Racialicious Crush Of The Week: Barbara Jordan

Jordan solidified her reputation at the 1976 Democratic National Convention where she gave the keynote address which, along with the speech given above, are considered two of the top 100 US speeches of the 20th century. Not only was Jordan the first African American women to keynote at the convention, she’s rumored to have received a delegate vote at it, though she wasn’t even running for president. (Source) She continued to press for and support such legislation like the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977. She also wanted to expand the 1965 Voting Rights Act to include non-English speakers, but Texas legislators nixed the idea.

Politicos and the administration of then-president Jimmy Carter bandied her name about for several positions, from Carter’s running mate to US Attorney General to Secretary of Health and Human Services. Jordan instead chose to finish her tenure in the House and then semi-retire as an academic at the University of Texas in Austin. (Source)

In 1994, President Bill Clinton tapped Jordan to serve as Chair of the US Commission on Immigration Reform. Suffice to say, she held some rather–shall we say?–complicated opinions on how to modify the laws. She said jobs.

We believe that employer sanctions can work, but only with a reliable system for verifying authorization to work. Employers want to obey the law, but they are caught now between a rock and a hard place. The current system is based on documents. An employer must either accept those documents, knowing that they might be forged, and thus live with the vulnerability to employer sanctions for hiring someone presenting false identification. Or, an employer may choose to ask particular workers for more documentation, which is discrimination.

The Commission has recommended a test of what we regard as the most promising option: electronic validation using a computerized registry based on the social security number. This is the only approach to deterring illegal immigration that does not ignore the half of the problem, the visa overstayer problem you are investigating today. We are pleased with the prompt, bipartisan support that this highly visible recommendation has received, and we look forward to real results from pilot projects before our final report in 1997.

Third in our recommmendations for a comprehensive strategy is making eligibility for public benefits consistent with our immigration policy. Decisions about eligibility should support our immigration objectives. Accordingly, the Commission recommended against eligibility for illegal aliens except in most unusual circumstances.

Citizenship and naturalization should be more central to the process of immigration. There are many barriers to naturalizing in law and practice, and they should be removed. But it is a debasement of the concept of citizenship to make it the route to welfare.

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