Immigration/ Open Borders cont.

Jonathan,

Your analysis conflates a few things, both economic and cultural, that I think are separate variables, but that do operate on the immigration issue simultaneously. So this requires some multivariate analysis.

Let’s start with the racism variable.

Racism is one of those words that only seems to really throw up the blinders within the dominate power (white culture in the US of A) when it is uttered. Its existence in that circle is often sidestepped or otherwise not addressed or diminished, or even denied, as an operating variable at all, particularly in the context of the immigration debate. I run into this all the time in my experience. Ask many white people (conservative or liberal) if racism exists, and they’ll often tell you yes, but that admission is normally followed by the qualifier that it is isolated and that things are far better than they used to be and getting better by the moment — as though human nature has been magically transformed since the days of Jim Crow and slavery — well, centuries of slavery.

The fact is that racism is real and ubiquitous in our society, and it affects everyone; I mean everyone — even those in denial about its still extensive and pernicious reach. White people, including myself, will never understand this in its full impact because we do not wake up each day, and every day, as a minority (in America, a person of color) who must confront every waking moment of their entire lives the institutionalized nature of the beast. For the white person, this institutionalized racism is a form of oppression that can only be experienced, if at all, only occasionally, vicariously, by seeing it happen to a person of color.

The whole notion of reverse discrimination is a sham. As an individual white person, you might experience a slight, or even an overt act of racism, projected upon you individually by a minority, but you will never experience a racism that has power over your entire family and culture, an institutionalized form of oppression that bleeds into all veins of your life, because the institutions that matter in the U.S. are not controlled by minorities. It is still a very white country in that respect, and I’d argue that what many white people, whether they consciously acknowledge it or not, truly fear, is that they, and their institutions, will one day no longer bask in the favor of white privilege — and all the sins of our past will come home to roost. It is one thing, even for the liberals among us, to sympathize with the plight of minorities. But I think it would be quite another to wake up one day and realize from that moment forward the black or brown person will have power over you through all the institutions that matter in the society — justice, the corporate world, your neighborhood zoning.

When that day happens, it won’t be reverse discrimination white people face. It will be, should the minorities (who become the majority, in control of the institutions of power) choose to act similarly as white folks have historically: Discrimination.

So I’d argue for all involved, it is best we find a way to make peace now, so the cycle does not continue to affect our children and tear away the fabric of our society.

If we want to have an honest debate about racism, and its hold on the immigration and other issues, we have to start with that premise, it seems to me, or we are all barking up the wrong tree.

It’s about power, and how those with the power treat those without the power — and it is particularly vile when that power system is premised in large part, as it has been historically in the USA, on one’s skin color (which as we know cannot be changed).

Now as far as the whole wage argument, the economic variable, well, I’ll keep that as brief as possible, because economics can get very complicated real quick — much like predicting weather patterns, which I suspect you don’t do very well either.

Based on your reasoning in examining wages in isolation out of the broader context of a host of other economic variables, we should be able to solve the low-wage problem by simply raising everyone’s wages across the board by edict, and then everyone would be making more money, right? But I guess the problem there is if everyone is making more money, then everyone’s raise would be equally worthless (in proportion to their existing riches), because increasing wages should drive up prices (inflation) accordingly — based on capitalist theory.

But I see one economic ray of sunshine that shoots a hole in the notion that by expanding the pool of low-wage workers, we automatically depress wages for all low-wage workers. And that hope stems from the fact that wages do not operate in isolation in the economy. Lower wages also, according to capitalist theory, should result in lower prices, and low inflation buttresses the value of everyone’s dollar. So, essentially, it is possible for everyone’s boat to be raised in such a system because their dollars will have more potential buying power — or at least won’t lose buying power via spiraling inflation (which can be set in motion by spiking wages).

Now, I don’t buy that economic argument in whole, because like the weather, there’s always some other factor (the greed-fueled manipulation of the money markets or a war here or there, for example) that blows in the clouds on what was supposed to be a sunny day for the little guy. But by the same token, you can’t argue that a worker making $5 an hour in the states isn’t better off than that same worker making 5 pesos a day in Mexico. So that individual is better off, right?

And who is really hurt? You seem to be saying it’s other poor U.S. workers who might be able to make $5.25 an hour if we didn’t have that extra labor in the U.S. (How much would wages really rise anyway absent the immigrant labor — as you suggest unions are not particularly effective to begin with on this front)?

