Undocumented immigration
posted in Candidates, Immigration, Issues, Mike Gravel (D) |Original source: http://www.gravel2008.us/?q=node/516
Senator Gravel favors protecting our borders and stemming the flow of illegal immigrants into our country. He also favors a guest worker program and naturalizing those workers presently living in the US.
We cannot begin to discuss Mexican immigration without discussing NAFTA and the concept of “free trade.” NAFTA has been a disaster for the working class of both the US and Mexico and has been a godsend for corporations. A study by the Economic Policy Institute found that through 2004 over 1,000,000 US jobs were lost as a result of NAFTA, a third of them manufacturing jobs. In Mexico, 1.3 million farm workers lost their jobs in the same period. This has led to a wave of immigrant workers looking for work in the US job market.
Major structural changes must be made to NAFTA in order to restore lost jobs. Reforming unfair trade policies will stimulate job growth on both sides of the border and allow Mexican workers to remain in their motherland. We must make fair trade a priority if we are to rebuild the American middle class.
