People around the world are looking to make a living. The migration of people from country to country is as old as the world itself. In the past, these movements were caused by natural calamities such as extended drought. But in today’s world, migration is driven by the expanding nature of capitalism and imperialism. The bottom line: immigrants are driven by the search for living-wage jobs.

One thing is for sure: capitalism does not export freedom and democracy. It does export extreme poverty and oppression. Whether it is done by invasion as in Iraq, by blockade as with Cuba or by low-intensity warfare as in Nicaragua or El Salvador, the result is the same. For several decades the US government has followed the general concept that it is responsible for making the world safe for corporate investment anywhere in the world. This almost always means low-wage jobs and few worker protections, causing massive waves of immigrants to migrate to the US or other industrial countries where wages are higher.

The typical response to migration by the industrial countries is to pass new or revised legislation designed to strengthen immigration controls. At the same time, those efforts reflect and bring out the contradictions of the competing interests of different sectors of the economy. Thus, in Congress, efforts are made to accommodate these competing and contradictory sets of circumstances.



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