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Rethinking the Immigration Debate:

Addressing the Root Causes of Mexican Migration

The increasingly divisive immigration debate in theUnited States focuses on two main strategies: onthe one hand stepped-up workplace and border enforcement with an emphasis on the deportationof undocumented workers; and on the other hand,the expansion of temporary worker visa programswith a path to legalization. But both strategies failto address the root cause of migration—the masseconomic displacement of Mexican workers, anhistorically rooted phenomenon that has beendramatically accelerated by the trade, investmentand labor policies associated with the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).The contradictions of the NAFTA economy— opening U.S. borders to trade and investment whileclosing the door to displaced Mexican laborers whoare essential to the American construction,agriculture and service industries—have separatedmillions of families. According to the PewHispanic Center, more than 3 million Americanchildren have at least one parent who is anundocumented immigrant. On the Mexican side of the border ever more households live broken with a parent across the border. In fact, entire villagesdepend on unstable remittance salaries sent home by their exiled mothers and fathers,

sons anddaughters.

No attempt to address immigrationflows can succeed until these brutal realities areaddressed and policymakers, the private sector, andthe media focus on the critical need for sustainedcommunity-level economic development inMexico.

NAFTA has accelerated migration:

Almost 500,000 undocumented Mexicans migrateto the United States every year.

During the NAFTA debate, advocates assured the U.S. andMexican people that the trade agreement wouldgreatly alleviate unauthorized immigration byincreasing employment opportunities in Mexicoand closing the gap between U.S. and Mexicanwages. But this promise of prosperity has been amirage for millions of Mexicans: the value of theMexican minimum wage dropped 23 percent in NAFTA's first decade,

19 million more Mexicansare living in poverty than 20 years ago, and today,one quarter of Mexico’s population cannot afford basic foods.

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Increasing income disparity and poverty in the post-NAFTA years has produced a sharp rise inmigration to the U.S., especially from the Mexicancountryside. In the first decade of NAFTA, theannual number of immigrants arriving to the U.S.from Mexico more than doubled. Additionally, because the number of visas issued during the same period was sharply cut back, more than 80 percentof post-NAFTA immigrants from Mexico areundocumented.

Mexican government data documents that theelimination of food security policies under NAFTAled to at least 1.3 million Mexican peasant farmerslosing family livelihoods as lower priced, oftensubsidized U.S. food imports entered the Mexicanmarket.

The influx of U.S. subsidized corn hasundercut the ability of Mexican corn farmers tocompete with U.S. corn producers. In sharpcontrast to promises by NAFTA’s backers that