Immigration Politics – Cal 2013 – Starter Packet

Mexico Neg

Mexico Link UQ

US engagement is decreasing

Priest 5-1

[Dana. Latin American Reporter for the Washington Post. “U.S. role to decrease as Mexico’s drug-war strategy shifts” The Washington Post, 5/1/13 ln//GBS-JV]

For the past seven years, Mexico and the United States have forged an unparalleled alliance against Mexico’s drug cartels, one based on sharing sensitive intelligence, U.S. training and joint operational planning.¶ But much of that hard-earned cooperation may be in jeopardy.¶ President Obama heads off Thursday on a three-day visit to Mexico to cement relations with the newly elected president, Enrique Peña Nieto, with vows of neighborly kinship and future cooperation.¶ Obama’s visit comes as the fight over border security and immigration overhaul has begun to consume Congress.¶ The December inauguration of Peña Nieto brought the nationalistic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) back to power after 13 years, and with it a whiff of resentment over the deep U.S. involvement in Mexico’s fight against narco-traffickers.¶ The new administration has shifted priorities away from the U.S.-backed strategy of arresting kingpins, which sparked an unprecedented level of violence among the cartels, and toward an emphasis on prevention and keeping Mexico’s streets safe and calm, Mexican authorities said.

Hold any of their link uniqueness claims to a high threshold – US actions never reflect diplomatic rhetoric

Padgett 5-27

[Timothy. Latin America Reporter for TIME “Why China Is Behind Fresh U.S. Moves In Latin America” WLRN – South Florida 5/27/13 http://wlrn.org/post/why-china-behind-fresh-us-moves-latin-america//GBS-JV]

There are of course skeptics. I asked Robert Pastor, a former White House national security advisor for Latin America and now an international relations professor at American University in Washington, D.C., if he thinks the U.S. is doing enough to keep itself relevant in the Americas.¶ “No it’s not,” he says. “President Obama’s trip (to Mexico and Central America) is a good first step, but he needs to do a lot more to open up and show America’s interest in re-engaging with the rest of South America.”¶ Pastor has a point: for decades, Latin America has heard a lot of rhetoric from the U.S. about engagement -- the kind Biden offered the Council of the Americas in Washington recently, when he declared that the hemisphere “matters more (to the U.S.) today because it has more potential than any time in American history.”

Recent attempts at engagement have failed

Zissis ‘12

[Carin. Mexico Analyst for the Council of the Americas. “Mexico’s Peña Nieto Visits Washington to Refocus Relations” 11/27/12 http://www.as-coa.org/articles/mexico%E2%80%99s-pe%C3%B1a-nieto-visits-washington-refocus-relations//GBS-JV]

But it appears the American public may not have read the good news. A November 20 Vianovo and GSD&M survey found that half of Americans have an unfavorable view of Mexico, with “drugs” being the word most frequently associated with it. As many as 59 percent of those surveyed viewed Mexico as a source of problems compared to just 14 percent considering it a good partner. This perception persists, even as signs indicate a turning tide in terms of the drug-related violence that marked the six-year term of outgoing President Felipe Calderón. An AnimalPolitico analysis (translated into English by InSight Crime) reports that 20 of Mexico’s 32 states saw fewer homicides between January and October in 2012 compared to the same period last year. Areas associated with high rates of violence saw notable drops, with homicides decreasing by 32 percent in Chihuahua, 25 percent in Nuevo Leon, and 23 percent in Sinaloa. Last month, Ciudad Juarez logged fewer homicides than Chicago. “[A]re we still in a security crisis?” asks the article’s author, Mexican security expert Alejandro Hope. “I would say no: crime and violence continue (and will continue for a while) at unacceptable levels, but it can no longer be so easily argued that the situation is escalating out of control.”

More evidence – even recent attempts at improved relations will fail – too many barriers

Farnsworth 5-8

[Eric. Leader of the Washington Office of the Council of the Americas. He was the Clinton Administration’s Senior Adviser to the White House Special Envoy for the Americas. “Obama’s Mexico Trip Yielded Progress, Missed Opportunities” 5/8/13 http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12934/obama-s-mexico-trip-yielded-progress-missed-opportunities//GBS-JV]

At the same time, a number of obstacles to growth must be addressed if the bilateral relationship is to reach its full potential. Many of these are domestic issues that each nation should resolve for its own self-interest but that would nonetheless meaningfully improve the bilateral economic relationship. Among these are, from Mexico’s side, reforms in fiscal, energy and competition policy, as well as the continuing implementation of labor and education reforms. Working with Mexico’s other two main political parties, Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolution Party (PRI) has successfully begun the reform process. But the Mexican president’s honeymoon period is coming to an end, and the most difficult issues remain unresolved.¶ From the U.S. perspective, comprehensive immigration reform would boost the economy by regularizing, and therefore capitalizing on, immigrant workers already in the United States contributing to economic production. The United States would also do well to quickly pass the transboundary hydrocarbons agreement with Mexico, which would open up opportunities for cooperation with Mexican state energy company Pemex in the Gulf of Mexico.

