DEMOCRATS' IMMIGRATION DOGMA IS DAMAGING AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITIES | OPINION

DEMOCRATS' IMMIGRATION DOGMA IS DAMAGING AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITIES | OPINION

Immigrants—both legal and illegal—tend to congregate in large cities and take positions in the unskilled workforce. In fact, so many immigrants who lack high school diplomas have come to the U.S. in the past 20 years that they've increased the size of the low-skilled workforce by 25 percent.  

That puts them in direct competition with African-Americans, who disproportionately occupy the low-wage urban labor market. Work from the eminent Harvard economist George Borjas shows that when immigration increases the size of the labor pool by 10 percent, wages for African American men drop 2.5 percent—and their employment rate declines by nearly 6 percent. 

Likewise, a 2010 report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission concluded that African American men are "more likely to be in labor competition with immigrants." Commissioner Peter Kirsanow emphasized how this competition can effectively lock young workers out of the job market: "You eliminate the rungs on the ladder because a sizable number of African American men don't have access to entry-level jobs."