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  • Monthly Review Essays

About David L. Wilson

Bio: David L. Wilson is co-author, with Jane Guskin, of The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers (Monthly Review Press, 2007 and 2017). Wilson’s writings have appeared in Truthout, Jacobin, FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting), Salon, NACLA, Monthly Review, MR Online, and other publications. Follow the authors on Twitter:@Immigration_QA.
  • Mushroom Workers March on May Day in Kennett Square (May 01, 2007)

    Are there “foreigners” in the U.S. working class?

    David L. Wilson

    Politicians and the media work hard to give the impression that millions of low-wage workers are constantly seeking entry into the U.S. Most U.S. news consumers would probably be astonished to learn that the undocumented population here actually declined during the years from 2008 to 2016. It continued to decline at least until 2019.

  • LA Times (3/18/21): “As each side seeks to rally supporters and shape public opinion, the parties have pressed dueling narratives.”

    Media don’t factcheck right-wing migration myths

    Originally published: FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) on December 1, 2021 (more by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting))  |

    Increases and declines in unauthorized immigration mostly correlate with changes in job opportunities and other economic conditions in the United States and in nearby countries.

  • A man on the Mexican side of the border wall between Mexico and the U.S. looks through the bars, where the wall runs into the Pacific Ocean

    The “border crisis” numbers don’t add up

    David L. Wilson

    According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), fiscal 2021’s final number of migrants apprehended or encountered at the southwestern border was 1,734,686, higher than the 1,643,679 total apprehensions for fiscal 2000.

  • Media ‘Border Crisis’ Threatens Immigration Reform

    Media ‘Border crisis’ threatens immigration reform

    Originally published: FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) (more by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting))  |

    What’s striking is how badly the situation has been represented in the more centrist and prestigious parts of the corporate media.

  • “Are the two related?” the Economist (2/15/20) asked. Turns out—probably not.

    Crediting Xenophobia—rather than organizing—with raising workers’ wages

    Originally published: FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) on February 19, 2021 (more by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting))  |

    The Economist (2/15/20) ran a brief article last year with a startling headline: “Immigration to America Is Down. Wages Are Up. Are the Two Related?” Maybe, the article’s anonymous author answered, at least for the short term.

  • Yakima Nation Native Americans and Immigrants March to Celebdrate May Day

    The Democrats’ immigration agenda

    David L. Wilson

    The immigration plank in this year’s Democratic Party platform is a reminder that real immigration reform isn’t going to happen without serious grassroots organizing.

  • Wikipedia Manuel Noriega - Wikipedia

    Trump, asylum, and the Honduran drug traffickers

    David L. Wilson

    This is the third time in less than a year that the U.S. government has linked the Honduran chief executive to drug traffickers. President Hernández denies any association with narcotics smuggling.

  • "Picking up the Banner 1957–1960" painted by Gely Mikhailovich

    Students, the Sixties, and How to ‘Fail Better’

    David L. Wilson

    With their wide range of styles and perspectives, these little memoirs give a good sense of the period and the issues, but their value is more than historic. As a new generation is being drawn to radical politics, today’s activists may be able to gain useful insights from the experiences of their predecessors.

  • Thousands March Demanding Legal Status for Immigrants (Photo Credit: David Bacon)

    Why don’t the media fact-check “amnesty” claims?

    David L. Wilson

    The practice of citing conservative agitators is often characterized as “bothsidesism,” but here the news outlets only presented one side—the one on the far right—without even a hint that the claims might not have a factual basis.

  • DSA members protest in New York, June 2018 (Photo: Marty Goodman)

    How can we make “Abolish ICE” a reality?

    David L. Wilson

    Two of the immigrant rights movement’s historic demands provide a basis for actually closing the agency, and beyond that for building a movement to demand more fundamental changes.

  • Escraches come north: “Incivility” or an end to impunity?

    David L. Wilson

    We need to remember that these protests aren’t about political views: they’re about government officials violating international law, U.S. treaty obligations, and basic human rights.

