What Happened in Guadalajara

President Obama went to Guadalajara, Mexico, in August as part of his promise to "rejoin the world community" and become a "citizen of the world." He participated in a conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

These cozy meetings of the so-called three amigos used to be labeled the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The three North American heads of state met in Waco in 2005, in Cancun in 2006, in Quebec in 2007 and in New Orleans in 2008.

After conservatives exposed the mischievous goals, the amigos accepted the Hudson Institute's helpful suggestion to change their name. Now they call themselves the North American Leaders Summit.

Prestigious internationalist think tanks, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hudson Institute and the Center for Strategic & International Studies, explained the real purpose of these high-level get-togethers. These meetings were planned to be the first steps toward a North American Union modeled on the European Union, with open borders and a common currency, which Canada's Fraser Institute prematurely labeled the amero.

The words "union" and "amero" have become embarrassing, so the goal has now been identified as "economic integration" and "labor mobility." The Guadalajara joint statement reaffirmed the purpose of "integrated economies," and that still means allowing unlimited access for cheap labor from Mexico to take U.S. jobs.

President Calderon demanded unlimited "labor mobility" and asserted that it is "unthinkable" for the United States to function "without the contribution of the Mexican laborers and workers." He also wants free access for Mexican trucks to all U.S. roads and U.S. citizenship for Mexicans living illegally in the U.S.

Canada's Harper wants all three to pledge to work "together on a North American focus against climate change in order to assure and guarantee a new international covenant that is efficient and truly global." Harper also complained about the "buy American" provision in our $787 billion stimulus law.

Obama reaffirmed his commitment to pass the Cap-and-Trade bill so he would be hailed as a hero at the upcoming United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. He promised to "take the lead by reducing U.S. emissions by 80 percent by 2050" and to "work with other nations to cut global emissions in half."

Obama also promised to "continue to work to fix America's broken immigration system," which most people see as code words for amnesty for illegal aliens. He did not promise to stop the flow of illegal drugs and people coming across our southern border, but he did say he wanted "to stem the illegal southbound flow of American guns and cash that helps fuel this extraordinary violence."

In other words, he was blaming the United States for Mexican drug violence. In fact, most of the guns found at Mexican crime scenes are not American, and U.S. taxpayers are already generously footing the bill to train Mexicans to fight the drug war.

Fortunately, Obama did not pledge to open our roads to Mexican trucks, which may be his only concession to American public opinion so far in his presidency. Congressional law forbids the entry of Mexican trucks, and the latest Rasmussen Survey shows that 66 percent of Americans oppose lifting this congressional ban.

Under NAFTA, the United States agreed to let Mexican trucks operate freely in our country after 1999 so long as they meet U.S. safety standards. But they have never met them -- and nothing in NAFTA requires us to admit trucks that don't meet U.S. standards.

Highway safety is the primary reason why Americans are adamantly opposed to allowing Mexican trucks on our roads. The problem is not only the wear and tear on our deteriorating highways from additional tens of thousands of heavier, environmentally dirtier trucks.

U.S. truck drivers are limited to 10 consecutive hours of service, but Mexican drivers typically drive up to 20 hours a day. Even if limits are imposed, nobody knows how many hours they are behind the wheel before reaching the border.

In contrast to U.S. requirements for truck drivers, Mexico has no credible system of driver training, licensing, drug testing, physical and age requirements, safety inspections even for brakes, weight limits, insurance, or nationwide criminal or driving-record databases.

U.S. law requires commercial drivers to be able to "read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records." But Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters testified at a Senate committee hearing last year that when Mexican drivers respond to our questions in Spanish, her employees nevertheless check the box for English-proficient.

“President Calderon demanded unlimited “labor mobility” and asserted that it is “unthinkable” for the United States to function “without the contribution of the Mexican laborers and workers.””

Oh, brother! That’s right...how has the USA survived so long without unlimited illegal immigration! We should strive to be the economic, cultural success that is Mexico!!

Your enterprising citizens just burned down 85,000 acres in California! And with jobs becoming more scarce, we can expect the ‘migrants’ to envolve themselves in more organized Mexican drug cartel crime.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2318750/posts

The latest CIS study on ‘employment’ shoots down Calderon’s claims.

Jobs Americans Won’t Do? A Detailed Look at Immigrant Employment by Occupation
By Steven A. Camarota and Karen Jensenius
CIS Memorandum, August 17, 2009
http://www.cis.org/illegalImmigration-employment

Excerpt: This analysis tests the often-made argument that immigrants only do jobs Americans don’t want. If the argument is correct, there should be occupations comprised entirely or almost entirely of immigrants. But Census Bureau data collected from 2005 to 2007, which allow for very detailed analysis, show that even before the recession there were only a tiny number of majority-immigrant occupations.

Among the findings:

* Of the 465 civilian occupations, only four are majority immigrant. These four occupations account for less than 1 percent of the total U.S. workforce. Moreover, native-born Americans comprise 47 percent of workers in these occupations.

* Many jobs often thought to be overwhelmingly immigrant are in fact majority native-born:
o Maids and housekeepers: 55 percent native-born
o Taxi drivers and chauffeurs: 58 percent native-born
o Butchers and meat processors: 63 percent native-born
o Grounds maintenance workers: 65 percent native-born
o Construction laborers: 65 percent native-born
o Porters, bellhops, and concierges: 71 percent native-born
o Janitors: 75 percent native-born

* There are 93 occupations in which 20 percent or more of workers are immigrants. These high-immigrant occupations are primarily, but not exclusively, lower-wage jobs that require relatively little formal education.

* There are 23.6 million natives in these high-immigrant occupations (20 percent or more immigrant). These occupations include 19 percent of all native workers.

* Most natives do not face significant job competition from immigrants; however, those who do tend to be less-educated and poorer than those who face relatively little competition from immigrants.

* In high-immigrant occupations, 57 percent of natives have no more than a high school education. In occupations that are less than 20 percent immigrant, 35 percent of natives have no more than a high school education. And in occupations that are less than 10 percent immigrant, only 26 percent of natives have no more than a high school education.

* In high-immigrant occupations the average wages and salary for natives is one-fourth lower than in occupations that are less than 20 percent immigrant.

* Some may believe that natives in high-immigrant occupations are older and that few young natives are willing to do that kind of work. But 33 percent of natives in these occupations are age 30 or younger. In occupations that are less than 20 percent immigrant, 28 percent of natives are 30 or younger.

http://www.cis.org/illegalImmigration-employment

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