Employer Sanctions Issue Straining Rights Coalition

Leaders of minority groups who have fought together for decades are finding themselves increasingly divided over immigration concerns that threaten to pit black Americans against other ethnic groups, particularly Latinos.

Until now the nation’s varied minority organizations have managed to smooth over differences to maintain a successful and united front, working most often through the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The umbrella group for 183 minority, religious and labor groups has played a major role in the passage of every civil rights law enacted in this century.

But the conference’s cohesiveness is imperiled by a vote that will come today on a divisive issue that does not lend itself to compromise--employer sanctions. Although a recent government report concluded that sanctions led to discrimination against people who look and sound foreign, black groups have shown great reluctance to join Latinos and other ethnic minorities in calling for repeal of the penalties against employers who hire illegal aliens.

If the executive committee of the leadership conference votes against calling for repeal, as it is expected to do today, Latino groups say they are prepared to pull out.

“We’re not in a position to belong to a coalition that doesn’t support our major civil rights issue,” said Charles Kamasaki, vice president of La Raza, one of two Latino organizations leading the fight against employer sanctions.

“Civil rights can no longer be viewed only in a black context,” he added. “In the past, only parenthetically were other groups mentioned. That is going to change.”

The subject is so potentially explosive that black leaders showed great reluctance to discuss it. But the dilemma it poses is clear and has implications far beyond today’s vote on whether to support repeal of sanctions.

“There is a perception in the black community that immigration has cut into the employment base and (the view) within the NAACP is that undocumented immigrants affect their wage rates,” said Mario Moreno, a Washington lobbyist for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

“Those tensions are going to be there and I don’t see how you can get over it as long as the perceived threat to blacks’ standard of living and quality of life is coming from the Hispanic community,” he added.

MALDEF and La Raza officials said they realize that ethnic groups need each other’s support, particularly now as they try to get Congress to mitigate recent Supreme Court rulings against affirmative action.

But they added that immigration issues represent bedrock concerns that they cannot subordinate to preserve solidarity with other minority groups. Kamasaki of La Raza suggested that Latinos no longer intend to let black Americans set the agenda.

The squabble within the leadership conference reflects the tremendous changes transforming minority groups across the nation. Although black Americans have had greater political success than any other minority group, many feel threatened by demographic trends that are eroding their position as the nation’s most populous minority group.

According to the most recent figures compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation’s 30 million black residents account for about 12% of the population, compared to about 8% for Latinos and about 2% for Asians.

By the turn of the century, the Latino population is expected to increase by about 21% and the Asian population by about 22%. The black population will increase at a more sluggish rate of 12%.

Many black Americans are worried about the trend, fearing that political gains by new immigrants may come at their expense. Against that backdrop, an expanding number of ethnic leaders have begun to view each other less as oppressed colleagues who must fight together for larger pieces of the pie and more as intense competitors for the same slice of the American Dream.

“Larger civil rights groups’ interest in this (sanctions) has been clouded by the political and economic interests of the groups,” said one black observer familiar with the issue who asked that his name not be used. “This is a major dilemma for civil rights organizations. There’s a lot of tension that over time will intensify.”

Some experts predict that the fight for power will turn on the issue of immigration.

“There is tremendous growth occurring within immigrant communities, and with that there is tremendous growth in the immigrant political bases,” said Muzaffar Chishti, an immigration expert with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York.

“As their influence increases, they are going to make their power felt in the political debate over immigration issues.”

When the immigration reform bill worked its way through Congress four years ago, organized labor and the NAACP supported employer sanctions as a means of reducing illegal immigration. To do so, they broke ranks with the majority of the leadership conference’s membership.

But the coalition operates by consensus, allowing even a single dissenting member of the executive board to block the group from throwing its considerable weight behind an issue.

When the General Accounting Office concluded last month that sanctions create widespread discrimination, groups with large numbers of immigrants, particularly Latinos, were ready to spring into action, announcing that they “would not stand for it.”

Although reluctant to criticize black groups on the record, they were furious at the silence emanating from major organizations like the NAACP. They were equally angry when the leadership conference said that it needed to study the issue before deciding whether or not to fight sanctions.

“The failure of the civil rights coalition to take a position on getting rid of a law that everyone agrees is discriminatory sends a real signal on what kind of coalition that is,” said Cecelia Munoz, a lobbyist for La Raza.

The time for study is over today, as the conference’s executive committee votes on whether to join the fight to repeal the Immigration and Reform Act of 1986, which instituted sanctions.

Organized labor, which has been in the vanguard of the civil rights movement, continues to support employer sanctions as a form of job protection, and is expected to cast the dissenting vote against the move for repeal. If it happens that way, black civil rights groups might be able to maintain their murky position, letting labor take the heat from Latino organizations.

Althea Simmons, the Washington lobbyist for the NAACP, said she does not know what position her organization will take. But she noted the NAACP has supported employer sanctions and a reversal would require a vote of the organization’s national convention.

Bob McAlpine, director of policy and government relations for the National Urban League, said that his group has not decided on its position, either.

“All of us have got to be very careful before we speak out,” he said. He added that immigration issues are not regarded with the same gravity as civil rights issues. “It’s a little more complicated than that. I don’t think it’s as simple as it might appear on the surface.”

But many observers say immigration concerns are climbing to the top of a revised civil rights agenda, and that black-led groups will be forced to take a stand.

“In California, the Asian community is about the same size as the black community,” said Paul Igasaki, Washington representative of the Japanese American Citizens League. “These changed racial numbers are a reality and will cause the nature of civil rights issues to change as well.”

For now, Latino groups seem to be the only ones willing to make sanctions a sort of litmus test. Although Asian and Caribbean groups said they support a repeal of sanctions, they indicated the issue probably would not cause a major rift between them and groups dominated by black Americans.

“These days the civil rights cause has been on the ropes, and I don’t see it as useful to have the civil rights community pulled apart,” Igasaki said. “There are enough issues on the civil rights agenda that we need to work with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights to address.”

Moreover, Igasaki said, the conference supported his organization in its efforts to gain reparations for Japanese-American citizens interned during World War II.

“They have backed us on the issues that were most critical to us,” he said.

Melinda Yee, executive director of the Organization of Chinese Americans Inc., said her group has not been in the forefront of immigrant rights or civil rights issues, preferring instead to follow the leadership of others.

But even if the conference does not join the Latino groups in their battle over employer sanctions, there will come a time in the near future when immigration issues will make their way onto the civil rights agenda, said Chishti at the ILGWU.

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