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Published by
Roy Beck
Much of the country’s attention this summer has been focused on the disproportionate joblessness, low incomes, poverty and overall economic inequality that besets Black Americans.
Lots of politicians are attempting to at least sound like they want to do something. But very few seem to realize that In all matters of immigration policy, I pledge to ensure that nothing undermines the economic advancement of Black Americans. We should challenge each and every person running for U.S. Representative, Senator and President to answer if they will make the pledge to the right that would be immensely helpful and cost very little. It’s a challenge that will push most politicians and journalists off-balance because of their ignorance of the role that the renewal of mass immigration in 1965 – and acceleration in 1990 – has played in halting the great Black march into the middle class. . The uncompleted agenda of economic and political equality of opportunity for the descendants of American slavery ranks as perhaps our most troubling and pervasive national agony. No social problem seems untouched by the acrimony of racial recriminations that rises out of the failure to end the massively disproportionate presence of Blacks in poverty. Despite a thriving, large population of well-educated, well-paid, highly productive Black Americans, one-third of the total Black population seems intractably stuck in poverty–and the number has been increasing throughout most of this era of rising immigration. Little known to most Americans, the 1924 to 1965 period of low immigration contained the economic golden era not only for immigrants but for Black Americans. According to papers in the “Journal of Economic Literature,” . . But Congress in 1965 did NOT think about what its immigration decisions would do to Black economic progress. Instead, they also in 1965 passed a massive immigration act that led the way – after more reckless action by Congress in 1990 – to more than quadrupling the arrival of foreign workers to compete in the labor market. During renewed mass immigration, the wage gap between Black and White workers has widened since 1973. . The elder statesman explained that the increase in immigration had been unintended. He said the increases have been immensely harmful to the country and should be rolled back. When challenged by a reporter about whether reducing annual immigration would be an immoral action, challenge every politician to take the pledge to stop all immigration policies that are impeding the opportunity of Black Americans . . . Many opponents of lower immigration have argued against reducing the flow of foreign workers to help Black Americans, claiming that such a policy would pit Blacks against Hispanics and other minorities. But any immigration policy that economically helps Black Americans will help economically depressed Hispanics. And recent immigrants and their children from all over the world often are helped even more than descendants of American slavery by immigration policies that would move low-income Black Americans into the middle class. Skeptical White Americans should not fear immigration policies designed to stop harming Black Americans. Economic historians show us from past periods of low immigration and tight labor markets that the
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In a book published by W.W. Norton & Co. in the mid-’90s, I wrote the following, which sadly remains valid in this summer of burning discontent:{text}
Incredibly, most of the closing of the wage gap – and most of the advancement of Black Americans into the middle class – occurred before 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed.{text}
In 1993, Eugene McCarthy and I addressed a crowded Senate hearing room on the subject of immigration. Those of you who are younger may not remember that McCarthy was the anti-Vietnam-war peace candidate who knocked Pres. Lyndon Johnson out of the Democratic Primaries of 1968. More significant to the main topic here, Sen. McCarthy was one of the prime sponsors of the 1965 immigration act that has led to so much suffering.
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