Do people in Mexico, Central America, and South America have a right to live and work in the USA?

[Boojatta]

[Selatius]

1. NAFTA was supposed to make it easier for Mexican nationals to work in the US.

And vice-versa, yet a lot of side agreements that were promised on both sides were never implemented for various reasons. Namely: They promised far more than they could or would want to deliver.

If all side agreements were implemented, Americans could go to work in Mexico with ease, but that never happened.

In practice, the only real winners here were corporations. Not only did they move to Mexico in more numbers than ever before because of the removal of local capital repatriation limits, they then moved to China because labor was even cheaper with, again, fewer capital repatriation limits.

[EFerrari]

7. Do you honestly believe Clinton didn't know how it would work out? n/t

[Selatius]

12. Yes, I know very well what that bastard Clinton was doing with it.

What I'm talking about is how it was billed. NAFTA was advertised as also promising the implementation of side-agreements that weren't included in the document itself. That's the reason why it was so popular on both sides of the political aisle. The document alone was implemented, minus the side-agreements. The result is what it is today. Only a few really won. Sure, Mexican GDP has increased since then, but that's only because GDP measures total value of goods produced, not the pay of workers or the rate of unemployment or whether those goods even make it into the hands of Mexicans.

[EFerrari]

15. That's right. The billing was really different, bouffant even.

It constantly amazes me that more people don't remember that.

[robinlynne]

2. umm. We don't have the right to live and work in South America.

I lived in Brazil for 20 years, am the widow of a Brazilian man, still I lost my visa because I was in the US for 2 years. It was really hard to get a work visa, took years. That is how "countries" work.

[slackmaster]

3. That's right, nor do we have a right to go work in Germany, England, Japan, etc.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

10. Thailand, Panama, Haiti or Iraq.

And yet, we do.

[stillcool]

4. I don't know what 'right' is...

but I do know what 'wrong' is. Blaming individuals for the actions they take due to the conditions set up by the very same people who are now targeting them...solely for political purpose is wrong.

[Boojatta]

16. You can say that anyone who objects to the status quo in

Bush's America is motivated solely by partisan opposition to Bush rather than opposition to Bush's policies. However, some people -- including many at DU -- are truly unhappy with the status quo and the policies.

You can always accuse people who seek change of having bad motives. However, what do you propose as a way to change the policies and change the status quo? If people take a solemn oath to abstain from pursuing political purposes, then how can they succeed in changing the status quo and the policies?

[stillcool]

20. Changing the status quo...

in my mind, means understanding the impetus for the policy in the first place, and how elected officials have allowed the policy to morph and deteriorate through the years. It seems to me that no matter what 'issue' concerns an individual there is definitive cause and effect associated with that issue. To me...looking at immigration as Mexicans crossing the border, and taking American Jobs, is simplistic an false. It places the burden on individuals rather than those who implemented and encouraged the practice in the first place. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and I don't understand how any ill can be cured without identifying the disease.

[bunkerbuster1]

5. I don't really believe in borders, so...

you can imagine how I voted.

Yeah, I recognize that we still have these things called "countries" and individuals such as myself pay taxes to local, state and federal government that are tasked with controlling the flow of labor. But you're asking about rights, and in the great scheme of things, there should be a right to go any damn place you like and live and work there.

[EFerrari]

6. Where did this poll come from?

And shouldn't we also put one up: "Do the people of Latin America have a right to develop democracy free of the coroporate and US backed interference of the American government?" :crazy:

[rucky]

8. It's a "straw" poll. n/t

[EFerrari]

9. But what the hell is the context?

:shrug:

[robinlynne]

21. That would be a more relevant poll!

[Occam Bandage]

11. No. National borders exist.

[Mountainman]

13. You don't mention anything about the type of work. Most DUers who are anti illegal immigration

would love the chance of picking grapes and oranges and vegetables here in CA. I don't know why we let immigrants do that kind of work when so many DUers would give their all for such a chance.

[superduperfarleft]

17. Heh. Good post.

:)

[porphyrian]

14. I don't think you can have U.S. rights unless you're an U.S. citizen.

That said, there are legal provisions for non-citizens to live and work in the U.S. And, isolationist rhetoric aside, ours is a country of immigrants. We killed almost all of the indigenous people.

[Karenina]

18. Do people in the U.S. have a "right" to dump goods,

destroy economies, overthrow elected leaders to further the cause of their corporations, terrorize people, arm militias to that end and treat ANYONE with skin darker than a paper bag like nothing more than chewed-out Chiclets? :eyes:

[pampango]

19. Do my rights as an American citizen trump theI human rights of the people

of Mexico, Central and South America?

All people have, or should have, inherent rights. I don't see that the "right" to live where one wants to live is inherently a dangerous right for people to possess. Admittedly, allowing this "right" to the people of Mexico, Central and South America might damage my "right" to the higher wage I can earn with less competition from these foreigners.

Why should I bestow this right on these foreigners, when I do not have, nor particularly seek, the same right to live and work in those countries? While it is true that I would prefer a reciprocal recognition of this "right", if we are talking about a right, then I prefer unilateral action to no action. When slavery was abolished, restoring a human right not to be enslaved, it was a unilateral action, since there was no slave trade headed in the opposite direction.