While Congress hotly debates the fate of millions of immigrants living and working illegally in the United States, few have paid attention to the factors that push migrants to take the dangerous journey from their home countries to find work in the U.S. — or how U.S. economic policies toward Latin America may shoulder part of the blame.Nearly 11.1 million immigrants live and work without legal papers in the U.S. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, who leads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ advocacy of comprehensive immigration reform, has urged Congress to enact legislation this year.The Democrat-controlled Senate...

oe Metz, a straight-talking Texas rancher on the U.S.-Mexico border, awoke recently to find 50 cows roaming freely in his front yard. Undocumented immigrants, he says, left a gate open as they crossed his land, which abuts the Rio Grande.For years, he’s witnessed migrants and drug smugglers touch American soil for the first time on his property.“We deal with this every day,” he said.But as a rancher in Hidalgo County, he also knows firsthand the need for labor to keep producers in the Rio Grande Valley operating. The traffic through his land frustrates him — particularly the potentially dangerous...