Former president Trump’s statement at yesterday’s National Association of Black Journalists forum — that illegal immigrants are taking black jobs — is completely accurate, even if inelegant. Any black journalist should know that fact. That some journalists, whether black or white, would feign ignorance or take offense to score cheap political points off of Trump’s elocution says much more about such journalists than it does about Trump.
Evidence adduced before several hearings of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights over nearly two decades reveals the profound dislocation wrought by lax immigration enforcement on black wage and employment levels. As I’ve testified before several congressional committees during that span, the reason for the dislocation is quite basic: Blacks, particularly black men, are disproportionately concentrated in the low-skill labor market and are disproportionately likely to have no more than a high-school diploma. Likewise, illegal immigrants are disproportionately low-skilled and disproportionately likely to have minimal educational levels. Both groups compete with one another in the low-skilled labor market. The competition is most fierce in some of the very industries in which blacks historically have been highly concentrated, such as hospitality, construction, and service. Blacks frequently lose that competition, crowded out by illegal immigrants more likely to accept jobs at cut-rate wages and substandard working conditions and who are far less likely to complain about such to the EEOC, OSHA, or the Wage & Hour Division of the Department of Labor.
At least one study suggests competition from illegal immigrants accounts for approximately 40 percent of the decline in black employment rates over the last several decades. A 2007 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimated that as a result of the growth of undocumented workers, the annual earnings of the average low-skilled documented worker in Georgia in 2007 were $960 lower than they were in 2000.
Trump has expressed his concern about the above for at least the last eight years. One might think those facts would be important to an association denominating itself as black journalists.