Free Trade and Immigration, Mexican Experience under nafta
| Autor | Federico Suárez Ricaurte |
| Cargo del Autor | Bachelor of Law, Externado de Colombia University |
| Páginas | 89-121 |
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Free Trade and Immigration, Mexican
Experience under *
Federico Suárez Ricaurte**
e main argument that I will develop in this essay is that free
trade, as a relevant component of economic globalization, is a
major cause of immigration. e general assumption of free
trade is that every nation should specialize in the production
of the goods and services in which they have comparative
advantage. According to this idea, every nation has to produce
the commodities that each nation is able to produce, maxi-
mizing its factors of production, and trade with each other,
to satisfy and complement their own needs.
* I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Maria Camila Camargo,
for its great contribution in terms research for this article.
** Bachelor of Law, Externado de Colombia University. Master in Human
Rights and Democratization, Externado de Colombia University in agreement with
Carlos III de Madrid University. in International Commercial Law with Inter-
national Law, Kent Law School, Kent University (Canterbury, England). Visiting
researcher at the Transnational Law Institute, King’s College of London. Professor
and researcher of the Constitutional Law Department of Externado de Colombia
University. Director of the line of research on ird World Approaches to Interna-
tional Law ( ) and Critical Analysis of International Investment Law. Email:
federico.suarez@uexternado.edu.co
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Derecho internacional: investigación, estudio y enseñanza
However, behind of this theory there are important inter-
ests of largest corporations and of powerful countries to export
their goods, services and capitals overseas. e outcome of
that competition is that developing countries suer economic
crisis, social dislocation, important ows of immigration,
and breakdown of their domestic production of agricultural and
industrial goods.
One of the most useful cases that illustrates this pattern,
is the Mexican one under the North American Free Trade
Agreement, , in which United States and its corpora-
tions has considerably caused severe damages to the Mexican
economy. In the last decades that trade also has caused the
most serious immigration corridors of low skilled and undo-
cumented immigrants in the world.
Analytically, I will focus on three dierent concepts: (i)
labour rights of immigrants, (ii) economic globalization, and
(iii) sovereignty and free trade. Empirically, I will base my
argument on surveys by United Nations, the World Bank and
the International Labour Organization () about immi-
gration, and on ocial statistics that highlight the extent of
immigration economically. Methodologically, I will analyze
the Mexican-United States case, in order to illustrate the
problem related to economic globalization and its relation
to immigration.1
I will develop my argument in this essay in four sections;
rstly, I will explain the main characteristics of immigration.
I will emphasize mainly in undocumented and low skilled
1 Amanda Perry-Kessaris, “Approaching the Econo - Socio- Legal.” Annual
Review of Law & Social Science, vol. 11, 2015, p. 57. In this article the author sug-
gests a methodology that is compound by three parts: analytically, empirically and
normatively. One of these categories refers to a dierent aspect of a research.
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Free Trade and Immigration, Mexican Experience under
immigration, rather than in high skilled and permanent
immigrants. Secondly, I will refer to the main features of
economic globalization and immigration and I will explain
the governance framework of this topic in which there are
institutions like , and - . irdly, I will refer
to the case of Mexico-United States to illustrate how eco-
nomic globalization causes immigration, and in particular,
how this phenomenon is a consequence of the economic
relations with the United States under the North American
Free Trade Agreement, . Finally, I will argue some
conclusions about the economic impact of immigration under
globalization.
Main Characteristics of Immigration
Martin Ruhs classies immigrants in two dierent categories.2
Firstly, he refers to “skilled workers” or qualied people that
immigrate to developed nations searching for better employ-
ment opportunities. ese migrants also have savings to invest
in their destination country. Ruhs argues that the policy of
developed nations for this kind of migrants is “openness for
rights.” e exchange is that developed nations provide them
rights and benets of the welfare state, whilst skilled workers
invest their savings and knowledge in the destination country.
As a consequence of the “openness for rights” policy, deve-
loping countries suer a brain drain eect, because they lost
high skilled workers and the savings that these people have
to invest. One example of this group of migrants is the case of
Mexico and the U.S. e United Stated has a particular kind
2 Martin Ruhs, e Price of Rights Regulating International Labor Migration.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.
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