Migrants have repeatedly said as much. And the media have reported it. The migrants want jobs, not protection. They also expect welfare, free medical, and a free ride in the public-school system, of course.

Yet the open-borders Left and its media have falsely insisted the invaders fear for their lives.

Well, now we have data that show the migrants are telling the truth, and the radical Left isn’t. It's from the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events at University of Southern California in a paper published with the Institute for Defense Analysis.

The Paper

The report studied migrants who come to the United States from the Northern Triangle of Central America: Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

The findings are clear: Migrants don’t want protection from persecution. They wants jobs. The paper reported that “long-term illegal migration to the United States of adults from Northern Triangle countries has primarily been driven by economic motivations,” and that “the primary motivations of juvenile migrants from 2011 to the present are economic opportunities and reunification with family that migrated previously.”

As well, “Evidence on the impact of crime and violence on juvenile migrants is mixed,” and the reasons the migrants won’t stay in Mexico is economic: “Mexico offers very little economic gain to Northern Triangle migrants, and the increase in income that a migrant could typically expect from migrating to Mexico would not justify the costs of doing so.”

In other words, sticking it out on the road for the border offers more bang for the buck. Or peso.

The authors interviewed a number of migrants to conclude that they migrate for money: “For all three countries, the vast majority of migrants report economic incentives as the reason for migrating. In 2017, El Salvador had the largest fraction of respondents identifying violence as a motivation, but even there it was less than 20 percent.”

The numbers break down as follows:

In 2016 and 2017, 100 percent of the Guatemalan migrants Mexico sent back home told the researchers they headed north for economic reasons. Of 871 interviewed in 2016, just three cited violence as the reason for coming to the United States. In 2017, none did.

For Honduras in those two years, the numbers were similar: 98 percent of 1,435 surveyed and 97 percent of 403 surveyed.

In 2016 for El Salvador, 98 percent of the 2,588 migrants cited economic reasons for leaving home. In 2017, it was 74 percent of 642 migrants.

Numbers from the migrants turned back by U.S. authorities were similar. In 2016, 91 percent of 1,625 Guatemalans came for economics reasons. In 2017, the number was 95 percent of 723.

For Honduras, it was 96 percent of both years for totals of 837 and 341 migrants.

For El Salvador, 97 percent of 2016 migrants claimed economic reasons for leaving home. In 2017, it was 73 percent of 798 migrants.

Bottom line? Few migrants surveyed cited fear of violence as a reason for attempting to enter the United States. Almost all said they were marching for jobs.

What Migrants Told the Media

Although researchers assembled the data about a year before the latest migrant “caravan” set off for the land of plenty, they offer the same picture the media have in their interviews with migrants. Among the reasons migrants have offered leftist reporters, who insist the migrants are running for their lives, are these:

A Guatemalan told Fox News: “I got no choice. I got to work for a living.”

A Honduran told the Associated Press: “I looked for work, and nothing.”

A Guatemalan told AP: “We only want to work and if a job turns up in Mexico, I would do it. We would do anything.”

A Honduran told NBC; she “hopes to reach the U.S.,” as the network put it, “and find work to send money back home.”

A Guatemalan told the Washington Post: “It’s time for me to go back to the United States. It’s a country where I can live my life, unlike Guatemala.”

A six-time Honduran deportee told the Post: “ That’s just how it is. They catch you and you try to get back.”

A three-time Honduran deportee told the Post: “We are workers. What are we supposed to do in Honduras if there’s no work?”

Photo: Clipart.com