Mines, Water, Roads, Borders

The Resolution Copper land grab is also a water grab, with a projected use of millions of gallons per year and contamination of more; and during what could be a mega-drought. Water is often compared to gold as its value increases the more scarce it becomes, which means we may soon be fighting not only the increasing privatization of land, but also of water. Despite the fact that the Resolution Copper deal, having been snuck into a defense bill, involves an exchange of land, it is being done to the advantage of a transnational mining corporation and to the detriment of the Chi’Chil’Ba’Goteel/Oak Flat/Apache Leap area and the people who hold it sacred. This land grab represents a continued prioritization of economic development in so-called Arizona, which means more resource-extraction and increased international trade (specifically with or through Mexico). Mining and other industries shaped by trade-related demand bring not only risk to water, but also more roads like Interstate 11 and rail (which require land acquisition), and increased border militarization. US trade policy is largely culpable for the violence on the border and south of the border.

Economic development is portrayed as bringing more jobs, but these “free-market” policies, as in the case of NAFTA, are meant to redistribute wealth to the hands of the rich. Because of their trade relationship and connecting infrastructure, Arizona and Sonora have a shared fate as land, water, safety, indigenous ways of life and sacred sites are all at risk. The state governments enable resource-extraction and other infrastructural projects, lucrative to those who would build them and those who would finance them, through subsidization and protection with our tax dollars.

Arizona's connection to a port in Guaymas, Sonora is crucial to the Arizona mining industry. Copper is one of the fastest growing US exports, and much of what is and would be mined in Arizona would be transported down to where mining companies such as BHP Billiton (of Resolution Copper) and Freeport McMoran do business at this Mexican port on the Sea of Cortez. Guaymas is also significant because shipping companies can have lower standards for working conditions in Mexico versus the US. This port is the southernmost point of the CANAMEX Corridor, the NAFTA trade route connecting Canada and Mexico through five US states including Arizona. The Port of Guaymas has been expanding over the years and brings along its own set of problems in the vicinity, requiring its own energy sources and water, damaging the environment, impacting the local communities, etc. Arizona is counting on the continued growth of the Mexican economy, yet the importance of the Port of Guaymas also signifies that a lot of exports from the US are meant to cross the Pacific ocean (especially if the Trans Pacific Partnership goes into effect), not stay within its favored trade partner's borders.

The CANAMEX Corridor already exists, but will be considered complete once Interstate 11, which is in the study phase (aside from the Boulder City Bypass which is scheduled to break ground this year) has been constructed, connecting Las Vegas and Phoenix with a route fit for freight traffic. Interstate 11 may eventually refer to the entire trade corridor reaching from Mexico to Canada, or at least is intended to span from the Mexican border and beyond Las Vegas. Parts of it maybe multi-modal including rail and other infrastructure possibly including water pipeline. This massive project will cut through communities and damage the environment. Conceptualized as the entire trade corridor, it is currently also referred to as the Intermountain West Corridor--basically CANAMEX but with a more updated, more western route where it would run north of Las Vegas. South of the border, the Mexican government has recently agreed to the request by Arizona officials to improve Route 15, which is part of this Corridor, for freight traffic.


Intermittent blockades of Route 15 have been one tactic used by Yaqui resisters in response to the theft of their water in the last few years. The rapid growth of the City of Hermosillo in the state of Sonora, Mexico situated along the CANAMEX Corridor, on the way to the Port of Guaymas, is due in part to NAFTA-fueled agribusiness and mining which are the primary water-users. As it is, Sonora essentially exports millions of gallons of fresh water to the US in the form of fruits and vegetables. In the context of the drought and overuse of water, and as a result of the ways international trade has impacted Sonora, Hermosillo has required acquisition of water, impacting the Yaquis, Mayos, and Guajiríos with aqueducts and dams on the rivers. These mega-projects, enacted by Sonora SI (started by the Sonoran Governor who has a close relationship with the mining industry), have the intention of addressing the water crisis (for Hermosillo), contributing to the competitiveness of the region and providing new infrastructural projects for companies to make money from.

Since technology is now allowing for relatively affordable removal of salt from the plentiful ocean water, one megaproject planned for Sonora is one or more desalination plants. It is possible that the Agreement of Cooperation between the states of Arizona and Sonora signed by the respective governors at the Arizona-Mexico Commission’s Plenary Session last summer to jointly evaluate the feasibility of desalination at the Sea of Cortez for a new water supply for Arizona and Sonora is related to the Sonora SI project, which includes a desal plant in San Carlos near Guaymas. The potential for desalinated water piped from California or Mexico is part of Arizona's official water strategy. This year, a bill is in the Arizona House of Representatives to fund and arrange a study for the potential for desalination for Arizona. The intention for Arizona to expand and become more competitive in trade, along with potential new copper mine(s) will mean new demand for water, and with the combination of scarcity and new infrastructure, the water could be privatized. Desalination plants threaten the environment in various ways including the direct impact on their location on the water, as well as through the use of energy in the process and transport of the water.

Despite the likely need for drastic measures even if Arizona doesn't grow, some in Arizona find that expansion is necessary and inevitable. A so-called “megapolitan” area including Phoenix and Tucson called the “Sun Corridor” is intended as an economically integrated trade hub along the CANAMEX Corridor. Those interested in this concept have been attempting to reform state trust land law in the interest of further growth and development. The Sun Corridor concept is supposedly justified by—at the same time as it is used to encourage—growth and accompanying infrastructure especially for freight traffic in the area despite that growth is not sustainable in the area. The infrastructure required includes new roads, rail, ports, and border security.

Along with the steps to build Interstate 11, just in the last few months, Arizona opened trade offices in Hermosillo and Mexico City, committed funding to increase freight rail infrastructure near the border and to expand ports of entry at the AZ/Mexico border. According to ADOT's press release, Arizona was involved in a US/Mexico joint investment “implementing U.S. technology, equipment and training to enhance the efficiency of the military inspection station north of Hermosillo," which involves $6.8 million almost certainly from the Mérida Initiative, with an additional $4 million from the Mexican Government.

The primary intention of the Mérida Initiative (also known as Plan Mexico, a reference to the failed Plan Columbia) is supposedly to fight the drug trade, but one major role, to create a “21st Century Border Structure,” deals with trade and migration as well. This is meant to “Facilitate legitimate commerce and movement of people while curtailing the illicit flow of drugs, people, arms, and cash. The Mérida Initiative will provide the foundation for better infrastructure and technology to strengthen and modernize border security at northern and southern land crossings, ports, and airports.” Sure, the US wants to prevent the illicit activity that correlates with increased movement of trucks across the border. It is also the trade policies themselves, and the accompanying poverty and displacement, that contribute to migration (and arguably contribute to the drug trade). Many in US benefit from exploiting the cheap labor created by criminalization of migrants. And then there are the security and technology companies who can profit from infrastructure and equipment involved in securing the border. Large transnational companies such as Israeli company Elbit Systems brings their similar experience in militarizing the Gaza Strip and enforcing their apartheid wall to the border as well. The potential for any future Comprehensive Immigration Reform to bring about a "border surge" manifesting a massive profit-making opportunity for the military industrial complex to the US/Mexico border will likely make it even worse than it already is. Migrants continue to die crossing the border. Tohono O'odham who live along the border or visit relatives also face daily harassment, abuse, check-points, invasion of privacy, limits on movement, drones, cameras, etc. due to the border patrol's activities where the border bisects their lands.