Well, shouldn’t the goal of free trade be to raise living standards for everyone? And isn’t labor part of the free trade equation?

So are you saying free trade has a few bugs in it, and therefore we should penalize the lowest wage workers for those shortcomings by ensuring they stay in place, earning 5 pesos a day making products that are sold to workers in the states who are making $5 an hour laboring for employers whose CEOs are in some cases making thousands of dollars an hour and whose owners are in many cases already millionaires or billionaires?

Well, given that I suspect you don’t like that outcome either, then maybe we have to look at some better blending of social programs that help to offset the effects of these free-trade pitfalls. Someone up the chain of the economic ladder in our flat world is benefiting from all this low-cost labor (both here and south of the border), so there has to be some spare bucks around somewhere to help address this situation by reducing the burden on the little guy in the form of assuring better health care for starters, let say.

That way, we begin to solve the big economic concerns fueling the immigration crisis (assuming racism is really not the driving factor as you seem to suggest). We keep prices low, because the new wave immigrant labor is helping to assure that wages do not spiral out of control due to wage inflation; and through the adoption of socially beneficial programs, everyone in the country can be guaranteed the basic elements of survival (even on the low-wage end of the spectrum) – food, shelter and health care.

And maybe we can even throw in some programs that create opportunity to help raise everyone’s lot in the labor pool, such as broad access to affordable, quality education and daycare for all — and in that way create a path to some real security and wealth for all these low-wage workers you worry will be further oppressed by other low-wage workers coming to the country (again, assuming racism is not a big threat to expanding their fortunes, as you suggest).

But admittedly, some folks in the system would have to forego a measure of profit (and political power) to make this happen.

You see, the solutions to the borders we create are only limited by our refusal to open our minds to the possibilities of change.

Jonathan, I'm glad you commented. You'll find discussion more civil here than on most blogs because we're among the few that insist that commenters use their real names (that goes a long way toward promoting accountability and decency in discourse). Not that it doesn't sometime get hot under the collar here, too, but it doesn't deteriorate into flame wars like what happens on message boards with anonymous users. Everybody here has proved his and her identity one way or another.

Anyway, I'd love to address your point...

Jonathan writes:

"To me, the key point is that low-skilled immigration harms the poorest 'natives' in any society..."

I reply:

I'll sidestep the overly used and errant term "unskilled" (nobody that's ever picked crops or done heavy lifting would refer to such work that way or think that one doesn't have to develop skills to do it) and go directly to the meat of Jonathan's comment.

It is certain that a cheaper labor pool undercuts other workers. But you know what really drives wages down much more? The answer is: a cheap labor pool that has zero rights to organize for better pay and better working conditions.

The anti-immigrant forces take one set of circumstances (i.e. "when a worker can't organize, join a union, try to form a union, negotiate, or sue over harm caused him/her by unsafe working conditions") and misstate the nature of that worker (i.e. as "unskilled" or "illegal"). That's a bass-ackwards way of looking at it.

The problem is not that the worker does manual labor "cheaper than other workers would." The problem is that if he and she try to improve their lot - raising wages, with better conditions, which would help all workers everywhere because it won't be as cheap - the employer can call in Homeland Security and provoke a raid. I've reported some hard examples of that in recent weeks here. What keeps this harmful dynamic in place is precisely the "illegality" assigned to the worker.

It's very similar to the "war on drugs," in which the government and media recite harms caused by drugs being prohibited (again, "illegal") and then blames those harms on the use of the drugs themselves. But it is the making of a behavior illegal - and in this case more expensive, forcing addicts and dealers to resort to violences and other crimes that simply don't occur between alcohol and tobacco users and dealers - that makes the harm so much greater even to those that don't use illegal drugs.

In the same vein, not even leading immigrant-basher Tom Tancredo has been able to convince anyone that the USA can successfully locate and deport 12 million undocumented workers, or even most of them (and any economist worth his salt can explain the recessionary tailspin that would cause to the entire US economy if someone suddenly figured out a way to do it). So whether you like it or not, you're stuck with most of the "illegal" immigrants continuing to work in the United States.

The more harshly you penalize them for being "illegal", the lower their pay plummets, and the lower the wages of "legal" workers then follows that downward trend.

The only sensible way to minimize the harm done by having a cheaper labor pool is to make that labor pool "less cheap." You do that by legalizing the worker's presence, allowing him and her to fight for and win better wages and conditions. Then all boats rise under all workers. (And new generations of immigrants throughout American history have shown they often know better than most how to organize and win better pay and better work conditions.)

