Private Sector
An Opportunity for Sustainability
Article by: Jennifer L. Kraus, MPH

The industrial sector along the U.S.-Mexico border has been the focus of intense scrutiny due to concerns about its human health and environmental impacts. This scrutiny often times targets the maquiladora industry.

The maquiladora (in-bond) industry began in the late 1960s after the Johnson administration abolished the Bracero Program. The purpose of the Bracero Program was to export Mexican workers, primarily agricultural workers, to the United States for employment. Many of these Mexican workers, or braceros, relocated their families to the Mexican side of the border in order to be closer to them when they returned from working in the United States. The result was rapid growth and high unemployment for the Mexican communities along the border.

The Border Industrialization Program, now called the Maquiladora Program, was designed to create jobs and subsequently reduce unemployment rates along the border. Its purpose was to take advantage of certain provisions of the United States tariff code that permitted U.S. firms to export unassembled products for assembly abroad. The assembled product is then imported into the United States but duties are paid only on the value added abroad during the assembly process.

The expansion of the border economy in recent years has created large numbers of new jobs. Most of the new jobs created in the border zone in Mexico over the past decade, particularly since NAFTA, have been in the maquiladora industry. After three decades of growth, the maquiladora industry now employs one million workers, a figure that is slightly less than the annual increase in Mexico's labor force.

Unfortunately, with this growth comes the...

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