Over the last several months, media coverage of the anger and frustration expressed by American citizens over the influx into their neighborhoods of massive numbers of illegal aliens has become a nearly daily occurrence. Increasingly, the coverage has focused on inner-city residents outraged that their local governments have subordinated the rights and needs of American citizens to the interests of foreigners.
Historically, black Americans have competed with illegal aliens for resources ranging from housing to medical care, but nowhere has the competition been more intense than in the jobs market.
The U. S. Commission on Civil Rights has conducted several hearings over the last two decades directly or indirectly related to the effect of illegal immigration on black wage and employment levels. Each of these hearings was conducted prior to the recent massive wave of illegal immigrants. Yet even then, the testifying experts — regardless of where they stood on the ideological spectrum — concurred that the effect of illegal immigration on black employment was appreciable and, in some cases, dramatic. Indeed, as far back as the period between 1960-2000, illegal immigration accounted for a significant relative decline in black wage and employment rates because a sizable percentage of each cohort competed in the same low-skilled labor markets. Accordingly, relative employment rates for black males in low-skill job categories dropped by as much as 7 percent; wages dropped by up to 9 percent. (The evidence also showed a notable increase in black male incarceration rates for each percentage decrease in wage and employment rates. A host of other maladies naturally followed.)
The current flood of illegal immigration has also aggravated the competition between blacks and illegal aliens for government and social services. For example, Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee that 59.4 percent of households headed by illegal immigrants access public benefits, amounting to approximately $42 billion per year. Over the course of a lifetime, the average illegal alien is a net fiscal drain on public coffers of $68,000. The roughly 4 million children of illegal aliens cost public schools $69 billion per year.
The frustration with politicians giving preference to illegal aliens may be contributing to a phenomenon recently noted by several media outlets, i.e., as the election approaches, black voters are increasingly slipping away from Joe Biden. The Democratic share of the black vote over the last two election cycles has been 88.9 percent. Data from the last several presidential elections show that unless the Democratic candidate earns at least 88-89 percent of a robust black turnout, the Republican candidate will likely win. Recent polling shows Donald Trump receiving over 20 percent of the black vote. If true, that would signal lights out not just for Biden, but for many down-ballot Democrats as well.
If true. In my nearly half-century of practicing labor and employment law and two decades as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, I’ve seen several iterations of the “black workers (and, therefore, black voters) are furious with Democrats” claim. Yet no matter the devastation wrought on black wages and employment by Democrat policies, black voter allegiance to the party hardly wavers.
That said, the sheer volume of illegal aliens entering the country today is unprecedented. Democrats, though, seem unworried. Perhaps it’s because illegal aliens not only supplant black workers, eventually, they may also supplant (or at least supplement) blacks as the most reliable Democrat voting bloc. As Michael Lind has noted, a study of 30 million immigrants from 1980 to 2012 “showed that 62% of naturalized immigrants able to vote identified as Democrats, compared to 25% who identified as Republicans and 13% as independents.”
Yet another reason Democrats are comfortable taking black voters for granted.