<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><i class="">New fact sheet from the Sierra Club, LCLAA and the Center for Popular Democracy is attached<br class=""></i><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class=""><b class="">The Huffington Post Blog</b></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-type-ds gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-name-post-date gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-label-hidden" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(56, 56, 56); font-size: 14px;"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-items"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-item gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718even">May 1, 2017</div></div></div><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-name-title gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-type-ds gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-label-hidden" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; clear: left; color: rgb(56, 56, 56); font-size: 14px;"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-items"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-item gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718even"><h2 style="line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px; font-size: 30px; color: rgb(73, 73, 73); font-family: proxima-nova, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; padding-top: 0px;" class=""><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/today-we-march-to-stop-deportations-tomorrow-to-replace_us_59075097e4b05279d4edbe27" target="_blank" class="">Today We March to Stop Deportations. Tomorrow, to Replace NAFTA.</a></h2></div></div></div><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-type-ds gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-name-byline-block gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-label-hidden" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; padding-bottom: 10px; color: rgb(56, 56, 56); font-size: 14px;"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-items"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-item gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718even"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-view-display-id-block_5 gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-view-id-blog_sidebars gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-view gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-view-blog-sidebars gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-view-dom-id-52982d464d5f964a19f5d26b041a1a9d"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-view-content"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-views-row-1 gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-views-row"><span class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-byline-by">By</span> <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/other/authors/ben-beachy" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">Ben Beachy</a></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-label-hidden gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-name-body gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-type-text-with-summary" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(56, 56, 56); font-size: 14px;"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-items"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-item gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718even"><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.91071em;" class="">Today, hundreds of thousands of people are stopping work, joining <a href="https://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/rise-up/?utm_source=Rise-Up-May-1st&utm_campaign=sierra_club" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">immigrant-led rallies</a>, and resisting <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-administration-moving-quickly-to-build-up-nationwide-deportation-force/2017/04/12/7a7f59c2-1f87-11e7-be2a-3a1fb24d4671_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_immigration-240pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.07dacbc5d7bb" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">Trump’s deportation machine</a>. Led by immigrant workers, today our broad movement marches together to make clear we will not sit quietly as immigrant families are torn apart.</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">I’m marching today because <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/us/phoenix-guadalupe-garcia-de-rayos.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">parents are being taken from their children</a>. Careers are being upended. Communities are being <a href="http://wamu.org/story/17/02/16/northern-virginia-immigration-raids-put-families-edge/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">divided by fear and loss</a>.</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">For many people who face deportation, this is not the first time they’ve been forced to leave home. Many had to leave family behind in making a painful decision to come to the U.S. in the first place.</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">This raises a critical question often missing when politicians discuss immigration: Why? Why do people decide to leave their family and friends, embark on a life-threatening journey, and start over in a country that may treat them as second-class citizens?</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">Among the many answers is an underreported fact: <strong class="">Unfair trade deals have contributed to the economic instability that has forced many immigrants to leave home</strong>. That’s the conclusion of <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/blog/Immigration%20Factsheet.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">a new factsheet</a> the Sierra Club is releasing today with the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and the Center for Popular Democracy – partners who fight for the rights of immigrant workers.</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">Corporate deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have eliminated jobs and destabilized communities not just in the U.S. and Canada, but also in Mexico and Central America. And thanks to handouts to corporate polluters, these trade deals also contribute to climate change. These impacts, along with other root causes, have fed increasing insecurity, displacement, and violence, forcing many to leave their homes.</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class=""><strong class="">I’m marching today because no one should be forced to leave their home and family, whether by unfair trade, climate change, or a knock at the door from Trump’s immigration agents.</strong></div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">We need new approaches to immigration and trade that keep communities and families intact, that support rather than destroy livelihoods, and that allow people to stay, if they wish, in whatever place they call home.</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class=""><em class=""><strong class="">NAFTA and Forced Migration</strong></em></div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class=""><a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/replace-nafta" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">NAFTA</a> – the 1994 trade deal between Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. – largely succeeded in its core objective: boosting the profits of multinational corporations. <strong class="">NAFTA gave corporations – but not humans – the freedom to cross borders</strong>, allowing them to seek out the lowest wages, the weakest labor and environmental standards, and new opportunities to consolidate power.</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">For millions of workers and family farmers throughout North America, this contributed to job loss, wage stagnation, polluted communities, and displacement. In Mexico, many who lost their livelihoods under NAFTA faced few options beyond leaving home and trying to start over in the U.S. Consider these facts, detailed in <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/blog/Immigration%20Factsheet.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">our new factsheet</a>: </div><ul style="margin: 1.21429em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px;" class=""><li dir="ltr" class=""><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.91071em;" class="">NAFTA enabled U.S. agribusiness giants to effectively “dump” corn on the Mexican market, contributing to a 66 percent <a href="http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/AgricDumpingWoodrowWilsonCenter.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">drop</a> in price for Mexico’s corn farmers. During the 1990s, at least <strong class="">one million farmers in Mexico were <a href="http://www.epi.org/files/page/-/old/briefingpapers/173/bp173.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">driven</a> out of corn production</strong>. In NAFTA’s first five years, while Mexico’s imports of U.S. corn <a href="https://apps.fas.usda.gov/gats/default.aspx" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">doubled</a>, extreme poverty <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/539241468752996263/pdf/286120ME.