Blame NAFTA

By David Morris, AlterNet. Posted April 13, 2006.

Thanks to NAFTA's success, the flood of illegal immigration is up and the standard of living of the average Mexican is down.

The debate about illegal immigration rarely mentions NAFTA. That's regrettable, since the flood of undocumented Mexicans in 2006 empirically challenges the economic philosophy that guided NAFTA's design.

The slogan of those who championed a North American Free Trade Agreement was, "Trade, not aid." NAFTA would solve our problems, they insisted, with little or no transfer of funds from richer Canadians and Americans to poorer Mexicans. By raising Mexican living standards and wage levels, Attorney General Janet Reno predicted NAFTA would reduce illegal immigration by up to two-thirds in six years. "NAFTA is our best hope for reducing illegal migration in the long haul," Reno declared in 1994. "If it fails, effective immigration control will become impossible."