Posted on 03/29/2006 6:29:54 PM PST by NormsRevenge
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - President Vicente Fox paused for a long moment before answering a question on how long it would take Mexico to reach a stage where citizens no longer want to cross the U.S. border to seek work.
"Generations," he finally said.
"It's a long way to narrow the gap ... between incomes in Mexico and on the other side of the border," he said in a recent interview with Reuters.
That income gap is the principal reason why hundreds of thousands of Mexicans cross the border with the U.S. illegally to seek work -- yet it rarely figures in the heated and increasingly emotional debate over immigration now raging in the United States.
Roughly half of Mexico's population lives on less than $5 a day, according to government figures. The U.S. minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. Annual Mexican Gross Domestic Product per capita is just under $7,000. It is almost $44,000 in the United States.
The gap is now wider than it was when Mexico, the United States and Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992.
The treaty took effect two years later and was supposed to generate more jobs in Mexico, raise incomes and, as a consequence, reduce the number of Mexicans crossing the 2,000-mile border with their superpower neighbor, legally or illegally.
That has not happened and the number of Mexicans making the increasingly dangerous and expensive trek north has risen steadily over the past few years.
Mexican experts say that the rival immigration reform bills now being debated in the United States will have limited effect as long as income disparity remains as deep as it is now.
"Migration is a question of supply and demand," said Jorge Bustamante of the Northern Frontier College in Tijuana. "Demand in the U.S. for Mexican labor has been growing. The money is better on the other side. That's the main factor."
Said Jorge Chabat, of Mexico City's Center for Economic Investigation and Teaching (CIDE): "There are two ways to tackle the migration problem: improve the (Mexican) economy or introduce a more flexible (U.S.) border policy, more toward an open border."
That is not likely to happen. Public opinion polls in the United States show that a large majority of Americans are in favor of stricter border controls and even a border wall.
SPAIN, PORTUGAL SEEN AS EXAMPLES
"Average wages in Mexico will eventually rise enough to hold people here," said Federico Estevez, head of the political science department of ITAM, a leading Mexico City university. "It will take time. But huge labor migrations have been stopped before by economic opportunities. Look at Portugal and Spain."
Workers from the two countries used to migrate to Germany and France much in the same way Mexicans have been moving to the United States.
But when the European Union expanded in the 1980s and adopted new members, including Spain and Portugal, it spent more than $500 billion in aid to narrow the income gap between the newcomers and the most prosperous EU countries. Immigration dropped sharply.
The idea of providing aid to Mexico has not been part of the public discourse in the United States, where the economic conditions of its southern neighbors are seen as their own affair. U.S. proponents of EU-style subsidies to lift Mexico closer to its partners in NAFTA are few and far between.
One of them is Robert Pastor, head of the Center for North American Studies at the American University in Washington. Pastor has for years argued that the U.S., Canada and Mexico should set up a North American investment fund to finance infrastructure projects and shrink the income gap between Mexico and its richer partners.
An investment of $20 billion a year over the next 10 years in Mexico in roads and communications connecting the poor southern part of Mexico to the North American market, Pastor says, would attract new companies to invest in Mexico and encourage many Mexicans to stay home and others to return.
"The idea of funding development in Mexico may sound ludicrous to many," Pastor said, "and it would not end illegal immigration overnight. But it would end it eventually. And besides, it would benefit the U.S. economically."
The fence which divides Mexico and the U.S. is seen along the common border near the Mexican border town of Tijuana March 2, 2006. The income gap between the U.S. and Mexico is the principal reason why hundreds of thousands of Mexicans cross the border with the U.S. illegally to seek work -- yet it rarely figures in the heated and increasingly emotional debate over immigration now raging in the United States. (Jorge Duenes/Reuters)
Income gap.
The gap is now wider than it was when Mexico, the United States and Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992.
The treaty took effect two years later and was supposed to generate more jobs in Mexico, raise incomes and, as a consequence, reduce the number of Mexicans crossing the 2,000-mile border with their superpower neighbor, legally or illegally.