  • Scene from Roseanne, Season 10, Episode 07

    Roseanne, Immigration, and the Unasked Question

    David L. Wilson

    The constant threat of detention and deportation discourages the undocumented employee from demanding or organizing for more pay and better working conditions—and this status is preferred by big corporations and the superrich, who profit handsomely as a result.

  • Baltimore Immigrant Rights Protest February 16 2017

    The latest nonsense about immigration—a quick guide

    David L. Wilson

    Here’s a list of some of the immigration absurdities now circulating in the media and in the political class.

  • Haitians protestesting Trump on the 8th anniversary of the massive earthquake in Haiti (January 12, 2018)

    Humans, “aliens,” and “shithole countries”

    David L. Wilson

    There is no evidence that Donald Trump has ever in his life performed a single selfless act, let alone any act of heroism. Probably he wouldn’t be able even to imagine the nobility of character I witnessed among Port-au-Prince residents after the earthquake, and among “alien” activists like Ravi and Jean here in New York.

  • New Yorkers protest Trump

    Are liberals having second thoughts about immigration?

    David L. Wilson

    On June 20 The Atlantic posted an article by Peter Beinart claiming that the Democrats had “lost their way on immigration.” While the article has been lauded by Rightwingers, it is mostly a compendium of familiar sound bites on immigration, presented without much understanding of the issues.

  • Are Sanders and Fair Trade a Threat to the Global Poor?

    David L. Wilson

    On April 24, 2013, some 1,134 people died in the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex outside Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.  The building housed factories where low-wage workers, largely women, stitched garments for the U.S. and European markets. For several years before the disaster a number of U.S. opinion makers — notably New York […]

  • Courts Dismiss Claim That Amnesties Trigger Migration

    David L. Wilson

    On August 14 a federal appeals court dismissed as “speculation” one of the most persistent of the anti-immigrant right’s many fantasies: the claim that any sort of humane treatment of undocumented immigrants by the U.S. government will lead inevitably to a “flood” of foreigners pouring over our borders. At issue was a suit in which […]

  • The Liberals and Inequality, Then and Now

    David L. Wilson

    Articles on income equality sometimes note that the U.S. economy hasn’t faced the current level of disparity since 1928, on the eve of the Great Depression.  There has been much less discussion of the responses to the issue back then, even though income inequality was a major concern for policymakers as the Depression deepened and […]

  • Taking On the Fashion Industry

    David L. Wilson

    Tansy E. Hoskins.  Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion.  Pluto Press, 2014.  254 pages. To say that Tansy E. Hoskins‘ Stitched Up deconstructs the garment industry would be a misrepresentation.  What the British activist and journalist does is more like a controlled demolition, using facts and footnotes to strip away the apparel trade’s decorative […]

  • Who Really Benefits From Sweatshops?

    David L. Wilson

    Consumers are ultimately the ones responsible for dangerous conditions in garment assembly plants in the Global South, Hong Kong-based business executive Bruce Rockowitz told the New York Times recently.  The problem is that improved safety would raise the price of clothing, according to Rockowitz, who heads Li & Fung Limited, a sourcing company that hooks […]

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Also By David L. Wilson in Monthly Review Magazine

  • Marx on Immigration February 01, 2017
  • The Part of “Illegal” They Don’t Understand October 01, 2015

Books By David L. Wilson

  • The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers (Second Edition) May 25, 2017

Monthly Review Essays

  • The Obama Line, Samantha Power, and U.S. Intervention in West Africa During the Ebola Epidemic
    Jean-Philippe Stone © UN Photo/Martine Perret | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    December 2013 marked the beginning of the worst Ebola outbreak in history. Ebola, a severe hemorrhagic virus which causes muscle and joint pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding, spread from Guinean forests to the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone by the summer of 2014.

Lost & Found

  • Russia and the Ukraine crisis: The Eurasian Project in conflict with the triad imperialist policies
    Samir Amin State flag of Ukraine behind a wall of anonymous protesters in Kyiv, Ukraine

    We wanted to draw readers attention to this piece by Samir Amin, which was written at the time of the Maidan Coup in 2014. —Eds. 1. The current global stage is dominated by the attempt of historical centers of imperialism (the U.S., Western and Central Europe, Japan—hereafter called “the Triad”) to maintain their exclusive control […]

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