Those that benefit from the "illegality" of 12 million workers (here's a hint: most are so wealthy as to not have to be skilled" at any kind of real work; they're the owners of the modern-day sweatshops and plantations - you don't need a university degree or any other kind of "training" to be an owner) do seek to divide and conquer the poor white manual laborer from the poor black manual laborer, they've done that for almost a century and a half now. And those same kinds of members of the owners' class seek to divide both groups, and others, from Mexican-American and other newer immigrant workers toward the same end.

If you care, as you profess to do, about the plight of the "legal" underpaid workers in the US, then you are working against their interests by seeking to keep 12 million newer immigrants "illegal," thus ensuring the status quo: the continued poverty of all.

It's just like the drug war. You have to rethink it in the same way.

Al Giordano

Wow! Hi guys, thanks heaps for your responses. (I say 'wow' because I'm so stoked to receive a comment from the great Al Giordano himself! (Sorry, Al, I know that sort of hero-worship probably isn't your style :-)

BTW, I agree with you about the use of real names. I edit over at Wikipedia a bit (and use my real name, but most people don't seem to) and I wonder if it wouldn't improve the tone of some of the debates, which can get pretty heated depending on which articles you're working on.

Anyway, it will take me a while to respond to all of the points both of you have raised, but I'll have a go for a while at least.

Oh, but first, let me just say I agree with you, Al, about calling jobs 'low-skilled' or 'unskilled' -- while I think the term has some merit in differentiating jobs which require large amounts of tuition (medicine, law and the like), I don't think the work is somehow easier -- it's much harder, in fact; I doubt any 'professional' would want to trade places with someone doing heavy lifting, fruit picking etc even if the pay was exactly the same. (It's invariably more dangerous to life and limb, for starters)

So, in some sort of rough order of how they've been raised, here are my responses:

In response to Bill, I'll just clarify that I am not saying that no anti-immigration sentiment is racist; a lot of it is, but I'm just saying there is a non-racist argument -- that it hurts the 'native' poor.

To turn to the economic point, then (and no, I don't have an economics degree either :-) Bill writes:

"Based on your reasoning in examining wages in isolation out of the broader context of a host of other economic variables, we should be able to solve the low-wage problem by simply raising everyone’s wages across the board by edict, and then everyone would be making more money, right? But I guess the problem there is if everyone is making more money, then everyone’s raise would be equally worthless (in proportion to their existing riches), because increasing wages should drive up prices (inflation) accordingly — based on capitalist theory."

Well, I think this isn't quite true -- this is the argument capitalists use, and have always used, against the minimum wage (and raises thereof), shortenings of the working week, etc -- and they have been comprehensively proven wrong. (Raises in the minimum wage actually do improve living standards for those earning it, etc)

That said, my original point about unionism was that wages aren't simply a result of political pressure alone; the money does actually have to exist in the economy before it can be shared out (so you're right in that raising the minimum wage to, say, $60,000p/a will simply fuel inflation and make money relatively more worthless).

You (Bill) go on to argue that low wages are actually good in that they keep price inflation low -- this is classical neoliberal (capitalist) theory, and like I say I don't have the knowledge in economics to refute this comprehensively, but I just disagree: you really think everyone is better off when wages are pushed to their lowest level? I tend to think everyone was better off in the old 'aristocracy of labour' days when prices were higher but wages kept up with them.

Also, where does unemployment figure in this? (I'm not throwing that out as a challenge, btw -- I'm actually not sure)

The final point I'll respond to of Bill's, because I think it is key, is the argument that immigration is better overall because the poor worker from Mexico is better off. Now, this is one I can't really argue with, because it is perfectly sound philosophically: why should a Mexican's welfare somehow be worth less than an American's? (I've actually been the first to bring up this point when I've had debates with people on this topic, and my view is that that is a perfectly reasonable, even admirable, position to take; I just want to be clear about the costs to the native -- in this case American -- poor).

Because I think these costs are potentially significantly higher than the drop from $5.25/hr to $5/hr suggested by Bill. I can't be bothered going and culling them right now, but some of the comments I linked to over at Huffington Post talked about the going rates for some jobs now largely done by new immigrants as more like being cut in half.

