Immigration

Immigration at this point in time is a divisive issue that is dividing our country as well as something that is challenging our nation. But the best I can tell, less then 10% of the general population really knows what is going on and why we have an immigration problem. The same set of circumstances that are causing the immigration problem is the same reason that NAFTA is not working and the same reason we are having a global economic crisis. Figure 1 below shows a real life example that is taking place in the commercial shrimp industry between Mexico and the United States. It shows how the middleman buys from the Mexican producer and then turns around and sells to the US retailer. The middleman is typically not a Mexican company. (It will be incorporated as a Mexican corporation, but this is the storefront.) Most are US or other foreign corporations and can take as much as 40% to 60% of the profits.

The example, as explained in figure 1, shows what has happened to the shrimp industry. However, the diagram above could represent all producing groups in Mexico. Be it livestock, grains, capture from sea, etc., the middleman makes the big bucks. If they are a producer in Mexico, nearly all of them have a subsistence living. Don't get me wrong, there are people with money. However, it is the worker that is getting squeezed here.

Believe what you want, but I would estimate that at least 60% to 70% of illegal immigrants in the US from Mexico would prefer to stay in Mexico, if they had a decent job. The economic structure that exists as depicted in figure 1, does not benefit the US consumer nor the Mexican worker. The type of economic structure can not support global growth. So the enemy is not the illegal Mexican worker in the US. It is the middlemen who are violating antitrust laws by colluding; and they are taking excessive profits that make the US consumer pay more for produce and they effect the lives of millions of Mexican citizen who are forced to live in poverty and suffer.

The middleman is more than likely behind the political pressure and media propaganda to pit the illegal Mexican immigrant against the US citizens. Or someone else that has the same agenda as the "middleman". While we are fighting and arguing over immigration, they go unnoticed and untouched continuing to keep the "status quo".