Letter to the editor: structure and conventions

Letter to the Editor

The North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) arose as means to replace the existing U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement with one that included Mexico. The principle is that free movement of goods and capital between the nations would improve the economies of both. These principles are also the basis for the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), which was an international agreement to provide a framework for the reduction of trade barriers. These agreements fit into world systems theory because they represent an expansion of market economies into peripheral economies. This in turn drives migration. These treaties are driven by neo-liberal theory, which expounds that free markets and free trade will result in quality of life improvements for the market participants, including those on the periphery but who have now been brought into the market system via these trade agreements.

These treaties, however, represent a disruption in the socioeconomic system. For Mexican peasants, these agreements create stimulus for migration. They change the flow of fiscal capital, which in turn spurs changes in the migration patterns of human capital, as the two must inevitably come together to produce economic growth. With the U.S. having a surplus of fiscal capital and a surfeit of human capital, and Mexico the opposite, these trade agreements this pattern in motion.

Massey et al. observe that these treaties should have led to looser immigration policy, but instead there was a disconnect between economic policy and immigration policy. Immigration policy was tightened at the precise time when trade agreements were stimulating increased demand for movement of workers from Mexico to the United States. The economies of the United States and Mexico have become more integrated in terms of flows of capital and of goods as a result of these treaties, yet these treaties do not address the flow of people, which has resulted in the present chaos in U.S. immigration policy with respect to Mexico.

2) The Immigration Reform and Control Act took effect in 1987. It increased the INS budget, imposed sanctions against employers who hired undocumented workers, but it also contained special provisions for farm labor. The passage of IRCA increased legal immigration for several years, as previous undocumented workers applied for visas under the farmland program. Illegal immigration, however, dropped due to the increased enforcement. IRCA did not have the desired affect. In addition to the millions of previously undocumented workers given amnesty, IRCA failed to protect American jobs. Rather than face prosecution for hiring undocumented workers, companies subcontracted. As a result, wages decreased for all workers, legal or otherwise.

IRCA failed to address the labor needs of the U.S. economy. At the time it was passed, there was only GATT, but no free trade with Mexico. However, the two nations were moving towards free trade. The result of the persistent lowering of trade barriers was that more American companies needed Mexican labor, and more Mexicans sought to come to the U.S. In search of that work. IRCA made it more difficult for some employers to find the labor they needed, reducing capital use efficiency. Furthermore, because IRCA stopped the circular flow of migration, Mexican workers entering the U.S. tend to stay, with is not consistent with the stated goals of NAFTA or IRCA, or the needs of the U.S. economy.

3) Smoke and mirrors is the analogy that Massey uses for the current U.S. immigration policy. He views the issue as having been obfuscated by political interests, who since 1986 have acted without understanding of the underlying issues and socioeconomic systems. He suggests that immigration policy, to be truly effective, needs to move away from the highly politicized smoke and mirror show to one that meets the needs of both the U.S. And Mexico. When Massey discusses the border as being in or out of control, he is referring to the common rhetoric surrounding the issue. If illegal immigrants are flowing into the country, the border is "out of control"; if they are not then the border must therefore be "in control."