Globalization Spurs Illegal Immigration …

Cross posted from Red Hot Cuppa Politics

Globalization Spurs Illegal Immigration … There's an interesting article in the Pueblo Chieftan on how the principles of globalization encourage illegal immigration to the United States.

But, let's get on the same page with what "globalization" means first:

From Wikipedia:

The International Monetary Fund defines globalization as “the growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide through increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions in goods and services, free international capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology. Meanwhile, The International Forum on Globalization defines it as “the present worldwide drive toward a globalized economic system dominated by supranational corporate trade and banking institutions that are not accountable to democratic processes or national governments.” [2] …

The economic aspects stressed in globalization are trade, investment and migration. The globalization of trade entails that human beings have greater access to an array of goods and services never seen before in human history … The globalization of investment takes place through Foreign Direct Investment, where multinational companies directly invest assets in a foreign country, or by indirect investment where individuals and institutions purchase and sell financial assets of other countries. Free migration allows individuals to find employment in jurisdictions where there are labor shortages

In other words, you can buy wine from France, pants from Thailand, and oil from Saudi without alot of trade barriers. Everybody makes money, life is good, and you get cheap stuff, right?

Well, maybe not, because the cheaper the labor is, the more money corporations make. When there's wage controls in one country, coupled with a labor shortage, you're going to get problems when you have a border like a seive.

Here's what Dr. Ida Whited, assistant professor of economics at the Colorado State University-Pueblo Hasan School of Business, writes in the Pueblo Chieftan, out of Pueblo. Colorado: "

…Illegal immigration into the United States, to put it plainly, is a natural result of the movement of labor caused by globalization. Since its causes and problems are rooted deeply in the principles of economics, any serious attempt at a workable solution to the conflicts caused by illegal immigration has no choice but to follow and be guided by the economic logic that relates to globalization

There are two fundamental reasons for the existence of illegal immigrants in the United States: (1) Price competition in domestic and global markets; (2) lack of law enforcement. The former has been greatly impacted by globalization. The latter has greatly increased that impact…

"…The movement to the U.S. of illegal immigrants willing to work for below-market wages, which are still significantly higher than those available in their homelands, is a variation on outsourcing in which cheap labor moves to the location of industry rather than vice versa.

Motivated by the powerful economic incentive of making a substantially higher wage and better living in the United States, and abetted by decades of ineffective border security and inland law enforcement, the flow of illegal immigrants here has become a de facto importation of otherwise unavailable cheap labor.

”….Without a flexible labor market in the domestic economy – that is, when firms are forced to hire labor at a cost that is more than what the market is bearing – the natural economic consequence is for those firms to move their businesses offshore to places where they can access production factors – in this case, labor – at what they consider fair values. When this occurs, low-skilled, legal laborers in the U.S. do not receive higher wages. They do not even receive lower wages. They receive no wages at all because they have no jobs (I think this is an extrapolation, something which could happen but hasn't happened on a large scale, yet — FB)

Please take a minute to read the whole thing; she expresses difficult terms concisely in simple terms. And maybe we should be thinking twice about the virtues of globalization. The upside is that everybody supposedly makes money; the downside is virtually open borders.

Globalization, to me, seems to depend on highly evolved, civilized, enlightened nations. Unfortunately, this is not characteristic of human nature — and while it works with first world countries, they are not the ones supplying the (illegal) labor force.

Please click to the CoalitionBlog for the latest and freshest on Illegal immigration — and don't miss ChristiKing's article on how the door swings both ways …

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let Brian know at what level you would like to participate.**