Mexico Works to Ban Non Natives From Jobs

[BayCityProgressive]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060521/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_limiting_immigrants

What does everyone think about this?? I was very surprised to hear this considering how much Fox rails against US immigration policies. I think the US has it wrong and should offer these people citizenship or equal worker status at least. Sounds like Mexico really has it wrong though.

[Joanne98]

1. Mexico has always been like this........

[Kerrytravelers]

2. I think I'll need a beer with my popcorn.

:popcorn:

A really big beer.




Maybe something heavier.
I'll just lay under it and slurp.

[BayCityProgressive]

3. I take it this

is very controversial here? It doesn't change my views that US law are unfair to immigrants but it does make me view Mexico more negatively.

[sam sarrha]

4. does that include the laws that they enter legally.. if i sneak into the

theater can i demand free popcorn..??

[Minnesota Libra]

12. Of course you can .........................

....if you aren't a legal American. :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. And I want TEQUILA!!

And LOTS of it.

You buying? :)

[Kerrytravelers]

28. Of course I'll grab a round for you!

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. I'll buy the next round!

popcorn's free!!

:popcorn:

[Orrin_73]

25. Kerrytravelers are you drunk already?

:beer: :toast:

[Kerrytravelers]

29. Uh-oh. Am I getting sloppy?

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. They'll take as much as you'll give them.

Continue being the patsy if you like.

[xchrom]

6. because mexico has ''issues'' -- doesn't mean we should emmulate them.

[sadiesworld]

7. Did I miss the call to restrict non-native born citizens from

holding positions (beyond the current POTUS and VP limitations) here in the US?

Otherwise, if you're speaking GENERALLY about not wanting to emulate Mexico, I agree. I'd just as soon do without the third world status that comes with an overabundance of cheap, pliant labor.

[xchrom]

11. oh i'm sure that's imminent --

ya know cause california is the 5th largest economy in the world -- with home prices averaging above 500 k cause of all those evil ''illegals''.

[sadiesworld]

17. Actually, our imminent collapse is attributable to our corporate whore

politicians who are intent upon providing their contributors with every goodie imaginable to increase their bottom lines, including cheap labor.

[Judi Lynn]

8. The first thing which comes to mind is that they don't have enough

employment in Mexico for the native citizens, who are being forced to seek work in the States.

A vital point to recognize is that the U.S. subsidized crops, corn and sugar cane, cotton, etc., underwritten at huge cost by the U.S. taxpayers, (as in adding 5 cents to every pound of sugar) have been dumped on the Mexican market, driving the Mexican food producers, the land owners, and farm workers OUT OF BUSINESS in work their families have pursued for generations. They are WITHOUT any means of income, and our own policies did it.

I'll supply some reference to this apparently little-known reality:

~snip~
Then there is the cost of agribusiness to the workers. The life expectancy of a farm worker in California is still not much above fifty years. Subsidized corn floods Mexico, driving peasants from the land and into the United States. At great risk to life and limb and for a large fee, they flee their homelands and sneak into the United States to work the fields.
(snip)

http://www.monthlyreview.org/nftae0804.htm

U.S. Imports Bury Family Farms
TIM WEINER / New York Times 26feb02
MANZANILLO, Mexico -- For many generations, corn has been the sacred center of civilization in Mexico, the place where the grain was first cultivated some 5,000 years ago.

Gods and goddesses of corn filled the dreams and visions of the great civilizations that rose and fell here before the Spaniards came five centuries ago. Today the corn tortilla is consumed at almost every meal. Among the poor, sometimes it is the entire meal.

But the modern world is closing in on the little patch of maize, known as the milpa, that has sustained millions of Mexicans through the centuries. The powerful force of American agribusiness, unleashed in Mexico by the North American Free Trade Agreement, may doom the growing of corn as a way of life for family farmers here, agronomists and economists say.

Lorenzo Rebollo, a 53-year-old dirt farmer, works two and a half acres of corn and beans here on the slopes of the eastern state of Michoacán, in Mexico's central highlands, where corn was first grown as a food crop, archaeologists say. Mr. Rebollo is one of about 3 million Mexicans who farm corn and support roughly 15 million family members.

