ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION FROM MEXICO HAS SOARED BECAUSE NAFTA ALLOWED U.S. AGRIBUSINESS TO DUMP CHEAP CORN ON THE MEXICAN MARKET. MEXICAN CORN PRICES HAVE PLUNGED 70% SINCE 1994 AS A RESULT, TAKING AWAY THE INCOME FROM 15 MILLION PEOPLE IN 90 MICRO-REGIONS IN MEXICO. STOPPING THE DUMPING OF CORN AND SPENDING ABOUT $360 MILLION TO RESTORE AGRICULTURE IN THOSE 90 MICRO-REGIONS COULD CUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN HALF. WE NEED TO ADDRESS THE CAUSE RATHER THAN THE SYMPTOMS OF EVERY ISSUE.
DO YOU SUPPORT THIS NEW PROGRESSIVE SOLUTION ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION OR DO YOU SUPPORT SPENDING SEVERAL BILLION DOLLARS ON A FENCE THAT WILL NEVER WORK?More info from me:
The NW Progressive Institute has the real answer to illegal immigration, now at 3 million per year: develop the Mexican economy and educational system.
Not only would this keep Mexican workers at home, it eventually creates new markets for our exports. The important beginning is to let them produce their own food and other items profitably and let wages rise down south as the economy and infrastructure develops.
American exports of corn have tripled, while real prices of corn in Mexico
have fallen 70% since 1994! This has affected 15 million people in Mexican farm families.
The advantages to this approach are numerous, beginning with the avoidance of silly spending on low-wage soldiers running around in the desert trying to catch an evil tide of Jack-in-the-Box counter clerks. If the same dollars wre spent on schools, it would give the carpenters among those counter clerks work on that side of the border. Second, and more importantly, it would generate human capital there. And both sooner and later it would generate well-being, a truly indigenous economy, and even real demand for US goods.
Sustainable Development of Mexico is the REAL ANSWER that Progressives
should repeat endlessly until the November election. It makes more sense than building a 1,000 mile fence and spending all that salary and gasoline driving around trying to catch 3 million people a year sneaking over the border.
In fact, liberals like Thom Hartmann have made the case that illegal
immigration is a favor to Corporate America because it depresses the price
of labor by increasing its supply. He and others have correctly pointed out that if employers of illegals were jailed for hiring them, the flow would be stanched quicker than any size electric fence could accomplish.
But the real answer, the economic answer, is to provide development support for the populations where they currently reside: Basic investment in roads, utilities and education, not subsidies to factories on the edge of town, whose only mission is to exploit cheap labor before it has to cross the border.
In fact, it is an economic problem, a trade problem. To a very real
extent, people flood into the US because the economies of their native
countries have been decimated by a trade regime instituted by the US. The
agriculture that has been the backbones of many of their economies and
provided the framework for their societies has been wiped out by cheap
American imports.
The point is often made that menials can earn four times the wage here in the United States that they can in Mexico. First, Four times nothing is
still not a living wage. Second, People only need self-determination and a
chance for survival, not big bucks, and it is these minimum conditions that are becoming scarce.
Since the 1970s the economies of the developed and newly industrial
countries have increased steadily, if in some cases not spectacularly.
Economies of underdeveloped countries have contracted by one-third. It is
not material extravagance these folks are rushing into when they come across the border, it is want they are fleeing. All for the benefit of the
industrial farm that has already wiped out the family farm here at home.
The development must be progressive and sustainable. Regenerate the ability of the land to grow, cut off the agribusiness cheaper food supply as the land regenerates and farming comes back in central and southern Mexico and regenerate the economy and the culture. Mexicans don't WANT to leave their homes. If they could eat and prosper down there, they would stay at home and not come over the border in droves.
Progressive candidates must start speaking the truth on the illegal
immigration issue.
Juan Hernandez, then Fox's righthand man and former campaign manager, lived a fair amount of his life in Fort Worth, talked about such a framework of cooperation.
To make this even more effective in stemming migration, Hernandez indicated that they had already identified a list of 90 "micro-regions" from which the vast majority of migrants had emanated. This simultaneously highlighted the areas where need was apparently the greatest, and the areas that spawned migration. Unfortunately, as with much of the original hope and promise of the Fox era, not much was ever done w/this plan.
IMHO, however, it remains a good idea, and, if anything, is much urgent
and thus might be more willingly embraced on both sides of the border.
