What Black Leaders are Saying About Illegal Immigration

T Willard Fair, from an advertisement
Amnesty for illegal workers is not just a slap in the face to black Americans. It's an economic disaster,... I see illegal immigration and the adverse impact that it has on the political empowerment of African Americans, and the impact it has on the job market.''

-- T. Willard Fair, president of the Urban League of Greater Miami, Fla. to the Miami Herald, 4/26/07

"This guest worker program's the closest thing I've ever seen to slavery. I mean, how do you bring people over here and the employer decides how long you're going to stay and God knows what you've got to do if they have a baby. Do we change the Constitution and say that the child's now a citizen? I would hate to believe that this great country of ours in order to free, or rather, to bring cheap labor for entrepreneurs are willing to have a contract with Mexico to do this

-- Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight; 01/23/2007

"When the illegals walked out and had their rally [called "A Day Without Immigrants" on May 1, 2006], (Senator) Ted Kennedy (D-MA) compared their rallies to the civil rights marches. They're not the same. When we marched during the civil rights marches, we were citizens of this country, fighting for our God-given rights here -- constitutional rights. These folks are coming in illegally and demanding that we do what they want us to do while flying the Mexican flag. I just don't know how anyone can say that you can break the law and come to this country, protest, and insist that we give them rights, and call that civil rights."

-- Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson; founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny in a Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy interview June 27, 2006

"Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave." "...for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process."

-- Former Rep. Barbara Jordan on what Americans should expect from immigration laws from her testimony to the House Immigration Subcommittee; February 24, 1995