Many Americans are angry with ‘the illegals’ in the country. Comments like “They don’t pay taxes,” or “They don’t have insurance” or “They’re a drain on our healthcare” or “schools” or “policing” are commonly heard. As is, “Why don’t they just come into the country legally?”
I find the anger and lack of compassion disturbing, but what astounds me is the lack of understanding concerning root causes.
Corn, of all things, plays a significant role in the issue. An Iowa farm boy, I grew up among corn fields; however one does not need to have been raised in the rural Midwest to understand corn: it’s arguably the staple crop of American agriculture.
Maize is big in Mexico, too, but for different reasons: whereas most U.S. corn is fed to livestock to be consumed indirectly and/or exported, much of the corn in Mexico is grown for direct human consumption. It’s been a core fixture in the Mexican diet since well before the first Europeans arrived in the Americas.
In the past two decades, though, well-planned strategies originating in the United States have dramatically altered Mexico’s corn economy, and the net result has been devastating for our southern neighbors. One strategy behind the decline is the nuanced North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) whose ‘food security’ premise declared a country secure as long
as it had adequate income for food import, and whose ‘comparative advantage’ premise held Mexico should import its corn given the yield for Mexican maize was far below the average U.S. corn yield. Thus one result of NAFTA was steadily diminishing production in Mexico due to imported U.S. corn.
However, in America- awash in corn at a government subsidized price that still didn’t make the local farmer much profit, but with which the Mexican farmer could not compete- came another strategy for increased use of corn for ethanol. For the U.S. economy, this was a win-win scenario: America was using an agricultural resource of which it had plenty to lessen its dependence on another where it had little (oil), and the demand of corn for ethanol helped drive corn prices up- a rare win for the American farmer.
But for every win-win there’s generally a corresponding lose-lose, and it was Mexicans who felt the injustice. First, the increased price of corn didn’t stop at the border and the price of corn for human consumption in Mexico steadily skyrocketed. Nor, as the years passed, was it possible for Mexicans to simply revert to local production:
1) Many local farmers either went bankrupt under NAFTA or shifted production to other crops,
2) Corporations bought land from bankrupt farmers and consolidated holdings to grow yellow corn for ethanol versus the white corn used for human consumption, and
3) Supply-and-demand ensured with less white corn available for human consumption that the price of such corn would be even higher.
Now someone reading this will think, “So what? They pay more for corn. Big deal.”
Actually, that’s quite the understatement: it has been devastating. Utterly devastating for millions of Mexicans who are at this moment not just hungry but on the verge of what Laura Carlson, Director of the Americas Policy Program, describes as “the slow and silent violence of starvation.” According to Carlson:
· The number of people living in “food poverty,” which is the inability to purchase basic foods, rose from 18 to 20 million from 2008 to 2010.
· 25 percent of Mexico’s population does not now have access to basic food.
· 20 percent of Mexico’s children currently suffer from malnutrition.
· Obesity is increasing, ironically, since Mexicans are eating less and what they eat is less healthy: processed foods with more sugars and saturated fats.
· Two million Mexican farmers have lost their land since NAFTA went into effect.
· $24 billion is now spent by Mexico importing food whereas prior to NAFTA it was less than $2 billion, when its farmers basically fed the nation.
And now the rest of the story:
One need not be a Nobel-winning economist to realize two million unemployed Mexican farmers and the shattering of the nation’s agriculture would have a cancerous effect on the entire Mexican economy: the cancer would ripple throughout society as other local businesses were affected. Local restaurants, retailers and other businesses would either decline or go out of business, exacerbating unemployment and further spreading the cancer.
And there you have it: a story concerning the essence of economic injustice; if only it were a story. Unfortunately, millions of our southern neighbors live this reality.
If I were unemployed with no hope for meaningful employment, and if my aging parents or wife or children were malnourished or slowly starving because there was no money for food and no food without money, I can guarantee you- absolutely guarantee you- that I would not hesitate to wade a river, skirt a fence or cross a scorching Arizona desert in the hope of finding some means- something, anything- by which to support my family. And that’s even if it meant the threat of capture or death by Arizona’s vigilante goon squads.
Now certainly it would be preferable if I could legally immigrate to the ‘land of opportunity’, but unfortunately that requires 1) time, 2) money, and 3) luck of the quota given the limited number of green cards issued versus the significant demand.
My hope for those who dislike or despise ‘the illegals’ is this: Find some compassion. Develop some empathy. Listen to your heart. And for those who also claim to be Christian, contemplate- particularly that eloquent Scripture in Matthew where Jesus taught the essence of love through relation:
“For I was hungry, and you gave me meat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and ye took me in. Naked and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me, and I was in prison, and you visited me.”
Then the righteous answer, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you? Or thirsty, and give you drink? When were you a stranger, that we took you in? Or naked, and we clothed you? Or when were you sick, or in prison, and came to you?
And the Lord shall answer, “Truly I say to you, in as much as you have done it unto the least of these my brothers, you have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:35-40
The illegal immigrants are the strangers among us, and from a Christian perspective, if we delve deeply we may find the essence of Jesus in their eyes, voices, spirits and souls.
We should treat them as we would Christ- and I’m not talking crucifixion.
Christians should pray for plenty in the illegal’s efforts to send help to family back home, and for those still in Mexico who are under- or unemployed and hungry, and especially the children. And perhaps Christians could issue a prayerful psalm of justice: that NAFTA and other inequitable economic policies may be undone.
Writing a Congressman doesn’t hurt, either.
**********
Additional Reading
Laura Carlson, Foreign Policy in Focus, October 20, 2011
“The Food Crisis Strikes Again”
Esther Vivas, Americas Program, October 19, 2011
“Root Causes of Immigration”
Pramila Jayapal, One America, February 13, 2011
Related Reading
"Secure Communities immigration effort disproportionately targets Latinos, report says"
Nancy Lofholm, The Denver Post, October 20, 2011
“A Border of Cruelty”
Patrick Glennon, In These Times, October 19, 2011
