Five years ago, I wrote something with almost the same title — and I resurrect this today because the Senate passed an immigration bill. Whatever you think about the bill (and the nutbars in the House majority are not going to let this version pass), in my view, it avoids a central point: we ignore the fundamental reason people flee their homes and what needs to be done to change that forced flight.

People mostly run for another country — uprooting their families or leaving family members behind — because of economic desperation. Millions of people came from Mexico because they could not survive in Mexico. And much of that economic oppression came after the passage of NAFTA in 1993, which devastated the Mexican small agricultural system. Small farmers could not scratch out a living competing against Big Agriculture.

So, until the U.S. stops forcing so-called “free trade” agreements down the throats of millions of people, lots of people are going to want to cross the border into the U.S. — though I guess now that wages are declining in the U.S. fast enough wages may be so low people don’t want to come here…though not quite yet.

And, in the bigger picture, as long as the bi-partisan love affair with the so-called “free market” continues, no immigration bill — at least not one that actually cares mostly about people in a humane, not punitive way — will “fix” the problem. People will be forced to live with a system that picks their pockets. And when they have nothing left, they will flee, looking for another option.

Fixing immigration means making sure people can survive in places they choose to live. You want a few policies to fix immigration? Declare global unionization as a middle class-creating program, jail all the bankers who destroyed the economy and banish every mention of tax cuts and tax holidays for corporations.