Criminalizing Immigration & Militarizing Our Border with Mexico, Part III

     From May 19 to 27 I was in Arizona and Nogales, Mexico to try to grasp what is happening to migrants since the U.S built a wall along parts of the border. The delegation of 17 U.S. citizens was led by School of the Americas Watch founder Fa. Roy Bourgeois.  We were hosted by BorderLinks in Tucson, AZ  which is part of a network of organizations working together to provide humanitarian aid to migrants and to change U.S. immigration policies that both criminalize the migrants and militarize our 2000 mile long border with Mexico.  Within the network we met with Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, No More Deaths, the Kino Border Initiative,  Casa Mariposa and Hogar de Esperanza y Paz (HEPAC) in Nogales, Mexico.

NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Ageement, passed by Congress in 1994, and hailed as mutually beneficial, especially in the area of employment.

     The tale is not over without talking about NAFTA, a nefarious agreement if ever there was one, a service to U.S. corporations and a disaster to the majority of Mexican small farmers.   The plot is revealed in the requirement that Mexico eliminate Article 27 of its Constitution.  This Article guaranteed a system of land sharing called “ejidos”, wherein groups of farmers cultivated land in common. There was no private ownership of land, and foreign  ownership was forbidden.  Under NAFTA Article 27 disappeared, and foreign ownership became legal.  NAFTA also demanded that Mexico not subsidize agricultural production, even though the U.S. would continue this practice.

     Mexico agreed to receive U.S. grown corn at a low price, in return for which the U.S. would import fruits and vegetables from Mexico.    The ejido system gone,  farmers received deeds to a plot of land on which they could grow corn as they always had.  But, as cheap U.S. corn flooded the Mexican market,  Mexican farmers could not compete, and thus were forced to sell their land.  U.S. corporations were ready and bought up much of it.  Two million farmers were thus pushed off their ancestral lands, the source of their livelihood,

     Other U. S. corporations were ready with factories inside Mexico needing cheap labor. These factories, mostly located near the border, became known as “maquiladoras” because they assemble parts from the U.S. and send back the finished products.  We observed long lines of huge semi’s going back and forth across the border from Nogales, Arizona to Nogales, Mexico -- NAFTA on the move. Products can cross; people cannot.

     On May 25 we observed another common phenomenon, workers who had been locked out of their maquiladora without warning and without pay.  We went to the Legacy factory in Nogales which made ink cartridges, and found a group of laid-off workers  outside the locked factory under a small tent trying to shield themselves from the hot sun.  They have been holding a 24 hour a day vigil there since the day in February when all 166 workers lost their jobs.  The purpose of the vigil was to prevent the company owner from removing the machinery before granting them the severance pay due them by Mexican law.  The machinery is the only leverage they have. Of the 166 workers, some  have had to look for other work, but a core of 20--30 men and women maintain the struggle .  Legacy is owned by an American, Frank Day, who apparently owns several chains of restaurants in the States, and is wealthy.  He owes back taxes to Mexico.  We plan to find him.

    The workers explained that their salary for assembly line work is no more than $10 a day, six days a week, with no benefits.  (The average salary in maquiladoras is $70 a week.)  The Mexican government has had a huge part in this displacement  of farmers into factories, as it promoted the establishment of maquiladoras instead of  the  cultivation of food products as it had promised.  As of 2010 there were 25,000 maquiladoras in Mexico. 

    So, when we wonder why so many migrants risk their lives and separation from their families to enter the U.S., we must remember NAFTA.  And NAFTA should remind us of the wall which the U.S. started to build the same year NAFTA was passed.  And the wall should signal that we have chosen militarization as a means of controlling the human reaction to loss of land and livelihood.  And we might ask ourselves if this reflects our values.