By Peter Costantini, Seattle

Ten years after the contentious Seattle Ministerial of the World Trade Organization - AKA "The Battle of Seattle" - the relationship between trade, jobs, poverty and migration remains tangled and controversial.

Trade agreements make it easier for goods and services to cross borders. And beyond trade,...

By Tito Drago, Director of Inter Press Service Spain (IPS).

Tito Drago (right) with Spanish judge | (derecha) con el juez español Baltasar Garzón

Tito is a journalist and consultant specializing in international relations. He was born in Argentina and...

By Peter Costantini - Seattle, Washington

When Congressman Joe Wilson disrupted President Barack Obama's September 9 speech to Congress on health care, he was just exercising his "freedom of screech," in satirist Stephen Colbert's words. The First Amendment and Wilson (R-SC) are the richer for it.

Theatrically dissing the first...

By Peter Costantini ~ Seattle, Washington

Wars often drive people from their homes. But in Iraq, a discretionary war, launched through deception by a rogue administration in search of good targets for "shock and awe", produced refugees with industrial efficiency.

Hajer, an Iraqi...

By Valeria Fernández - Phoenix, Arizona

Disturbing video of armed neo-Nazi supporters of Sheriff Joe Arpaio trying to incite violence during a peaceful protest against alleged brutality in Maricopa County jails has human and civil-rights groups worried.

By Peter Costantini ~ Seattle, Washington

In this video, a Guatemalan immigrant talks about life and work as a day laborer in Seattle.

By David Bacon

Oakland, CA -- In a little less than a month, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people will fill the streets in city after city, town after town, across the US. This year May Day marches of immigrant workers will make an important demand on the...

By Valeria Fernández

Phoenix, Arizona -- Julio Mora was dropping his dad at work when their truck was pulled over by Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) deputies. Although Julio is a U.S. citizen and his dad has a green card, they were arrested on...

By Peter Costantini

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's apparent erotic peccadilloes would be nobody's business if he limited himself to exercising them in private with consenting adults.

But according to news reports, court cases and his own web site, Arpaio, the chief lawman of Maricopa County, Arizona, has forced undocumented immigrants...

By David Bacon

In the history of U.S. immigration, a long list of policies have sought to produce unequal status for different groups of people, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Alien Land Act, anti-miscegenation laws, Public Law 78 and the Bracero Program. They all created an unequal status...

By Peter Costantini

Why do some people brand those who enter or stay in the United States without proper papers as "illegals"? The usual answer goes something like: "They broke the law."

In this sense, though, most of us are "illegals" one way or...

This is the inaugural post of a new blog, which is inevitably a step into a fast-flowing and unpredictable stream. We hope that this will broaden into a forum where Inter Press Service correspondents who cover migration and interested readers can share insights about...