For centuries, the global capitalist system has cruelly plundered the underdeveloped countries of the world. It has stripped them of their natural resources, subjected them to an unfair sharing of their goods, and mercilessly exploited their labor. Today it is impossible to maintain this unjust situation for a number of reasons, among these the ability to migrate –which is objectively the only alternative for the exploited.

The migratory relations between the United States and Latin America have always been characterized by their hypocrisy and double standards. Washington imposes legal barriers on the people forced to emigrate because of the economic situation in their countries of origin caused by the phenomenon of unequal exchange.

This phenomenon takes place worldwide: while the rich countries push to globalize the trade in goods, they obstruct the migration of people. While they advocate the free international movement of the goods they produce with their greater technological efficiency and higher profits, they object to the migration of the labor that their own economy needs and that, in the long term, would contribute to the equalization of wages between rich and poor countries.

After more than a century of plunder with impunity in Latin America to its ruin, North America has been faced with the choice of absorbing a gigantic wave of immigration, or closing this escape valve in a region threatened by social explosions that multiply one after another.

Unquestionably, migration is a major factor for the decompression of the tensions arising from unemployment and also a source of income for the countries of origin. Transfers of fresh money from migrants to their families have come to represent a significant part of the gross product of their countries of origin, and contributes to improving their balance of payments.

But the exodus of young workers, and the economic dependence on the remittances of money to their families in their countries of origin, leads –in the medium and long term– to serious problems for the economic development of the country that sends these migrants.

In other words, the economic crisis generates the exodus and the remittances of the migrants attenuate for some time the immediate economic effect; but in the medium and long term the crisis deepens if the conditions that caused it do not change.

Remittances from migrants can become the sustenance of the economies of the countries ruined by the effects of unequal exchange, external debt, the impositions of international financial institutions, and other diseases responsible for the economic impoverishment of the Third World.

Family remittances from its migrants in the United States provides Mexico with four times the value of its agricultural exports, exceeds its income from tourism, and equals two-thirds of its oil-export incomes.

About half of the foreign exchange received in several Central American countries comes from its migrants working in the United States. This does not include amounts sent by migrants to other countries.

Extreme contrasting manipulation of the migration issue has been the "Cuban Adjustment Act" (CAA) issued by Washington in 1966 to promote the illegal migration of Cubans. The CAA makes Cubans automatically eligible for permanent residence in the United States if they request so in under circumstance, legal or not.

Every time Washington threatens to carry out a massive expulsion of undocumented immigrants or similar actions, some Latin American governments are virtually forced to seek clemency, because this would mean the collapse of their economies. They are unable to assimilate their nationals and make do without their remittances.

In the background of this scenario is the shadow of a succession of uncontrollable social explosions in Latin American countries, and the social effects and conflicts –ethnic, religious and competition in the labor market between migrants and nationals– which could also become a source of social explosions in the United States of America.

The inevitable globalization of the economy will not necessarily come to serve the interests of the powerful –as the ideologues of neo-liberalism contend. It is part of the historical process that is moving towards shaping a better world –whole and in solidarity– passing through the development of equitable and fair international relations.

July 11, 2015.

 - Manuel E. Yepe http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann. http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs4425.html