As I’m sure you’re seen in the past several weeks, there has been considerable debate and controversy regarding immigration reform and what rights to give to illegal immigrants. Since I’ve already described the basic arguments on both sides before, I want to focus on one interesting aspect of this debate -- its relationship to other progressive movements and organizations, specifically to gay/lesbian and the civil rights movements.

Specifically, while some have called the recent marches of hundreds of thousands of people in Los Angeles and elsewhere in favor of rights for illegal immigration the latest civil rights movement, others have been more reserved and maybe even hostile to this emerging movement, arguing that “their” causes and issues still have not been fully addressed or settled yet:

Immigration reform is an important issue, but it’s not the next civil rights movement. We haven’t even finished with our current civil rights movement. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts got it right when he said, “There is no moving to the front of the line.” Immigration reform needs to get in line behind the gay civil rights movement. Discrimination and unequal treatment of gay Americans has not yet been resolved. (from this article).

[T]he old civil rights groups have been virtually mute on the explosively growing movement. There are no position papers, statements or press releases on the Web sites of the NAACP, Urban League or SCLC on immigration reform, and nothing on the marches. . . . [Black leaders] are loath to equate the immigrant rights movement with the civil rights battles of the 1960s.

They see immigrant rights as a reactive, narrow, single-issue movement whose leaders have not actively reached out to black leaders and groups. . . . [They] also cast a nervous glance over their shoulder at the shrill chorus of anger rising from many African-Americans, especially the black poor, of whom a significant number flatly oppose illegal immigrant rights. (from this article).

On the one hand, many Blacks see illegal immigrants -- correctly or incorrectly -- as (1) direct competitors for jobs, (2) responsible for lowering wages, or (3) siphoning off scarce social services. On the other hand, the racist treatment that many illegal immigrants receive has historical roots in past anti-Black discrimination and can easily be transfered to Blacks at any time.

In addition, gays/lesbians are currently embroiled in their own fight for equality and understandably don’t want to see their cause overshadowed or marginalized by the emerging immigrants rights movement. Many gays/lesbians feel that it’s fundamentally unfair to give special rights to people here illegally while they themselves are denied basic rights to marriage, adoption, health care, etc.

Clearly, immigration reform is a complicated and multidimensional issue and that there are many different interests here. Nonetheless, the one thing that these movements share in common is the basic need for equality, social justice, and non-discrimination. I would hope that these basic principles will override the inevitable complaints of fairness or claims of “we were here first.”

The consistent complaint against Progressives/The Left is that there is no sense of unity, only competing interests who are unwilling to put aside their specific differences in order to work together to achieve common goals, and this is certainly true here. We will never gain power unless we unite, form collaborations, and work together to help each other out, not to put up artificial boundaries and throw tantrums when we don’t get a piece of the pie first.

I only hope that gays/lesbians and Blacks realize this before it’s too late -- and that illegal immigrants and their allies remember the struggles that their gay/lesbian and Black brothers and sisters have gone through and continue to go through in their fight for equality. In this case, the old adage that “United we stand, divided we fall” is never more true than now.