More evidence – instances of increased cooperation are meaningless in the context of our DA

Farnsworth 5-8

[Eric. Leader of the Washington Office of the Council of the Americas. He was the Clinton Administration’s Senior Adviser to the White House Special Envoy for the Americas. “Obama’s Mexico Trip Yielded Progress, Missed Opportunities” 5/8/13 http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12934/obama-s-mexico-trip-yielded-progress-missed-opportunities//GBS-JV]

The president’s visit to Mexico was timely and symbolically important. It was designed to shift the narrative about U.S.-Mexico relations, and several concrete initiatives were announced. But the trip seemingly did little to promote or capture a larger ambition for the relationship. Both sides will need to think bigger to take the relationship to the next level.

The turn to economics is not substantive – the security focus will return and there’s no coherent economic agenda

Fossett ‘13

[Katelyn, “In U.S.-Mexico Relations, a Shift from Security to Economy,” Interpress Service News, www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/in-u-s-mexico-relations-a-shift-from-security-to-economy///GBS-JV]

Development’s Achilles heel¶ Still, for a country like Mexico that is still struggling with issues of citizen security and rampant crime, many suggest that economic growth would have to start from the bottom, with more robust social programmes and safety nets, before the international community becomes too optimistic about economic and trade booms.¶ Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America programme at the Wilson Center, calls Latin America “far behind” in developing policies that might leverage inclusive growth.¶ “There is not a sense of shared responsibility … when your social policy is remittance, when your lack of social policy is permitted,” she told reporters on Friday. The region, she said, needs “a widespread recognition of the role the private sector needs to play in paying taxes, improving government … [and] institutions.”¶ In a telephone interview with IPS, she noted that the U.S. relationship with Central America is likely to remain more focused on security concerns.¶ “There is a growing consensus in the development community that sustainable growth can’t and will not happen unless levels of violence are brought under control,” she told IPS.¶ The World Bank recently called citizen insecurity the “Achilles’ heel of development” in Latin America.¶ Members of the U.S. Congress and advocacy groups here are also wary of turning a blind eye to human rights concerns in Mexico.¶ “The dire human rights situation in Mexico is not going to solve itself,” Maureen Meyer, a senior associate for Mexico and Central America with the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an advocacy group, said in a statement.¶ “As the bilateral agenda evolves, it is critical that the U.S. and Mexican governments continue to focus on how best to support and defend human rights in Mexico.”¶ In a press release issued last week, WOLA expressed agreement with a letter from 23 members of Congress to Secretary of State John Kerry that stressed that “[t]he human rights crisis will not improve until there are stronger legal protections, increased human rights training for Mexico’s security forces, and more government agents held responsible for the human rights violations they commit.”¶ Even as the focus of U.S.-Mexico relations turns to economics, there is no broad agreement on how exactly a shift toward trade relations will strengthen the “economic competitiveness” of both countries.¶ “Part of the challenge is that we have this term, but we have a laundry list of issues that could fit into that term,” the Mexico Institute’s Chris Wilson said.¶ “What we still don’t have is a coherent agenda or a way in which the leadership from the top level can engage the public or business community or civil society … and create something more [meaningful],” he told IPS.

Some collaboration might be inevitable, but the increase in economic engagement facilitated by the plan is distinct

Stratfor ‘13

[Stratfor Global Intelligence. “ Evolving U.S.-Mexico Relations and Obama's Visit” 5/2/13 http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/evolving-us-mexico-relations-and-obamas-visit //GBS-JV]

Domestic political factors will determine the success of the pending overhauls. But the labor reform could improve bilateral commerce and investment with the United States, as would a successful liberalization of the country's energy sector in the coming years. Mexico is already the United States' third-largest trading partner, and economic coordination between the two countries has become a routine matter at the ministerial level, but there is still a need to ease bureaucratic trade and investment barriers.

