CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Just across the U.S. border from El Paso, paved roads give way to winding dirt paths, flooded from the heavy rains Wednesday night.

Tiny shacks, some made of cement and others a hodgepodge of tarp, wood, and cardboard make up the entire area of Anapra. People who live in the dark one-room shanties work in maquiladoras, or manufacturing plants, but say they can’t afford the $400 a year to send their children to school.

The North American Free Trade Agreement only has made their situation worse, forcing people to flock to the border to fight for jobs in factories, the families told a U.S. delegation yesterday.

The delegation of congressmen and labor leaders, led by U.S. Rep Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo), visited homes, health clinics, and other areas along the U.S.-Mexico border. They hope to highlight what they say are negative impacts the trade agreement has made on both countries in the last 10 years.

"If this is the economic equation America gives to the world, then it is an ugly face," Miss Kaptur said. "This agreement was supposed to help Mexico, was supposed to help us."

Miss Kaptur, a longtime NAFTA opponent, has argued the trade agreement has robbed Ohio of manufacturing jobs because plants moved to Mexico. Miss Kaptur also said the trade pact has made the environment and living and health conditions worse for Mexicans.

NAFTA supporters counter that the agreement has opened up a market for Ohio and the rest of the country, and has given companies a chance to export more products to companies in Mexico.

The group in Mexico this week visited two homes in Ciudad Juarez. The first, a cement home built by a church agency, is home to a couple and their four children. A daughter is the only one who is working, and the family said she makes $38 a week.

The mother in the home said her children do not attend school because they cannot afford the tuition, and it is too dangerous for the 8-year-old girl to walk to a cheaper school. Crime is a major problem in Ciudad Juarez: Many women have been murdered there.

Next door, a plastic tarp served as the roof for a house made of wood and cardboard. Inside, a woman and her children lay on a single bed in the one-room home. Some of the children are sick.

Many of the maquiladoras primarily hire women because of their docile nature and the small hands required in assembling electronic equipment.

"Women have more of a chance to get hired at the maquiladoras because they don’t fight. They don’t put up a fuss," Dr. San Juana Mendoza said.

Dr. Mendoza works at a health center in the city. She said the biggest health problem she has seen since more people started flocking to the border towns to work in maquiladoras is diabetes. She said that’s because of poor nutrition and stress.

The clinic charges $1.50 a visit if the patient can pay, the doctor said.

The main obstacle for doctors in Ciudad Juarez is getting people to live healthy lifestyles, largely because nutritious food like beans is too expensive, Dr. Mendoza said.

"People have pasta for breakfast, pasta for lunch, and pasta for dinner," she said. "NAFTA has lowered the moral standard here."

At a workers rights organization, Lourdes Rodriguez said she makes $38 a week—$10 more a week if she does not miss a day.

She said many factory workers would like to form unions, but that companies have threatened to fire workers who try to organize.

Ms. Rodriguez, a single mother of four, works a second job at a beauty shop on Sundays.

Beatriz Lujan, who works with residents who want to organize or who have employment problems, said maquiladoras once hired so many people in Ciudad Juarez that recruiters were sent farther into Mexico to find more workers.

Now, because many businesses are closing or moving to Asia, jobs are hard to find.

Since 2000, there have been 112,000 jobs lost in the city, Ms. Lujan said.

"The promise from the beginning was that NAFTA was going to provide Mexico with a lot of jobs, but the truth is there has not been any increase in jobs," she said.

Miss Kaptur agreed.

"It appears here to be a zero sum," she said.

Miss Kaptur and the delegation will be in Mexico through Tuesday. Their visit is the latest brought about by the contentious trade agreement passed in 1993.

Ohio Gov. Bob Taft led a trade mission to Mexico in May. He brought state business leaders to meet with companies in Mexico and find ways to export more goods and products to Mexico from Ohio.

The state says the mission has yielded business prospects for Ohio.

The article originally appeared in The Toledo Blade on November 15, 2003 written by Kelly Lecker.