Posted on 02/08/2013 6:41:30 PM PST by neverdem
Global demographics, not domestic policy, will control who comes and who goes.
In Washington, politicians are trying to reform America's immigration system, again. Both President Obama and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are proposing "paths to citizenship" for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. Other proposals abound, including finishing the border fence, creating a better E-Verify system for employers and passing the last Congress' Dream Act.
All of these ideas, however, fundamentally misunderstand immigration in America: Future immigration is probably going to be governed not by U.S. domestic policy choices but by global demographics....
--snip--
...that Puerto Rico's fertility rate imploded. In 1955, Puerto Rico's total fertility rate was 4.97, well above replacement. By 2012, it had fallen to 1.64 — even further below the replacement line than the United States'.
And what has happened in Puerto Rico is happening all across Latin America, where fertility rates have been dropping on an express elevator for 20 years.
Many Latin American countries have already fallen below the replacement level. It's not a coincidence that sub-replacement countries — such as Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and Costa Rica — send the U.S. barely any immigrants at all. The vast majority of our immigrants come from above-replacement countries, such as Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.
But even though they're still above-replacement, those countries are witnessing epic fertility declines too.
Consider Mexico, which over the last 30 years has sent roughly two-thirds of all the immigrants — legal and illegal — who came to the United States. In 1970, the Mexican fertility rate was 6.72. Today, it's hovering at the 2.1 mark — a drop of nearly 70% in just two generations. And it's still falling.
The result is that from 2005 to 2010, the U.S. received a net of zero immigrants from Mexico...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Why do you think the Congress didn't touch comprehensive immigration reform when the rats had supermajorities in both houses? Their "moderate" posers in both houses knew it could get them unelected. Ditto "card check" for the unions and climate change nonsense.
Make that an additional 30-40 million, most going on Social Security and a lot on SSI - as per Ted Kennedy's Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 aka "Family Reunification Act" aka Bring relatives up and immediately put them on SS or SSI. Legals do this as well.
Demographic info. in this article very interesting.
Let me get this right,in order to finish the border fence is based upon the condition of passing Immigration reform ?
Wasn’t it about around 11 million since 1986. I agree we are up there around about 30-40 plus illegals in 2013.Fiqure in right now document fraud mills will be running 24/7 it might reach 50 plus illegals and next fiqure in their families will all coming here also.And more illegals will still be coming here after Obama’s Immigration reform..
The author is a writer for the center-right magazine “Weekly Standard.”
He's been promoting his new book for several months.
Frankly, I don't understand his basic thesis.
On one hand, he claims a country can't prosper unless its population is constantly growing.
Then, he claims that people won't immigrate to America if the birth rate falls below 2.0 in their native country.
That makes no sense - if the economy is floundering in someone’s low birth rate native country, wouldn't they be MORE likely to flee a sinking ship and come to the USA?
There is also the insane logical extreme of continuous population growth.
America grows about 1% per year.
In 72 years our population will be 630 million.
72 years after that it will be 1.26 billion!
Does the author really want that?
In my opinion, Jonathan Last has always been an Open Border/Amnesty guy.
I think he tries to camouflage his policy goal with a lot of demography stats.
Oh, that's why there are no Russians, Ukrainians, or Poles on my street! Oh, wait a minute ...
My anecdotal sample suggests that getting out of their home country makes Eastern Europeans more likely to have children. All the families I know are larger than average, and the Ukrainian Evangelicals are the only people in the neighborhood with as many children as my family. Perhaps what native-born Americans consider "way too poor to have children" looks really good, compared to Ukraine.
The thrust of the article is pressure produced by out of control increasing fertility rates, especially those in Latin America. The resultant migration puts pressure on destinations. A reduction of the birthrate diminishes the flow and resultant pressure.
The same phenomena is present in Europe where fertile Africa is the problem. Fertile Africa is fertile Islam, a much more severe problem.
You cite numbers opposing drivers licenses etc but the other poll of jobs provided trumps the other. Illegals have in fact been accepted and integrated into the society. The trend began when there was very low unemployment, in fact beyond full employment. There was more to be done than there were people to do it.
That trend is now reversed. We can count the unemployed, even lie about it. I’m not sure we can count the illegal unemployment. I’m not sure how many there are and if the 11 or 12 million still have jobs. I also don’t know the demographic of those who wouldn’t take the jobs that the illegals came into. Are they the bulk of the 17% or perhaps 23% real unemployed?
Then there are the mass of real Americans who have basically chosen to not be part of the working American society. To me, they are more unworthy of living in America than those who come illegally but actually productively work. Those workers certainly aren’t the drag on society that the lazy urban scum are. It seems that dealing with the Amero scum is as important or perhaps more important than tossing out the productive but illegal workers.
I do not have or propose a solution. I accept the existence of severe demographic pressure that seems to have abated somewhat. So long as the big cities are out of control under Democrat control, there will be no solution.
That trend is evident in Mexican immigrants here. The TFR in Mexico around 2.3, but for Mexican Americans the TFR of 2.99 per 2008 data.
Yes, I’ve seen that birthrates have fallen in Mexico more rapidly than for Mexicans or Mexican-descended citizens of the U.S. It’s an interesting trend.
One analysis I read was that most migrants to the U.S. are essentially the rural poor from Mexico. Rural tends to equate to higher birth rates, while urban residents have fewer children. Thus the illegal immigrants were most likely to be those with the highest birth rate at home, and the disproportionate migration of that high fertility demographic here is why Mexico’s rate fell so fast.
That makes sense. I wonder if there’s a similar dynamic in the birthrates of Eastern Europeans living abroad, vs. those who remain their home country.
I live in King County, WA, straight east of Seattle.
We have so many Russians here that the Bellevue Social Service office has telephone assistance in Russian, but NOT in Spanish!
When my daughter Anoreth was posted in Seattle (Coast Guard), she found that Russian immigrants would take her side when she got in arguments with the liberal moonbat locals.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.