DESPITE THE FAILURE of the U.S. Senate’s immigration bill last month, lawmakers and the public will continue to grapple with “comprehensive immigration reform.” It is imperative that the national debate shift toward a real discussion of economic security, rather than remain mired in narrow discussions of border security.

Tackling root causes of migration, including poverty and lack of economic opportunity, is where the real security debate should be anchored. People migrate to the U.S. because they see economic opportunity here, compared to the economic devastation they face in countries impoverished by globalization.

Unfettered trade (e.g., under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA), privatization of state-run industry and services, and the triumph of investor rights over labor rights have not only failed to reduce poverty or create economic growth, they have made conditions worse.

Since these economic policies have not been working, people have resorted to a grassroots transfer of labor and capital. Workers migrate away from their families to serve as labor in rich countries and send capital in the form of remittances, or money transfers, back to their loved ones in impoverished communities around the world.

These remittances have eclipsed the amount rich countries spend on foreign aid. In 2006, migrant workers sent a total of $260 billion to their countries of origin, more than three times the amount of official development assistance. In many parts of the developing world, remittances account for 30 percent or more of the gross domestic product. Inflows from Mexicans living abroad, for example, represent the country’s second largest source of foreign income behind oil exports.

New organizations are working in immigrant communities to tap into the economic power represented by remittances to work towards sustainable development and to challenge harmful economic policies.

To take these individual efforts further, a coalition of migrant organizations around the world is creating a Transnational Community Reinvestment Fund that would support economic efforts in the communities that people migrate from and the places they migrate to.

Spearheading the work is an organization called TIGRA, Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action. Here in Rhode Island, the work is coordinated by a network of organizations and individuals including immigrants from Guatemala, Bolivia, Liberia, and the Dominican Republic, working together with U.S.-born allies. To date, the group has documented the sending patterns of over 600 people in the state, who collectively send remittances of more than $1 million a year.

But a key challenge faced by these communities is the high fees associated with remittance transactions. Being forced to spend billions in order to send money back home for food, urgent medical care and education is a major economic-security issue for immigrants. Studies show that if money-transfer fees were cut in half, 33 million people could be lifted out of poverty in the developing world. Immigrant workers spend up to a week’s wages to pay these monthly fees; for families in their home countries, the fee represents almost two month’s worth of wages.

This is why immigrants have undertaken a campaign to pressure the global money-transfer giant, Western Union, to lower fees and prioritize community reinvestment in sustainable development. Such a move would make the money-transfer industry more accountable to its customer base: immigrants who often work low-paying jobs with little regulation. This scenario is grounded in economic reality; wire transactions cost less than $1 to a company that charges $20 or more. The estimated $200,000 collected by Western Union and companies like it, just from the Rhode Islanders participating in TIGRA’s survey, could do a lot of good for communities in Liberia, the Dominican Republic, or even Central Falls or Olneyville.

Now that “comprehensive immigration reform” has failed in the Senate, we must return to the hard work of asking deeper questions about why people migrate. We must address root causes. Shifting focus to economic security as opposed to simply border security is necessary. We must broaden efforts that work to make migration a choice and not a necessity while strengthening the economic power of remittances. A crucial first step is to lower the cost of sending those remittances.

Yania Marcelino and Shannah Kurland are organizers for the Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action. Ms. Marcelino is originally from the Dominican Republic. TIGRA is a network of more than 100 immigrant organizations across the U.S.