Black Media Stress Human Rights Struggle of Immigrants

SAN FRANCISCO--The recent debate on immigration reform that has gripped Congress and caused an estimated 3 million people to take to the streets in late March has found resonance in the black press.

Over a dozen news organizations serving African Americans from across the country are closely watching the political blow-by-blow, the protests and the student-lead walkouts that have come in the wake of the immigration debate.

The overwhelming majority of the news reports, commentaries and analysis have stressed inter-ethnic unity in what many in the Black community have seen as a human rights struggle reminiscent of the civil rights movement. But the twin issues of jobs and changing neighborhood demographics lead some African Americans to grapple with the black community's stake in immigration reform and our collective position on the undocumented worker.

Writing for the Web site Black Commentator, Bruce Dixon in his essay "Are Some Human Beings Illegal?" took issue with a black Congressman from Georgia who introduced a bill that would go further than anything being mulled over on Capitol Hill. "Kasim Reed, a black DLC Georgia state legislator from Atlanta tried to out-do Republican viciousness when it came to proposing punitive measures against immigrants," Dixon wrote. "Reed authored a bill which would imprison anyone convicted of using a false ID to get a job for five years. Predictably, his proposal was embraced by leading white Georgia democrats. This is how Georgia's New Democrats hope to win white votes on the immigration issue."

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