Julia Preston of the New York Times, arguably one of the nation’s top immigration reporters, told a roundtable gathered in Washington this past weekend that immigration reform is a “very substantial civil rights movement.” Championing the amnesty cause is nothing new for the media, but Preston’s comments suggesting that illegal aliens share the same civil rights struggle as African-Americans takes advocacy journalism to a new and offensive level.
Linking illegal aliens to Black America’s struggle for justice satisfies the media’s unending appetite for victim-hood stories but the parallels to the past are flawed. For the better part of our history, African Americans didn’t violate the law; rather the law violated them and their Constitutional rights as Americans. Yet now, illegal aliens freely violate the law and then demand to have the laws changed to accommodate their unlawful behavior. That’s a big difference and making the “civil rights” case for illegal aliens is, in effect, identity theft of the civil rights legacies of American black U.S. citizens.
We won’t hold our breath waiting for Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton to cry “foul” but the voices of black Americans is growing louder. Why? Because they’re the ones disproportionally affected with job displacement, high unemployment, wage stagnation and reduced social services brought on by illegal immigration.
Julia Preston should be reminded that before she and her paper champion civil rights for the new cause célèbre that she gives due diligence to those whom illegal immigration harms.
4 Comments
Civil rights by definition belong to CITIZENS of a country. Seems to me that Ms. Preston and supporters of illegal aliens are already ignoring the disrespecting the rights of CITIZENS of this country through their flaunting of the laws passed by our duly-elected representatives. They only seem to care about “civil rights” when it’s to their benefit.
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Civil Rights and Amnesty
Have as much to do with each other as oil and water.
There is no way she can justify these remarks. What “civil right” is being violated? A lot of people make the argument that because we don’t hand out “enough” visas [even though we issue far more than any other country] then it’s excusable to come here illegally. No one is entitled to a visa. Just because you got one doesn’t mean your entire family gets one. Just because you want to come work here doesn’t mean you get to.
It’s absurd to place the demands of people who are citizens of other countries and now here breaking our laws alongside the centuries long struggle of black Americans. Blacks should be insulted by the comparison.