered benefits. They don't. They don't have to, because immigrants will cheerfully take them for indecent wages and no benefits. That's one reason why our state's median family income still drifts downward.

So why do these immigrants pay a fortune to coyotes to risk life and limb crossing the border, just to be ill treated by a government contractor? Well, it seems they have this odd craving for food and shelter, items a lot harder to come by back in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, etc. Jobs in those places are often scarce, and a lot less desirable than building apartments in Groton.

And over the last ten years even those rotten jobs back home have shrunk, especially farming. That's the goal of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It and other pernicious free trade agreements with Latin countries are designed to profit American corporations and to put their foreign competitors out of business. For example, Latin tariffs on subsidized US grain exports have been slashed, and have consequently driven many peasants off their land. They can no longer compete. Thus they sneak up here instead to work on American farms for miserable wages. In 2008, the last remaining tariffs will expire, so we'd better have that border fence ready by then.

Please keep in mind that free trade has always had three main purposes: to export US products, to export US jobs to foreign sweatshops, and to import cheap labor. To pull this off, our government has often made it personally worthwhile for Latin legislators to be agreeable. In El Salvador, these flunkies approved the treaty secretively in the middle of the night, with plenty of troops trained by the US School of the Americas hanging around to stifle protests.

Once we understand these underlying purposes of free trade, it becomes clearer why our own federal government has taken such a casual approach toward illegal entry. It's not just in Groton where the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) doesn't show up. It rarely shows up anywhere. Undocumented workers roam the country freely. They're terribly vulnerable to employers, but not to arrest. Other countries devote many more resources to their control.

Thus does the main opposition to excess immigration spring not from business, but from the grassroots, most famously in Danbury, where protests abound. It also means that activists who protest the loss of decent jobs must make common cause with other less desirable types of folks. These allies often are focused on discrimination, English-only, skin color, and good old-fashioned American values (say, bigotry).

Nor, in fact, do most Americans demean excess immigration at all, as long as they enjoy safe jobs themselves. More warm bodies mean cheaper lawn mowing, baby-sitting, wall-building, security guarding, harvesting, food, and care for Grandma. No wonder the president is conflicted. He has to pay lip service to a fence (but not actually build one), talk of increased enforcement (but not actually hire any) and tout free trade (though it only attracts still more undocumented workers).

Unfortunately, free trade remains an underlying evil in much of our economy and society. No, not trade with equals, such as Europe and Japan. They won't put up with our shenanigans. It's evil with poor underdeveloped countries that we treat, basically, as colonies. Their workers end up coming here to undercut our workers, while leaving their own societies back home in shambles.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)

I agree with Mr. Collins' views but could not find the date this article was written. Consequently, I wondered about its age. Because he refers to "ICE" as "INS," he's out of touch, stupid (I doubt that very much) or the article is dated. The date embedded in the New Town Bee URL is November 22, 2006 but the text provides only one clue in the next-to-the-last paragraph. There, Mr. Collins mentions "the fence," a recent development. Further, a quick query regarding Groton's housing construction for the Navy indicates it began more than two years ago and ended about a year ago. I'm suspicious they've updated an old article and used it to fill space.

In view of all the propaganda, distortion, lies and fraud running rampant in the old media, I've become skeptical of everything. If this guy's out of touch or stupid, he needs to be outed and forever ignored. If the Bee used it to fill space, subscribers need to chastise them for it and demand better attribution. Comments?

As a postscript, obviously I have little to do right now but my reason is simple. It's Thanksgiving and I'm sitting around waiting for the festivities to start -- turkey anyone? BTW, happy Thanksgiving to everyone here.