And to me, the main point comes back to what I was just arguing: is everyone really better off when wages are at their lowest level? Because open borders will simply drive wages in every country (except, presumably, the world's poorest one) downwards, as Guatemalans etc migrate to Mexico and undercut their wages, etc. You could say that everyone's better off, because they're earning more across the border, but I just think it makes more sense for everyone to fight their own bosses for more money (after all, earning power is really based more on actual purchasing power; ie, $5 is way more than 5 pesos, but if 5 pesos can in Mexico buy you a hot dinner, then it's actually not too far off being the same). PS, I have no idea what 5 pesos can buy you in Mexico, or how expensive a hot dinner is there.

Well, I hope that isn't too confused and/or confusing. I also hope I haven't misrepresented anything you were saying, Bill; if I was, it was unintentional.

I think I'll have to respond to Al's points in my next post, just in case I don't get time to finish this all right now (also to keep the discussion a bit clearer). Cheers!

hi Al,

first off, I hope you read my reply to Bill (I'm sure you will have) as it will be easier for me to refer to things I've written there as needs be; also so that you understand I didn't intend to denigrate 'low-skilled' (so-called) labour.

Anyway, to turn to the points you've raised:

You argue that the answer to the problem of new immigrants undercutting 'native' wages -- I keep putting that word in quotes because it somehow sounds near-fascist, however I can't think of a better term :-) -- is for the immigrants to be given legal status so that they can unionise and press for better wages.

There's basically two problems I can see with this. The first is that they will probably still end up undercutting local wages (ah, there's a better term) because they will be willing to work for less than the locals as their 'horizons' are lower, coming from much poorer backgrounds. Allowing unionisation will certainly improve the situation, not least for those workers, but I don't see it eliminating that dynamic.

Second, there is the basic supply-and-demand dynamic -- if labour is plentiful (or relatively more plentiful), it will simply be that much easier for bosses to drive down wages as workers compete for jobs.

In relation to the US and the 12 million specifically, while I accept the impracticability of mass deportation (not that I would support that anyway -- I'm not that heartless), I'm not sure why a severe crackdown on employers hiring 'illegals' wouldn't result in the demand for their labour drying up and hence effectively lead to a similar result. I'm not sure I'd necessarily accept the opinions of mainstream economists on the unviability of it, either, as they invariably see things from the point of view of the owners/capitalists -- 'It would be a catastrophe! Wages would have to rise!'

Because -- and this leads on to my next point -- it seems to me that this (crackdown) has to happen anyway after any 'amnesty', otherwise more immigrants will simply come and undercut the new ones' wages and standards.

Finally, there's one more point I'd like to raise, although it's not specifically in response to either your or Bob's comments, which is the (potentially touchy) subject of national identity. Basically, I disagree with the concept (often implicit on the far left) that it is somehow illegitimate (usually described as racism) for populations to wish to maintain their existing ethnic makeup and/or culture.

(Can I just say at this point that I am not particularly one of those people, and I'm living in London now which I love for its multiculturalism)

However, I see it as hypocritical that while the far left tends to be thoroughly sympathetic with non-white nations (sorry if that sounds a bit crude, but that is honestly the dynamic as I see it) maintaining their national identity -- think the Arabs in Israel/Palestine, West Papuans facing deliberate outnumbering by Indonesian immigration, the historical disposession of the indigenous nations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, for example -- they seem to think any country made up of white people (or predominantly of white people) has no right to have a similar attitude to its national identity.

I know it's potentially ugly territory and I don't much like bringing it up, actually -- like I say, it's not something which I've ever cared about personally -- but I bring it up because I think it does rankle with people who otherwise should absolutely be on the left (and who probably believe in the brotherhood of nations). Believe me, I know people like this, and some of that sentiment is visible on those Huffington Post comments -- eg, open borders should be reciprocal, at least.

(I have to say at this point that I may have somewhat lost the thread of what I was intending to write, as I was called away to do some -- guess what? Heavy lifting! :-) (Helping my brother move house). So sorry if this post is a bit unfocussed -- my head is still spinning a little...

hi guys, thanks again for your comments.

I'm going to reply out of order here (ie to Al first) just because Bill's post deals with slightly more intellectual material and my head hurts a little at the moment :-)

I will make a response to Bill, though -- and thanks for clarifying what you were saying, Bill; incidentally (just quickly) I don't actually disagree with much, if anything, of what you wrote.

