Re: CAFTA undermines immigration laws

[johnwe...@lycos.com]

Bunn E. Rabbit wrote:
> "In reality, CAFTA is about expanding a growing body of international
> law that supersedes our own."
>
> --
> Keith
>
> http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/07/18/opinion/commentary/71705195445.txt
>
> CAFTA undermines immigration laws
>
> By: TOM TANCREDO - Commentary
>
> Congress will soon take up the Central American Free Trade Agreement
> (CAFTA), which many see as an extension of NAFTA and a precursor to
> the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas that would convert all of
> North and South America into one integrated market.
>
> Opinions about CAFTA's impact on the regional economy vary widely
> among members of Congress based largely on what the agreement will do
> for their constituents. But in the rush to highlight who wins and who
> loses when these trade barriers come down, almost everyone has
> overlooked the troubling non-trade provisions that are tucked into the
> voluminous document.
>
> CAFTA would do more than just phase out tariffs and open new markets
> ---- a lot more. For example, buried among its nearly 1,000 pages, the
> agreement contains an expansive definition of "cross-border trade in
> services." This definition would give people in Central American
> nations a de facto right to work in the United States. CAFTA is more
> than a trade agreement about sugar and bananas. It is a thinly
> disguised immigration accord.
>
> The immigration provisions are cloaked as "service agreements" in the
> document that have become standard fare in most trade agreements.
>
> One article of CAFTA reads, "Cross-border trade in services or
> cross-border supply of services means the supply of a service ... by a
> national of a party in the territory of another party." CAFTA goes on
> to stipulate that member nations take care to ensure that local and
> national "measures relating to qualification requirements and
> procedures, technical standards and licensing requirements do not
> constitute unnecessary barriers to trade in services," and to
> guarantee that our domestic laws are "not in themselves a restriction
> on the supply of the service."
>
> What those provisions mean is that a foreign company would be
> empowered under CAFTA to challenge the validity of our immigration
> laws. If an international tribunal rules against us, Congress would
> then be forced to change our immigration laws or face international
> trade sanctions. These tribunals have the authority to rule that U.S.
> immigration limits, visa requirements, or even licensing requirements
> and zoning rules are "unnecessary burdens to trade" that act as
> "restrictions on the supply of a service."
>
> This hidden legislation to open the U.S. border is only the beginning.
>
> The chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, which oversees
> most international trade matters, believes that these kinds of
> immigration provisions are fair game for future trade deals as well.
>
> If CAFTA were really just about trade, the agreement would be little
> more than a few pages long, declaring that tariff treatment for U.S.
> and Central American goods will be on a reciprocal basis. But it
> isn't. In reality, CAFTA is about expanding a growing body of
> international law that supersedes our own.
>
> If CAFTA is approved, Congress' "exclusive" authority to regulate
> immigration policy will be subjugated to the whim of international
> tribunals and trade panels ---- in much the same way that Congress'
> once supreme constitutional authority to "regulate commerce with
> foreign nations," has already been largely ceded to the WTO.
>
> Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., is a member of the House International
> Relations Committee.
>
> -------------------------------------
>
> Fed up with illegal immigration?
> _____
>
> http://www.rescuewithoutborders.org/index.html
> http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/listarticles.cgi?117
> http://www.saveourstate.org
> http://idexer.com
> http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frostyA.htm
> http://www.americanpatrol.com/LINKS/LINKS.html
> http://www.vdare.com/links.htm
> http://www.stoptheinvasion.com/links/
> http://fairus.org/
> http://numbersusa.com/index
>
>
> _____
>
> "Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death
> of a sparrow in the corner of a barn." -Anouk Aimee, French Actor
> _____
>
> "Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny", Aeschylus (525BC-456BC),
> Agamemnon
> _____
>
> "I wear no Burka." - Mother Nature
>
> ----------
> To send mail: remove hutch

I hope readers will contact their folks in Congress. Here is access
site:

http://www.uisi.com/juan/congress

or any search engine will provide easy contact.

John