His grown sons have left for the United States to make a living, and Mr. Rebollo says he may be the last man to farm this patch of earth. It is the same story all over Mexico: thousands of farmers pulling up stakes every year, heading for Mexico City or the United States. Some grew coffee or cut sugar cane. But most grew corn.

Roughly a quarter of the corn in Mexico is now imported from the United States. Men like Mr. Rebollo cannot compete against the mechanized, subsidized giants of American agriculture.

"Corn growing has basically collapsed in Mexico," Carlos Heredia Zubieta, an economist and a member of Mexico's Congress, said in a recent speech to an American audience. "The flood of imports of basic grains has ravaged the countryside, so the corn growers are here instead of working in the fields."
(snip/...)

http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Corn-Subsidized-Imports26feb02.htm

~snip~
More than a million Mexican farmers lost their land since the passage of
NAFTA and the subsequent dumping of surplus US corn, cotton, wheat and other
crops (according to Via Campesina and the Mexican farmers¹ organizing
committee). The dumping of subsidized corn and cotton into the Mexican
markets drove prices below the cost of production. Small farmers could not
compete and were driven out of business and off the land.
(snip/...)

http://www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/willallen011504.cfm

[Ms. Clio]

9. thank you so much

I have been meaning to look for links on this myself, and now I don't have to.

[Judi Lynn]

15. One of the oddest aspects of this problem is that a lot of this sugar

comes from the Cuban "exile" Fanjuls' sugar plantations in South Florida, a family which also has plantations in the Dominican Republic (where _{George H. W. Bush} was a guest a couple of years ago, at a meeting with Gustavo Cisneros, a Cuban-Venezuelan media mogul, and opposition leader) having moved there right after the Cuban revolution, and they bought swamp land drained for them by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

They are considered America's First Family of Corporate Welfare, raking in tens of millions of dollars annually in SUBSIDIES on their crops. They have been the subject of a CBS (I think) documentary on the inhuman conditions under which they drove/exploited/terrorized their desperately poor sugar cane cutters, and they were sued for it in a class action suit, FINALLY. They are HUGE political contributors, one brother giving to Republicans, and the other giving to Democrats. One of them, either Pepe or Alfie Fanjul was mentioned by Monica whatsername as being on the phone to President Clinton, in a deposition she gave during the Monicagate crap with Bill Clinton.

The chemical run-off from their Florida sugar cane operations has been a horrendous ecological nightmare, and the U.S. taxpayers are being stuck with the clean-up bill, thanks to Jeb Bush's efforts.

Info. on the Fanjuls:
Bitter Sugar
Forget the awful past, Palm Beach's sugar barons say. It's time to make nicey-nicey and go into real estate.
By Eric Alan Barton
Article Published Aug 26, 2004
http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2004-08-26/news/feature.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Ah, ain't they cute? Pepe and Alfie at their property in the Dominican Republic.
More photos start around one halfway down the page:
http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/socialdiary/2005/01_18_05/socialdiary01_18_05.php

THE POLITICS OF SUGAR

S U G A R ' S
F I R S T F A M I L Y
http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/cashingin_sugar/sugar08.html

[Ms. Clio]

19. That is fascinating and so disturbing

It always comes back to the same thing -- money and power. If only some could recognize that those smiling aristocrats are their true enemies, and not the desperate and exploited workers.

Thanks again for the great resources.

[Ms. Clio]

10. Who cares?

This isn't some childish game of tit for tat.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. They can't afford to keep their own citizens employed

No surprise here.

Nice flamebait though. :eyes:

[Jim Warren]

16. Truth be told.......

The anti-foreigner ethic in Mexico is ever present, thick and palpable in everyday life there, and the rancor is not exclusively reserved for the US.


