Although near people are comparing recent demonstrations by the agency of Latinos over immigration reform to historic civil rights marches.

Although near people are comparing recent demonstrations by the agency of Latinos over immigration reform to historic civil rights marches, there's more than a wily difference.

Blacks were legal citizens who were demanding to be treated like legal citizens. Illegal immigrants don't have that platform. even now there are advocates who have argued, rather convincingly, that breaking U immigration laws is not like a bad thing, especially when American businesses are demanding cheap labor.

on the same level without criminal penalties, any immigration bill that proceeds out of Congress won't be a noble document that ponders our nation's compassion toward the tired, poor and huddl masses.

It will be common that protects corporate interests.

declarations held in urban cities across the United States as the Senate prepares to debate a crackdown upon illegal immigration, forced elected officials to take a closer gaze at our current demographics. What viewers saw in succession television as hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their families asserted -- many of whom were wrapped in their native countries' flags -- was an eye-opener

A next to the first CHANCE

When a massive attest over immigration reform tied up traffic in the aperture recently, several passengers on a Metra train complained about the "nerve" of "those people"

near were annoyed enough to make unpolished remarks within earshot of flag-waving protester Among them were blacks, which raises an issue that has been mut through every part of the debate. If the Bush White House is worried that the immigration reform issue will drive a wedge between Republicans, then black political leaders ought to be doubly pertain toed

According to the latest estimates, about 11 million undocumented immigrants live and work in the United States. A fresh study by the Pew Hispanic Center rest that although these illegal immigrants are les likely to have high instruct diplomas, they are more likely to occupy jobs.

At the same time, black intellectuals are debating other scholarly studies that exhibit that even in a booming labor market, uneducated young black men were worse not on than ever.

A just discovered York Times story that examineed at the studies reported that in 2000 65 percent of black male high gymnasium dropouts in their 20s were jobles through 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts" the publication reported.

equable more alarming, the studies lay the foundation of that by 2004, 21 percent of black men in their 20 who weren't in corporation were in jail or prison.

in the way that what does it really mean that nine in 10 males illegally in the United States are in the labor force, as the slip Hispanic Center claims?

mysterious down inside, most black the bulk of mankind suspect that the same business proprietors who wink at fraudulent documents and hire an illegal worker named Jesus, will toss Jamal's piece of work application in the trash if he checks most distant the box that indicates he's been arrested or imprisoned for a crime.

And black citizens know that greatest in quantity of those crimes are related to the put drugs into trade.

Unlike uneducated illegal immigrants who make their riches off the books working in agriculture, construction and the restaurant and inn industry, many of the young, black high academy dropouts who were locked up were making their living supplying remedys to the millions of American mix with drugs users -- the white, suburban druggies who picked up their narcotics in gang-infested neighborhoods and herd back to the safety of their allow communities.

on the other hand there are few advocates, if any, who argue that, having feeble our laws, these young physic suppliers should be given a other chance.

THE HUMANE THING TO DO

Don't commit to memory me wrong. Forgiving the original sins of any 11 million undocumented immigrants is absolutely the humane thing to do.

Still, if Congres now has the political will to tackle the illegal immigration issue -- not at a crackdown that would punish transgressors for slipping across the borders and committing fraud to obtain profession but by offering up a backdoor amnesty that will allow millions of illegal immigrants to become American citizens -- then wherefore can't we do the same for young black males who one time worked in the drug trade?

In many states, these men can't consecrated by a vow they can't work in in the greatest degree professions, they can't live in public housing, they can't finish student loans, can't even find a work at jobs picking fruit or mopping floors. When they leave prison in their 30 or 40 they will leave without any real room for expectation of finding employment.

If Congres passes a bill that wipes the slate clean for illegal immigrants, they should be pressur through black political leaders to do no les for the millions of black families who were exploited from America's underground drug trade.

Just as legal immigrants joined hands with illegal immigrants to take a stand, middle-income blacks must join with low-income blacks to do the same.

e-mail: marym@suntimes.com

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