When NAFTA turned into SHAFTA
Investment in Mexico. We're now told it's cheaper in the long run to 'fix' Mexico, make it a decent place to live so its citizens will go home. Sound familiar? (Like Iraq and Afghanistan.)
'An investment of $20 billion a year over the next 10 years in Mexico in roads and communications connecting the poor southern part of Mexico to the North American market, Pastor says, would attract new companies to invest in Mexico and encourage many Mexicans to stay home and others to return.'
LOL!!! What it will do (and Sr. Pastor no doubt knows and approves) is provide a border-jumping superhighway from all of latin America to your hometown.
Not in a million years.
Our "guests" in the future could easily organize with the unions, and wham-- no more cheap labor!
Erasing All Doubt Mexico Gloats Over Conquest of Aztlan
Lou Dobbs Tonight - CNN - March 28
Dobbs: President Fox said the bill resulted from five years of work that began with his inauguration as Mexico's president in 2000. Fox says it's one step closer to Mexico's goal of "legalization for everyone" who works in the United States."
Mexican media commentators went even further. They see a reversal of Mexico's defeat in the Mexican-American War of 1848.
Speaking about the massive demonstrations in Los Angeles over the past few days, Alberto Tinoco of Televisa television network said, "With all due respect to Uncle Sam, this shows Los Angeles has never stopped being ours."
And how much of that $200 billion would actually be used for the claimed purpose after Mexico's elites took their cut?
I'd guess around $100.
The Toltec will return sooner or later, and they will be annoyed at how the Aztec have been managing the land, not to mention eating their enemies and wearing their skins.
(v) Border access improvements that enhance goods movement between California and Mexico and that maximize the state's ability to access coordinated border infrastructure funds made available to the state by federal law. (snip) (b) Grants for wastewater treatment for economically disadvantaged small communities, including, but not limited to, communities near the California-Mexico border. (snip) (e) Containment, cleanup, and remediation projects to prevent public exposure to contamination in rivers along the California-Mexico border and for related capital improvements.
Is not that amazing that just as a few day's ago Mexico announced that it has discovered yet another oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico and intends to build it's own port of call for the oil tankers, to better serve its customers.
Mexico as far as I am concerned has all the natural resources, including the tourism to sustain and take care of its citizens(Indians descent included).
Due to utter incompetence of the Mexican Government to take care of it's own citizens, we became the care takers of their under class.
I have yet to see a white Mexican from Mexico City jumping the border with US.
All we getting are those poor Indians who can even spell their names, looking for jobs as lawn mowers, roofing peelers and/or schlepping heavy stuff on the construction sites for $5 Bucks an hour!
We are also one main ingredient in this soup fiasco, namely cheap and non IRS reportable labor.
Combine that with the Federal Government failure to guard our borders, a non existing immigration law enforcement and voila, we've got a real problem on our hands, bigger than ever anticipated!
Hey!, DC we have a problem!
What's to keep the elites from actively importing Third World muscle once they've completely dissolved our immigration laws?
SOLD!
It's deja vu time again.
They spoke at great length about the poverty of the Mexicans and their desperate need of railroads, "They've never had a chance." "It is our duty to help an underprivileged nation to develop. A country, it seems to me, is its neighbors' keeper."
...
The San Sebastian Line was now in operation. No surge of trade had come across the border, nor any trains loaded with copper. A few carloads came clattering down the mountains from San Sebastian, at long intervals. The mines, said Francisco d'Anconia, were still in the process of development.
...
"We've been running that schedule and those trains on the San Sebastian for the last three months."
"One passenger train a day?"
"—in the morning. And one freight train every other night."
"Good God! On an important branch like that?"
"The important branch can't pay even for those two trams."
"But the Mexican people expect real service from us!"
"I'm sure they do."
"They need trains!"
"For what?"
"For . . . To help them develop local industries. How do you expect them to develop if we don't give them transportation?"
"I don't expect them to develop"
The above was written 50 years ago. Plus ca change...
How long will it take to make Mexico uncorrupt?
BTW, notice no marches in Miami.
No Mexicans; lots of latins.
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