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Press Release

LULAC Urges Senate Finance Committee To Vote No on US-Peru TPA .

July 27, 2006

Contact: Lizette Jenness Olmos,
(202) 833-6130 ext.14
ljolmos@lulac.org
 

Washington, DC – At the 2006 LULAC National Convention held in Milwaukee, WI – the LULAC National Assembly voted unanimously to accept a Florida resolution to encourage the US Congress to renegotiate free trade agreements with the Andean nations. In 2005, LULAC joined the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement, on which the U.S.-Peru and U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreements (formally called Trade Promotion Agreements) are based. None of the problems cited by LULAC and other well-established research organizations with regards to CAFTA — from labor and environmental standards to agricultural provisions to investor rules — were resolved in the texts of the new agreements with the Andean countries.  Therefore, LULAC urges Members of Congress to reject the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement and work for improved fair trade agreements that raise the standards of living for labor and protect environmental standards. 

Although the Government of Peru expressed strong concerns about the need for stronger labor standards in the agreement, these concerns were clearly ignored.  Well-documented reports from the Colombian government, as well as statements from Peruvian farm organizations and religious leaders expressed certainty that the agricultural rules included in the new agreements will push hundreds of thousands of small farmers into bankruptcy — as happened in Mexico after NAFTA.  Consequently, the pressure to feed their families would likely force these farmers to grow more coca for cocaine production or join illegal armed groups, a counterproductive measure to U.S. drug policy in the region.  The probability that these communities would then experience an increase in violence and insecurity will invariably pressure these families into exile thus creating a new flow of illegal immigration into the United States.

“The U.S. Congress is currently considering urgently needed immigration reform policies to address the status of millions of undocumented workers in the United States, but has not included in the discussion any recognition of the fact that undocumented migration to the U.S. from Mexico has more than doubled since NAFTA was enacted, not to mention the fact that increased U.S. border policing and militarization since NAFTA has lead to more than 2,700 deaths from failed border crossing in desperate attempts to seek the American dream,” said Rosa Rosales, LULAC National President.  “It is irregular and irresponsible that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), instead of investigating ways to fix the deeply troubling problems with NAFTA and CAFTA, continues to push for unmodified expansion of these agreements into all of the Americas and the Caribbean. U.S. policies are clearly at cross-purposes with one another.”

LULAC is committed to working with the US Congress, the US Trade Representative, and the Department of Commerce in finding viable solutions that will bring about fair trade agreements that are equitable and profitable to all parties involved, but also include stronger environmental and labor standards to protect sensitive eco-systems and the most vulnerable, thus lowering undocumented immigration.

The League of United Latin American Citizens is the oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization in the United States. It advances the economic conditions, educational attainment, political influence, health and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide.

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