It's estimated there are 175 million country-to-country migrants in the world today. The worldwide introduction of labor-replacing technology and the globalization of the economy are driving this unprecedented migration. A global movement of workers is developing to provide for their families. Millions of workers are migrating from Mexico to the United States, from Guatemala to Mexico, from Bolivia to Chile, from Africa to Spain, France, and England. Capitalism in the age of electronics forces them, in the millions, to migrate, searching for a buyer for their labor power at whatever price.
The global corporate employers cannot promise a job or a safety net to anyone -- documented or undocumented. The worst fear of the corporations is that, under the steadily worsening conditions, the workers will unite as a class across borders, and act in their own interests. Thus, the corporations are pitting workers against one another and using the fears they have cultivated to win a section of workers over to support for eliminating civil liberties for immigrants. In reality, the attack against the immigrant worker is the leading edge of an attack on the rights of all workers.
Civil liberties and human rights cannot be denied to one sector of society without ultimately denying them to the rest of the population. The attack against the immigrant is making clear the real question -- what comes first, the interests of private property, or the well- being of the earth's people? Are the giant corporations going to run society in their interest, or are we going to take the corporations over and run them in society's interest?
There is no such thing as an illegal worker. By globalizing production, the corporations globalize the working class. This issue is not simply a fight for immigrant rights, as important as that is. It is a fight for the human rights of every person on this earth.