Mexico Democracy 1NC

The plan causes a fight because it’s linked to Merida

Seelke ‘13

[Clare Ribando Seelke - Specialist in Latin American Affairs, “Mexico and the 112th Congress”, January 29th, 2013, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32724.pdf]

There have been ongoing concerns about the human rights records of Mexico’s federal, state, and municipal police. For the past several years, State Department’s human rights reports covering Mexico have cited credible reports of police involvement in extrajudicial killings, kidnappings for ransom, and torture.83 While abuses are most common at the municipal and state level, where corruption and police collaboration with criminal groups often occurs, federal forces—including the Federal Police—have also committed serious abuses. Individuals are most vulnerable to police abuses after they have been arbitrarily detained and before they are transferred to the custody of prosecutors, or while they are being held in preventive detention. Some 43% of Mexican inmates are reportedly in pre-trial detention.84 The Calderón government sought to combat police corruption and human rights abuses through increased vetting of federal forces; the creation of a national police registry to prevent corrupt police from being re-hired; the use of internal affairs units; and the provision of human rights training. In 2012, the government also announced new protocols on the use of force and how detentions are to be handled that were designed to prevent abuses. A January 2009 public security law codified vetting requirements and professional standards for state police to be met by 2013, but progress toward meeting those standards has been uneven. With a few exceptions, efforts to reform municipal police forces have lagged behind. There has also been increasing concern that the Mexican military, which is less accountable to civilian authorities than the police, is committing more human rights abuses since it is has been tasked with carrying out public security functions. A November 2011 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report maintains that cases of torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings have increased significantly in states where federal authorities have been deployed to fight organized crime.85 According to Mexico’s Human Rights Commission (CNDH), the number of complaints of human rights abuses by Mexico’s National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) increased from 182 in 2006 to a peak of 1800 in 2009 before falling slightly to 1,695 in 2011. The Trans-Border Institute has found that the number of abuses by SEDENA forces that have been investigated and documented by CNDH has also declined since 2008-2009, particularly in areas where large-scale deployments have been scaled back.86 In contrast, complaints of abuses against the Secretariat of the Navy (SEMAR) reported to CNDH increased by 150% from 2010 to 2011 as its forces became more heavily involved in anti-DTO efforts.87 While troubling, only a small percentage of those allegations have resulted in the CNDH issuing recommendations for corrective action to SEDENA or SEMAR, which those agencies say they have largely accepted and acted upon.88 A June 2011 constitutional amendment gave CNDH the authority to force entities that refuse to respond to its recommendations to appear before the Mexican Congress. In addition to expressing concerns about current human rights abuses, Mexican and international human rights groups have criticized the Mexican government for failing to hold military and police officials accountable for past abuses.89 In addition to taking steps to reform the police and judiciary, the Calderón government took some steps to comply with rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) that cases of military abuses against civilians should be tried in civilian courts. While a few dozen cases90 were transferred to civilian jurisdiction and former President Calderón asked SEDENA and SEMAR to work with the Attorney General to accelerate transfers, most cases were still processed in the military justice system.91 Military prosecutors have opened thousands of investigations into allegations of human rights abuses as a result of complaints filed with the CNDH, with few having resulted in convictions.92 A reform of Article 57 of the military justice code was submitted by then-President Calderón in October 2010 mandating that at least certain human rights violations be investigated and prosecuted in civilian courts. A more comprehensive proposal that required that all cases of alleged military human rights violations be transferred to the civilian justice system was approved by the Mexican Senate’s Justice Commission in April 2012; however, the bill was subsequently blocked from coming to a vote. In September 2012, another proposal to reform Article 57 was presented in the Mexican Senate, but not enacted. Enacting a reform of Article 57 of the military justice code may become more urgent now for the Peña Nieto Administration now that Mexico’s Supreme Court is in the process of establishing binding legal precedent for determining jurisdiction in cases involving alleged military human rights violations against civilians. Human rights defenders and journalists have been particularly vulnerable to abuses by organized crime, sometimes acting in collusion with corrupt government authorities. Recently, several prominent human rights defenders have been harassed, attacked, and even killed, including members of the high-profile Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity led by Javier Sicilia. Increasing violent crimes targeting journalists, combined with high levels of impunity for the perpetrators of those crimes, have made Mexico the most dangerous country in the Western Hemisphere for journalists. Crimes against journalists range from harassment, to extortion, to kidnapping and murder. