I was watching a meeting of the Oakland City Council on KTOP-TV when several Black women spoke, during open forum, of their resentment of illegal immigrants in Oakland. I found that interesting, and did a little research online.
Oakland is a sanctuary city. Along with Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Ana, San Diego, Sacramento and Richmond, Oakland limits the extent to which local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The policy has been fine-tuned over the years. In 2018, Rebecca Kaplan, who wrote the resolution that the city (including police) not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in any way, explained that she felt ICE was a duplicitous, rather nefarious agency incapable of telling the truth. “ICE has misled us.” Kaplan claimed to be “outraged” when ICE raided a house under the pretext of sex trafficking, found an undocumented person there, and deported him.
A large part of Oakland’s anti-ICE policies stemmed from the city’s loathing of then-President Donald Trump, who hated sanctuary cities and argued that they were nothing more than “an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States.” In reply, Libby Schaaf, who was mayor in 2018, declared, “The Bay Area stands united against this White House’s morally bankrupt policies that would divide families [and] turn our nation’s back on refugees in need…”.
Sanctuary cities quickly became a hot button topic in the nation’s culture wars. Many polls indicated that sanctuary policy was most popular in Blue states and cities, while conservative areas disliked it. A solid super-majority (80%) of all Americans thought that cities should turn over illegal aliens to ICE. But the numbers were more complicated when analyzed by racial group. It turned out that Black Americans were bothered by illegal immigrants more than any other racial group in America.
Last year, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs reported on a national survey that contained some surprising findings. When asked if racial and ethnic diversity makes the U.S. “a better or worse place to live,” 33% of Black respondents said “worse,” far more than any other racial group. In the same poll, only 30% of Blacks answered “better,” by far the lowest percentage of any other racial group. In response to the question, “Should legal immigration be increased or decreased,” Blacks had the highest level of “decreased,” 37%. And when asked if immigrants are “a threat to the U.S.,” Blacks had the highest percentage of yes, 51%.
I turned to social media discussion forums to figure out why so many Blacks are opposed to illegal immigration (if not all immigration). The answer turned out to be that many Blacks feel that immigrants represent a threat to their economic security. Here are a few examples of responses to the question, “Why are Black people unhappy about so many illegal immigrants in their sanctuary cities?”
“Because THEY [Blacks] are the ones who are hardest hit by them [immigrants]. Blacks do the menial tasks which require very little skills, & absolutely NO Education! Which are precisely the traits of practically EVERY Illegal arriving in every Developed Country.”
“Because the black community is the one that is taking the biggest and heaviest slap in the face here. *TYPICALLY* members of the black community work lower paying, menial jobs. These are the kinds that also commonly employ illegals, every person in this country legally has a right to be angry about this BS, especially people who are getting fucked out of their jobs for a bunch of scum that are here illegally! shit like this is why Trumps popularity with the black and Spanish communities is growing.”
“Whenever there is progress made for blk people that moves them up that ladder the country gets a new influx of illegals who will work for less and that hurts those Americans blk and poor on the bottom of the ladder the most and can make it harder for them to move up.”
I can empathize with these remarks. To many Black residents of Oakland, it may seem like immigrants are flooding into their neighborhoods, taking jobs away from Blacks, sometimes succeeding in starting their own businesses—even if they are here illegally. To understand this attitude is to get a glimpse into why Trump and MAGA may be appealing more to Black voters than in 2016. If this is true (and all I know is what I see in the news), it’s because of the perception that Republicans would be tougher on immigration, particularly illegal immigration, than Democrats.
I realize this is controversial stuff, and crosses all kinds of lines—racial, political, cultural, economic But it does make me wonder if it isn’t time for Oakland to repeal its sanctuary city law. It didn’t do anything constructive, except to make progressives feel better about themselves through virtue-signaling, and it seems to be further dividing the city. So why not ditch it?
Steve Heimoff