Black Lives Matter Joins Fight to Resist Deportations

Black Lives Matter announced its 10-point platform this week — and in a new development that could strengthen the immigrant rights movement, have included the forceful call to end all deportations in the United States.

Demanding an “end to the war on Black immigrants,” the group is specifically calling for an end to immigration raids and deportations, as well as the assurance that all immigrants have access to an attorney before they meet with an immigration judge.

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“When you think about deportations and immigrants in detention it’s really under the banner of mass criminalization,” Carl Lipscombe, who was involved in drafting the platform as a member of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), a racial justice and immigrant rights organization, told Fusion. “The issues impacting immigrants are the exact same issues that impact Black people in the United States.”

The movement, which released their platform under the banner of Movement for Black Lives, say that Black immigrants are almost three times more likely to be detained and deported because of an alleged criminal offense, similar to how Latino immigrants in the United States are targeted disproportionately.

The call has the potential to ignite a new synergy of Black and brown unity, with both the already powerful immigrant rights movement and Black Lives Matter collaborating to create one of the most robust grassroots movements in the country.

“This could serve to build a bridge between the Black Lives Matter movement and the immigrant rights movement,” Lipscombe told Fusion.

The platform adopted by Black Lives Matter also calls for the repeal of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which was signed under U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1996, and greatly expanded the grounds for deportation to include both criminal and noncriminal offenses.

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“Immigrants make some of the lowest wages of all groups in the United States, as do Black people. And Black immigrants tend to make the lowest wages of all immigrants in the United States,” Lipscombe added, indicating how the resistance against this would emerge from the working class.

Still, anti-Black racism is still persistent among Latinos in the immigrant rights movement. As a result, some Black undocumented immigrants say they don’t always feel welcomed within that movement.

Jonathan Jayes-Green, a 24-year-old Afro-Latino, told Fusion he’s heard Latinos fighting for immigrant rights movement use racial slurs.

“Anti-blackness has played a role in the mainstream immigrant rights movement,” Green said.

It will take continued effort on part of the Latino community to ensure that the fight for the rights of immigrants is inclusive to all, including Black immigrants.