Action for Community and Ecology in the Regions of Central America GREEN PAPER 3: Freedoms That Are Abolished

Table of Contents Introduction 1) Trade and Investment: a little history 2) What is in the FTAA Agreement? Biotechnology and the FTAA Protecting Intellectual Property Free Flowing Capital What about Free Flow of People? Militarization and Globalization in the Americas Free Trade and Economic Developmen 3) Making the FTAA a Reality Corporate Globalization in the Americas Dry Canal Megaprojects and the FTAA Dry Canal Megaprojects and the FTAA 4) The FTAA and the Future of the Hemisphere Protecting Corporate Profits FTAA Attacks the Forests 5) Is THIS What Democracy Looks Like? The FTAA's Threat to Democracy North American First Nations: Going Corporate? Free Trade and the Proliferation of Sweatshops 6)THIS is What Democracy Looks Like Free Trade and the Proliferation of Sweatshops 7) What You Can Do Sources Acronym List download this document (488k). ACERCA

What About Free Flow of People? Basav Sen Boston Global Action Network and Bankbusters The FTAA is likely to have a serious adverse impact on immigrants and their political rights in the hemisphere. The observed effects of NAFTA on immigration and immigrants' rights provide a basis to guess at the potential impact of FTAA. NAFTA has created the conditions in Mexico conducive to massive migration. The maquiladora, or export processing zone, is the only sector of the Mexican economy that has shown significant growth since NAFTA, expanding from a workforce of 546,433 the day NAFTA went into effect, to a workforce of 983,272 in April 1998.1 Meanwhile, small businesses have suffered - 28,000 small businesses in Mexico have closed between 1994 and 1997 because of competition from multinationals and their domestic partners.2 Another attack on small farmers has been the trade liberalization policy, under which Mexico has opened up to imports of cheap, often genetically modified U.S. corn grown with subsidies. Mexican corn farmers are unable to compete and are driven off their land.3 Mexican livelihoods are being destroyed, particularly in the agricultural and small business sectors, and people are being driven into unemployment and poverty. The export-oriented economy is failing to create a sufficient number of jobs to replace the ones eliminated, inevitably resulting in pressure to migrate. The U.S. political response to the potential for increased post-NAFTA immigration has been an assault on immigrantsf rights, starting with the increased militarization of the border since January 1994. This was followed by Proposition 187 in California in November 1994, which denied education and health services to undocumented immigrants and their children. In 1996, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which made it much harder for people to immigrate, and easy for the INS to deport immigrants (including legal permanent residents) on almost any pretext. These policies reflect corporate interests - to drive a wedge between American-born workers and immigrant workers and prevent the formation of solidarity. In addition, suppressing immigrants further makes them more easily exploitable by employers. It is reasonable to speculate that these policies were adopted at an accelerated pace since 1994 in anticipation of a rapid growth in immigrant population resulting from NAFTA (as well as WTO, IMF, and World Bank policies worldwide). By extrapolation, it is very likely that the enactment of FTAA will lead to further erosion of the rights of immigrants, in anticipation of another large increase in immigration.