Letters: Why the Migrants Risk Their Lives

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To the Editor:

Re "As U.S. Plugs Border in Arizona, Crossings Shift to South Texas" (front page, June 17), about a Congressional bill that would provide $4.5 billion to "plug" the United States-Mexico border:

Both Democrats and Republicans are focused on immigration enforcement, arguing about degrees. What's missing is why migrants risk their lives to come to the United States.

Just as migration from Mexico spiked in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement (1994), which enabled the dumping of subsidized American corn and the loss of livelihoods for millions of Mexican farmers, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (2004) is a key factor in increased migration from Central America.

These trade agreements have opened the way for international investors through deals that are displacing communities and undermining livelihoods. Meanwhile, many American businesses continue to seek cheap, vulnerable immigrant workers rather than pay both immigrant and American workers a living wage.

Throwing money at border enforcement will never stem the tide. The real issue is America's trade, investment and labor policy — an "immigration" debate we need to have.

CAROL BARTON
New York, June 17, 2013

The writer is coordinator of the Immigrant and Civil Rights Initiative for United Methodist Women.

To the Editor:

"As U.S. Plugs Border in Arizona, Crossings Shift to South Texas" reports on the increase in Central Americans crossing the Mexico-Texas border. We, too, have noticed the increase. Almost all of the young people are coming here for one of two reasons: to escape rampant uncontrolled gang violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala or to join parents who themselves had to flee political violence in the 1980s.

It is unfortunate in this current debate over immigration that so little time is spent understanding why people cross. Our immigration problem will never be resolved until we understand the reasons that force people to leave home. It is seldom just to better themselves; in the case of the young Central Americans, it is often to avoid being killed. The current wave of young immigrants is the fruit of past United States government support of repressive military regimes in Central America.

ANNE PILSBURY
Director
Central American Legal Assistance
Brooklyn, June 17, 2013

To the Editor:

Most of the Congressional action on immigration in the last decade has been to throw more money and more agents at the border. The United States already spends $18 billion a year on immigration enforcement — more than every other federal law enforcement agency combined, and nearly 15 times greater than when the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed. The Senate immigration reform bill should not continue the current border enforcement-first approach, which hasn't worked.

Simply increasing border security will not stop people from trying to come here so long as they have family members or employers who want them to come. Reworking the means for legal immigration represents a better solution to the broken immigration system than ever more walls, border patrol agents and equipment at the border.

DAMIAN MORDEN-SNIPPER
Washington, June 17, 2013

The writer is program assistant for domestic policy at Friends Committee on National Legislation.

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