Gary Younge of the Guardian has written a good article on immigration - The west persists in using race to decide who can cross its borders. Younge is therefore part of a growing number of commentators who are questioning why there are restraints on labour travelling between countries when ' Capital, we are told, must flow freely around the world to ensure international prosperity.' He points out the hypocrisy of the west in demanding that the former eastern bloc give freedom of movement to its citizens and then putting a new wall up to replace the old barrier to stop them leaving. He sees the elite in the west forcing both poverty and lack of mobility on the poor world:
Facing hunger and destitution, the poor move in search of work. But when they seek to gain access to the wealthiest countries - the very ones which created the rules that keep them poor - the doors are closed. Politicians desperate to galvanise popular support at home argue not for correcting the global inequalities in wealth but instead for stiffer immigration laws to keep the poor out. Since most, but by no means all, of these impoverished people are not white, racism almost inevitably informs and infects these immigration laws and the debate that surrounds them.
