Ellis Island, Examination Hall

Immigration reform is a civil rights issue – perhaps the most pressing civil rights issue of the 21st century.

But we can not deal with immigration reform successfully if we pit American worker against immigrant worker, Black against Latino, liberal against conservative. 

Obviously, any reform should consider the impact of immigration on workers already here.  However, it is disingenuous to insinuate – as many anti-immigrant folks do -- that treating immigrants humanely automatically means we are mistreating native-born workers. 

Low-wage indigenous workers and immigrant workers historically are played off against one another – usually by people in power who are neither.  Every immigrant group that came to the United States was pitted against those at the bottom of the nation’s economic ladder, most of whom were Black.

But we should not repeat past behavior by treating the problem as an either/or proposition.  Our immigration laws can be and should be reformed with the best interests of all in mind.

The reality is that all low-wage workers are exploited.  And for a nation that struggled in its commitment to ensuring civil rights for all, it is time that we stop looking at immigrants as them and start looking at them as us.

Immigrants are not free labor to be exploited.  Similarly, immigrants do not come here to use up resources, vote in elections, and commit felonies. We must not fall for the bait and switch.  Most immigrants work hard for very little and often send money to their home countries by way of support.

The civil rights community – black, brown, Asians, and Native Americans – want to make sure that the discussion around immigration reform includes all workers, both immigrant and homegrown.

Doing so is the first step toward fixing the problem in a humane way that benefits the nation as a whole.