immigration

Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2006 by Ruffin, David C

5 Black Leaders Lend Their Voices to the Debate

Immigration has been a problem in America since the first European settiers arrived and disrupted the civilizations of the natives they encountered. Enslaved Africans followed shortly and, together with White indentured servants, formed the first pool of a long line of exploited workers who generated for others much of the wealth that built this country. Through the 19th and 20th centuries, new waves of immigrants came - Irish driven from their homeland by the potato famine, Jews fleeing oppression in Eastern Europe and peoples from dozens of Southern and Eastern European ethnic groups seeking better lives within these shores. As in the past, strong and vocal groups have risen to oppose the relatively recent influx that comprises mainly people of color from Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia. Immigrants and their supporters have pushed back with nationwide protests against draconian legislation that would mark illegal immigrants as felons.

Caught in the middle are African Americans, many of whom make up a large portion of low-skilled workers who have competed with each successive surge of newcomers for jobs at the bottom of the pay scale. Rising out of the current furor over immigration are concerns emanating from within Black communities that seem to echo those from the past: Are immigrants taking jobs from Black workers and depressing wages? How significant is immigration compared with other causes of Black unemployment? What do African Americans lose if undocumented immigrants are provided a pathway to citizenship? Are there issues on which Black and immigrant communities can find common ground?

The Crisis sought answers to these and other questions through a series of interviews with five prominent Black leaders and activists. We talked to: Constance Rice, a human rights and civil rights lawyer and co-director of the Advancement Project in Los Angeles; Gerald Hudson, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union; Ronald Walters, professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland at College Park; Bruce S. Gordon, president and CEO of the NAACP; and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas).

CONSTANCE RICE ADVANCEMENT PROJECT

CRISIS: How would you characterize the U.S. immigration issue?

Rice: It must be really rich for Native Americans to hear European descendents talk about proper immigration. I mean, the Europeans came over here and basically did grand theft nation and genocide. If you think about it, the only folks who have a right to be here are Native Americans. So I start there.

Immigration has always been problematic for the groups that come here and for African Americans as a whole. There has always been this demonization of immigrants, even though we have needed them to do cheap labor.

How does immigration affect African Americans?

Rice: When you talk about the intersection between African Americans and immigrants, you have to ask which African Americans. If you are talking about my friends, the Buppies - Black urban professionals who are Ivy League-educated - we benefit from immigration because these folks are mowing our lawns and taking care of our children.

But does the pressure of undocumented workers have an impact on Black workers at the low end of the workforce?

Rice: The three biggest threats to low-skilled [and] no-skilled African American laborers are as follows: number one, America's mass incarceration strategy; number two is technology and automation - tollbooths and cashier jobs are now automated.

The third thing is the downsizing of the public sector, because African Americans are disproportionately employed in government jobs as postal workers, public school teachers and nurses in public hospitals. All my relatives drove trucks for the government. They were clerks and teachers. These are at least three major dynamics that have had a bigger impact on low-skilled, no-skilled African American job prospects before you even get to immigration.

How would you respond to those who depict immigration as an "invasion"?

Rice: You have to ask why these people leave their children behind and come here. Who in the world would risk gang rape, being robbed by the police and by bandits, and a long walk into a desert where more than 500 people a year perish? The reason that we have this massive tide of immigrants is because Mexico is a failed state. There is not enough of an economic engine there to employ their own people.

So I don't blame the immigrants who are desperate to provide for their families. When we allow an employer to get away with exploiting immigrant labor, is that the immigrant's fault or is that our fault? Have you ever seen CEOs marched off in leg irons for presiding over a conspiracy to hire undocumented illegal alien labor so that they can lower wages and make bigger profits? They get away with it and there are no real employer sanctions. We've got reverse Robin Hood going on in this country right now.

Is this a civil rights issue?