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">spread</a> to more than half of Mexico’s rural population.</div></li><li dir="ltr" class=""><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.91071em;" class="">Manufacturing jobs initially grew in Mexico under NAFTA, as corporations laid off U.S. workers and <a href="https://epi.3cdn.net/fdade52b876e04793b_7fm6ivz2y.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">moved</a> to Mexico to take advantage of lower wages and environmental standards. But <strong class="">by 2001 those same corporations were already <a href="http://www.epi.org/files/page/-/old/briefingpapers/173/bp173.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">leaving</a> Mexico</strong> in search of still-cheaper labor in countries like China, which joined the World Trade Organization that year. The “race to the bottom” of the corporate trade model did not serve workers in Mexico any more than their laid-off counterparts in Michigan. </div></li><li dir="ltr" class=""><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.91071em;" class="">While wages in Mexico have remained <a href="http://www.sat.gob.mx/informacion_fiscal/tablas_indicadores/Documents/salarios_minimos_historico.xls" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">stagnant</a> under NAFTA, the cost of living has <a href="http://elinpc.com.mx/canasta-basica-mexicana/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">soared</a>. <strong class="">The price of tortillas, for example, more than <a href="http://dspace.africaportal.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/113/1/NAFTA%20Corn%20and%20Mexicos%20Agricultural%20Trade%20Liberalization.pdf?1" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">tripled</a> in NAFTA’s first decad</strong>e, in part because the deal helped a few large agribusinesses solidify their <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=anzsAwAAQBAJ&q=NAFTA+GIMSA+MINSA+tortilla#v=snippet&q=NAFTA%20GIMSA%20MINSA%20tortilla&f=false" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">monopoly</a> power.</div></li><li dir="ltr" class=""><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.91071em;" class="">Whether they lost their farm, job, or ability to make ends meet, many people in Mexico had to confront a difficult reality: Staying at home was no longer a viable option. Millions headed north. <strong class="">In NAFTA’s first seven years, immigration from Mexico to the U.S. more than <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2012/04/PHC-Net-Migration-from-Mexico-Falls-to-Zero.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">doubled</a></strong>.</div></li></ul><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class=""><em class=""><strong class="">CAFTA and Forced Migration</strong></em></div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">CAFTA largely replicated the NAFTA model, expanding it to Central America in 2006. The evidence suggests that the deal has exacerbated economic instability, doing more to inflame than to reduce the <a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/understanding-central-american-refugee-crisis" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">violence</a> in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala that is forcing people to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/world/americas/fleeing-gangs-central-american-families-surge-toward-us.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">flee</a> northward:</div><ul style="margin: 1.21429em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px;" class=""><li dir="ltr" class=""><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.91071em;" class="">As in Mexico, <strong class="">family farmers in these three countries endured a <a href="https://apps.fas.usda.gov/gats/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">doubling</a> of agricultural imports</strong> from U.S. agribusinesses in CAFTA’s first decade. In each country, rural poverty persisted or <a href="http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">grew</a>.</div></li><li dir="ltr" class=""><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.91071em;" class="">And as with Mexico, <strong class="">the promise of increased manufacturing jobs evaporated almost immediately</strong>. In El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, exports to the U.S. of apparel products – CAFTA’s supposed gift to Central America – actually <a href="https://dataweb.usitc.gov/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">dropped</a> 23 percent in the deal’s first year, as corporations sought cheaper labor elsewhere.</div></li><li dir="ltr" class=""><div style="margin: 0px 0px 0.91071em;" class="">A multi-year drought, likely <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/422132/icode/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">exacerbated</a> by climate change, has made matters <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-immigration-idUSKBN1442Z0" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">worse</a> by <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-br092e.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">devastating</a> h<wbr class="">arvests in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. In a United Nations survey of the three countries, <strong class="">families repeatedly cited the drought as a <a href="http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/liaison_offices/wfp277544.pdf?_ga=2.9965298.61269491.1493307235-1911944912.1493307235" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">reason</a> that their family members had decided to leave home and migrate north</strong>. While climate change contributes to forced migration, corporate trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA <a href="https://content.sierraclub.org/creative-archive/sites/content.sierraclub.org.creative-archive/files/pdfs/0642-NAFTA%20Report_05_low.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">contribute</a> to climate change, by encouraging increased dependency on climate-polluting industrial agriculture and fossil fuels.</div></li></ul><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class=""><strong class=""><em class="">Time to Transform Trade and Immigration</em></strong></div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">To stop tearing apart families and communities across the U.S., we urgently need a moratorium on deportations. Meanwhile, to stop fueling the instability that forces people from home, we urgently need <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/transformtrade" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">a fundamentally new approach to trade</a> – one that supports workers, healthy communities, and climate justice in all countries.</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class=""><strong class="">To achieve this <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/compass/2017/04/four-ways-our-trade-vision-beats-trump-s" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 158, 224);" class="">vision of trade justice</a> built on solidarity, we must reject the xenophobic approach of Donald Trump</strong>, which is rooted in border walls, attacks on immigrants, and climate change denial.</div><div style="margin: 0.91071em 0px;" class="">We can take steps toward our vision by expanding our intersectional movement, recognizing that the struggles to transform trade, tackle climate change, and support immigrants cannot be separated. We move forward, as in the streets today, by marching together.</div></div></div></div><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-label-hidden gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-name-field-post-byline gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-type-entityreference" style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 10px; padding-top: 10px; background-image: url(http://sites/www.sierraclub.org/themes/dotOrg/images/story-divider.png); font-style: italic; color: rgb(56, 56, 56); font-size: 14px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-items"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-item gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718even"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-node gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-node-author gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-clearfix gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-ds-1col gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-node-teaser gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-view-mode-teaser" style="margin-bottom: 1.21429em;"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-label-hidden gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-name-field-byline gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-type-text-long"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-items"><div class="gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718gmail-field-item gmail-m_5591944535777196383m_5341943023339595718even"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 4px;" class="">Ben Beachy is a senior policy advisor for the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program.</p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>