#Latinx, please don’t forget to include Black immigrants in immigrant rights conversations. Black immigrants are more likely to be deported but nobody talks about this. Remember, our immigration enforcement system relies heavily on our criminal enforcement system.

Black people are more likely to have criminal convictions because of rampant racial profiling by local law enforcement— not because they are more likely to commit crime.

Black people are 2.5x more likely than white people to be arrested, even though crimes rates ARE THE SAME btwn both groups. For example, Blacks and whites use marijuana at roughly equal rates, yet Black people are 3.7x more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.

Because the federal govt prioritizes the detention & deportation of people with criminal records, you end up with a racial disparity in who gets deported. In 2015, 59% of all ICE removals were people w/criminal convictions; many involved convictions like simple drug possession.

Although Black people make up about 5% of the people here illegally, they constitute about 10% of those facing deportation, and 20% of those facing deportation on criminal grounds. That is, one of every five people facing deportation on criminal grounds is Black.

I’ll repeat, there is no evidence that Black immigrants commit crime at greater rates than other immigrants. All this to say that until we address the mass criminalization of Black people in this country, the racial disparities in our immigration enforcement system will persist.

Black issues are immigrant rights issues, and immigrant rights issues are Black issues. Let’s do better in 2021 and include Black immigrants in our immigrant rights conversations. Thanks for listening.