The Real Story Behind Immigration, Work, and Power

Why people migrate, who profits from division, and how working people can build power together

By Alexandria Shaner, Dominick Conidi, Z Network

Most immigration debates focus on the border. But the real story starts much earlier — with trade deals, war, inequality, climate breakdown, corporate globalization, and political systems that force people from their homes while concentrating wealth and power in fewer hands.

This educational resource explores why migration happens, how immigrant labor is exploited while immigrants are scapegoated for problems they didn’t create, and how systems like ICE and programs like 287(g) expand fear, surveillance, and repression across entire communities.

It also examines why division between immigrant and non-immigrant workers benefits the powerful, how solidarity can improve life for all working people, and what organizing for labor rights, community defense, economic democracy, and human dignity could look like in practice.