Migration....

By Kerwin De Matas

The 16Th Ibero-American Summit hosted in Uruguay's capital, Montevideo, invited speakers from Latin America, Spain and Portugal, to discuss the heavy discrimination towards workers migrating to northern America and Europe. This is an issue of major concern, especially now, because of the frequent attacks towards immigrant workers. Discrimination in these countries is not something new, but was thought, that during on going development and modernization, migrating peoples would have been accepted into the workforce of their adopted countries; but, it is the complete opposite.

After All, These People Built America!

The hate is sometimes so obvious, it is scary! In countries considered super powers, because of their huge economies, believe it or not, but they are also suffering from their particular economic woes because of falling prices all over the world. On the other hand, because of the reserves that these countries maintain, they still don't feel the pain, the poorer countries feel in these times where oil prices are the deciding factor world wide. So of course, employers from North America and Europe are looking for ways to cut cost, by outsourcing jobs to other countries where labour and material are cheaper, costing a lot less for production. Smaller companies that cannot be that ambitious, take the alternative of hiring immigrant workers, paying them less than they would have to pay a local.

Crack Down On Illegal Immigrants, But Don't Harass The Legals!!

For me, this part is a little bit confusing, because an immigrant worker, working legally in these countries, even if being exempt from some of the major taxes, would still need money to survive, wouldn't they? Saving is all well and good, sending money home is a guarantee that where they come from, their economic situation would improve immensely, but still, they would be working for much less than a person born and raised in the super power countries. But then, this is a choice taken by an immigrant, and I think that as long as these people have their papers in order to work in a foreign country, they should be left alone, and not be attacked always for various reasons. As I said earlier, the business environment is changing drastically, and a lot of businesses are looking for other alternatives to survive.

They Work Hard Like Anyone Else!

I am not an economist, so I don't know what steps should be taken to save an economy, but solutions should be looked for to avoid out sourcing major jobs, and at the same time protecting immigrants from being exploited on the jobs and attacked off the jobs. If locals from those countries are refusing to work for less money, for obvious reasons, and immigrants are choosing to leave their countries to look for a better life for themselves and their family, then they should not be treated as scapegoats for an economic structure that has been crumbling for a long time. Hope this meeting in South America came up with a few solutions and strategies to help people migrating to other countries in search of a better life. Good job.