Anyway, Al:

Re my personal situation -- yeah, it's funny actually, because I'm from New Zealand (on a two-year visa that is available to all New Zealanders) and us Antipodeans are loved by the British employers because we tend to work a lot harder than the locals! (Ha ha, they haven't met me yet :-)

But the thing is, I do sympathise with the locals who might resent 'us' for that reason, and if they wanted to stop the visa scheme, I would actually fully support their right to do so (while it would hurt me personally).

See, I would never criticise the actual immigrant themselves -- they're just trying to better their own lot -- I'm just arguing that the host society does have a right to control their own borders in order to preserve what they have, if that's what they want to do.

The other thing on my personal situation is that I have felt like/ been an immigrant for quite a lot of my life, as it happens (born in NZ, grew up first in Canada, then my parents moved me back to NZ, now I'm in London) and so I know what it's like to feel out of place -- and it's not the nicest feeling, especially if the locals aren't welcoming -- but I still maintain that any country has the right to determine what levels of immigration they want (which is actually all I'm arguing here).

In terms of the immigration policies of the Latin American countries, I'll have to confess to ignorance on that score; however, do they have the same attitude towards immigrants from poorer countries? (eg, does Mexico allow open immigration from Honduras, Guatemala, etc?) I genuinely don't know, but I'd argue that that is closer to the Mexican/US dynamic (it's not hard for 'highly skilled' -- sorry, I know you hate those terms -- migrants to get entry to the US, if they do everything by the book).

To turn to the guts of our debate, I'll say a couple of things:

If cracking down on employers is indeed impossible, and there's no other way of stopping ongoing 'illegal' (unofficial) immigration, then I return to the point in my last post: how does an amnesty really help anyone, except in the short term? Because the new arrivals who have no rights will simply undercut the amnestied workers.

If the answer is to keep giving new arrivals legal status (ie, true open borders), then I again return to my two original arguments against this: a) poorer immigrants are likely to settle for less than what locals would, even if they have rights to unionise and press for wage demands; and b) the underlying (labour) supply-and-demand dynamic inherently worsens the position of those locals who are competing with them for jobs.

Next, as to your comment about 'who will do the work' (I'm paraphrasing there) --

I've always found this to be a fairly middle-class perspective -- after all, it's not the working classes who are hiring maids, getting their lawns cut, etc -- and it's them who I'm concerned about; and also quite flawed in that in any country (the US included), there are areas where there isn't much, if any, immigration, yet those jobs still get done.

The reason locals 'won't do' those jobs is a spiral -- they won't do them at the wage levels they've been reduced to. Absent cheap immigrant labour, the market will simply be forced to set a higher wage level and/or improve the conditions.

It's true that this may have a detrimental overall economic effect (ie, it may reduce total output), but if the other side is that wages rise, then I'd argue it's a good deal from the point of view of the worker. I mean, if there were no minimum wage or standards at all, I'm sure overall economic output would rise, but it surely wouldn't be a good thing (unless you're an economist).

Finally, to turn to the point I made about national identity etc: when I said 'they', I meant the far-leftists who hold those views (ie, that it's inherently racist for a white or majority-white society to want to preserve its ethnic and/or cultural makeup).

I take your point about the history of the US, but as I say, all I'm arguing is for the right of countries to control immigration, and if you're arguing that because the US is historically made up of immigrants, they don't have the right to control their borders if that's what they want to do, a) I don't agree, and b) that will go down like a cup of cold sick among the native population (IMHO), which is one of the main reasons I initiated this debate in the first place -- that I think the far left alienates itself from the working classes with the endorsement of open borders.

Anyway, hope I haven't misrepresented anything you were saying.

Jonathan,

You again make a blanket claim that's not supported by the evidence you've presented -- even in a general way.

You say:

But I think you've strayed somewhat from the original debate, which centred around whether or not cheap-labour immigration hurts (or could hurt) the native poor. (The second point is whether societies have the right to impose immigration controls).

I don't think you've countered the arguments I've made . ...

I simply don't think your arguments have won the day here by a long shot. As pointed out already, your entire premise is based on the fact that the arrival of new immigrants who work for low wages always works to depress the wages for the poor in that country. You provide no empirical evidence for this claim, but simply rely on faulty economic logic.

And by the way, depite your coy attempts to project impartiality, I have to wonder if you are not an avid devotee of the neo-con strategy of creating distracting wedge issues to advance other hidden agendas, and might be trying out some of your potions here. I jest, of course, but in any event, the potions are simply snakeoil in my estimation.

