Posted on 06/17/2007 5:40:24 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
IN THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN community, discussion, debate and uneasiness continue over how much the tide of new immigration impacts job opportunities.
T. Willard Fair, president of the Greater Miami Urban League, criticized Senate Democrats for supporting the immigration bill while ignoring the concerns of African-Americans shut out of restaurant and other low-paying jobs because of immigrant labor. For that he was labeled a tool of right-wing anti-immigrant conservatives.
The Congressional Black Caucus, which is on record as supporting access to citizenship, job training and fair wages for immigrants, is now finally getting around to forming a task force to address some of the inherent conflicts between the massive number of illegal workers and African-American workers concentrated at the lowest end of the job market.
A University of Chicago study concluded that 48 percent of African-American young adults agreed with the statement that "the government treats most immigrants better than it treats most black people in this country."
Exploitation
No immigration bill can be truly comprehensive unless it deals with the distribution of low-wage jobs. Eager for a low-paid workforce, employers exploit the immigrant equally eager for more money than he can make at home. At the same time the flood of immigration drowns out other low wage workers, many of them African-American. But you also can't ignore the job needs of blue-collar ethnics, who in previous economies might have made a decent middle-class living from building trades, manufacturing and the dirty jobs that other Americans don't want.
The catch-all compromise immigration bill was supposed to satisfy legislators who want legal status for millions of immigrants illegally in the United States and at the same time accommodate demands from the right for stringent sanctions against illegal aliens. But we're being presented with a patch job that solves few problems while creating more bureaucracy that keeps undocumented immigrants marginalized objects of resentment, exploitation and suspicion.
Solving the immigration problems seems still a long way off. The pressure for solutions is driving local communities to take matters into their own hands. Eventually somebody's going to get hurt.
Problems in Morristown
The pressure release valve for the heated conflicts is not in Congress but in places like Morristown, which wants to deputize police as federal agents so they can crack down on illegal aliens. At the other extreme is Prospect Park's offer of sanctuary to any illegal immigrant seeking safety.
The Record reported earlier this month that arrests of illegal immigrants doubled to nearly 1,800, twice the number seized in New Jersey by federal immigration officers the previous year.
More likely than not, the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants are here to stay. But holding out the promise of guest worker status and family reunification and easing the path to citizenship is putting the cart before the horse.
The way to make it work is to start with the basics. A layered approach would begin with a census of everyone already in this country illegally or working under false identities. A lot of what we know about the people whom Congress is trying to make laws for is anecdotal. We need facts.
Who are these folks? Do they have birth certificates proving when and where they were born? How old are they? Do they have criminal records? What is their health status? Do they agree to abide by the Constitution of the United States?
In spite of bipartisan efforts to compromise on reforms, the package contains enough for both sides to find objectionable.
Employers' acceptance was mixed. They should be overjoyed by the guest worker program that would give them an endless supply of labor. That's fine for the unskilled labor pool of farm workers, but infuriating for employers with more skilled jobs: Training is wasted on someone permitted to stay only two years.
The bill leaves the challenging labor issues up in the air, and raises fundamental questions about fairness.
Lawrence Aaron is a Record columnist. Contact him at aaron@northjersey.com. Send comments about this column to grad@northjersey.com.
We need to adopt a whole wave of disgruntled African-(true) Americans into the new coalition of patriot conservatives that will arise out of the dustheap of DC Elitists dumping on ALL of us born Americans.... African-Americans have been part of this nation’s history...helping to build it, serving in the military and other contributions. That illegals come here and trash our fellow Americans chaps me bad. DEPORT them back whence they came.
CALL! CALL! CALL! CALL! AND KEEP CALLING TILL THE LINES FRY!
WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! TILL YOU RUN OUT OF INK IN YOUR PEN!
Bombard the Democrats as well, especially the ones that ran on an anti illegal immigration plank and the ones in marginal districts who could be vulnerable. keep pounding on them. This is a bipartisan issue not a Conservative or Liberal issue BUT AN AMERICAN issue.
DITTO. Children of illegal immigrants who want to follow their father to work in construction are running into the problem of not being hired because the employer realized that he speaks good English during the interview and assumes he is an American who knows his rights. The employer would hire only hispanics that speak poor English and not American hispanics.
“My gut feeling is that the illegals will replace the black workers because the illegals will work for less. “
They don’t work for less (take home pay). They just have to work off the books (no workers comp, no health insurance, no taxes withheld.)
“Because they don’t matter. They are going to vote 90+% Democrat no matter what happens.”
Because we don’t matter. We are going to vote 90+% Republican no matter what happens!
Different sides of the same coin.
I will not vote for another unprincipled Republican because I am told that “a Democrat would be so much worse”.
BS. If my vote is going to count I must be willing to change it.
This thread starts with an article from northjersey.com.
I can tell you for a fact that the demographic in North Jersey with the highest level of unemployment is African-American males age 16-25. Has been so for over two decades here. In areas where the African-American community is functioning, and are bringing up good kids, but are living within working class communities, it has become nearly impossible for African-American young males in this state to find summer jobs because every position is filled with legal and illegal immigrants. The NJ State Dept of Labor, NJ Workforce investment Board, and NJ dept of education have been pushing home this point with no success for years, none of the NJ Democrats limousine liberal financial supporters want to hear it. (And the Republicans above county level are worse)
NJ a a whole will have the lowest percentage of high school students in the summer workforce since employment statistics were started. This disproportionately affects the poorest households in the state.
“...it has become nearly impossible for African-American young males in this state to find summer jobs because every position is filled with legal and illegal immigrants. “
How do NON-”African-American young males in this state” avoid the problem ?
I suppose it would be too much to ask that they might spend some of that leisure time working for candidates that are against illegal immigration.
“I will not vote for another unprincipled Republican because I am told that “a Democrat would be so much worse”.”
Is that the old “ I’m going to send them a message” fallicy ?
That kind of thinking got fools to vote for Perot and saddled us with Clintons. I’m sure THEY enjoyed hearing the “ message that got sent “.
Well, we are talking about the lower end of the job market. If an employer breaks the law and hires an African-American teenager for sub-minimum wage, he will go to jail. If he breaks the law and hires an illegal for sub-minimum wage, nothing will happen. That's the problem.
Blacks were adversely affected by the large influx of Euros who poured into this country before we even had real immigration laws. We can just imagine how bad it is now with the illegals.
I am going to phone Senator Boxer tomorrow (who voted No on the key cloture vote) using African-American dialect. Is that wrong?
When they get real pay and benefits, the exploiters will want a whole new crop of illegals. And the process starts all over again...
“Blacks were adversely affected by the large influx of Euros who poured into this country ...”
You mean those Euros, most of whom did not speak english, but quickly blew right by them on the economic scale ?
The Democrats have made it their job to see that Blacks have a perpetual lock on the bottom rung of the ladder, When they legalize the illegals, those people can start to move up, freeing up those bottom rung slots once again.
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