Actually I assume most of you already know of it, or at least have heard references somewhere. Occasionally one of us liburls will get all bothered about it and then it just slips back under the radar.

From the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America) web site:

The SPP provides the framework to ensure that North America is the safest and best place to live and do business. It includes ambitious security and prosperity programs to keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade.

As you can see, the SPP is all about prosperity wrapped in the guise of security. Yup, it's the same old "prosperity for the rich guys by scaring the wallets off the little guys" approach. Only on a grander scale than we've seen yet.

And now you're asking, "what's this got to do with human rights?", right?

Well, I came across this gem over at Foreign Policy In Focus:

NAFTA: Kicked Up a Notch

The North American Free Trade Agreement is the world?s most advanced example of the U.S.-led free trade model. It?s not just about economics any more. The expansion of NAFTA into the Security and Prosperity Partnership reveals the road ahead for other nations entering into free trade agreements. It is not a road most nations -- or the U.S. public -- would take if they knew where it led.

The first problem is that very few people know about this next step of ?deep integration.? In March 2005, Presidents George Bush, Vicente Fox and Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas launched the Security and Prosperity Partnership with a splash. Although it had few visible results, the Waco meeting of the ?Three Amigos? set into motion an underground process that spawned its own working groups, rules, recommendations, and agreements ? all below the radar of the legislatures and the public in the three nations. These rules and trinational programs have profound effect on the environment, the daily lives of citizens, and the future of all three countries.

That should be enough to get you to read up on this SPP thing a bit (and maybe start asking "our" candidates about it too), but here's the kicker:

For Mexico, the harmonization process -- like NAFTA before it -- does not take into account its less-developed status or the pressing social needs of its people that could mandate special protections or safeguards. Many of the priorities of the SPP benefit only a small handful of powerful actors, such as greater patent protection (Mexico holds very few patents) and joint anti-piracy campaigns (piracy is a major employer in Mexico and benefits low-income consumers).

Ah ha! Smell that? It's a hint of a reason why Bush's immigration policies are so out of line with his base's. This SPP thing just could be the whole reason he's so willing to abandon his support to keep the borders relatively open.

The article closes with this:

There are many problems with the SPP and the White House?s goal of ?deep integration.? Perhaps the most fundamental is that it takes place at a time when North American integration faces a crisis. Economic integration under NAFTA has led to job loss and the erosion of job security and quality in the United States, while also increasing unemployment in Mexico. Over thirteen years, the model has confirmed, rather than reversed, Mexico?s status as the less-developed partner. The rise in immigration to the United States attests to the failure of NAFTA as a development mechanism. Moreover, it has not increased the U.S. competitive edge although it has delivered record profits to a few major global traders. Unfortunately for the majority, those ?few? are now driving the efforts to deepen integration under the NAFTA-plus-Homeland-Security model.

And there we have it. Immigration of the illegal kind is not on the rise because we have so many jobs available, immigration is on the rise because there are fewer and fewer opportunities in Mexico. People don't want to come here because our streets are paved in gold, they wanna come here because here at least, they can get a couple meals a day. They'll risk everything - literally losing their children, death, imprisonment, humiliation, open hatred, a myriad of horrors - not because the US is such a great place, but because they, like all of us, simply want to eat and have a roof.

It's bothered me for some time now, the 'why' of this influx of people so willing to risk everything to come here. And now it appears there's an answer beyond the nonsense "Because it's America" answer that Hannity is so fond of.

It's suddenly clear what the roots of our "immigration problem" really are - and now that we can identify them, we can do something about them.

So, immigration. Human rights issue? Oh yes, and well beyond placing water caches in the desert. Well beyond protecting the innocent from the coyotes. And way way beyond building a fucking wall.

It's time we started asking questions. This SPP/NAFTA thing needs to made an issue in this election. It's time to question our Congress, question our candidates - cuz you know damn well they know all about this.

It's time to demand answers.

From Mother Jones:

For all the talk about immigration reform on the Hill, there has been notably little discussion about what is driving Mexican immigrants to pour over the border into the U.S., let alone any debate about measures that might go to the root of the problem. According to Laura Carlsen, the director of the International Relations Center's Americas Program, the reason behind the "massive out-migration" is fairly clear. Put simply, she wrote not long ago, "Mexico is not producing enough decent jobs for its people?and the United States is hiring." It would seem, then, that one potential answer to the United States' so-called immigration problem would be an effective development policy toward Mexico (whose citizens make up 56 percent of America's undocumented population, according to the Pew Hispanic Center), including both private investment and foreign aid. As it stands, Mexico receives the bulk of its aid not from the U.S. government or corporations but from immigrants themselves.

Despite having incomes well below the national average, many Mexican immigrants regularly send a portion of their earnings home to support their families and sometimes entire communities. Remittances from immigrant workers now stand approximately equal to oil revenues as one of the two largest sources of foreign income in Mexico. According to Guillermo Ortíz, head of Mexico's central bank, they totaled $23.54 billion in 2006.

[..]

The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was supposed to be a tremendous boon for Mexico, as well as for the United States and Canada, creating the beginnings of a common market for the benefit of all. More than 13 years later, though, the relationship still smacks of colonialism. Howard Zinn, the author of A People's History of the United States who has documented the history of U.S. colonialism in Latin America, says of the current immigration debate, "Why should capital go freely across borders while people cannot? These are human beings trying to make a better life, for god's sake. Why is the wall on the Mexican border more acceptable than the Berlin Wall?"

$23.54 Billion.

$23,540,000,000

Twenty three BILLION dollars sent home by hard working, underpaid people. And these are the kind of people "we don't want here"?