Black American Leadership Alliance Founder: DC Elites Not Representing American Workers in Amnesty Debate

The founder of the Black American Leadership Alliance (BALA) said no issue represents the divide between American workers and the political elite in Washington, D.C. more than amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Appearing on Breitbart News Saturday from the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans with Breitbart News Executive Chairman and host Stephen K. Bannon, Leah Durant said that average Americans feel like “they are left behind and not adequately represented” in the amnesty debate. 

Durant said disaffected voters who are fed up with political elites and both parties “overwhelmingly” are against amnesty while their leaders are “on a completely different page.”

She said the legislation that the Congressional Budget Office determined would lower the wages of American workers would “undercut” the ability of Americans “to get jobs in their various fields.” 

Durant also mentioned that black leaders in the past like Coretta Scott King, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and even Texas Democrat Barbara Jordan knew that illegal immigration hits black communities “first and the hardest.” She said today’s black leaders, though, have “made their agreements with the White House and everyone else” on the institutional left to support massive amnesty.

Durant, whose BALA put on the “March for Jobs” in Washington, D.C. last year that brought together American workers of all backgrounds and ethnicities against amnesty, praised U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Peter Kirsanow for being one of the few who are pointing out the devastating impact amnesty legislation would have on black communities.

“Illegal immigration has a disparate impact on African-American men because these men are disproportionately represented in the low-skilled labor force,” Kirsanow wrote recently to the Congressional Black Caucus in urging them to oppose amnesty legislation. “Giving amnesty to illegal immigrants would only exacerbate this problem facing low-skilled men, who are disproportionately African-American.”

Durant recently traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border, and she said that border security was a “joke” and there are “too many benefits” to be had by various interest groups by “leaving the border unsecured.”