Thread: Rhetoric on Illegal Immigration Won't Help Blacks

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_...c57c004c571ef6

Shrill Rhetoric on Illegal Immigration Won't Help Unemployed Blacks

New America Media, Commentary, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, May 31, 2006

Editor's Note: Studies show that industries with many black workers are often the same trades that hire many undocumented immigrants. But when some blacks conclude that those immigrants take away their jobs, they go too far, writes Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a political analyst and social issues commentator and the author of "The Crisis in Black and Black" (Middle Passage Press). Check out The Hutchinson Report blog.

The disjointed assembly of black academics, civil rights activists and black conservatives that gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in late May had only one goal in mind: to stop passage of the Senate's immigration reform bill. They formed what they called the Choose Black America Coalition. The Federation for Immigration Reform, which has been the loudest and most relentless in opposing any concessions to immigration rights groups, sponsored their news conference. The coalition didn't stop the bill, but it sent another noisy message that many blacks oppose immigration reform. Coalition members vowed to stage rallies, join the Minuteman Project, patrol the border and publicly denounce black Democrats and civil rights groups that back immigrant rights.

Their rage against immigration reform again boiled down to one thing: jobs. At the press conference, every speaker charged that illegal immigrants take jobs from blacks.

The coalition did touch a sore nerve with the jobs question. Though a May Pew Research Center poll found that blacks by a bigger percentage than whites are sympathetic toward the plight of illegal immigrants, it also found that blacks by a far higher percentage than whites fear that illegal immigrants take jobs from them.

The moment the illegal immigration issue became the topic of intense national debate, some blacks finger-pointed illegal immigrants as the main cause of the massive economic ills in poor black communities. And even with the passage of the Senate immigration reform bill, the finger-pointing hasn't stopped.

If there's any group that illegal immigration may have had a damaging economic impact on, it is young black males. But how damaging an impact has that been?

More than 40 percent of American-born blacks work in the cleaning and maintenance, food preparation, light manufacturing and transportation industries. That's double the figure for whites that work in those industries. These are also the industries where the greatest number of illegal immigrants work. Immediately after the Katrina debacle, black workers bitterly complained that labor contractors reneged on their promise to hire them for clean-up and repair jobs in the hardest-hit Gulf regions in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Instead, they trucked in thousands of undocumented workers. Homeland Security temporarily suspended sanctions against employers that hired undocumented workers.

The Gulf clean-up flap was no exception. According to the Pew Hispanic Research Center, illegal immigrants make up more than 10 percent of the construction trades.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics current population survey found that more than half of the nearly 4 million immigrant workers American businesses hired in the past five years have been illegal immigrants. The BLS calculates that this resulted in the loss of more than a half million jobs to American-born workers, the majority of whom were under age 30. The Bureau of National Affairs based on data from the BLS reported that for the first time ever in 2005, the rate of unemployment for foreign-born workers fell faster than the rate on unemployment for American-born workers.

The numbers are not smoking-gun proof that illegal immigrants have displaced tens of thousands of young blacks from jobs. If there were no illegal immigrants to fill jobs, many employers would still find ways to skirt discrimination laws and not hire young blacks. And, given the bottom-level wages and lack of benefits, many young blacks would not take these jobs even if they were available. Still, the number of jobs lost due to illegal immigration is just enough for some blacks to make the inferential case that illegal immigration has adversely affected blacks.

The black immigration opponents say the answer is to jail the immigrants, kick them out and militarize the border. This is inflammatory and delusional. Employers will continue to put the welcome mat out for cheap labor, illegal or otherwise. And, when they can get away with it, exploit them shamelessly. Katrina is an example of that. At the same time that black workers complained that illegal immigrants took clean-up jobs from them in the Gulf area, two federal class-action suits were filed that alleged that thousands of migrant workers worked brutal 12-hour shifts removing dangerous toxic wastes from buildings -- and were not paid.

Immigration opponents have not pressed government officials and business leaders for more job funding and training programs and to toughen enforcement against job discrimination. That would dent the job crisis among young blacks. But it would also remove the issue of black joblessness from the anti-immigrant activists' arsenal of weapons they use to bludgeon the public and elected officials on the perils of illegal immigration. The worry over black joblessness also enables them to con a few blacks into expressing support for ultra-conservative groups such as the Minuteman Project, a few of whom turned up at the National Press Club.

The crisis of black unemployment is very real. But dumping all or most of the blame for that crisis on illegal immigration won't solve it, and neither will shrill rhetoric from a rump black anti-immigrant group.

Amen!!!!!!!! I'm really glad to see the blacks organizing and taking a stand against the invasion. The "Latino" groups were trying to use them and expected black Americans to rally behind them.
I'm glad they saw threw that BS.

I'm going to say, I was not old enough to see the Blacks Civil Rights movement taking place. I'm basing the following on history and my opinion.

I may be wrong here, but of all the 50's Civil Rights marches that I've seen film footage of, the blacks never behaved the way the illegal supporters do. I realize, the ugly moments may be mothballed and I don't care if they are. That's history and it's done.

Also, the "Latinos" are not as noble as the blacks because back when the blacks were marching, a cop would have bashed your head in, just because he felt like it. Not any more. Black kids didn't skip school either because they worked way too hard to be allowed an equal education and they appreciated what they fought for. They would say the white man repressed them. In contrast, to "kill the gringo".

I have not seen a "Latino" leader that could hold a candle to the faith, wisdom or the truth of Malcom X or Martin Luther King, Jr. They are pretenders.

This "Latino" movement is not anything like the Black Civil Rights movement of the 50's- 60's .

The worry over black joblessness also enables them to con a few blacks into expressing support for ultra-conservative groups such as the Minuteman Project, a few of whom turned up at the National Press Club.

Are you kidding, any young unskilled American. All of the kids about to graduate from high-school will not be able to find a summer job. My kids are struggeling with this right now. I never had as much trouble as they do finding a job. They will go look day after day but they are all filled.

Dixie

Illegal aliens are robbing our most vulnerable...the poor, the young, the elderly, the minorities....and I AM SO GLAD to see Blacks standing up and speaking out.

We support you 100%...!!

GO AMERICA!!

We are uniting before our very eyes....

And it started as a snowflake and grew to a snowball and now it's the power of an avalanche.

We are still Americans....all for one and one for all.

HOORAH!!