Arizona officials and business leaders want to believe the myth that Mexico has the violence and organized crime under control. In the interest of becoming more friendly to international investment, for just a few years prior to the violent disappearance of the students from Ayotzinapa in late 2014, Mexico attempted to make itself look as though it was successfully instituting the rule of law. Yet law enforcement is clearly involved in much of this violence. And U.S. trade policy is largely culpable. Many violent acts tend to be depoliticized and obscured by associating the victims with drugs. Students at the Normal school in Ayotzinapa were known for protesting neoliberal reforms in Mexico. The fact that they were clearly not involved with the drug trade and that it involved so many youths made what happened to them more worthy of media attention.

The drug war, instead of curtailing the production and movement of drugs, functions, even if not specifically intended to, to facilitate resource-extraction and international investment in areas such as Mexico and Central America. Militarization and paramilitarization benefit US and transnational corporations' involvement there through displacement and social control, as described in Dawn Paley's new book, "Drug War Capitalism." With at least a couple dozen mining conflicts in Mexico alone, and the violence faced by activists who oppose mining, it is clear that even when organized crime groups are involved in law enforcement and violence, these are often acts of repression. For mining to continue, people are forcibly displaced, and the state facilitates this, in part by US tax dollars and to a certain extent for Arizona trade interests. Mining companies around the world often have arrangements with paramilitaries and/or military to protect them, such as in the cases of Resolution Copper's BHP Billiton in Columbia, and Phoenix-based Freeport McMoran in Indonesia.

In modern history in Arizona, displacement looks different but is no less significant. Confiscation of livestock, used as a tactic of attrition to force Diné who have resisted displacement from their lands so Peabody Coal can continue strip-mining the Black Mesa area, has occurred as recently as October 2014. Some members of Congress have recently urged that the relocation project be completed. Arizona's urban areas' access to water and electricity involves a mega-project that has a complex history few know about, which is all the more relevant in relation to the Yaqui water struggle and the potentiality of infrastructure being built for desalinated water. Often characterized as savvy and industrious, the efforts made to create the Central Arizona Project (CAP) that brings water from the Colorado River, and the whole project including Peabody Coal's strip-mining (to fuel the generating plant that powers CAP and provides electricity to Phoenix, Las Vegas and other areas), rests on a history involving manipulation, manufactured conflict between the Diné and Hopi and among tribal members, forced removal of families, contamination and depletion of water, and the poisoning of those who have lived close to the mines and the generating station.

Indigenous people's access to clean and plentiful water has been threatened since settlers arrived, even after they were given priority water rights by the federal government. Not only did Southern Arizona settlers divert water away from sources Tohono O'odham and other indigenous people relied upon, and contributed to erosion of their lands, indigenous people have been swindled for their priority water rights over the the last several decades. The Arizona Department of Water Resources considers the resolution of tribal water rights claims (9 more out of 22 total) the number one priority due to the uncertainty of long-term water availability for Arizona. Often the settlements promise infrastructure to provide water delivered to homes on the reservations, instead of addressing the root causes of poverty and lack of access to clean water. The mining industry consumes and contaminates water on a massive scale, and because of how much water it depends on, is especially interested in securing water rights at the expense of priority water rights held by some tribes in Arizona, such as in the case of Freeport McMoran being involved in the settlement of Hualapai water rights claims last year.

In some cases, mining companies like Freeport McMoran have been buying land for the associated water rights. Freeport and Resolution Copper have benefited from legislation and/or legal exemptions that allow them to essentially hoard water. No doubt the Resolution Copper mine near Superior would use several millions of gallons of water a year. Rio Tinto (of Resolution Copper) has purchased future water rights from CAP. The risk to water in AZ will be compounded if the Rosemont Copper mine near Tucson also gets approved. Access to clean water that is also affordable becomes a grave concern as water becomes scarce, commodified, and potentially privatized as more infrastructure is involved in its acquisition and treatment.

As is implied in "There is No Drought: California's Twisted Waterways," the threat of a serious drought can be used by those interested in profiting off the scarcity of water, and the "solutions" which are proposed are those that benefit these private interests. Obama made water privatization in the US easier, when on June 13 of 2014, he signed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) into law. This included the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Authority (WIFIA) which is a 5-year pilot program providing financing for P3s for water projects. WIFIA, mirroring the "Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act" (TIFIA), was a concept developed and promoted by the American Water Works Association (AWWA). The new director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources was a member of the AWWA.

Additionally, various companies involved in other Arizona infrastructural projects (AECOM, CH2MHill, CDM Smith, Bechtel) are involved in water privatization across the world.AWWA, a non-profit, is supported by CH2MHILL and closely affiliated with AECOM. And with more P3s for transportation, the likelihood for P3s for water increases.

Private interests have pushed for Interstate 11 due to its role in trade. I-11 is also likely to be procured as a public-private partnership (or several). Public-private partnerships (P3), a type of arrangement which we'll be seeing more of in the coming years (and is in the works for the South Mountain Freeway), are proposed as a mutually-beneficial solution that uses complicated financial strategies to leverage state assets and essentially provide federal and/or state subsidies (through tax-free bonds, low-interest loans, etc.) to the private sector. It helps finance projects for which funding is otherwise lacking—therefore it is a much desired arrangement for construction and engineering companies, consultants, as well as banks. The P3 creates new profit opportunities for financial institutions, in the meantime creating more debt, and therefore it is largely about financialization. A P3 can also be understood as a form of privatization, not because a P3-built road would not be publicly accessible, but because P3s afford private entities influence, agency, and financial deals they would otherwise not have access to. Projects such as roads are more likely prioritized based on the interest of private parties, and based on what is incentivized by the federal government. A public-private partnership could also refer to an organization ("P3 unit") that involves public officials and private members, creating new forms of governance that provide opportunities for private involvement in decision-making.

Two such P3 units of note in Arizona are the Arizona-Mexico Commission (AMC) and the Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance (TTCA). Both of these organizations involve the Director of the Arizona Department of Transportation and other state officials as well as various corporate leaders, with much overlap between the two. The pro-NAFTA AMC, who takes credit for pushing CANAMEX along, seems to have had a lot to do with getting TTCA instituted and becoming a major influence in Arizona policy on trade and transportation in recent years. Freeport McMoran has been a major sponsor of AMC and has had someone on the board of directors for several years. The locations of Freeport's Arizona mines and their use of the Port of Guaymas correlates with their interest in CANAMEX and I-11. Freeport hired the last director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources as their water strategist, and this department now has an intimate relationship with AMC, even listing AMC

It is no surprise as well that Senator John McCain has been a large proponent of the land swap for Resolution Copper, the Mérida Initiative, increased trade with Mexico, and the TPP. But this goes far beyond him and the AMC. Across the world, the World Bank and IMF have coerced countries into adopting structural adjustment programs or other changes in exchange for access to loans. We may be aware of austerity measures in the US, but we may not realize the various ways in which Arizona (or other US states for that matter) is also impacted by state-enabled free market ideology even as the state is not forced into formal agreements to open new areas up to private "partners." The economic development, made to seem intended to create jobs and improve the livelihoods of citizens is about nothing more than accumulation of wealth. It is clear though, that whether we call it neoliberalism, capitalism, or colonialism, is also a project of the state.

