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Business Forum: NAFTA's failings boost illegal immigration

Building a wall on the border will only enshrine America's failed trade pact with Mexico. Better to recognize reality, repair the damage and restore the promise of globalization.
HÉctor GarcÍa

The surge in undocumented migration to the United States is an outcome of globalization, poor distribution of wealth and incipient democracies in the countries of origin. To address it, globalization must be understood and managed, which makes a global mind-set essential.
Unfortunately, our mind-set remains fragmented and internally focused. It prevents us from perceiving solutions not only to illegal immigration but also globalization's other side effects such as drug and arms trafficking and the export of technologically empowered violence.

We are seriously discussing proposals to imprison and deport 11 million-plus undocumented immigrants while building a wall along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border and militarizing it. These measures will be ineffectual and further deteriorate the international image of the United States. More importantly, building a militarily guarded wall along its border with a free-trade partner and reacting punitively to one of the outcomes of its own initiatives will render this nation incapable of leading the world in the age of globalization.

The wall will be a monument to the failure of the developing nations' experiment with the mix of free trade and democracy.

Globalization started with the 1989 fall of the 66-mile Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991. There was celebration over the triumph of capitalism, which many believed would bring universal prosperity. It was difficult to see that in spite of the great achievements in technology, science and business, we have learned little about how to build trust and collaboration across cultures and nations.

Not only products, services and investments should be allowed to cross borders but labor as well. Recognizing this, the European Union approved flows of labor among its members and provided financial support to the less affluent. The result was the correction of income imbalances in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

The lesson is that free trade calls for a committed partnership rather than fleeting enthusiasm.

Illegal immigrants from Mexico (an estimated 56 percent of the U.S. total) and the rest of Latin America (22 percent are here because they cannot survive with dignity in their countries. Given their unique cultural values, they would return home if they could sustain a modest and honest lifestyle.

Latin America has the worst distribution of wealth in the world and lacks the means to bridge it. This reality has cornered the poorest into choosing illegal migration.

A guest worker program and a reality-based law would be feasible if the magnitude of the problem were manageable. To make it so, jobs must be created across Latin America and across its socioeconomic sectors. This can be achieved by giving the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) the greater depth of a mutually accountable and committed partnership and, on this model, enacting similar agreements with Central and South American nations.

Why should Latin America's economy be our responsibility? The gap between the rich and the poor in Latin America reached explosive levels through globalization and, in Mexico, through the nearsighted implementation of NAFTA. American government and international corporations spearheaded globalization; with their Canadian and Mexican counterparts, they enacted NAFTA while ignoring the millions of Mexican poor.

Behind the façade of macroeconomic improvement, small business and farming in Mexico were ravaged by the agreement's absence of leveling measures, competition from American and Canadian companies and U.S. agricultural subsidies.

Crony privatization, which gave Mexico more billionaires than any European country, added insult to injury. Many of the victims of this collateral damage are now living as illegal immigrants in the United States; others who remained home are increasingly engaging in crime.

Why not simply move elsewhere, as investors and corporations have done after picking the low-hanging fruit instead of patiently cultivating Mexico's emerging market? Because the negative side effects of globalization will recur and grow in far-off nations if solutions are not found to the ones occurring next door.

The U.S.-Mexico border is the ideal laboratory to unravel the perplexities of this century. It is here, where shortage and surplus live side by side, that the forces of globalization, if unmanaged, will turn even more destructive.

It is here where emerging markets and nascent democracy must be effectively cultivated. The opportunity and the danger could not be more evident than now, when the conservative party in power, PAN, is attempting to convince the Mexican poor that its candidate, Felipe Calderon, won the presidential election against the PRD's populist leader, Lopez Obrador, in a contest that's still in dispute.

The governments, corporations and elites of Mexico and the United States can ignore the desperation of the poor at everyone's peril. Or we can all build bridges, instead of walls, across economic, political and cultural differences to bring to fruition the universal prosperity offered by globalization.rsion="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

HÉCTOR GARCÍA
The surge in undocumented migration to the United States is an outcome of globalization, poor distribution of wealth and incipient democracies in the countries of origin. To address it, globalization must be understood and managed, which makes a global mind-set essential.

