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Reverend Al Sharpton talked with the TJMS this morning on the hot topic of immigration just one day after President Obama outlined his plans for immigration reform.

Sharpton explains why he thinks it’s not just a Latino problem but also how it directly impacts the black community.

Read the full transcript below.

Good morning, good morning.  And good morning to everyone.  Let me say that the President has only been in his second term less than two weeks and has already triggers where his Administration is going.  He started by dealing with this fiscal cliff, saving unemployment insurance, saving a lot of what services we need to continue funding.  He then started the drive for new gun control.  He’s now addressing immigration.  And a lot of people are dealing with two very significant myths about his immigration proposals.

One, immigration is not just a Latino issue.  I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY where people from Jamaica, people from Trinidad, people from Barbados, people from Africa.  The cases I have fought, Abner Louiama was from Haiti.  Amadou Diallo from Africa.  So many of us are saying why is he doing this for Latinos as if we don’t have immigration problems that people are married, raising families, those people will be deported from their children.  Some of them born here never lived in these countries that will be sent back.  So it is inaccurate.

It is also inhumane.  If it was all Latino we should not want to see families disrupted and situations dissolve the exact things that was done to us.  Now, this whole argument about taking jobs from us.  We’ve been doubly unemployed since slavery.  The last time all blacks had a job was when we were slaved and we didn’t get paid.

Let us not blame others for what the economy and the private sector has done to us.  Let us unite with others to correct the economy.  Seventy-one percent of Latinos voted for President Obama.  Politically he ought to remember that.  But morally we ought to be coalescing to give immigrants’ rights our rights and fight for rights together rather than be crabs in the barrel trying to crawl on each other’s back.  We need to unite and take the lid off of where we are caged so there’s room for all of us to spread out.  Let’s not fight each other, let’s unite.  We proved in November we could win that way.  Don’t let them pit us against each other.