The idea of regional development in the micro-regions where most of the
illegals are coming from is perhaps the most important concept here. That
makes this whole thing practical and understandable to the voters and maybe even liberal Dem politicians.
Regeneration works by a regional development plan that emphasizes first food self-sufficiency and then moves on from there. (invented by Robert Rodale in the 1980s).
Figuring $4 million per micro-region 3-year program (an estimate from my NGO work), a large part of the illegal immigration problem could be permanently solved through a new approach to international development called the "Regenerative Zone Method". This is based on Soil Science, Organic farming methods and "Regenerative Economics". It's development from the bottom up instead of the failed, top-down policies of the past.
This would cost around $360 million to regenerate the 90 poorest Mexican
micro-regions, far less than the several billion dollars to build, staff and maintain a useless border wall.
The Regenerative Zone Method is a systematic, grassroots approach to making economic development restorative and sustainable--literally from the ground up, from the soil and the individual to the regional environment and community. By facilitating an integrated campaign based on community buy-in and ownership, the Zone Method synergizes several different efforts such as organic agriculture, micro-credit, youth development, online education, health, sewage projects (in som areas), renewable energy and so on, all within a single regional zone. This create multiple regenerative sources within one area, allowing the development to take on a life of its own and become sustainable.
In the 1980s Robert Rodale, of The Rodale Institute and Rodale Press,
conceived of the Regenerative Zone Method and Regenerative Economics, which charts regional progress through a "Regenerative Index".
To fully support and encourage the peoples of the 90 micro-regions to emerge as successful producers and entrepreneurs, a paradigm shift is needed in the approach to agricultural technology, economic development, and human justice. This proposal is based on a new systematic method designed to do just that by "Regenerating" soil, then water, then communities and whole regions. Based on a new "Regenerative Zone Method", the plan calls for restoring the natural food production and thus the community and economy of the 90 Mexican zones.
The Zone Method is based on the recently established science of
Regeneration, an organic approach to restoring the earth in a humanly and
environmentally sustainable manner. By creating multiple sources of
regeneration within a single Zone, a powerful economic and cultural synergy appears and grows stronger with every passing year. In the agricultural sphere, regenerative farming provides immediate production and income, which incrementally increases while stabilizing the soil and the environment.
The program will be supported by appropriate training in leadership,
community organization and participation, business development plus training in health and other life skills. The Regenerative Zone Method will be complemented by parallel learning programs featuring practical education.
The program will be implemented through partnerships with local
non-government organizations (NGOs) which have successful experience working with local populations, and which share the development vision, the commitment to sustainable technology, and the participatory philosophy of this program. As the program proceeds to Regenerative Zone planning, partnerships with businesses, government entities, schools and universities, and other groups will be developed. Regenerative Zone Planning is the way to align the vision and coordinate the work of governments, NGOs and communities alike so that they all synergize and reinforce each other.
The Need for a Paradigm ShiftA new scientific-based approach to development is needed if the donor
countries and leaders of the developing world do not adopt a holistic,
humanly equitable, and environmentally sustainable approach. This science
must include the social elements of participation and inclusion if it is to succeed on the ground. In short, the old top-down macro-economic approach that tried to raise average country incomes by trying to place foreign investment there has had very little return on investment. Regenerative Development in essence is "bottom-up" economic development from the village level up--and with a regional plan that the villages are all cooperating on.
All of these benefits are achieved without vast expenditures in fertilizers and tractors.
The New Science of RegenerationRestoring the Earth has in recent years become a science, or rather a
combination of several sciences. Based on the ability of nature to restore that which has been lost or diminished, Regenerative Science has evolved over the past twenty years and is now taught in universities around the world. Examples of this near-miraculous phenomenon of restoration include natural recoveries from a range of catastrophes including forest fires to lakes, rivers and entire watersheds. Yet restoration can also occur on purpose, by human hands.
Perhaps most important of all for our planet is the ability of soil to
regenerate itself. Regenerative Agriculture is based on restoring the soil
health of poor and drought-ridden farmlands by regenerating micro-organisms and micro-nutrients in the soil itself. The result is healthy food and improved soil health with each harvest. Farmers know when the quality of their soil and the value of their land is increasing.
This is the REAL ANSWER to illegal immigration. Address the true causes
that make people leave their beloved homelands, but with a workable
practical plan, with the details crafted by the locals themselves.
Here is the Rodale Institute site.
http://www.newfarm.orgPLease ask Edwards this question and report back to DU on the answer!!
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