Global Migration Forum: What would happen if all undocumented migrants disappeared?

“California will collapse before breakfast, London before lunch, and most of Europe just before dinner.”

Sharan Burrow, president of the International Trade Union Confederation.

The Global Forum on Migration and Development opened in Manilla today with delegates from 151 countries in attendance.

Obviously, the United States mainstream news media is not about to pick up on the message of migrant rights being human rights. We are also too engrossed with domestic elections and ‘voter purging’ from rolls (a ‘legal’ Republican tactic to disallow ‘certain’ demographics of people from voting) to be bothered about 40 million undocumented workers around the world. (Is this a ‘third world’ under-developed country where we cannot even determine which voters are eligible or not eligible to cast their ballots?)

For the nativists that call on restricting immigration in times of crisis, here is why such a call would propagate contradictory results. Burrow states:

“In a global financial crisis, if jobs are threatened, if regular channels of migration are constrained, then clearly we will see an increase in those desperate to make an income working without documentation in many nations,” she said.

The forum signifies how the subaltern cannot speak. None of the delegates are really migrant workers.

Joshua Mata, Salag spokesman, denounced the forum for failing to highlight the need to protect and defend the rights of migrant workers. “They kept talking about the significance and importance of migrant workers, when in fact there is no migrant worker at all in the forum,” Salag said.

No, as usual the migrants are on the outside, protesting for their rights and the right to be included in decisions about their lives.