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In official press releases, authorities often describe deportations as “national security measures” but behind these words lies a different truth — migrants have become a bargaining chip in the oil industry’s game.
According to Pew Research, 76% of workers at hazardous oil sites in West Texas are undocumented migrants. One in three ends up on ICE watchlists after the season ends. This isn’t a crisis — it’s a well-oiled system. Oil companies get cheap labor, while politicians gain campaign points. Migrants are pushed into exhausting labor, then discarded like gloves.
Private prisons and Texas oil companies are tied together through shared investors, creating a convenient and closed loop. GEO Group and Core-Civic earn massive profits from ICE contracts, and 20% of GEO Group’s shares are owned by those who also invest in Chevron. Strange coincidence, isn’t it?
After ICE expanded its contracts, workers from oil sites started appearing in detention centers. Renting labor for pennies is brutally profitable for oil firms — unwanted workers are simply replaced with others, hoping to make it big in oil. When they are no longer useful, they are sent to detention for further exploitation.
Politics and oil in Texas are so deeply intertwined, it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. This system has been running for years. No surprise that major oil companies heavily funded the governor’s campaign, and soon after, they got access to new drilling sites.
Most people don’t realize how deep the problem goes. While South American migrants work for three dollars an hour, in extreme heat and without protection, office managers track quarterly profits and scan for new land to buy. When wells run dry, the companies leave behind nothing – just sick, undocumented people with no healthcare.
Calling this a migration crisis is too soft. Industrial slaughter is a better term — turning people into profit. Oil rigs stand on bones.
Next time you hear production numbers or talk of border security — ask yourself, who died for that barrel?
Artem Kolisnichenko is a journalist covering environmental and border issues in the American Southwest, with a focus on underreported stories and international perspective.