Plunder Road: CANAMEX and the Emerging Impact of NAFTA, TPP on Western North America

As people across the world honor the twentieth anniversary of the Zapatista Liberation Army rising up in response to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), resistance continues, most notably against resource extraction and other infrastructure. Meanwhile, what some call “NAFTA on steroids,” the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is currently pending agreement involving the North American countries and others scattered around the Pacific. And rather quietly, a transportation project called the CANAMEX Corridor is underway to facilitate trade along a north-south corridor of western North America. This corridor runs from a port on the Pacific coast of Mexico, through Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and north near the Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada.

Opposition to the CANAMEX Corridor is necessary not only because it is a major piece of the physical infrastructure needed to facilitate this trade. Its function in international trade is also used to justify the damage brought by its imposition locally, throughout the corridor. CANAMEX, designated as a High Priority Corridor shortly after NAFTA was implemented, already exists in the form of highways, but requires improvement and expansion to effectively facilitate trade.

The trade corridors of North America, CANAMEX being one of them, are extensions of NAFTA. They function as the infrastructure, such as roads, rail, ports, etc., that perpetuates the harms caused by so-called free trade. Among the effects of NAFTA since its implementation have been dramatic unemployment and displacement in Mexico due to subsidized US agricultural products such as corn, and a shift in privatization/ownership of Mexican land by private interests. One of the worst environmentally damaging projects in the world is the Tar Sands extraction in Alberta, Canada, which is in operation at its current level largely due to the NAFTA obligations to supply oil to the US. CANAMEX would also be an important corridor of TPP trade due to its Pacific seaport in Guaymas, Mexico, and its proximity to the west coast in general.

The impact of CANAMEX involves displacement of people and destruction of sacred sites and the environment, thereby affecting indigenous communities and various others. Trade transportation infrastructure is necessary for free movement of goods across borders, but along with it must come heightened border security in response to displacement caused by the impacts of trade agreements. Because it requires fuel, trade infrastructure is one of the primary reasons for resource extraction and is an extension of colonialism. Additionally, it is justified and imposed locally in the form of development and sprawl with compounded reliance on energy and resources such as water.

A project increasingly being used to circumvent the obstacle of lack of funding for these trade corridors is called a public-private partnership (P3), which is an arrangement that is essentially privatization but with some state control. Having been utilized throughout the world, P3s in North America seem now more than ever to go hand-in-hand with trade infrastructure development and neoliberalism in general.

In simple terms, neoliberalism involves trade liberalization, privatization, and relaxation of state power in effort to allow for a free market economy. It is important to frame opposition to the practice of neoliberalism and its trade pacts, privatization, etc., by foremost addressing state collusion and repression, in addition to its form as an extension of colonialism and capitalism. State repression against resistance makes possible the ease with which these colonial/neoliberal projects expand.


Trade and Resource Extraction

In December 2013, tens of thousands of Mexicans demonstrated against the recent decision by the president to open oil and gas reserves to foreign investment, the implications of which, due to NAFTA and TPP, are predictably negative for the people. Up in the north, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribal members, and Rising Tide members, among others, have partially stalled attempts to transport massive pieces of equipment called “megaloads” to the Tar Sands in Alberta over the last couple of years with various protests along the route from ports in the northwest US to the Tar Sands. By no coincidence, Interstate 15, which is part of CANAMEX, will possibly be used to transport megaloads north from where the 90 meets it in Montana. Expansion of trade transportation infrastructure is dependent on resource extraction and vice versa. Trade corridors provide the infrastructure for the movement of this type of equipment and could additionally facilitate future extraction at the tar sands in Utah, which is not very far from the CANAMEX Corridor. Rail may possibly be a significant mode of transportation of crude oil in the near future, especially with obstacles, largely due to grassroots resistance, to the construction of pipelines.

The CANAMEX Corridor is one expansive piece of the physical infrastructure of NAFTA and potentially the TPP. Even though the TPP does not seem primarily to emphasize trade as much as one might assume, it is undoubtedly the case that increased trade traffic will have an impact along the corridor, in the form of prioritization of transportation projects, and shifts in policy.

Citing the problem of bottlenecks in trade ports on the US west coast, CANAMEX-proponents favor trade products entering North America through western Mexican ports such as the Port of Guaymas, the southern-most tip of the CANAMEX Corridor, which is due to double in size in the next couple of years, making it the second largest seaport in Mexico. The benefits (for capitalists) of receiving trade shipments there, rather than in the US, are multiple aside from avoiding the bottleneck problems. Dockworkers in Mexico have lower wages, lesser benefits, and fewer safety measures than union workers in the States.



In his commentary as the Arizona-Mexico Commission’s CANAMEX expert, Jim Kolbe stated that trade with Asia will likely continue to increase and CANAMEX is meant to facilitate the movement of those goods into Arizona. This was discussed years prior to official TPP talks. Certainly if the agreement goes forth, trade with Asia will grow even more.

Currently, talks on the TPP involve Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. Not only are Chinese wages lower than Mexican wages, but the wages in Vietnam are half to a third of that of Chinese workers. The ramifications of this could involve increased unemployment and lowering of wages in Mexico and the US. Clearly some of these countries, or specifically their corporations, could easily take advantage of some of the other countries. For example, aspects of the TPP would make it even easier for companies to wreak environmental havoc wherever they choose; saving money on measures that would otherwise limit pollution.

There are various benefactors of the broadening of trade pacts and expansion of infrastructure. Describing the web of connections behind these neoliberal projects would take pages and could look a bit too much like conspiracy theory. We do not need a conspiracy theory to see how neoliberalism works and to understand that certain powerful individuals, corporations, and their organizations are going to have their hands in projects that promote their causes. Elsewhere, I have drawn connections between NAFTA, the Council of the Americas, North American Business Council, Security and Prosperity Partnership, North American Competitiveness Council, UPS and other corporations, McLarty Associates and its member Jim Kolbe who is part of the Arizona-Mexico Commission and the new Arizona Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance which encompasses the Governor’s CANAMEX Task Force. Exposing these networks can be useful to show that these projects are being imposed by a wealthy few.

On a more local level, certain organizations and businesses are seeking expansion of “inland ports” consisting of multi-modal transportation nodes and foreign trade zones (FTZ) especially along trade corridors like CANAMEX. In regions zoned as FTZs, businesses get tax breaks and duty exemptions and deferrals. The placement of these FTZs will serve to justify infrastructure for this trade traffic to and through these areas. The presence and authority of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in these foreign trade zones have unknown implications for migrants within them.


Trade and Border Security

On May 21, 2010, protesters locked down at the Border Patrol Headquarters in Tucson, Arizona with demands for self-determination for indigenous people, to regularize (“legalize”) all people, and for an end to NAFTA, among many related general and specific demands, which were and continue to be lacking from other similar actions. Involving members of Indigenous Nations of Arizona, migrants, people of color and white allies, it represented a more cohesive and radical analysis of the interlocking impacts of border security and trade.