You see your entire argument seems to be culled from the nakedly anti-immigrant National Review, because I found it right here in that publication:

The increase in the supply of unskilled labor brought about by Mexican immigration reduced wages for high-school dropouts by about 5 percent in the 1990s - not so much because immigrants work for less and undercut natives (though that does happen), but rather because lower wages are an unavoidable byproduct of significantly increasing the supply of unskilled labor. It's basic economics: Increase the supply of something, and the price will fall.

Isn't that your argument in a nutshell?

And didn't I just refute that argument, pointing out that it's voodoo economics, because it fails to account for the demand side of the equation, that in a market with increasing labor demand, increasing labor supply does not logically lead to falling wages -- as long as demand continues to exceed supply. And then I presented data showing that, in fact, wages are not falling in the states, but actually increasing as are the number of jobs, even with 12 million or so immigrants already in the country?

I also pointed out that failure to address the increasing demand for labor will actually hurt the economy's productivity and could result in a spiral of rising prices and lost jobs (outsourcing, layoffs as employers fail to meet production schedules). In other words, if there's no labor to pick the crops, the crops rot in the field and prices rise -- which is essentially a wage cut for everyone.

You create a false dichotomy between the poor and their plight subject to a border, that even once crossed, you continue to impose on the poor to keep them divided amongst themselves based on clever, but demonstratively faulty economic gibberish.

It's a clear divide and conquer strategy typical of an effort to build a new wedge issue whose purpose is to undermine the ability of the poor from improving their lot in the now global economy in which capital is not subject to the same rules with respect to borders that you would impose on people.

And of course countries have the right to make laws, including immigration laws. But a bad law produces a bad result, and that's why we have a democracy, in part, to enact laws that work and to purge the system of laws that don't work.

That's the big fear of the anti-immigrant snake-oil hucksters, that democracy will work and the whole underpinning of their xenophobic argument will be lost with a simple change of a bad law. Because when that happens, and it will, they will agonize over the reality that immigrants in this country will be empowered to organize for better working conditions, to vote to help enact better laws and to serve as a fist of resistance against those who would seek to continue to divide and exploit them.

I watched the US Senate debate on C-Span last month and one of the most vocal crusaders against "illegality" was Sen. David Vitter (R-LA). The guy was foaming at the mouth, meanspirited and bigoted toward undocumented workers in America.

Well it seems that this fine upstanding role model for morality and legality in American politics is now the latest "John" found to have patronized a prostitution service in Washington DC.

“This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible,” Vitter said.

“Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there -- with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way.”

And that, as a married man.

Now, an interesting question - because so many of these guys tend to fetishize what they hate... what was the immigration status of the ladies whose services he contracted?

Without inequality, open borders -- the basic liberty of free movement of human beings -- would be taken for granted.

We on the left have to make this a central part of our arguments, the starting point of our discussion.  Global inequality has to go.  We the poor of the United States have more need to make common cause with the poor super-majority of the global South than we do to exclude them.

Yes, higher wages and higher prices correspond to a higher standard of living.  More people who will work for less will drive wages down, and yes even television-stupefied overweight citizens would figure out how to do the work if paid enough money.  But as Al points out people denied all rights can be forced work for least of all.

Backing up largely-immigrant workforces already in the U.S. (let alone workers dealing with U.S. companies like Chiquita and Drummond Coal) can do more for everyone's standard of living than any wall.  And there is amazing organizing we can support already, from the just-formed-at-the-US Social Forum National Association of Domestic Workers to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

The problem isn't immigration, it's inequality.

And the only immediate answer is solidarity.

Hi everyone,

This article, entitled "Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are: Black Americans on Immigration" is something I actually remember reading a couple years back and thinking it was interesting -- it's basically an exposition of historical African-American (late-19th to early-20th century) views on immigration. It describes how 'such dissimilar figures as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey' were united in their view that immigration harmed Blacks.

I'm not trying to prove anything here -- this article doesn't prove anything per se, in any case -- but I thought it was interesting and somewhat relevant to the discussion we're having.

(Here's the intro)

'On the issue of immigration, contemporary Americans, and especially African Americans, need to be guided by two lessons from history. The first, from the New Testament, says that "without vision, the people perish." The second warns that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

'Unfortunately, many African American political leaders and intellectuals do not heed these lessons with regard to immigration. They either are ignorant of the insights of their forerunners or they fail to understand how similar today's conditions are to those during the previous wave of mass immigration.'

http://www.cis.org/articles/1996/paper10.html