The Control of Population Movement is integral to social engineering. This does not necessarily mean a restriction on movement but control over movement - control over who moves where and when.

It is a fairly simple concept and the manipulation of population movement is and has been used for centuries by the ruling elite to create social situations which will favour their goals.

Population movement can be created by simple economic means, the closure of industries in one area, the removal or imposition of trade embargoes, taxes and so on can easily create a situation where one area becomes impoverished and another thrives, the movement of the population from the declining economic area into the one which is thriving is inevitable.

Other means of creating population movement can be religious or coerced through use of violence. Religious exoduses have occurred throughout history, pilgrims, missionaries, the goal of the pious to spread their 'true' religion to the uninitiated or unholy. This can be combined with violence, such as the escape of Jews from Nazi germany or the gradual violent oppression of Palestinians as Israel expands its borders in the middle east. It can be a sheer violent situation, such as a war or prolonged civil unrest causing the movement of populations seeking to escape from the violence. It is rare that this is not in some way connected with race, religion or creed.

Finally a common cause of population movement is drought and natural disaster.

The role of population displacement or movement in terms of political empowerment particulalry with a view to mid and long term goals is clear. By no means could it be suggested that all or even most of the shifting tides of people around the world be said to be created but some can, and those that are occurring can be harnessed to great effect.

The occasions where a population displacement can be used for political gain are clear. Often if a large influx of people of a particular religion or race move to another area the people already in that area may suffer or perceive that they are suffering as a result of this influx. Politically this means that an opponent to the influx may gain a large political advantage with the native population, similarly if a political representative sides with the new arrivals and they are provided voting rights or privileges then elections can be favoured by harnessing the support of one division or other. This empowerment is dependent on the perceived separation of the populations and the highlighting of their differences rather than similarities.

This 'us and them' perception is key as it harnesses entire groups of people, cities, and even nations in a united cause against the other people. This arouses within the people a primal sense of self preservation and a herd mentality which is easily manipulated.

The control of movement, as in who moves where and when, is done through the use of borders, checkpoints, customs, etc. More recently there has been a massive expansion of policy toward monitoring and controlling local movement notably in the UK and USA. The USA particularly has seen an increase of 'security' checkpoints both at State and County borders but also at random unnannounced locations (which are often manned by military personnel), in the UK the introduction of number plate recognition, CCTV, and so on allows a complete monitoring of the population's movement. Recent random stops called traffic censuses have been carried out with the use of police to force people to stop for random questionning about their identity and their movement. Many unfortunately do not know that while they do have to stop for the police (although their use of the powers granted by the people through their government in these schemes is somewhat questionnable).

The overall trend is that populations are being conditioned to being stopped and questionned for no good reason. This is a very similar situation as Nazi Germany, the stop and search or demand for papers was carried out under the guise of national security but eventually came to be used to commit genocide, prevent people escaping the tyranny, and killing off any resistance to the despotic regime.