Despite NAFTA being sold as a way to increase job opportunities in all three countries, the timing of beefed-up border security such as Operation Gatekeeper in the San Diego area, launched in 1994, indicates that the US government knew that NAFTA would cause an upsurge in migration from Mexico to the US due to the economic impact. On the surface it seems contradictory for Arizona to promote further NAFTA (and TPP) trade while enforcing immigration law. Yet capitalists and their government collaborators simultaneously want goods to move freely across borders and they want people moving across those borders to be criminalized and limited, thereby making them more exploitable. Governor Jan Brewer, for example, enthusiastically signed SB1070 and is promoting CANAMEX through the Arizona-Mexico Commission and the new Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance.

This is not to imply that SB1070-style immigration enforcement is the preferred type. In fact, many would prefer some level of legalization, particularly guest worker programs, but either way it would be a “solution” with an emphasis on border security, and certainly not something that addresses the root causes of mass migration.

Border security will increasingly militarize O’odham communities in Arizona, coinciding with the invasive development and construction of trade infrastructure (roads, ports of entry, foreign trade zones) involved with CANAMEX. In Arizona, various freeways, or possibly toll-ways, comprising (or in close proximity to) the CANAMEX Corridor might be built through or along reservations and/or sacred sites, such as the Loop 202 Freeway extension in Phoenix, slated to cut through South Mountain which is sacred to O’odham. Construction of the wall, border-patrol harassment (and reckless driving), check-points, cameras, drones, severe limits on movement across the border for ceremonies (or for any reason), are some of the impacts of border security on O’odham and others living near the border—repercussions that would only worsen if/when Comprehensive Immigration Reform were to pass as proposed. CIR fans clearly ignored the escalating detriment it would create for border communities and recent/future border-crossers, and have largely failed to even mention the root causes of mass migration such as NAFTA.

CANAMEX-promoters are selling their development projects as ways to increase job opportunities, as did those hyping NAFTA in the ‘90s. However, the so-called free trade pushed by neoliberals has contributed to a hike in out-sourcing of jobs from the US. Rather than blaming the companies moving their facilities to countries with cheaper labor while continuing to pay their CEOs extravagant sums, it is the migrants who are scapegoated for the loss of jobs in the US. And while migrants are also blamed for taking advantage of welfare in the US, criminalization of migrants essentially acts as a form of welfare for the rich in that it maintains a permanent underclass of exploitable undocumented workers making wages, goods, and services cheaper. Without state repression, this situation would look far different.


Trade, Colonialism, and Sprawl

Unist’ot’en, Wet’suwet’en, and their allies continue to resist the imposition of various pipelines being planned to cut through unceded Wet’suwet’en Territory in northern British Columbia to link the Tar Sands to the west coast for trade with Asia. Down south in Mexico, the Council of Ejidos and Communities in Opposition to La Parota Dam (CECOP) and guerrilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias-Liberación del Pueblo (FAR-LP), continue to resist La Parota hydro-electric dam intended to provide water and electricity to the Port of Acapulco. There are numerous other examples of opposition to the slew of negative impacts of the Athabasca Tar Sands project, against the Keystone XL Pipeline and countless other pipelines, movement of megaloads, development of the Utah Tar Sands, numerous fracking sites, and on and on. These and other forms of resistance are met with state repression. The physical infrastructure of neoliberalism such as highways, mines, pipelines, dams, etc. embody the continuation of colonialism. The plunder results in destruction of indigenous ways of life, displacement of people, and detriment to their health.

Every community the trade corridors cut through is affected by it. To the extent that people are even aware of the intentions meant for their local area, decision-makers may simply promote whatever benefit to the economy that might supposedly be brought by trade traffic. There are bigger plans at work, however. In the so-called Sun Corridor, expanding development, trade infrastructure and policy changes are justified by supposed population growth in general, and promises of prosperity that ideologues of regionalism are using to entice state leaders to embrace CANAMEX. The growth is forecasted by academics and others associated with organizations such as the Brookings Institute, the Morrison Institute working with Arizona State University, and companies such as AECOM promoting the concept of the Sun Corridor. The Sun Corridor is the name for this so-called megapolitan or mega-region consisting of Phoenix and Tucson (and possibly Prescott and Nogales), and making up part of the CANAMEX Corridor. ADOT and other transportation committees have taken this concept of the megapolitan, an economic integration of nearby metropolitan areas that are expected to reach 10 million residents by 2040, as inevitable. The Federal Highway Administration website also includes megapolitans in discussion on planning.

Increased sprawl in the so-called Sun Corridor is generally unpopular. Various communities oppose highways due to environmental impacts on the air, animals, plants, climate, and health. Additionally there are concerns about accidents involving dangerous cargo, and noise pollution. While highways are thought of as a way to improve movement, to the local community they often has the effect of a wall, dividing neighborhoods (not to mention demolishing homes and other places of importance) and often involving actual walls (which helps with noise pollution, but one would rather have a view of the mountains than of a wall). In the case of the Loop 202 Freeway extension, the above issues apply, along with concerns regarding threats to the O’odham way of life and sacred sites. Even if this proposed road isn’t part of the official CANAMEX Corridor, it is meant to support Sun Corridor sprawl and trade traffic.

Often the issue of sprawl or the requirement for expansion is framed as a problem of over-population primarily blamed on immigrants. This blame often functions to shift the responsibility away from massive resource-extraction projects that use water, energy and other resources (a never-ending cycle); use of fuel in trade-related shipping; irresponsible and inefficient planning and expansion; etc. This expansion and required resources is pushed by neoliberal academics and consultants, and even small-time real estate developers, resulting in over-consumption. Applying the label of “sustainable” or “green” to their projects makes it seem that they are doing this responsibly. Water is a particularly volatile issue, threatened by pollution from energy extraction, use of massive amounts in these projects, climate change, and the requirements of supporting the consumption involved with sprawl.


Neoliberalism and Public Private Partnerships

The public-private partnership (PPP or P3) is becoming increasingly more common in North America. Researching the P3s being discussed locally or globally for an infrastructure project is definitely a useful way to follow the money. It should be clear, however, that this type of arrangement is not in and of itself the problem (see most other imposed projects prior to P3s), but the problem is that it carries with it new and more insidious problems.

The main organizations promoting CANAMEX – the Arizona-Mexico Commission (the “godfather” of CANAMEX) and the new Arizona Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance (TTCA), which is said to encompass the Governor’s CANAMEX taskforce – are both entities comprised of public and private members, with overlapping membership between the AMC and TTCA. The weight of their influence is uncertain, as they are not official decision-making bodies although there is also overlap with government committees. Sometimes an organization like this is referred to as a P3 or a “P3 Unit.” An example of a better-known P3 Unit is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), exposed in 2011 for its facilitation of collaboration between private prison companies and state legislators, resulting in the proliferation of SB1070-type anti-immigrant laws.

