Does this look like it helped or did it cause more illegal immigration?

Question

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0425-30.htm
With US firms unwilling to pay even minimal taxes, NAFTA has hardly produced the promised uplift in the lives of Mexicans. Ciudad Juarez Mayor Gustavo Elizondo, whose city is crammed with US-owned low-wage plants, expressed it plainly: "We have no way to provide water, sewage, and sanitation workers. Every year, we get poorer and poorer even though we create more and more wealth."

Falling industrial wages, peasants forced off the land, small businesses liquidated, growing poverty: these are direct consequences of NAFTA. This harsh suffering explains why so many desperate Mexicans -- lured to the border area in the false hope that they could find dignity in the US-owned maquiladoras -- are willing to risk their lives to cross the border to provide for their families. There were 2.5 million Mexican illegals in 1995; 8 million have crossed the border since then. In 2005, some 400 desperate Mexicans died trying to enter the US.

Answer 1

United States economic policies have been a hindrance to Mexico's economy for decades, with the passage of NAFTA the United States is illegally dumping American subsidized corn on the Mexican market, and destroyed the life of millions of small farmers. Now Americans complaints because those displaced people are looking for work in the U.S. . I think that is poetic justice.

Answer 2

NAFTA killed mexican small businesses. That is the root cause of the amount of immigration we're seeing. My grandfather had investment and some businesses down there and it all got destroyed during Salinas' and Zedillo's government in Mexico. The rich men got richer and the poor got poorer... to the extreme that they're now coming to the country they despise but gives them hope.

Answer 3

yes this is a big reason but not all of the reason.i have always said this issue with immigration was our own doing.and this is some of that proof.