Karen Nakamura explains in a recent article how poverty and starvation cause the so-called immigration crisis the United States:
CNN’s Larry King interviewed James Edward Olmos during last summer’s Latino workers’ demonstrations. King was discussing illegal immigration when Olmos suggested that maybe people were flooding across the border because there were few jobs at home, small farms were going under and people were starving.
Besides Mexico’s financial dependence on the United States, economists are concerned about low wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population and inequitable income distribution. Again, according to Wikipedia, few opportunities exist for the largely impoverished “Amerindian” population. In 2005, unemployment stood at 9.6% and worker’s rights were basically non-existent.
Ralph Nader said when CAFTA was debated: “…the corporate globalization model has caused the ‘race to the bottom’ in labor and environmental standards and promotes privatization and deregulation of key public services.” His group, Public Citizen, claimed “independent farmers in the US, Canada and Mexico have been hit particularly hard by NAFTA, with thousands wiped out and farmland shifting into the hands of huge agribusiness concerns such as Tyson Foods and Cargill.”
Those rural sectors already riddled by poverty have been the most adversely affected by CAFTA. There are 224 million people living in poverty in Central America and 96 million in extreme poverty. Mexican wages have fallen in real terms by 36% since 1994, although workers have increased their productivity by 53%.
So, it seems in the name of bloody profits the powerful corporations of the United States contribute to the Mexican poverty which causes the so-called immigration crisis. Mexico also has the same disturbing socioeconomic inequality in their own country.
In fact, I see it as a global problem. International megacorporations swindle the wealth out of working-class both in America and abroad, using their dirty money to manipulate governments.
Additionally, corporate interests explain why the immigration problem in the United States continues. Corporations and businesses, such as Walmart, like the cheap labor of illegal immigrants. If the legal authorities targeted these businesses that employ illegal immigrants, rather than the immigrants, than that would eliminate the illegal immigration problem by eliminating the job opportunities.
The allowance of illegal immigration undermines national security. Terrorists and criminals can sneak into the unchecked flow of illegal working immigrants.
The government could also significantly reduce the problem by increasing legal immigration. Given the choice, most immigrants would prefer to work legally. Unfortunately, corporate interests won’t allow this to happen, because illegal immigrants work cheaper. I’ve never heard of an illegal workers union.
Alas, it appears poverty and the illegal immigration problem will continue until the international working-class stands up to these selfishly greedy international corporate interests who have no qualms about using the violent and coercive powers of government to make their bloody profits and rob the working-class.
(Granted, in theory I disagree with the whole concept of illegal immigration. I support freedom, including the freedom of innocent people to move and live in whatever general area they want. I don’t think people can own an entire country the size of the United States.)