P3s more often refer to business arrangements between the state and private companies, often to build infrastructure and/or to manage a utility or service. P3s have been implemented across the world, primarily in cases where countries are indebted to neoliberal institutions. A lot of water privatization programs across the world are actually P3s. Along the lines of austerity measures, these arrangements in North America are not unlike structural adjustment programs (SAP) mandated in countries in debt to the World Bank or IMF. But while SAPs are largely involuntary, public-private partnerships in North America for projects such as transportation, are being promoted voluntarily as “innovative financing” by many government officials in cahoots with private interests. Compared to total privatization, an arrangement in which the government remains in so-called partnership with private interests makes the scenario easier to stomach for the residents affected, yet the private interests profit while the state government, or more specifically taxpayers, are left in debt to the companies for decades.

Arrangements such as these have been increasingly pushed by neoliberal organizations such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership and its successors, partly to promote the idea that the private sector is more efficient in projects such as for infrastructure, partly because various businesses want to make a buck, and because the funding is not available for these projects that are supposedly needed. The needs of the public are being defined in many ways by private interests such as construction businesses, real estate developers, trucking companies, banks; and in the case of international trade corridors, investment firms, and especially neoliberal think-tanks and consulting services, who often have ties to NAFTA and SPP and/or big banks. A little web research into who the members of P3 organizations are, and who is attending or sponsoring P3 conferences, reveals how steeped in the trend various public officials and big construction companies are.

If a company or companies see dollar signs in a particular project, this project is likely to be prioritized by the state, as in the case of trade transportation, for example. Many people do not even know about the plans for CANAMEX and its freight truck traffic, yet the roads that would facilitate this trade flow are being promoted (by politicians) as useful to the residents of the area in question. New transportation legislation like MAP-21 and institutions such as the Federal Highway Administration encourage and help facilitate public-private partnerships for transportation projects. Private conglomerates can potentially take advantage of loans (such as TIFIA loans) and tax breaks that the state would access. Sometimes in conjunction with, but often in lieu of toll roads, the private companies would receive availability payments, which ultimately come from taxes.

This information became relevant in Arizona when a business conglomerate proposed a P3 to build the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway extension in Phoenix in 2012. Legislation is in place in Arizona for a range of P3 arrangements and Arizona Department of Transportation is salivating for a good P3 deal in transportation.

These public-private partnerships, along with the so-called free trade pacts, are the brainchildren of neoliberalism. Often in discussion on neoliberalism, the political Left presents false dichotomies between privatization vs. the commons (held by the state), and regulation vs. deregulation. While regulation might mean keeping private interests from doing more damage, it encourages a reliance on the settler state to protect the people, meanwhile diverting attention from the ways in which the state has perpetrated harm against the people from its beginning, and has hardly been neutral regarding the interests of the rich. Although perhaps ideologically inconsistent, in practice neoliberalism relies on collaboration between state and the private sector to provide privileges to those private interests in the form of defense and security (police, military, prisons, border security), tax breaks, subsidies, access to information, prioritization, and promotion of private plans. While lobbying dollars and such likely have a lot to do with it, this is not corruption; it is the role of the state in this latest form of capitalism. Capitalism has always involved power and force; neoliberalism just comes in a different form. In this sense, it does not matter the extent to which a project is privatized or neoliberal if it harms people, but the focus is on neoliberalism because it is the primary modern economic form particularly in relation to infrastructure.


CANAMEX Development

The naming of the concept of the CANAMEX Corridor goes back at least to 1993 just prior to the passing of NAFTA, followed by the designation as a High-Priority Corridor by congress in 1995, and implementation of the Arizona Governor’s CANAMEX Task Force in 1998. The Arizona-Mexico Commission (AMC), now along with the TTCA, seems to be the main promoter of the corridor.



The route given for CANAMEX, which is subject to change, involves Mexico Federal Highway 15 in Sonora connecting the Port of Guaymas with the US border in Nogales; State Route 189, Interstates 19, 10, and US Route 93 (and now Interstate 11) in Arizona; Route 93/Interstate 11, Interstates 515 and 15 in Nevada; Interstate 15 through Utah, Idaho, and Montana; then a complicated route involving the following highways in Alberta and British Columbia: 4, 3, 2, 216, 16, 43, 2, and 97.

For a while, it seemed like there was some sort of hiatus on the project, likely due to the economy. However, things picked up in 2012. Currently the primary project within the CANAMEX Corridor is Interstate 11, which is in the study phase. It is meant to provide transportation for freight traffic for which the US Route 93 between Las Vegas and Phoenix is inadequate. In fact, many news articles seem to refer to Interstate 11 interchangeably with the often-unnamed trade corridor stretching from Mexico to Canada.

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) designated this route as Interstate 11 in 2012. Part of what would be Interstate 11, phase one of the Boulder City, a.k.a. the I-11 Loop, is currently in the works. Phase two will connect with the Hoover Dam Bypass which was completed in 2010. A public-private partnership involving a toll road had been a possibility for the Boulder City Bypass in Nevada but this idea was abandoned mid-2013. Instead a gas-tax increase would fund the construction. Public-private partnerships, possibly including tolls, are being discussed for implementation of other parts of Interstate 11. In fact, despite this being a priority corridor, some experts have stated that most new projects would require a P3 or won’t be built at all due to lack of funding.

The Arizona Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance (TTCA), in conjunction with Pima County, is talking about southern Arizona connectivity, and therefore Interstate would not only connect Las Vegas with Phoenix, but extend through Tucson and Nogales.

Ports of entry along the borders will likely be expanded for easier movement of goods, in addition to seaports such as the Port of Guaymas in Mexico which is the southern tip of the CANAMEX Corridor, due to double in size in the next couple years. The Corridor also involves rail, fiber optic telecommunications, and possibly pipelines.

The CANAMEX Corridor is an important part of NAFTA (and possibly TPP) trade, and as such, is a weak point of globalized infrastructure according to the strategic campaign Root Force. The promise of economic prosperity is used as justification for the imposition of trade infrastructural projects throughout the corridor. Discussion on these “NAFTA Super-Highways” has been dominated by right-wing conspiracy theorists concerned about US sovereignty. It is important to shift the debate towards indigenous sovereignty and solidarity, towards an end to capitalism rather than just a reaction to economic integration, towards an end to resource extraction projects, towards an end to state repression and the state in general.

See stopcanamex.blogspot.com for more info.

Beware the Funders of Immigrants’ Rights

What would make a giant foundation headed by rich people be interested in donating money to so many groups promoting social justice? What’s Ford Foundation’s interest in all the immigrants’ rights non-profit organizations that are involved in Arizona (and beyond)? While a member of the Board of Trustees at Ford Foundation is simultaneously on the Board of Directors at none other than the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)[1], Ford funds groups who have campaigns against CCA.[2] Other groups[3] also funded by Ford, are working on campaigns to counter the racist overpopulation myths that have been promoted by institutions like the Population Council who have received close to $100 million from Ford[4]. This speaks not so much of blatant hypocrisy, but that those in charge of the Ford Foundation have a completely different agenda than a lot of the groups they fund.