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented 58 murders of journalists and at least 10 cases of journalists disappearing in Mexico since 2000. Threats from organized crime groups have made journalists and editors fearful of covering crime-related stories, and in some areas coverage of the DTOs’ activities have been shut down.93 The Calderón government and the Mexican Congress took some steps to better protect human rights defenders and journalists, but many human rights organizations have called upon the Peña Nieto Administration to do more. The Calderón government established a special prosecutor within the Attorney General’s Office to attend to crimes against freedom of expression and created mechanisms to provide increased protection for journalists and human rights defenders. Those mechanisms have yet to be effectively implemented. The Mexican Congress enacted a law to make crimes against journalists a federal offense and a law to require the federal government to provide protection to journalists and human rights defenders who are “at risk” of being victimized and to their families. Another law approved by the Congress in 2012, but not promulgated by the Calderón government, would require the state to track victims of organized crime and provide assistance to victims and their families. Human rights organizations expressed satisfaction after President Peña Nieto signed that law, commonly referred to as the “victims’ law,” in January 2013, but said that the real test of his government’s commitment to human rights will be in how that and other laws are implemented. Human Rights Conditions on U.S. Assistance to Mexico In 2008, Congress debated whether human rights conditions should be placed on Mérida assistance beyond the requirements in §620J of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961. That section was re-designated as §620M and amended by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-74). It states that an individual or unit of a foreign country’s security forces is prohibited from receiving assistance if the Secretary of State receives “credible evidence” that an individual or unit has committed “a gross violation of human rights.” The FY2008 Supplemental Appropriations Act (P.L. 110-252), which provided the first tranche of Mérida funding, had less stringent human rights conditions than had been proposed earlier, largely due to Mexico’s concerns that some of the conditions would violate its national sovereignty. The conditions required that 15% of INCLE and Foreign Military Financing (FMF) assistance be withheld until the Secretary of State reports in writing that Mexico is taking action in four human rights areas: 1. improving transparency and accountability of federal police forces; 2. establishing a mechanism for regular consultations among relevant Mexican government authorities, Mexican human rights organizations, and other relevant Mexican civil society organizations, to make consultations concerning implementation of the Mérida Initiative in accordance with Mexican and international law; 3. ensuring that civilian prosecutors and judicial authorities are investigating and prosecuting, in accordance with Mexican and international law, members of the federal police and military forces who have been credibly alleged to have committed violations of human rights, and the federal police and military forces are fully cooperating with the investigations; and 4. enforcing the prohibition, in accordance with Mexican and international law, on the use of testimony obtained through torture or other ill-treatment. Similar human rights conditions were included in FY2009-FY2011 appropriations measures that funded the Mérida Initiative.95 However, the first two conditions are not included in the 15% withholding requirement in the FY2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 112-74). As previously mentioned, Congress has yet to pass a final FY2013 appropriations measure. It remains to be seen whether an omnibus bill would include the conditions on aid to Mexico that are in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s version of the FY2013 foreign operations ppropriations measure S. 3241 (S.Rept. 112-172). Those conditions would retain the condition related to torture, as well as require the State Department to report that Mexico has reformed its military justice code and is requiring police and military officials to immediately transfer detainees to civilian judicial authorities. Thus far, the State Department has submitted three 15% progress reports on Mexico to congressional appropriators (in August 2009, September 2010, and August 2012) that have met the statutory requirements for FY2008-FY2012 Mérida funds that had been on hold to be released. Nevertheless, the State Department has twice elected to hold back some funding pending further progress in key areas of concern. In the September 2010 report, for example, the State Department elected to hold back $26 million in FY2010 supplemental funds as a matter of policy until further progress was made in the areas of transparency and combating impunity.96 Those funds were not obligated until the fall of 2011. In the August 2012 report, the State Department again decided to hold back all of the FY2012 funding that would have been subject to the conditions (roughly $18 million) as a matter of policy until it can work with Mexican authorities to determine steps to address key human rights challenges. Those include: improving the ability of Mexico’s civilian institutions to investigate and prosecute cases of human rights abuses; enhancing enforcement of prohibitions against torture and other mistreatment; and strengthening protection for human rights defenders.97

