Immigration Harms Black America

“Immigration’s impact on native Blacks and their communities is disproportionate, direct and

devastating,” said. Dr. Claud Anderson, president of The Harvest Institute, a Black-focused research,

policy and education organization. Anderson said that the hidden national employment rate of Blacks is

35%. In cities like Baltimore, Detroit and Pittsburgh, Black unemployment is well over 45%. In New York,

unemployment for Black men tops 51% and the national youth unemployment figure is nearly 80%. In the 1930s, government declared a national emergency when total unemployment reached 25%.

Native Blacks are a labor class that the government and private industry are allowing to become obsolete while they reach out to foreign born immigrants to fill shrinking employment opportunities. The Harvest Institute opposes amnesty for illegal immigrant aliens, guest worker programs, and supports increased restrictions on illegal and legal immigration until the nation first lifts the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow on native Black American. Dr. Anderson said, “Most civil rights groups and elected officials turn a blind eye to the fact that current immigration laws and public policies advantage new immigrants above Blacks and bestow benefits and rights to foreign born that native Blacks still strive to acquire but have never enjoyed.”

Research from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) indicates that immigrants drive down the

wage scale and displace native Black Americans in skilled and unskilled jobs. Businesses often claim that

immigrants perform jobs that Americans will not. Low wage immigrants relieve businesses of the need to

pay living wages. Jobs in America pay immigrants wages 10 to 20 times what they would earn in their

homelands. Minimum wage is not a liveable wage for most Americans. At the same time, there are many

categories of jobs that native Blacks would like to perform, but immigrants are often preferred. Both

governments and the private sector ignore native Blacks as a source of labor for jobs the economy needs.

Dr. Anderson, author of best-selling books that include, PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower

Black America, once a high ranking member of the Democratic party said, “Both political parties ignore

and patronize native Blacks who, across the economic strata, increasingly resent the preferential treatment

bestowed upon immigrants.”

According to Anderson, “The Harvest Institute’s mission is to correct some of the historical

legacies of exclusion by helping Black America to become more self-sufficient and competitive as a

group.

The Harvest Institute bases its opposition to increased immigration on the Constitution which

mandated the United States government to correct the effects of slavery on Blacks. Laws created slavery

and enslaved Blacks as a group. Therefore, to emancipate slaves and to change government policies that were legal under slavery but illegal after emancipation, Congress passed corrective laws and Constitutional Amendments. Congress mandated Due Process and Equal Protection for Blacks in the 13th and 14th Constitutional Amendments, and in the 1866 Civil Rights Law mandated that “...all levels of government [to] use all necessary means to lift all the badges and incidents of slavery off the shoulders of black people.” None of the mandated corrective actions have ever occurred. Nor did the civil rights laws and social integration of the 1960s lift the “badges and incidences of slavery” from native Black Americans.

Instead of implementing the required corrective measures, the federal government enacted policies which advantaged immigrants over native Black Americans. The immigration policies of the United States have made native Black Americans this nation’s

only planned, permanent, involuntary minority-loser. Immigration hurts Blacks more than any other

population group in America in the following ways:

? The legacies of the slavery and Jim Crow legal regimes continue to affect native Blacks. Of all

the nation’s population groups –Whites, Asians, Blacks and Native Americans– native Blacks

have the highest unemployment, lowest median household income and the lowest number of

businesses. Immigrants compete with native Black Americans and displace them economically,

from housing, their neighborhoods, businesses, education, employment, affirmative action programs

and in the nation’s conscience.

? Any amnesty policy that accepts the 11-20 million illegal aliens would extend immigration rights to

additional family members. If each illegal immigrant brought even two people, the resultant 40

million would completely decimate and even nullify the voting strength of 36 million native Black

Americans;

? According to CIS, immigrant headed households consume more in public services than they pay in

taxes. The fiscal burden ranges from billion to billion above the net gain from having

immigrants in the work force. The corporate elite benefit most from increased immigration. Native

Black taxes are used to help lift immigrants and provide services to them such as health care and

educational opportunities, that are not available to native Blacks.

? Affirmative action programs, originally intended as corrective action for Blacks, have been

converted into preference programs for immigrants. However, ninety percent of immigrants are

classified as White and Whites are excluded from affirmative action programs, why then are

uninjured immigrants included in these programs?

? Immigration has erased the 10% income gains that native Blacks made between 1956 and 1966,

the years of the civil rights movement.

Responsibility to enhance the lives of native born Americans should be a higher priority of the

United States government than creating opportunities for foreign born. The Harvest Institute recommends

that Congress and the Administration work to eliminate the disparities between immigrants, legal and illegal, and native Blacks in America and adopt the following policies:

1) Restrict immigration and train native populations, especially unemployed and unskilled Blacks, as a

new labor pool;

2) Immigration reform should include resources to establish economic development programs such as

community banks to specifically alleviate the direct negative impact on native Black communities;

3) Require all immigrants that seek American citizenship to demonstrate knowledge of Black history

and the contributions native Blacks have made to the development of this nation;

4) Reform existing immigration law to treat Haitian refugees equal to Cuban refugees;

increase the number of immigrants of African descent until their numbers match the percentage of

Asians, Arabs, and Hispanics who have migrated to the United States, legally and illegally over the

last 40 years;

5) Remove immigrants from affirmative action programs which were initially intended to address the

native Black racial problem.

(For more detailed information see the Information www.harvestinstitute.org)

Friday, March 31, 2006, 6:30 p.m.

Dr. Anderson will be appearing at:

Eso Won Books (323) 294-0324

3655 S La Brea Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90016