Fighting Amongst Ourselves

I'm having trouble, folks, reconciling a couple of the "talking-points" I've been hearing lately. One of these points is that N.A.F.T.A., the North American Free Trade Agreement (for those of you who've been living under a bus), has disproportionately been helping the Mexican economy and hurting, dramatically so, American markets. I mean, I hear it all the frigging time. The fact that I rarely get hard data to substantiate this claim, I guess that that's another topic for discussion....................................The other, seemingly contradictory, point I've been hearing (not necessarily from the same people, mind you, but, still, damned if it, too, hasn't become a drum-beat) is that we're also being over-run by illegal aliens FROM (you guessed it) Mexico!! And, yes, they're coming here, ostensibly, BECAUSE (yep, you guessed it again, folks) THEY CAN'T FIND A FRIGGING JOB IN MEXICO!!......................................You do see what I'm saying here, right? If N.A.F.T.A. is supposedly this boondoggle for the American economy, then why, pray tell, are there so many desperate Mexicans crossing a desert or two, a polluted river, RISKING THEIR LIVES, just so they can get a job here, IN AMERICA? I don't know, folks, the whole thing just doesn't seem to make sense to me........................................Oh, and, yes, for the record, both parties have clearly been demagoging this shit; the Democrats scaring us to death with "trade", the Republicans with "immigration". Not that I'm all-together surprised, of course. It's what they do! It's all they frigging know how to do, for Christ!....................................Of course, if we all didn't buy it..................................P.S. And then there's Lou Dobbs, scaring us with both trade AND immigration. What a piece of work he is, huh?