OPINION (PROJECT 21) – Black Americans have become more and more disillusioned watching illegal aliens receive benefits that they’ve worked their whole lives to never be able to achieve.
Two of our Project 21 ambassadors recently participated in a Center for Immigration Studies panel entitled “Impact of U.S. Immigration Policy on Black Americans,” a topic that the Project 21 black leadership network also covered in a recent study entitled “What Immigration Policy Means for Black America.”
Donna Jackson, who serves as Project 21’s director of membership development, told the audience:
For the first time you have black males who historically lean left that are all of a sudden moving to the right. Why? Because economically they’re being pushed down the ladder and these other people are coming, illegal immigrants that are being pushed forward and on the pedestal….
These [illegal immigrants] are actually living an upper-middle-class life… They’re being rewarded for crossing the border illegally. And that doesn’t even include the fact that they get free college. They get free health care….
Illegal immigrants are being propped up. So all of a sudden individuals that haven’t achieved financial freedom – haven’t achieved it, fighting for decades – are now looking at people who have an instant amount of financial freedom….
I was in Memphis, Tennessee, for the last three weeks. Federal Express was laying off natural-born citizens to hire illegal immigrants. They were laying them off. Not only them…
Who’s getting pushed to the back of the bus? I can tell you something, we’re holding on to the tail pipe of the bus – we’re not even riding in it – after you put the amount of benefits that illegal immigrants have….
They’re walking over and walking past black men, young men who have no opportunities who are sleeping in the street in boxes while illegal immigrants are getting free housing. In New York City – New York City is the most expensive city in America to rent a hotel room – 135 of the 700 hotels are now housing illegal immigrants. There are African Americans who will never have the opportunity not only to go to New York City but to stay in a luxury hotel, and yet illegal people breaking the law coming over the border are actually getting a free ride.
They have an American Dream that African Americans will never realize in their lifetime, and how are we OK with this? It’s the reason why you see the shift. You’re seeing a shift from the left to the right because that is the last straw.
Additionally, Project 21 Ambassador Kathleen Wells noted that black leaders and publications have been opposed to mass immigration since the 1800s:
Black Americans need to know this history, what was going on in the 1800s with Frederick Douglass, with Booker T. Washington, with W.E.B. Du Bois, with Marcus Garvey.
All four of them – they were dissimilar, they didn’t have the same positions politically or ideologies, but they all four agreed on mass immigration. They said it was absolutely unacceptable…..
Also, black publications, black newspaper articles, black intellectuals said mass immigration is unacceptable. This was in the 1800s. I don’t know why the political left denies this history…. If you’re pro-illegal aliens, you’re anti-Black Americans….
It’s been going on since the 1800s. If you know the history you know it’s been going on since the 1800s – Black Americans being replaced, newly freed slaves being replaced by mass immigration.
You can watch the entire panel below, and also be sure to read Project 21’s “What Immigration Policy Means for Black America.”