XPost: dc.urban-planning, wa.politics   
   From: impeach_obama@yahoo.com   
      
   WASHINGTON — No sooner did President Barack Obama and a group of   
   senators separately outline proposals to revamp the nation’s   
   immigration system than the phone lines on several African-   
   American-oriented talk radio shows heated up with callers   
   blasting the plans.   
      
   “Amnesty,” complained Frankie from Maryland recently on the   
   nationally syndicated “Keeping it Real with Al Sharpton.”   
      
   A political payback to Hispanic voters that does little or   
   nothing for African-Americans, reasoned Sam from Milwaukee on   
   Wisconsin’s 1290 WMCS AM’s “Earl Ingram Show.”   
      
   “Our issues are not being highlighted and pushed, and things   
   like gay marriage and (immigration) are being pushed to the   
   forefront,” the caller said. “Hispanics are effectively   
   organized. For us not to be organized and for us not to hold our   
   leadership accountable is disheartening.”   
      
   Although the civil rights establishment, from the National   
   Association for the Advancement of Colored People to the Urban   
   League and Sharpton, squarely back Obama’s desire to tackle   
   immigration, the president’s call has reignited complaints   
   within the African-American community that he is addressing the   
   specific needs of almost all major voting blocs – Hispanics,   
   women, gays – except for the African-Americans who gave him 93   
   percent of their vote.   
      
   Obama is expected to address the immigration issue again Tuesday   
   in his State of the Union address and when he travels to   
   Asheville, N.C., on Wednesday and visits Chicago and suburban   
   Atlanta on Thursday to sell his second-term agenda.   
      
   “There (are) clearly different views in the African-American   
   community around immigration,” Sharpton said on his radio show   
   last month. “Some have said they’re (illegal immigrants) taking   
   our jobs, they dilute our strength. Others have said we’ve got   
   to have rights for everybody or we don’t have it for anybody,   
   and this is not just a Latino issue because immigration laws   
   cover the Caribbean, cover Africans, cover South Americans.”   
      
   Some angst over Obama addressing immigration and other issues so   
   soon in his second term has boiled over into public criticism of   
   the nation’s first African-American president by many African-   
   Americans, from the grassroots to the political levels.   
      
   Bernard Anderson, an Obama supporter and a former assistant   
   labor secretary during Bill Clinton’s presidency, recently told   
   an African-American economic summit at Washington’s Howard   
   University that African-Americans should no longer give Obama “a   
   pass” on dealing with issues that directly impact their   
   community.   
      
   “He is not going to run again for anything. He does not deserve   
   a pass anymore,” Anderson said. “Let him not only find his voice   
   but summon his courage and use his political capital to address   
   racial inequality. He owes that to the African-American.”   
      
   Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus are quietly   
   seething because Obama hasn’t met with the 42-member group since   
   May 13, 2011. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., vented to the   
   National Newspaper Publishers Association last month. He said   
   the black caucus sent the White House the names of 61 potential   
   candidates for positions in a second-term administration that   
   already is coming under fire for being heavy on white males.   
      
   “Not one of that 61 was selected – not one,” Hastings told the   
   African-American newspaper publishers at a Fort Lauderdale,   
   Fla., conference.   
      
   Obama administration officials reject assertions that the   
   president is race-adverse. Obama has consistently said he takes   
   a “rising tide lifts all boats” approach to governing and that   
   his policies benefit all Americans, not just one group.   
      
   “I think comprehensive immigration reform is not about a   
   specific community, it’s about a problem that we need to address   
   as a whole,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said last   
   week.   
      
   But some African-Americans view Obama’s immigration drive as an   
   overture to Hispanics who helped power his re-election in   
   November with 71 percent of their vote.   
      
   “The amount of blacks who are impacted by this legislation is so   
   small it’s infinitesimal,” talk show host Earl Ingram said.   
   “Minuscule.”   
      
   A 2009 report by the Migration Policy Institute found that black   
   immigrants from all regions of the world accounted for just 9   
   percent of the overall immigrant population in the United States.   
      
   However, a 2011 report by the same group discovered that blacks   
   from Africa, though just 3 percent of the U.S. foreign-born   
   population, are among the fastest-growing immigrant groups in   
   this country.   
      
   >From 1980 to 2009, the number of African blacks in the United   
   States has swelled from 64,000 to 1.1 million, according to the   
   2011 report.   
      
   If that growth trend continues, Africa will supplant the   
   Caribbean as the major source region for the U.S. black   
   immigrant population by 2020, the Migration Policy Institute   
   study concludes.   
      
   Still, Ingram says many of his listeners see Obama’s attempt to   
   push forward on immigration as a reminder of what the president   
   hasn’t done to improve economic conditions for African-Americans.   
      
   “I would say a bulk of my listenership is anti-immigration,” he   
   said. “You have to understand that in the community in which I   
   live the percentage of African-Americans who are unemployed.   
   They look at what’s going on with immigration as an affront to   
   African-Americans who can’t pay their mortgages because many of   
   the immigrants come here, they are hired at less than minimum   
   wage.”   
      
   The African-American unemployment rate is at 13.8 percent,   
   according to recently released government figures, nearly twice   
   the 7 percent jobless rate for whites. The nation’s overall   
   unemployment rate is 7.9 percent. For Hispanics, the rate is 9.7   
   percent.   
      
   A 2009 study by George Borjas of Harvard University, Jeffrey   
   Grogger of the University of Chicago and George Hanson of the   
   University of California, San Diego, looked at 1960-2000 Census   
   data and found that as immigrants disproportionately increased   
   the supply of workers in a particular area, wages of African-   
   American workers in that area fell, the employment rate declined   
   and the incarceration rate rose.   
      
   “Our analysis suggests that a 10 percent immigration-induced   
   increase in the supply of a particular skill group reduced the   
   black wage by 2.5 percent, lowered the employment rate of black   
   men by 5.9 percentage points, and increased the incarceration   
   rate of blacks by 1.3 percentage points,” the professors wrote   
   in the study.   
      
   Todd Shaw, a political science and African-American studies   
   professor at the University of South Carolina, believes “the   
   concern that African Americans are hostile to immigrant workers   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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