I'm sure many will refute this with their anecdotal warm fuzzy and friendliness of the place after visiting. Sure, I did too, but I'm not speaking about being a money toting tourist for a week or two or even the extended "tourist" stay of several months, but on a substantial basis, IE legal immigration and business issues and trying to make a living. It's what eventually drove me out after many years living there. Among any and all of the emigres I knew there, from Europe or NA to a person, all have moved on; most to elsewhere in CA or SA where they have found it more to their liking.

[Cleita]

18. Mexico also has a southern border problem with

unauthorized immigrants from their poorer southern neighbors trying to get into Mexico and eventually the USA for a better life.

Mexico would do better by legalizing a living minimum wage and helping small businesses achieve the means to pay their workers better and provided them with the insurance they need for safety and health. If all Latin American nations did this, the only immigrant problems would be with drug traffickers and other bootleggers of illegal products.

[Gormy Cuss]

20. No kidding. It's also time to revisit NAFTA/CAFTA and see if it's worth it

for the economy of any country other than the U.S.

Judi Lynn's links above tell what has happened, but I remember at the time that some analysts predicted it would wreak havoc with the traditional small scale farming.

[paparush]

21. Its so that AMERICANS cannot flee to Mexico from this Fascist Regime

[slackmaster]

22. With 10% of their population living in the USA, who can blame them?

They must be experience some serious labor shortages in some parts of their economy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1250319

Because they fucked it up. Mexico has huge amounts of natural resources, good climate, plenty of arable land. The only reason it isn't more of an economic power is that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a greedy, corrupt elite.

[Kerrytravelers]

30. Oh look. I'm drinking in that thread, too.

My mother taught me better than this.

[Warpy]

23. Mexico also has a well sealed border to the south and east

meaning they don't want people from the rest of Central America, countries that are in even worse shape than Mexico, coming in and taking THEIR jobs.

What we're seeing in Mexico over the last 10 years is brand new, though, organized crime actively recruiting there, doing large scale smuugling, and transporting people all over this country to jobs. That $5.15 looks like a hell of a lot of money to somebody who knows how much it'll buy in pesos. It's not until they get here and discover how much US prices are that they realize they've been screwed, and then it's too late and they owe a lot of bad guys for their transportation.

Mexico has always been protectionist. So is the rest of the free world. The US is pretty unique in allowing mass exploitation of all workers, native and immigrant, while gleefully allowing its industries to be looted by protectionist countries.

[nedbal]

24. I Can't buy land in Mexico, only lease it from a Mexican

This was something I looked into a few years back when a relative was telling me about land he "owned" and planed to retire to ( never happened ) . It seems Mexico is VERY closed to non-mexicans that are not dropping mucho $$$$ as tourists or renters.

[barb162]

26. About 2 yrs ago there was a thread by a DUer living in Mexico

who was being evicted from the land she bought and she mentioned in that thread she really had no rights as a foreign national (US citizen)to keep the land under Mexico law. The Mexico authorities wanted her land and that was that; she was not going to get paid for it. She had no rights and she was moving. She said getting a lawyer and showing the deed was a waste of time and money. I'd never be able to find that thread again.

[nedbal]

27. The Restricted Zone

http://www.eldoradoranch.com/Real_Estate/Info_Owning_Property.htm
The Mexican Constitution regulates the ownership of the land and establishes that "...in a zone of 100 kilometers along the border or 50 kilometers along the coast, a foreigner cannot acquire the direct ownership of the land." These areas are known as the "Restricted or Prohibited Zones". Nevertheless, the latest Mexican Foreign Investment Law, which became law on December 28, 1993, makes the allowances mentioned above.

that link is from the place where the relative "owned" land. granted other items on that page indicate non-mexicans can own land in some forms in some locations..

still it's very biased against those not dropping huge $$$$ as a tourist or renter

[DeaconBlues]

31. Who wants to take bets on how long it takes for the usual suspects

to blame Mexico's draconian anti-immigration laws on the United States? Whoops, they already have!!!! Thanks to Judi Lynn and Ms. Cleo!

I hear someone's porch hasn't been swept in Paraguay. Must be those damn gringos.

[treestar]

32. doesn't have much to do with what is best for the US in the US's

own interest to have for laws.

could be why Mexico is so poor.