Black and Hispanics Against Worker Exploitation

Blacks and Hispanics can find common ground by fighting worker exploitation.

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The zero-sum argument that pits black Americans against undocumented workers is a false premise.

At the heart of this specious challenge to fairness for all U.S. workers is the idea that blacks resent undocumented Latino immigrants for taking away jobs that would rightfully belong to them. Restrictionist opponents to immigration reform seize on this line of attack and exploit it to drive a wedge between the two racial and ethnic communities.

It's not working.

Don't take our word for it. Ask Jose Luis Marantes, an immigrant-rights activist in Washington, D.C., who has found some of his most ardent supporters from within the ranks of some of the nation's most frightened future workers: students on black college campuses.

Marantes, a youth organizer for the Center for Community Change, said that a recent encounter on the Howard University campus convincingly demonstrated to him the divide-and-conquer strategy's failure. He was