Posted on 06/25/2006 6:41:38 AM PDT by baseball_fan
WASHINGTON - Immigration issues are always ripe for demagoguery, particularly in an election year. But the solution to the very real problems along the U.S.-Mexican border can be found, ironically, in that other part of the world that demagogues love to ridicule: old Europe.
Two years ago, the European Union admitted 10 new members. Like Mexico, all of these nations were poor, some of them fairly backward and most recently ravaged by war and dictatorship.
The leaders of the European Union wisely created policies for fostering regional economic and political integration that make the North American Free Trade Agreement "look timid and halfhearted by comparison," according to Bernd Westphal, consul general of Germany.
Europe realized it had to prevent a "giant sucking sound" of businesses and jobs relocating from the 15 wealthier nations to the 10 poorer ones. It also had to foster prosperity and the spread of a middle class and prevent an influx of poor workers to the richer nations.
So for starters, it gave the new states billions in subsidies to help construct schools, roads, telecommunications and housing, thus making these nations more attractive for business investment. It was expensive, but the result has been a larger economic union in which a rising tide floats all boats.
In return, the 10 poorer nations had to agree to raise their standards on the environment, labor law, health and safety -- and more.
Worker migration is regulated. Immigrants will be carefully integrated so as to cause the least disruption to the developed economies, with the goal of having open borders down the road.
(Excerpt) Read more at dfw.com ...
Ran into an article, Fox, Bush and the Canadian PM, met about this about a year ago. I'll check and see if I can find it. There is something in Nafta that forfeits our sovereignty, which is why this is happening...
No one I know has ever read the entire nafta document. That is why this is happening.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15017
Here is that article. I have posted it before, and there have been other postings on FR in the last few weeks....
Put down the one hitter and provide a source, if you can.
No one I know has ever read the entire nafta document.
Can anyone you know even spell NAFTA? I heard the NAFTA document is 1000s of pages, do you agree? Is that the problem, too long for you to read?
And all with no real public debate, just a fait accompli by our "representatives."
When I see a think-tank piece like this I like to find out who's behind it. A visit to New America Foundation was quite revealing to me. It's headed by our old liberal friend James Fallows and board members include former head of Loral Corporation (Let's give our rocket secrets to China) Bernard L. Schwartz and the Clinton Administration money guru Laura D'Andrea Tyson among other interesting folks.
The very name New America Foundation is enough to raise my hackles.
Now that it sounds that way, do you think Canada and Mexico will really be up for it?
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15017
Have you read Nafta? I have not had the chance, but I have had a lot of conservative friends tell me there is something in there that changes the face of our nation. We are to be some kind of hub, and no longer a first rate nation. Anyhow, check out this article, and trade in your dollars. Insults to me will not make this go away.
Sillies, he wasn't talking about population, he was talking about government bureaucracies.
Mexico has two classes of people, the rich and the poor. The rich aren't slipping over our borders by the tens of thousands a day to come here. Their rejects and criminals have found a more furtile ground...us.
You don't think mexico not allowing investment in their oil industry wasn't discussed at Bush, harper, and fox's meeting in March?
Isn't mexico having an presidental election soon? I think with their next election, we'll see if they start allowing foreign investment. Looks like Calderon, just might be open for that.
I'm up for that. There won't be anyone in Mexico left in a few years either since they'll all be up here. So it will be easy.
you might be an old fashioned guy, but we already fought the American Mexican war, they lost, now they want the land back.
Along with the rest of the open borders crowd. It is well documented that it didn't work in Europe, and it would be a disaster for the American middle class.
Any politician backing this mess should be ejected from his or her cushy seat in Washington.
Posting the same link to me in 2 consectutive posts? So your short term memory is impaired. Just say no.
uh, don't touch the stuff, got to much to live for. So stop insulting me. This is true. Just wait and see. That is why Bush will do nothing about the Border, or illegal alien problem. they are NOT illegally here, they are within their rights to cross a NON existent border.
I am sure you did not read what I posted to you.
I thought that a proposed NAU, inspite of all the documentation and actual behavior on the part of our government, was just a dastardly conspiracy theory. And that I should be wearing tin foil.
At least that's what I have been told over an over on this forum.
TIJW, don't fall for what TP is doing. He's trying to pull you away from the subject. He and his fellow group come on these threads to do a disrupting routine. Let them talk amongst themselves.
I've heard on more than one occasion that if Quebec ever "separates" from Canada, all the other Canadian provinces will promptly apply for statehood in the US.
On the other hand.... to become a state, Mexico would have to apply for statehood.
That, sir, will NEVER happen.
Mexico wants, rather, to annex California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas as states in Mexico.
Remember, the ruling class in Mexico is made up of the descendents of the Conquistadores.
Huh? Their right to be here is in NAFTA?
Every eight seconds a new American citizen is born, every 13 seconds an existing American citizen dies; no mention of how many illegal aliens show up or depart every second. Listening to the news is futile.
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