http://www.suntimes.com/output/brown/cst-nws-brown03.html
Minutemen recruit blacks against illegal immigrants
May 3, 2006
BY MARK BROWN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
The group of 10 to 15 men who took up positions Tuesday outside the gate of a meat processing plant in Pullman see the world a little differently than the 400,000 people who marched one day earlier through the Loop.
"Illegal!" they shouted at any Latino-looking person who popped into view. "Illegal!"
For the handful of self-styled immigration enforcers from the Chicago Minuteman Project, this was old hat.
This time, though, they had some new comrades-in-arms: a contingent of African-American men, mostly ex-offenders involved with an organization that advocates finding jobs for individuals with criminal records.
Amnesty for ex-offenders?
"These people haven't served time for their crimes, and they're getting amnesty," complained Mark Carter, 32, of Lawndale, who says he went to prison on a drug offense. "We're being pushed aside. The ex-offenders should have got amnesty before any illegal aliens. Are there certain laws that certain people can break?"
Carter's friend from Roseland, Paul McKinley, a leader of the group, Voice of the Ex-Offender, later suggested a solution with eerie echoes: "Send them back where they come from."
Illegal immigration is an extremely sensitive issue across the African-American community, and the problem of unemployed young men with criminal pasts is just one subset.
The economic competition from America's latest immigrant wave is felt most directly among African Americans, and there is keen resentment of efforts to characterize immigration rights as a "civil rights" issue.
That's part of why Rick Biesada, 66, a white trucking company owner from Lindenhurst who co-founded the Chicago Minuteman Project, reached out to the Rev. Anthony Williams, pastor of an Englewood church, to organize Tuesday's joint protest.
Biesada said Williams, with whom he had worked on Alan Keyes' campaign for the U.S. Senate, had alerted him to the meat processing company's employing illegal immigrants at the expense of American citizens from the neighboring community.
'Not a question of race'
It didn't hurt either that by teaming up with black protesters the Minutemen could blunt accusations that their usual tactics are racist.
"It's not a question of race," Williams assured me after emerging from a meeting with the plant manager. "We don't want to get into the issue of bashing our brown brothers and sisters."
This was only minutes after Biesada had told me: "The only thing that's not being put in any of these columns is how many of these people are coming into the country with a contagious disease, and our children have to go to school with them."
So now it's in one of these columns and you can decide for yourself whether that's a legitimate public health concern or the same kind of slander that's been directed at immigrants for centuries.
Williams said it's just a matter of economics. Illegal immigrants will work for less. Therefore, they're getting the jobs that should be going to people from his community.
Williams, pastor at St. Stephens Lutheran Church in Englewood, is running for Congress in the November election as a Libertarian against Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. His history of taking on both Jacksons, Jr. and Sr., has given him a following in certain political circles, but not many votes to show for it so far.
He seems to think this issue will help him do better in that regard. He may be right. Just because there were only 15 protesters compared to 400,000 doesn't mean that I don't realize which side is truly outnumbered in this debate.
Mexican-bashing is no solution
Neither Biesada nor Williams offered any evidence that the company employed illegal workers, which is why I'm not naming it, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it were true. Meat processing is one of the industries now dominated by Latino workers.
The plant manager said an outside agency handled the company's hiring, but promised he would investigate to make sure all his workers had legal status to be there. He also handed out a couple of job applications.
McKinley and Carter know that just putting in an application won't necessarily help their group of ex-offenders, whose past convictions often eliminate them from consideration. Many of these convictions were for small-time drug crimes, they say, drugs being the best available economic opportunity for young black men.
McKinley, whose own conviction was for armed violence, said he plans many similar protests in the future.
I appreciate their problem, but I don't think Mexican-bashing is going to help them solve it.
After we spoke, Carter went over to harass a Hispanic fellow cutting the grass, bringing along a video camera he had been using to record the event. The "interview" didn't last long. The guy couldn't speak English.