The publication in 2007 of the book The Revolution Will Not Be Funded put out by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence sparked discussions about the role of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC)[5] in movements. The book delves into “…the way in which capitalist interests and the state use non-profits to (1) monitor and control social justice movements; (2) divert public monies into private hands through foundations; (3) manage and control dissent in order to make the world safe for capitalism; (4) redirect activist energies into career-based modes of organizing instead of mass-based organizing capable of actually transforming society; (5) allow corporations to mask their exploitive and colonial work practices through ‘philanthropic’ work; (6) encourage social movements to model themselves after capitalist structures rather than to challenge them.”[6]

This article will focus on points one and three, addressing not only Ford’s historical involvement with the CIA and violent coups, but also their tendency to channel resistance into “reasonable” and “responsible” activities like legal defense and reform, and how their hollow push for “equality” is part of “progress” on their terms. Although there is emphasis here on the Ford Foundation and how it may impact the immigrants’ rights movement, this article also addresses funding from other foundations[7], private donors and the government, which may have similar impacts on groups, as does the desire to win over politicians, mainstream media, etc. This is about whether the world we want to live in is compatible with that of any funder or anyone in positions of power whether they’re promoting social justice or not. This is about how people orient themselves in relation to the current power structure. 


History of Manipulation

Many of us are engaged in a battle against the deeply engrained myths about overpopulation which are part of the attack on the fourteenth amendment which gives citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil. The argument that immigration means overpopulation and destruction, reeking of racism, has infiltrated various sectors of politics and activism, including environmental groups. These myths can partly be traced back to the Population Council, which Ford Foundation has been funding since 1954. What does it mean for organizations working to fight these ideas about immigrants and overpopulation to accept Ford Foundation funding?

A little context: “The 1957 report of an ad hoc committee, consisting of representatives from the Population Council…outlined the emerging strategy of population control. Titled Population: An International Dilemma, the report depicted population growth as a major threat to political stability both at home and abroad.”[8] As I have written in “Invasion by Birth Canal?” “The efforts to supposedly end poverty through population control…is actually an attempt to decrease the threats that Black/Brown and poor people’s desires for freedom and equality (or even just survival) represent to these systems,” and to deflect responsibility for the poverty which is usually due to “resource/labor extraction as part of colonialism, capitalism, and neo-liberalism.”[9] Ford Foundation and others, making themselves out to be benevolent funders of the “empowerment” and “education” of poor (brown) women, are making deflecting responsibility for poverty and environmental problems onto these same women in the U.S. and abroad.

Ford Foundation, along with other institutions has sought stability across the world including within the US. In so doing, it has made itself a player in supporting the promotion of population control, as well as Capitalist-influenced economic change that has been accompanied by coups and horrendous human rights abuses, such as in Indonesia:

“Sukarno’s independent foreign policy greatly antagonized Western powers, and during his regime international agencies such as the Ford Foundation focused on sending the country’s intellectual elite [known later as the Berkeley Mafia] abroad for training, in the hope that one day they would inherit power. Their investment paid off in 1966, when a bloody military coup, which left a million dead, brought the country’s current ruler, General Suharto, to power. Under the influence of Western-trained technocrats, Suharto embraced the philosophy of population control. Today he has become one of its most prominent spokesmen in the Third World.” Naomi Klein describes Ford’s involvement a bit more in depth, “The Berkeley Mafia had studied in the U.S. as part of a program that began in 1956… Ford-funded students became leaders of the campus groups that participated in overthrowing Sukarno, and the Berkeley Mafia worked closely with the military in the lead-up to the coup, developing ‘contingency plans’ should the government suddenly fall.”[10]

Extremely similar was Ford’s link to the 1973 coup in Chile, involving the Chicago Boys who were trained (funded by Ford) in Milton Freidman’s neo-liberal program at the University of Chicago.[11] The coup and the resulting detainment, torture, and deaths are an indirect result of Ford’s vision for stability and development.

Of course Ford Foundation is a different entity now and has turned to superficially supporting human rights efforts in response to the torture, disappearances, and murders. Yet, maybe Ford is not all that different. Naomi Klein wrote, “Given its own highly compromised history, it is hardly surprising that when Ford dived into human rights, it defined the field as narrowly as possible. The foundation strongly favored groups that framed their work as legalistic struggles for the ‘rule of law,’ ‘transparency’ and ‘good governance,’”[12] which, as we’ll see, is part of a larger pattern.

In reading about Ford, one might get the sense that they didn’t fully comprehend the implications of that which was being taught to the Chicago Boys. Compared to many other institutions, Ford Foundation hasn’t pushed a neo-liberal agenda much. However, despite the fact that they have funded projects that are critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), they have also funded organizations with a more successful pro-NAFTA stance.[13] It is commonly acknowledged that NAFTA contributed to the loss of land and jobs in Mexico and so not only is Ford tied to the myths about overpopulation, they also share responsibility for the economic/political conditions that have led to mass immigration. It also appears that they are funding research that would help facilitate Homeland Security, as well as trade and growth in the border region, something that may cause more migrants and indigenous people to face displacement and dispossession.[14]

Designed to Kill: Border Policy and How to Change it (Crimethinc)

This article is from the Crimethinc. reading library. I imagine it'll be printed in Rolling Thunder. It is definitely worth a read, really well written, and covers so much ground regarding the issues. If this piece of writing had existed 5 years ago, i probably wouldn't have felt so compelled to start my own writing on such subjects.

There are a few things I would've said differently, but one thing i especially wish it would've addressed more was the way the border impacts indigenous communities on the border. I think this is such an important piece of the puzzle, especially when so many anarchists and other anti-authoritarians support others' fight for Comprehensive Immigration Reform which would only contribute to more border militarization.

Designed to Kill: Border Policy and How to Change it

For a number of years now I’ve worked in the desert on the Mexican-American border with a group that provides humanitarian aid to migrants who are attempting to enter the United States—a journey that claims hundreds of lives every year. We’ve spent years mapping the trails that cross this desert. We walk the trails, find places to leave food and water along them, look for people in distress, and provide medical care when we run into someone who needs it. If the situation is bad enough, we can get an ambulance or helicopter to bring people to the hospital. We strive to act in accordance with the migrants’ wishes at all times, and we never call the Border Patrol on people who don’t want to turn themselves in.
During this time I’ve been a part of many extraordinary situations and I’ve heard about many more. Some of the things I’ve seen have been truly heartwarming, and some of them have been deeply sad and wrong. I’ve seen people who were too weak to stand, too sick to hold down water, hurt too badly to continue, too scared to sleep, too sad for words, hopelessly lost, desperately hungry, literally dying of thirst, never going to be able to see their children again, vomiting blood, penniless in torn shoes two thousand miles from home, suffering from heat stroke, kidney damage, terrible blisters, wounds, hypothermia, post-traumatic stress, and just about every other tribulation you could possibly think of. I’ve been to places where people were robbed and raped and murdered; my friends have found bodies. In addition to bearing witness to others’ suffering, I myself have fallen off of cliffs, torn my face open on barbed wire, run out of water, had guns pointed at me, been charged by bulls and circled by vultures, jumped over rattlesnakes, pulled pieces of cactus out of many different parts of my body with pliers, had to tear off my pants because they were full of fire ants, gotten gray hairs, and in general poured no small amount of my own sweat, blood, and tears into the thirsty desert. Read more...

