Last weekend, US Border Patrol agents used tear gas against hundreds of migrants protesting on the Mexican side of the border. The men, women and children who were gassed were part of the six thousand asylum seekers who fled violence and poverty in Central America by forming a caravan that has now reached the US border. In a related event, the leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada will sign the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) at the G20 summit in Argentina this weekend. The two events are related because the migrants who were gassed at the border are economic refugees who make evident a major contradiction in these supposed free trade agreements. In order to facilitate ‘free trade’ these agreements violate one of the basic tenets of the ‘free market’: the free movement of labor. Given this reality, the USMCA could be more accurately named the United States Migrant Control Agreement (USMCA). Continue reading