Mexico-U.S. Border Program
AFSC's Mexico-U.S. Border Program focuses on improving the working and living conditions of workers and their families who have been negatively affected by the maquiladora industry, NAFTA, and the globalization of the economy. It has worked since the late 1970s in partnership with the Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s (CFO) in six border cities in the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Chihuahua.
In 2003, the program phased out its Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project (ILEMP), which was founded in 1987. AFSC's Project Voice has incorporated many of ILEMP's pioneering efforts to monitor, document, and respond to abuses of civil and human rights by immigration authorities, the criminalization of migration, and the militarization of the Mexico-U.S. border.
Other ILEMP efforts were devolved to two community-based partner organizations, located in the Rio Grande Valley (Casa de Proyecto Libertad) and El Paso , Texas ( Border Network for Human Rights ).
Today the constituency for the Mexico-U.S. Border Program consists primarily of maquiladora workers. The program also works with religious shareholders and with union, labor, and fair trade activists in Mexico, the United States, and Canada.
The goals of the Mexico-U.S. Border Program include:
- To support the development of effective, autonomous grassroots organizations working for economic and social justice in the border region.
- To promote public understanding of the nature and causes of the economic, social, and environmental problems manifested at the border, including the impacts of NAFTA, other international trade agreements, and globalization of the economy on the people and communities on the border.
- To advocate for public and private policies, and for corporate social responsibility, conducive to human rights, sustainable development, and social equality in the border region.
Current activities focus on promoting sustainable living wages and improved working conditions in maquiladoras owned by Alcoa, Delphi Automotive, and other corporations; on providing direct support and advice to the various CFO field projects; on supporting development of the bilingual CFO website, http://www.cfomaquiladoras.org ; on expanding community-based work to cities such as Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana; and on fundraising for the CFO.
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