For many years, the Mexican border has been a source of political controversy in the United States as well as with respect to the relationship with our southern neighbor and third-largest trading partner. However, the problem reached a new international level of attention when Pope Francis recently became personally involved by visiting the border twice and from both sides within the past year. Furthermore, in this election year, the overall problem of illegal immigration and the debate over whether the Mexican border needs more walls or bridges is dominating American politics and presidential debates. While the media tend to focus on securing the border and dealing with the problem of illegal and uncontrolled immigration, these important issues are rarely discussed in the context of the root causes of this problem. The Mexican border, which already includes both walls and bridges, is only a reflection of a much deeper problem of U.S.-Mexican relations.
When people are willing to risk their lives by attempting to illegally cross a closely guarded border, they usually do so because the conditions at home are unbearable. In this case, people are trying to escape extreme poverty, violence and political unrest. Many aspects of the internal situation in Mexico are beyond our control, but being Mexico's largest and by far most powerful neighbor, our foreign policy has often contributed to many hardships that Mexican people face.
When Mexico joined the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, which virtually eliminated tariffs and enabled large American corporations to penetrate the Mexican economy, conditions for many middle- and lower-income Mexicans became worse. Large American agricultural conglomerates, with the help of the subsidized and now tariff-free U.S. imported corn, drove many small Mexican farmers and meat-producing firms out of business because they could no longer compete. Some of those displaced farmers especially from the Veracruz region, who lost their business due to the sharp drop in pork prices caused by massive imports of U.S. companies, eventually found jobs at pork processing plants in the U.S., working for the same companies that led to the destruction of their family farming businesses back home in Mexico.
The implementation of the NAFTA agreement benefitted many large American corporations but led to the loss of approximately 120,000 jobs in the pork industry alone, and overall about 2 million Mexicans were forced to leave their farms. According to World Bank records, the 35 percent rural poverty rate in Mexico before NAFTA ballooned to 55 percent in the few years after NAFTA took effect.
Correspondingly, the rate of illegal immigration from Mexico rose throughout the second half of the 1990, reaching its peak in 2007 (according to the Pew Research Center).
Extreme poverty and inability to find jobs to support families also creates a fertile ground for unrest, conflict and violence. The Zapatista uprising in Chiapas in 1994 was directly linked to the Mexican approval of NAFTA, as more than 3,000 impoverished indigenous people protested the fact that they would bear a disproportionate amount of the costs associated with the trade agreement and the necessary economic adjustment which accompanied it. Suppressed by the military, several hundred people died in the largest ethnic conflict in recent Mexican history.
Poverty and joblessness also tends to support and intensify the drug war, in which the United States is directly involved by being the main consumer of illegal drugs. Insatiable U.S. demand for illegal drugs makes this multibillion dollar business profitable, yet it is the Mexican people who bear most of the cost of drug-related violence. The U.S. also continues to be the main supplier of weapons, especially semi-automatic military style assault rifles, which can be easily purchased in border states with permissive gun laws, but which would not be available for purchase by civilians in Mexico.
Furthermore, the Mérida Initiative, which has launched an active U.S. military and CIA involvement in the fighting of drug cartels in Mexico, brought more heavy military equipment as well as training, which, although well intentioned, often benefited a corrupt police, which actually worked for the cartels. In some cases, the Mexican military, acting in law enforcement roles in regions particularly affected by drug cartel violence, has used the new equipment and training to suppress the local population indiscriminately or had their American-supplied arms stolen by the cartels. It is estimated that the drug war has claimed more than 150,000 lives, many in nameless graves, below the radar of mainstream media reporting.
None of these issues can be easily resolved, but they all need to be addressed and remain inseparable from any political discussion about Mexican immigration. We need to understand the context of how our own policies affect our southern neighbor, to focus our foreign policy on improving the living conditions in Mexico, and to make a coordinated effort with the cooperation of the Mexican government to address the issues of violence and poverty. Otherwise, the Mexican border will continue to reflect the torment of the most desperate people, and remain a source of hardship, suffering and political controversy.
Dr. Kamila Valenta is a member of St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte and a part-time professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, where she teaches ethnic conflict.