An Immigration Question Spurs Strange Bedfellows
By SARAH GARLAND, STAFF REPORTER OF THE SUN | April 4, 2008
The federal government's civil rights commission is attempting to produce a definitive answer to one of the touchiest questions in the immigration debate: whether new immigrants, especially illegal ones, hurt African-Americans in the workplace.



The hearing Friday is likely to be a lively discussion among the country's top experts on the issue, as the commission seeks to come to a final conclusion in a debate that has churned out what seem like unexpected and incongruent opinions from both sides of the political divide.

Illegal immigration foes will try to convince the commission that the federal government should protect black workers from competition. On the other side of the debate, left-leaning immigration and labor experts will likely downplay the difficulties facing African-Americans as they argue that competition from illegal immigrants is largely insignificant.

"The purpose is to help inform the debate, to provide recommendations to the White House," one of the commissioners, Peter Kirsanow, said.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which has issued a series of policy briefs embracing views that could be characterized as conservative, including critiques of affirmative action, might find itself in an odd spot as it prepares to issue a report on the issue. Protecting citizens from having to compete for jobs is not typically a conservative stance, and neither is defending illegal immigration.

The argument that immigrants hurt African-American employment chances has been one of the main pillars of the mostly conservative movement to restrict immigration. One of the movement's most vocal spokesmen, Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, is scheduled to appear on the panel, and says he will try to convince the commission that the plight of black workers should trump sympathy for illegal immigrants seeking work and for the employers who hire them.

"Immigrants are increasing the supply of unskilled workers," he said. "This is not rocket science: Black American men are more likely to be employed in those occupations."

A visiting fellow at the Urban Institute who is also presenting at the hearing, Harry Holzer, said he believes other factors hurt African-Americans more than competition from illegal immigrants, pointing to differences between black women's success and black men's in the labor market.

"It's hard for me to say that immigration is the driving factor," he said.

The one thing that may not be surprising today as the two sides meet, Mr. Camarota said, is that the commission's goal to end the debate will likely fail.

On that there was consensus: "I think we'll all disagree," Mr. Holzer said.

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