Module 6: Migrants In The Americas

Question 1

The Immigration Debate

Answer 1

1. Immigrant = “nobody”, “illegal”, and “disposable”
   - “ Today in this market-driven global economy, large numbers of people need wages to survive but have no viable means to procure cash. They are quite literally redundant. At the same time, these “nobodies” are reworked into “illegals” after crossing the Mexico-Arizona border, in this instance. As a cheap yet expendable source of labor and profit, whether as workers or detainees, they become crucial to shore up the floundering American economy”
   - Nobodies and illegals are sources of cheap labor in the US
   - American working class vs. immigrants
2. “Migration implies a seemingly voluntary, individual decision, and to a certain extent it is where to go, when to go, if one is able to go, or even if one should go. Migrants freedom is really only the freedom to sell their labor power
   - Immigration and freedom
   - American Dream or American Nightmare
3. “On the US side of the border the Arizona desert looks like a war zone
   - Military Forces (in political throaty): classic vs. contemporary
   - - Soliders vs. Soliders -> Soliders vs. citizens/people
4. “Prison populations are the new workers filling that gap. In Arizona, for instance, migrants are paid about US$40 per day for a 10-12 hour shift picking chilies while prisoners are paid only US$20 per day”
   - Immigration (illegals) = cheap labor
   - Imprisonment = cheapest labor
5. Economic and political crisis in Latin American produce immigration and the immigration results in imprisonment of the “illegals”