Thread: Illegal Immigration and Black America

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
(Paris Sorbonne,1910)


Illegal Immigration and Black America
Written by Robert Klein Engler
Wednesday, May 26, 2004


A goblin is haunting Barack Obama's
election
campaign to become the Democratic senator from
Illinois. That goblin is in the shape of illegal
immigration and its impact on Black Americans.
The
Democrats need the votes of both Latinos and
Blacks to
win in November, yet this victory may be brought
at
the expense of Black Americans. Barack Obama
cannot
talk about this, because to do so he will have to
alienate one group or another.

The fact of the matter is, illegal
immigration,
especially illegal immigration from Mexico, is
hurting
Black Americans. If Democratic candidates ever
getting around to speaking the truth, they will
have
to tell Black voters that illegal immigration is
taking jobs away from Black Americans, cutting
into
resources available for welfare, and
restructuring
public schools and many urban areas. In short,
the
votes of Latinos are brought by the Democrats at
the
expense of Black America.

Tony Brown, author of What Mama Taught Me,
knows all too well how Black Americans are
injured by
illegal immigration. He writes, '''The U. S.
Census
Bureau reported in the New York Times...the poor
Black
and Latino communities lose the most income of
any
group of Americans, including all Americans who
did
not finish high school and all Americans who are
paying higher taxes to subsidize welfare benefits
for
illegal immigrants and businesses that hire them.
Illegal immigrants overuse welfare benefits and
services and underpay income taxes for a net loss
to
local, state and federal taxpayers.''

The Federation for American Immigration
Reform
(FAIR), has also documented
the
detrimental impact of illegal immigration on
Black
Americans. In California, Blacks are being
forced out
from communities like South Central, Los Angeles,
where they have long lived. ''This once
predominantly
Black neighborhood is becoming largely Hispanic.
South Central is being transformed. Here we talk
about
'Black flight.' People are leaving neighborhoods
where they have lived for years because they
don't
feel like they belong any more reports Terry
Anderson
in the San Francisco Examiner, (Feb. 3, 1999.)"

The Federation for American Immigration
Reform
continues in its report that, ''Other statistics
are
also sobering: a GAO study found that a decade of
heavy immigration to Los Angeles had changed the
janitorial industry from a mostly native Black,
unionized workforce to one of non-unionized
Latinos,
many of whom were illegal aliens. According to
the
Census, the employment of Black Americans as
hotel
workers in California dropped 30 percent in the
1980s,
while the number of immigrants with such jobs
rose 166
percent. A similar story can be told of the
garment
industry, the restaurant business, hospital work,
and
public service jobs.'' One can expect Blacks in
Illinois to suffer the same declines as illegal
immigration from Mexico continues.

Immigration researcher and commentator Roy
Beck
noted in his 1996 book, The Case Against
Immigration
that: ''To review the Black side of our nation's
immigration tradition is to observe African
Americans
periodically trying to climb the mainstream
economic
ladder, only to be shoved aside each time. It is
to
see one immigrant wave after another climb onto
and up
that ladder while planting their feet on the
backs of
Black Americans....The most racist policy in this
country for the past 25 years has been our
immigration
policy, because it has been the worst thing that
has
happened to Blacks from the federal government
since
slavery.''

The Harvest Institute also documents the
impact
of illegal immigration on Black Americans. ''Dr.
Claud Anderson, president of The Harvest
Institute, a
Black research and education organization,
announced
that The Harvest Institute does not support
President
Bush's recently proposed amnesty for illegal
immigrant
aliens and has released an Information Alert
(available at www.harvestinstitute.org). Dr.
Anderson
said, ''Despite the stance of many civil rights
groups, immigration's impact on native Blacks and
their communities is disproportionate, direct and
devastating. Blacks are losing faith because the
government continues a pattern of bestowing the
rights
that should first go to native Blacks to
immigrants
from foreign countries. Native Blacks are ignored
and
patronized with symbolic and ceremonial actions
by
both political parties. The issue of immigration
is
roiling within Black communities and has
become...divisive.''

As the Democrat's ''multicultural''
candidate,
Barack Obama has little to say about this
multicultural issue. You can read his position
papers
and look at his website and find no recognition
that
illegal immigration from Mexico is hurting Black
Americans. One has to wonder what kind of
immigration
policy Obama will vote for if he ever becomes a
U. S.
Senator. One has to wonder even more why Black
Americans continue to vote Democratic, when the
Democrats are not looking out for their
interests.

The Obama campaign has been silent too
long on
the issue of illegal immigration and its impact
on
Black Americans in Illinois. Nor have other
prominent
Democrats like Mayor Daley of Chicago, or Jesse
Jackson and his son spoken out about the impact
of
this issue. Black Americans like basketball
player
Michael Jordan, who gave $10,000, also contribute
money to the Obama campaign without questioning
Obama's stand on illegal immigration. Don't
expect a
critical voice anytime soon, however, from the
Democrats. When it comes to illegal immigration
and
Black Americans, the Democrats want to have it
both
ways. We can only hope that this duplicity will
lead
them to a defeat at the polls in November.


Robert Klein Engler lives in Chicago. He is an
adjunct professor at Roosevelt University. His
book,
A WINTER OF WORDS, about the ethnic cleansing at
Daley
College, is available from amazon.com.