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One thing made clear by the onslaught of Haitian migrants hitting the U.S. southern border in recent months is that the American dream is alive and well—around the world.
Most of those who had gathered under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas, in August and September came from South America. Their journeys, long and risky, were made because they believed that a better life awaited them north of the Rio Grande. There are many more behind them.
This may stir fear in some Americans. But with the right policies it means growth for the U.S. economy and the region.
The developing world is young and looking for work. Either it finds it at home or it votes with its feet. Thus far the U.S. has been acting as if it’s a bystander in this equation, only reacting when migrants show up in big numbers at the door. This is a mistake.
A proactive approach to global migrant flows would address both push and pull factors. On the pull side, a greater supply of U.S. work visas are needed to resolve a labor shortage that acts as a magnet for eager foreign workers.
Pushing the migrants is a dearth of employment, a problem that can be addressed by the resumption of a robust U.S. free-trade agenda. Now is the time to do it because companies want to move away from China in favor of “near shoring” in Central America, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, particularly in textiles. The key is to eliminate trade barriers that make the manufacturing of apparel in these countries uncompetitive.
According to a National Public Radio report, Homeland Security Secretary
Alejandro Mayorkas
estimates that nearly 30,000 migrants have passed through Del Rio since Sept. 9. Of these, the U.S. has expelled about 2,000 to Haiti and some 8,000 have returned to Mexico. Last week, at the Migration Policy Institute’s annual conference, Mr. Mayorkas said that about 13,000 from that camp had been released into the U.S.
On Sept. 11, the Mexican newspaper El Economista reported that there are 30,000 Haitians in and around Tapachula, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Most don’t qualify for refugee status in Mexico, but Haiti has resisted taking them. On Wednesday NPR reported that there are now nearly 20,000 Haitians in Necocli, Colombia, waiting to cross the Gulf of Urabá and come north.
Residents of Del Rio were rightly upset about the chaos and unsanitary conditions brought by the mass of homeless humanity. Yet it would be a mistake to draw negative conclusions about the Haitian migrant workers. During the Trump administration, thousands of Haitians who had made it to Baja California, Mexico, were blocked from entering the U.S. Many decided to settle there. The Mexican press has reported that the natives have found them to be law-abiding and cheerful—anything but disruptive.
Kurt Honold, a prominent Tijuana businessman, told me last week by telephone that “the experience in Baja California with Haitian migrants is that they are very good workers, have adapted well to Mexico, and are now considered part of the community.”
The Haitians are welcome, in part, because northern Mexico’s maquiladoras also have labor shortages. As new investment from Asia flows into Mexico, the problem is likely to get worse. Last week the Taiwanese company Inventec began construction on a $300 million manufacturing facility for tablets and computer components in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
Haitian apparel manufacturers and their counterparts in the Dominican Republic and in the northern triangle of Central America—Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala—could be generators of good jobs. But U.S. tariff protection discourages investment and holds back regional development of the industry.
The northern triangle countries, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Nicaragua are signatories to the 2004 Central American Free Trade Agreement, or Cafta-DR. But duty-free Cafta-DR access to the U.S. market for apparel requires that it use yarn and fabric manufactured in the region. Central American factories aren’t sophisticated enough to produce textiles in large quantities. This means buying from the U.S., where supply is limited and prices high, or paying the duty.
Haiti has carve-outs—expiring in 2025—for “rules of origin” restrictions on yarn and textiles and it has a reputable workforce. But its capabilities in assembly are limited and its infrastructure is decrepit.
Permanently lifting “yarn-forward” restrictions for Cafta-DR and Haiti would allow investors to capitalize on the comparative advantages of Haiti and its more advanced neighbors, generating more jobs in the region. This opening would also create new dynamism in American apparel manufacturing, as companies would have greater access to competitively priced inputs.
U.S. work visas and free trade are obvious win-win solutions to migration bedlam. Whether our politicians can figure this out is another question.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
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