Don’t Punish the Dreamers—Punish the Corporations Driving Forced Migration

By David Bacon, Working In These Times

September 11, 2017

The "dreamers," young recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program—are the true children of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). More than anyone, they have paid the price for the agreement. Yet they are the ones punished by the administration of

Photo: David  Bacon

President Donald Trump, as it takes away their legal status, ability to work and right to live in this country without fear of arrest or deportation. At the same time, those responsible for the fact they grew up in the United States walk away unpunished—and even better off.

I’m not talking about their parents. It's common for liberal politicians—and even Trump himself, on occasion—to say these young people shouldn't be punished for the "crimes" of their parents, who brought their children with them when they crossed the border without papers. But parents aren't criminals any more than their children are. They chose survival over hunger, and sought to keep their families together and give them a future.

The perpetrators of the "crime" are those who wrote the trade treaties and the economic reforms that made forced migration the only means for families to survive. The "crime" was NAFTA.[…]

Read the full article:

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/20506/NAFTA-DACA-dreamers-immigrants-rights-workers-Mexico-Donald-Trump

https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2017/09/justice-for-dreamers-punish-authors-of.html

And read two new reviews of David Bacon’s In the Fields of the North:

https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2017/09/in-fields-of-north-two-new-reviews-two.html