When Vice President Kamala Harris was a 24-year-old law student San Francisco, her father, a Marxist economics professor at Stanford University, published a critique of immigration policies hurting black families.
Fast forward 26 years, and Donald Harris’ 1988 pamphlet Black Economic Progress: An Agenda for the 1990s has become even more relevant as his daughter oversees the largest influx of migrants in the nation’s history.
Harris and six of his like-minded colleagues argued in 1988 that “the current immigration policy, which allows relatively large numbers of low-skilled workers to enter the United States” translates into a “burden … on low-skilled native-born workers,” and black families in particular, Restoration News reports.
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“At the same time that the trends in international trade have moved against U.S. workers, U.S. immigration laws have been modified in ways that increase the influx of low-skilled workers, who compete with native-born youths and low-skilled adult workers for low-skilled jobs,” the pamphlet read. “This shift has been a particularly serious problem for blacks, who constitute a high proportion of the low-skilled adult workers.”
“Theoretical research supports the argument that the immigration of low-skilled workers is harmful to blacks in the short term,” Harris wrote, “unless offsetting policies are established to protect the living standard of native-born workers.”
Four years after the pamphlet’s publication, the Clinton administration signed on to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which a 2021 study by Public Citizen found cost black workers 494,000 jobs across numerous industries including automotive, metals, paper, and beverages.
Former President Donald Trump ended what he described as “the NAFTA nightmare” in 2020 with the United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement, which was opposed by then Sen. Kamala Harris and nine other senators.
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At the same time, immigration swelled from 19.8 million immigrants comprising 7.9% of the U.S. population to more than 51.6 million in 2023, representing 15.6%, in 2023. An additional 16 million illegal immigrants also flooded across the border during Harris’ rein as President Joe Biden’s “border czar,” according to Migration Policy Institute data cited by Restoration News.
“America’s foreign-born population grew by 5.1 million people between March 2022 and March 2024, the largest two-year increase ever recorded in our country’s history,” according to the news site. “If the trend continues, experts warn that we could reach 82.2 million foreign-born residents by 2040—larger than the combined populations of 30 states and D.C.”
About 46% of migrants are elderly, disabled, children, or unable to work, and Harris has vowed to support them through taxpayer-funded programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, despite forecasts those programs could become insolvent in the coming decades.
The results of Democratic policies since Donald Harris’ critique have only fueled an exodus of Black and Hispanic voters from the Democratic Party that has resulted in more support for Trump than any Republican presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964, according to The New York Times.
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The latest New York Times/Siena College poll of Black and Hispanic voters nationwide shows Trump with 15% support from Black voters, and 37% support from Hispanics.
“Almost any way we can measure it, Mr. Trump is running as well or better among Black and Hispanic voters as any Republican in recent memory,” according to the Times. “In 2020, Joe Biden’s Black support was 92 percent among major-party voters; his Hispanic support was 63 percent.”
Black voters in Detroit recently offered some insight into why in interviews to NPR, but it largely revolves around their economic interests and the failure of Democrats to deliver on promises to improve their lives.
But instead of speaking to those concerns, Democrats have employed surrogates like former President Barack Obama to scold defecting Democrats, and blame the situation on misogyny.
The problem, Obama said last week, “is more pronounced with the brothers.”
“Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” the 44th POTUS said.
That take isn’t sitting well with Black lawmakers on either side of the aisle, or large numbers of their constituents who continue to struggle under the Biden-Harris administration.
Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a Democrat, described Obama’s remarks as “patronizing and wrong.”
“Why are black men being lectured to?” she questioned. “Why are black men being belittled in ways that no other voting groups are?”
Black Men for Trump responded that it’s “demeaning to suggest that we can’t evaluate a candidate’s track record – especially when Kamala Harris has done more harm than good to Black communities.”
“For decades, the Democrat Party has promoted failed policies that disrupted generational wealth, undermined Black culture, and contributed to the breakdown of the Black household,” the group’s advisory board wrote in a statement. “These policies, instead of uplifting Black families, have held them back by promoting family instability, poor schooling, and lack of economic opportunity.”
The advisory board includes former Oklahoma State Rep. TW Shannon, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, political adviser Ja’Ron Smith, Black Conservative Federation founder Diante Johnson, and Republican Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida and Wesley Hunt of Texas.
It was Donald Trump, the group argued, that produced “real results for Black America.”
“He restored the American Dream by creating jobs, lowering Black unemployment, launching Opportunity Zones, and securing permanent funding for HBCUs. Under Trump, Black families had a shot at building wealth, breaking generational cycles, and thriving,” the statement read, according to Fox News.