Unfortunately, our mind-set remains fragmented and internally focused. It prevents us from perceiving solutions not only to illegal immigration but also globalization's other side effects such as drug and arms trafficking and the export of technologically empowered violence.

We are seriously discussing proposals to imprison and deport 11 million-plus undocumented immigrants while building a wall along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border and militarizing it. These measures will be ineffectual and further deteriorate the international image of the United States. More importantly, building a militarily guarded wall along its border with a free-trade partner and reacting punitively to one of the outcomes of its own initiatives will render this nation incapable of leading the world in the age of globalization.

The wall will be a monument to the failure of the developing nations' experiment with the mix of free trade and democracy.

Globalization started with the 1989 fall of the 66-mile Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991. There was celebration over the triumph of capitalism, which many believed would bring universal prosperity. It was difficult to see that in spite of the great achievements in technology, science and business, we have learned little about how to build trust and collaboration across cultures and nations.

Not only products, services and investments should be allowed to cross borders but labor as well. Recognizing this, the European Union approved flows of labor among its members and provided financial support to the less affluent. The result was the correction of income imbalances in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

The lesson is that free trade calls for a committed partnership rather than fleeting enthusiasm.

Illegal immigrants from Mexico (an estimated 56 percent of the U.S. total) and the rest of Latin America (22 percent are here because they cannot survive with dignity in their countries. Given their unique cultural values, they would return home if they could sustain a modest and honest lifestyle.

Latin America has the worst distribution of wealth in the world and lacks the means to bridge it. This reality has cornered the poorest into choosing illegal migration.

A guest worker program and a reality-based law would be feasible if the magnitude of the problem were manageable. To make it so, jobs must be created across Latin America and across its socioeconomic sectors. This can be achieved by giving the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) the greater depth of a mutually accountable and committed partnership and, on this model, enacting similar agreements with Central and South American nations.

Why should Latin America's economy be our responsibility? The gap between the rich and the poor in Latin America reached explosive levels through globalization and, in Mexico, through the nearsighted implementation of NAFTA. American government and international corporations spearheaded globalization; with their Canadian and Mexican counterparts, they enacted NAFTA while ignoring the millions of Mexican poor.

Behind the façade of macroeconomic improvement, small business and farming in Mexico were ravaged by the agreement's absence of leveling measures, competition from American and Canadian companies and U.S. agricultural subsidies.

Crony privatization, which gave Mexico more billionaires than any European country, added insult to injury. Many of the victims of this collateral damage are now living as illegal immigrants in the United States; others who remained home are increasingly engaging in crime.
Why not simply move elsewhere, as investors and corporations have done after picking the low-hanging fruit instead of patiently cultivating Mexico's emerging market? Because the negative side effects of globalization will recur and grow in far-off nations if solutions are not found to the ones occurring next door.

The U.S.-Mexico border is the ideal laboratory to unravel the perplexities of this century. It is here, where shortage and surplus live side by side, that the forces of globalization, if unmanaged, will turn even more destructive.

It is here where emerging markets and nascent democracy must be effectively cultivated. The opportunity and the danger could not be more evident than now, when the conservative party in power, PAN, is attempting to convince the Mexican poor that its candidate, Felipe Calderon, won the presidential election against the PRD's populist leader, Lopez Obrador, in a contest that's still in dispute.

The governments, corporations and elites of Mexico and the United States can ignore the desperation of the poor at everyone's peril. Or we can all build bridges, instead of walls, across economic, political and cultural differences to bring to fruition the universal prosperity offered by globalization.

NAFTA's failings boost illegal immigration

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Héctor García, an immigrant from Mexico, U.S. citizen and Minneapolis resident, was co-founder and executive director of Minnesotans for NAFTA.

Building a wall on the border will only enshrine America's failed trade pact with Mexico. Better to recognize reality, repair the damage and restore the promise of globalization.