ABSTRACT
The most potent symbols of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)-related job losses in the United States are the Mexican maquiladoras that are now found throughout Mexico, but most of all right along the 1,952 mile border between Mexico and the United States. The case against NAFTA and the NAFTA-spawned maquiladoras is that these Mexican factories have taken manufacturing jobs away from Americans, that they exploit women, perpetuate poverty, offer dangerous and unhealthy working environments, and have degraded the environment, among other indictments. The mission of the maquiladoras was unique and consisted of lowering labor costs by importing and processing raw materials to be exported as finished products back to the country of origin–normally to the United States. The US-Mexico border consists of a long belt of about 3,000 maquiladoras, employing almost one million Mexicans.