Plan Mexico and the SPP/NAFTA

I realized while researching more on the merida initiative, that there is a lot of evidence that the initiative is part of the larger globalization picture, specifically as it relates to the Security and Prosperity Partnership, what some are calling "NAFTA on steroids". Please view/read the following for more info. (The video doesn't touch on NAFTA as much as the piece below, but is still informative and relevant).

InsideUSA with Avi Lewis on Al-Jazeera English (July 26)
Watch this interview with footage from the drug war and a rooftop Mexico City
interview with Laura Carlsen and Jorge Chabat on Plan Mexico, the war
on drugs and the human rights casualites of militarization:

Part One (15 minutes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyDHNeJxazU

Part Two (8 minutes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz8k39p8z4U

From "A Primer on Plan Mexico":

The NAFTA Connection

The "Merida Initiative" received its name from a meeting between Presidents Bush and Calderon in Merida, on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, in March 2007. The official story is that President Calderon, already committed to a "war on drugs" that relies heavily on the use of the army in supply interdiction, requested U.S. assistance at the Merida meeting and, after negotiations on the details, the U.S. government acceded.

With the emphasis on counter-narcotics efforts, in the lead-up to the October announcement of the package, both governments marshaled studies and statistics to support the contradictory thesis that drug-trafficking and related violence in Mexico had reached a crisis point, and that Calderon's offensive against the drug cartels was working.

This is not the real story of the plan's origins. The Bush administration's concept of a joint security strategy for North America goes back at least as far as the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) as an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).4 When the three North American leaders met in Waco, Texas in March of 2005, they put into motion a secretive process of negotiations between members of the executive branches and representatives of large corporations to facilitate cross-border business and create a shared security perimeter. Subsequent meetings, including the April 2008 trilateral summit in New Orleans, extended these goals amid mounting criticism.5

Through the SPP, the Bush administration has sought to push its North American trade partners into a common front that would assume shared responsibility for protecting the United States from terrorist threats, promoting and protecting the free-trade economic model, and bolstering U.S. global control, especially in Latin America where the State Department sees a growing threat due to the election of center-left governments. While international cooperation to confront terrorism is a laudable and necessary aim, the Bush national security strategy6 entails serious violations of national sovereignty for its partner countries, increased risk of being targeted as U.S. military allies, and threats to civil liberties for citizens in all three countries.

Moreover the counterterrorism model, exemplified by the invasion of Iraq, has by all accounts created a rise in instability and terrorist activity worldwide.

Extending the concept of North American economic integration into national security matters through the closed-door SPP raises grave questions about how security is defined and who does the defining.

Thomas Shannon, sub-secretary of Western Hemisphere affairs for the State Department put it bluntly in a speech on April 8, saying that the SPP "understands North America as a shared economic space and that as a shared economic space we need to protect it, and that we need to understand that we don't protect this economic space only at our frontiers, that it has to be protected more broadly throughout North America. And as we have worked through the Security and Prosperity Partnership to improve our commercial and trading relationship, we have also worked to improve our security cooperation. To a certain extent, we're armoring NAFTA."7

The SPP effort seeks to lock in policies that do not have consensus and have not been debated among the public and within Congress. Citizen groups in all three countries have called for a halt to SPP talks due to the lack of labor, environmental, and civilian representation, and transparency to the public. On the security front, the Bush administration's concept of military-based rather than diplomacy- and social policy-based security is strongly questioned in the United States and outright rejected among the vast majority of Mexicans and Canadians.

In this context, instead of reviewing policies and opening them up to public debate, the Bush administration has launched its boldest advance yet within the SPP context—Plan Mexico. Speculation was that the plan would be announced at the Montebello SPP meeting in August of 2007, but perhaps because of the presence of SPP protestors at that meeting President Bush delayed the official unveiling of the "Merida Initiative" several months. However, the last two SPP meetings have included discussions of Plan Mexico and the State Department has been clear about its crucial role within the overall SPP economic and security framework.

It is important to understand the roots of Plan Mexico in the Bush administration's deep integration agenda. The plan implies much more than a temporary aid program for fighting drug cartels. It structurally revamps the basis of the binational relationship in ways meant to permanently emphasize military aspects over much-needed development aid and modifications in trade and investment policy. The scope of the Regional Security Cooperation Initiative demonstrates that it goes far beyond a joint war on drugs and cements into place failed policies on immigration enforcement, militarization of the border, economic integration policies, counterterrorism attacks on civil liberties, and the intromission of security forces into social policy and international diplomacy. To do this, the outgoing Bush administration has relied on the support of two economically dependent allies to try to assure that its policies will be irreversible under a Democratic presidency in the United States.8

The Problem with "Illegal"

a flier i made (you can download it at the end):

Have you been duped into believing that a person can be an "illegal"? Why is a person who speeds not called an illegal? Is it not obvious that there are some unfair standards put towards undocumented immigrants, their offense often simply a civil misdemeanor?

The argument goes something like this: undocumented immigrants have entered or stayed in the U.S. in a manner that is against the law, and therefore they are subject to consequences and less rights. This argument is made to appear simple and reasonable, yet there are various problems with it. We must question why breakers of immigration laws (particularly specific breakers of these laws) are targeted more than breakers of other laws. The existence of these laws must be questioned in the first place.

Some out there are saying that people, including kids who die crossing the desert to come into the U.S. deserve it because they are "illegal". The same is said about the people who are dying in custody after raids. The same is said about the mothers who don't know where their children are because they were separated in a raid. The same is said about women who get assaulted by ICE agents.

Different Laws, Different Standards
Laws are broken everyday, but somehow the immigration laws are regarded to be more important. It is widely assumed, because of the way it is discussed, that entering and/or over-staying in the U.S. illegally is a criminal offense. However, technically speaking it is a civil misdemeanor, unless the person has re-entered after being deported, in which case it is a more serious offense. Opponents of "illegal" immigration state that immigrants should migrate legally. In reality this is quite impossible for most people. And you can bet that if it was possible for all the people who need to enter to do so, the laws would change to make it nearly impossible. Despite these points, "illegal" immigration is treated as worse than most other crimes and is often intentionally associated with terrorism, murder, and rape. This, despite that fact that studies have shown that the crime rate among undocumented immigrants are lower than that of citizens. Terms such as "illegal alien" are used to demonize a certain group of people while other crimes go overlooked.

Although employers of undocumented immigrants are now being targeted for providing jobs to those who have crossed the border, they are targeted only on the basis that they are providing jobs and livelihood (as limited as it is) to undocumented immigrants. Employers have not significantly been persecuted for crimes such as human rights violations. In the months since the immigration employment issue came to the forefront, many things have been exposed such as sweat-shop conditions, child labor, people often not getting paid, people held as slaves, people provided with horrible housing conditions, etc. These crimes are not seen as important as the crime of stepping across a man-made boundary. As elaborated on below, various abuses have been committed by law enforcement officials and border security including poor treatment of detainees, sexual assault against women, and the dividing of families. Imagine if all people who dumped toxic chemicals on the land and water were treated like undocumented immigrants are now. What kind of world would have to exist for that to happen?

