By Nina Keehan
From farmworkers to chefs, nurses to surgeons, business leaders to professors, immigrants contribute important threads in our American quilt. However, as comprehensive immigration reform takes center stage on Capitol Hill, black immigrants from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean find themselves largely ignored because of the emphasis on Latino immigration.
Current proposals to cut the diversity visa lottery and family-based admissions would disproportionately impede black immigrants.
Admittedly, black immigrants are far outnumbered by nonblack immigrants. In 2009, 1.7 million immigrants living in the United States were from the Caribbean and 1.1 million were from Africa — compared with 11.5 million from Mexico, alone. Despite the difference, this population represents an increasingly powerful group, accounting for more than 8 percent of the foreign-born population. According to the Population Reference Bureau, immigration contributed at least one-fifth of the growth in U.S. black population between 2001 and 2006.
Haiti is one of the source countries for immigration that has particularly enriched New York and New Jersey. Between 1957 and 1986, when the Duvalier dictatorship ruled Haiti, the United States granted more than 1 million entry visas to Haitians. Tens of thousands more entered the United States on makeshift boats without any documentation. They took huge risks for the possibility of a better life in America. Currently, 33 percent of the Haitian-born population in America live in these two states.
High poverty rates, political deterioration and repression at home are frequent motivators of black immigration. African immigrants, for example, are much more likely than other immigrant groups to be admitted either as refugees or through the diversity visa program.
http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2013/05/reform_is_overlooking_black_im.html
From farmworkers to chefs, nurses to surgeons, business leaders to professors, immigrants contribute important threads in our American quilt. However, as comprehensive immigration reform takes center stage on Capitol Hill, black immigrants from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean find themselves largely ignored because of the emphasis on Latino immigration.
Current proposals to cut the diversity visa lottery and family-based admissions would disproportionately impede black immigrants.
Admittedly, black immigrants are far outnumbered by nonblack immigrants. In 2009, 1.7 million immigrants living in the United States were from the Caribbean and 1.1 million were from Africa — compared with 11.5 million from Mexico, alone. Despite the difference, this population represents an increasingly powerful group, accounting for more than 8 percent of the foreign-born population. According to the Population Reference Bureau, immigration contributed at least one-fifth of the growth in U.S. black population between 2001 and 2006.
Haiti is one of the source countries for immigration that has particularly enriched New York and New Jersey. Between 1957 and 1986, when the Duvalier dictatorship ruled Haiti, the United States granted more than 1 million entry visas to Haitians. Tens of thousands more entered the United States on makeshift boats without any documentation. They took huge risks for the possibility of a better life in America. Currently, 33 percent of the Haitian-born population in America live in these two states.
High poverty rates, political deterioration and repression at home are frequent motivators of black immigration. African immigrants, for example, are much more likely than other immigrant groups to be admitted either as refugees or through the diversity visa program.
http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2013/05/reform_is_overlooking_black_im.html
