This is basically 100% backwards. In Canada it's large corporate lobbies pushing for more immigration. Why? Because it lets them keep wages low and makes unionization impossible.

See also, Bernie 10 years ago: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0&pp=ygUVYmVybmllIG9...

I don't know at what point people were convinced that the push against immigration is some kind of billionaire plot, but is has been great cover for said billionaires.

You also end up with a voter base that demands relatively little from their political leaders. The left-wing parties can win elections just using some feel-good measures targeted at recent immigrants and promising to make it easier for their co-ethnics to either immigrate legally or stay if they have immigrated illegally. That enables them to move right on economic issues to capture the politically powerful knowledge worker class.

> I don't know at what point people were convinced that the push against immigration is some kind of billionaire plot

Much like most other leftist rhethotic, this belief is not based on any real logic. Basically, the entire process went like this:

1. Corporations want more immigration to suppress middle class wages and workers' rights

2. They run propaganda campaigns targeted at the left and their virtues ("the poor immigrants are suffering and need our help! only racist nazis disagree!")

3. Said leftists, desperate to virtue signal and avoid being seen as racist or xenophobic, immediately move to support the cause unconditionally

4. They see the world as purely black and white, good vs evil, so when they ask themselves "do billionaires want immigration?" the thought process goes "billionaires=bad and immigration=good, therefore billionaires hate immigration"

Do you think billionaires care whom they exploit?

It’s a distraction and divide et impera to prevent that immigrant and lower class local workers join forces.

Some kind of employment ping pong. At the end it‘s always cheap labor