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Democratic Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), claimed on Wednesday that America’s national borders create “an injustice” by keeping Mexican workers from traveling to the United States to look for higher-paying jobs.
Ellison claimed in an interview with progressive activist Rabbi Michael Lerner that America’s “prosperity is based on the want that is experienced in other parts of the world” and complained that “people, regular people, cannot go back and forth across the border seeking out the highest wages.”
“We just have to say that the 12 million undocumented people in the United States are here because somebody wants them to be. But they want them here to do the work, but they don’t want them to get any rights. They don’t want to pay them fairly. They don’t want them to be able to bargain collectively. They don’t want them to be able to get occupational safety and standards. And that is what’s really going on,” Ellison said.
“And these trade agreements, you know, they allow capital to travel other borders, and all capital is, is people who happen to own something we call a corporation, which is a legal arrangement which gives them special rights. And labor, which is a regular person, cannot travel back and forth across the border,” he continued. “And so corporations, certain people who get certain rights, can go back and forth across the border seeking out the lowest wages, but people, regular people, cannot go back and forth across the border seeking out the highest wages. So what it creates is an imbalance. It creates an injustice.”