The same day news came out about the large number of illegal music and movie downloads by college students, news also broke about a game played by NYU republican students called "Find the Illegal Immigrant". Would college republicans or any students for that matter ever start hunting illegal downloaders? Why aren't illegal downloaders called "illegals"? This is just one example of the many crimes committed by citizens or companies that are not seen as serious as people crossing a border to seek a better life.

Laws Can be Racist
The law has historically been racist. Genocide, slavery, internment camps- most people today can agree that these things were wrong. But they were completely legal. It was illegal for slaves to escape. Even after slavery, we know that many racist laws were left on the books and new ones were made. Many people today have a concept of the law as something infallible that everyone has agreed is best for the well-being of all (well, every citizen maybe), yet it certainly was not during the time of slavery, nor during the times treaties with native people were broken, nor when thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans were put in internment camps. It is not as though Euro-Americans all just had to learn a lesson and there was no opposition to those laws back then. Why is the law not to be questioned now?

Immigration and deportation policies have historically been shaped around prejudices against people of certain origins. The attitudes that brought on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, that the Chinese were taking jobs and lowering wages, mirror a lot of those towards Mexican migrants and others today (these attitudes were held about black people for decades after slavery ended as well). This illustrates that laws are created to protect white/European people- who are descendants of immigrants themselves. Back then blatant racism was more acceptable and therefore the first "illegal" immigrants were a group from a specific country: China. Although certain newer European immigrants and those from various other countries faced prejudice and discrimination, Chinese immigrants saw this, as well as much violence.

For the next forty years, many groups and individual non-citizens were deported because they were seen as political threats to the country. Then in 1924, the National Origins Quota passed, which was due to World War I-related fears of foreign people. It strictly limited immigration from eastern and southern Europe. Later in 1952, quotas for immigration from Asian countries were severely limited. Much of the organizing later in the civil rights era led to the abolishment of the National Origins Quota. Shortly after 9/11, the federal government broke its own laws holding various immigrants from mostly Middle-Eastern countries in custody for too long without deporting them or charging them with any crime. And today we have people trying to make English the official language while at the same time making it harder for undocumented people to learn English, among other examples targeting people seen as different and unwanted.

Criminalizing People is a Political Act
People of color, especially poor people from other countries are often seen as outsiders and of lesser value. Therefore action is taken to keep certain privileges and even rights from those people. The primary way this is done is to designate certain people as criminals by making acts that are associated by a certain group of people illegal, or worsening the consequences if it is already illegal. The use of the law to criminalize people, to disempower them, and disenfranchise them, is a tool of racism. Today "racism" is taboo and therefore most efforts are made to avoid seeming racist. People are "justified" in having certain attitudes about certain groups of people, or the state is "justified" in imprisoning and exploiting certain groups of people because they've been made criminals. So now it's not called racism, it's called the rule of law.

An example of current racist laws besides those relating to immigration may be useful here. The drug war is an interesting one. There are interesting statistics on the disproportionate rate at which people of color are stopped by law enforcement, searched, arrested, imprisoned, their sentences often made longer. Despite crack and cocaine being very similar, crack tends to be associated with people of color, while cocaine, being more expensive, tends to be more associated with white non-poor people. Not surprisingly, the consequences of possessing crack are far worse than for possessing cocaine. Drugs in general are more associated with people of color, and so therefore we have a very high rate of prisoners imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses, while richer (white) people can exploit people and the earth everyday and get away with it. (International aspects of the drug war are relevant here as well, but let us move on.)

New Laws Created to Discourage Immigration and Disempower
Immigration policy is constructed to make it difficult and slow, and mostly impossible, especially for poor people, to become legal residents or citizens. It is commonly known that it is not possible to deport everyone who is undocumented and therefore new laws are popping up that further criminalize people and keep even more opportunities from them. For instance, there are efforts to make "illegal" immigration a felony. There are also efforts to keep babies born of undocumented parents from being considered citizens, thereby changing the constitution. People who say "They're illegal, that's why they should leave," are also trying to make it illegal for undocumented immigrants to rent, to work, to get educated, and to get health care. In essence, their very livelihood is at risk. Despite the fact that many anti-immigrant folks don't agree with the business community and those who legislate for them, both become winners. Token amounts of people are deported, jailed, separated from their families, and discouraged to live in various towns, while they can be further criminalized and made more desperate and therefore more easy to exploit by businesses.

The Government Breaks the Law
This is not a country that holds everyone to the same standards. After all, the U. S. government has not been held to its own standards for having broken plenty of laws and continuing to do so. They've broken many treaties, they've stolen land, they've lied, they've cheated, they've murdered. There are various international laws that have been broken by the U.S.

Crimes are committed probably everyday by law enforcement officials and armed services members such as rape and sexual assault, police brutality, murder, racial profiling, and even drug running. Not only do they do those things, but they have more ability to do them with the power of their badges and guns. And the punishment for their crimes if/when caught are nearly always much less severe than those who have committed similar crimes but are not police, prison guards, border patrol, or military.

A border patrol agent served under 3 years in prison of his 24 year sentence for sexually assaulting an undocumented woman in 1992. ICE has deported several legal residents of the US without consequence. Border patrol often harasses and points their guns at native O'odham people whose land straddles the border. Many military and border patrol officials have been caught running drugs across the border on several occasions yet undocumented immigrants get the sole blame for, and stereotypes due to, the cross-border drug trade. Does that sound fair?

The Bigger Picture Matters
The question isn't asked why people have little or no choice but to use illegal means to work in this country. The combination of capitalism, NAFTA, and corrupt government has created a situation where it is nearly impossible for the large population of poor Mexican and Central and South American people to survive without entering the U.S. for work. Many have had to abandon their land. U.S. citizens' hands are not clean of this situation. Yet the solutions promoted are band aid approaches that involve building more walls, deporting more people, creating more situations where people can be exploited (like a guest worker program). These methods cost billions of dollars, though undocumented immigrants are accused of being drains on the economy (and of course we can't blame the warmongers). Many of these methods, such as building the border walls and shipping out immigrants by airplane are also costly for the environment. Also, U.S. companies are taking jobs out of the country, yet the people coming in are blamed for the lack of jobs. Plain and simple: people choose to ignore the larger picture, and instead scapegoat the people who have no control over the situation. This works in the favor of those with power and money to maintain the economic and color divisions between people.

There is no other way to see this situation other than the value of certain people's lives are treated as lower than others'. In other words, people who were born on one side of a man-made line are by default less important than those who were born on the other side (although race, class, and gender all factor into that equation, making it a bit more complicated). These attitudes regarding people's value is the reason behind the criminalization of undocumented immigration, not because undocumented immigration is wrong. The government breaks laws, not all laws and law breakers are held to the same standards, the law has historically been racist, and even the existing laws don't seem to be enough for some people. Why do these facts not tend to factor into the discussion on immigration? We should instead shift the focus onto real solutions to problems that affect the Americas, starting with corrupt government and economic policies, and the value placed on people based on where they're from.

http://deletetheborder.org/files/the%20problem%20with%20illegal2.pdf