Roy Innis, the National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Stated yesterday on The CORE Hour, CORE’s weekly radio program, that the immigration movement is not a fight for rights guaranteed by the constitution as in the case of the Civil Rights Movement.

According to Roy Innis, “ while there are some similarities in the desires of the Civil Rights Movement of the 50’s and 60’s and the Immigration Movement there are fundamental differences. The Civil Rights Movement was a morally based and constitutionally based drive for rights. While the immigrant movement is a drive to appeal to the American people for the privilege of becoming a legal resident of this country. The Civil Rights Movement’s strategy was politically and legally based. The Immigrant Movement lacks a constitutional imperative. These are important differences that leaders of the immigrant movement must understand, as they design strategies and their tactics. Immersing themselves in a sea of foreign flags is not an effective way to encourage the American people to grant them this privilege. After being sensitized by the Civil Rights Movement of the l950’s and l960’s, and when properly appealed to, Americans are open-minded, generous, and pragmatic”.

Roy Innis insisted that regardless of one’s position on the immigration issue, the primary concern must be for homeland security. “It is not possible to ignore 12 million undocumented immigrants in our mist. Something must be done, like it or not”.

Mr. Innis implores the House and the Senate to achieve a compromise based on sound principles to solve the immigration problem for the sake of national security and in the name of human rights.