s shipped from U.S. ports annually, at least 10% of these are simply driven across the California border; this does not include those smuggled across the California border by rail or truck or those driven or smuggled across Mexico through other border states. Beyond smuggling vehicles, gun smuggling between the U.S. and Mexico is a problem that has only been exacerbated by the more permeable border between the two countries: 90% of illegally owned guns come across the U.S.-Mexico border.Finally, if there is a hidden advantage to this dark cloud, it should come in the form of ameliorating harmed workers. NAFTA's Trade Adjustment Assistance Program was designed to provide assistance to workers who lose jobs due to NAFTA. Unfortunately, the majority of workers clearly displaced by the agreement never receive benefits. Indeed, the program's harsh eligibility restrictions virtually guaranteed this outcome: workers are only eligible if they produce a "product" that is "directly affected" by NAFTA. Thus, all service workers and all retail and agricultural workers are automatically excluded, as are small manufacturing workers who lose their jobs because their industry is indirectly affected by the agreement-for example, makers of inputs for manufacturers who have reelected to Mexico.NAFTA's so-called "side agreements" were supposed to be the saving grace-counterbalancing any NAFTA damage to the environment and the rights and interests of workers. The labor side agreement, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), added to NAFTA by the Clinton Administration to win Congressional votes crucial to the pact's approval, has been a model of regulatory toothlessness. Despite repeated efforts by labor unions and others to use the labor side agreement for the purposes for which it was intendedto stop abuse of workersthe agreement has proven useless. The new NAFTA labor commission has identified major instances of abusive practices, yet...