Mexico Engagement 1NC

Economic engagement with Mexico’s politically divisive

Wilson ‘13

Associate at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International. Center for Scholars (Christopher E., January, “A U.S.-Mexico Economic Alliance: Policy Options for a Competitive Region,” http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/new_ideas_us_mexico_relations.pdf)

At a time when Mexico is poised to experience robust economic growth, a manufacturing renaissance is underway in North America and bilateral trade is booming, the United States and Mexico have an important choice to make: sit back and reap the moderate and perhaps temporal benefits coming naturally from the evolving global context , or implement a robust agenda to improve the competitiveness of North America for the long term . Given that job creation and economic growth in both the United States and Mexico are at stake, t he choice should be simple, but a limited understanding about the magnitude, nature and depth of the U.S.-Mexico economic relationship among the public and many policymakers has made serious action to support regional exporters more politically divisive than it ought to be.

Ext. Mexico Engagement Link

NAFTA proves the link – trade gets linked to a broader fights about jobs

Villarreal and Fergusson ‘13

Specialists in International Trade and Finance (M. Angeles, Ian F., 02/21, “NAFTA at 20: Overview and Trade Effects,” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42965.pdf)

NAFTA was controversial when first proposed, mostly because it was the first FTA involving two wealthy, developed countries and a developing country. The political debate surrounding the agreement was divisive with proponents arguing that the agreement would help generate thousands of jobs and reduce income disparit y in the region, while opponents warned that the agreement would cause huge job losses in the United States as companies moved production to Mexico to lower costs. In reality, NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters. The net overall effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy appears to have been relatively modest, primarily because trade with Canada and Mexico account for a small percentage of U.S. GDP. However, there were worker and firm adjustment costs as the three countries adjusted to more open trade and investment among their economies.

Pushing expanded free trade measures with Mexico angers democrats

Perez-Rocha 12

[Manuel Pérez Rocha is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C, “Don't Expand NAFTA”, July 26th, 2012, http://www.fpif.org/articles/dont_expand_nafta]

With Canada and Mexico joining the TPP, the agreement is looking more and more like a substitute for the FTAA. So it is not surprising that opposition to the TPP is growing as quickly as it did against that former attempt to expand the neoliberal model throughout the Western hemisphere. The intense secrecy of the TPP negotiations is not helping the Obama administration make its case. In their statement, North American unions “call on our governments to work with us to include in the TPP provisions to ensure strong worker protections, a healthy environment, safe food and products, and the ability to regulate financial and other markets to avoid future global economic crises.” But the truth is that only big business is partaking in consultations, with 600 lobbyists having exclusive passwords to online versions of the negotiating text. A majority of Democratic representatives (132 out of 191) have expressed that they are “troubled that important policy decisions are being made without full input from Congress.” They have written to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to urge him and his staff to “engage in broader and deeper consultations with members of the full range of committees of Congress whose jurisdiction touches on the wide-ranging issues involved, and to ensure there is ample opportunity for Congress to have input on critical policies that will have broad ramifications for years to come." In their letter, the representatives also challenge “the lack of transparency of the treaty negotiation process, and the failure of negotiators to meaningfully consult with states on the far-reaching impact of trade agreements on state and local laws, even when binding on our states, is of grave concern to us.” U.S. Senators, for their part, have also sent a letter complaining of the lack of congressional access to the negotiations. What openness and transparency can we in Canada and Mexico expect when the decision to join the TPP, under humiliating conditions, was made without any public consultation? NAFTA turns 20 years old in 2014. Instead of expanding it through the TPP we must learn from NAFTA’s shortcomings, starting with the historic lack of consultation with unions and producers in the three member countries. It is necessary to correct the imbalances in NAFTA, which as the North American union statement explains enhanced corporate power at the expense of workers and the environment. In particular, we need to categorically reject the investor-state dispute settlement process that has proven so costly, in real terms and with respect to our democratic options in Canada and Mexico. The unions’ statement of solidarity provides a strong foundation for the growing trinational opposition to the TPP in Leesburg, Virginia, and beyond.

Mexico Energy 1NC

US-Mexico energy cooperation’s controversial

CFR ‘12

standing committee of the United States Senate (12/21, “OIL, MEXICO, AND THE TRANSBOUNDARY AGREEMENT,” http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT-112SPRT77567/html/CPRT-112SPRT77567.htm)

The TBA further contains requirements of data sharing and notification of likely reserves between the United States and Mexico, opening the opportunity for increased government-to- government collaboration on strategic energy policy choices. Mexico and the United States are relatively less advanced in effective communication and linkages of our energy systems than we are in less politically-controversial economic areas. Improved ties can improve understanding and galvanize cooperation in often unexpected ways. In the immediate term, closer oil sector communication will be beneficial in case of accidents in the Gulf of Mexico or in case of significant disruptions to global oil supplies.