Posted on 01/12/2004 7:33:52 PM PST by Happy2BMe
Mass Immigration Said 'Swamping' U.S. Cities The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a Washington, D.C.-based group advocating tighter immigration restrictions, says 1.1 million immigrants will enter the U.S. this year alone. In its new report, FAIR says the immigrant population nearly doubled from 19.8 million in 1990 to 31.1 million a decade later. "America's immigration policies have launched us into a risky experiment never tried by a modern day country," said Dan Stein, FAIR's executive director, in reference to the new numbers. "This demographic change is unlike anything this country has ever experienced, and is unprecedented in modern times." FAIR says six large U.S. cities over 100,000 – Hialeah and Miami, Fla., along with Glendale, Santa Ana, Daly City and El Monte, Calif. – had foreign-born populations of more than 50 percent. The immigrant population constituted 41-50 percent of the total in four others: Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, and Garden Grove, Calif., along with Elizabeth, New Jersey. Mexico accounted for about 9.2 million immigrants, or 30 percent of the total foreign-born population in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau's 2000 report, making it the leading country of birth. Next were China and the Philippines, with 1.5 million and 1.4 million respectively. They are followed by India, Vietnam, Cuba, South Korea, Canada, El Salvador and Germany. In 2000, more than half the foreign born population lived in three states: California, New York and Texas, the Census Bureau found. The FAIR report said immigration was the greatest in the South, which saw its foreign born population grow by 90 percent, followed by 65 percent in the Midwest. FAIR says the foreign-born population in the U.S. will swell to 45 million by 2010 if current immigration levels continue, "making this decade's wave of immigration the largest in U.S. history," the report said, adding California's foreign-born population alone is expected to swell to 12 million by decade's end. Currently, the U.S. population is estimated at 291 million people, according to Census Bureau figures. Though not all immigration is unhealthy for the country, FAIR says many regions of the U.S. are already struggling economically to provide basic services for people. Adding more numbers will simply make it more difficult – and expensive – to offer them, and that could lead to other troubles, the group claimed. "What remains to be seen is if this country has the capacity to accommodate, and assimilate, an unending wave of mass immigration ¯ because failure to do so will result in a balkanized, fragmented, strife-torn and dysfunctional America," Stein said. New Immigrant Initiatives A number of surveys have shown a majority of Americans at odds with lawmakers who support high levels of immigration. Still, there are new immigrant-friendly initiatives being introduced and considered by Congress and the Bush administration. For the first time since before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the administration has hinted it is considering a new work-related legalization program for millions of aliens currently residing in the U.S. A week ago in Miami, Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge told an audience the U.S. will have to "come to grips" with such an initiative, if for nothing else because of the sheer number of illegal aliens who here now or planning to come in the future. "The bottom line is, as a country we have to come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status some way, but also as a country decide what our immigration policy is and then enforce it," Ridge said. Legislatively, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 16-3 in October to approve the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act of 2003, which would provide college opportunities for U.S.-born children of illegal aliens residing in the country – a vote hailed by immigrant and Latino support groups. "The future of thousands of Hispanic children depends on the passage of this bill," said a statement by the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights group. In clarifying Ridge's statement to reporters a few days later, President Bush said he has opposed, and continues to oppose, any "blanket amnesty" for illegal aliens. But, he echoed the Homeland Security chief's support for a work-related legalization plan. "We need to have an immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee," Bush told reporters Dec. 15. "It makes sense that that policy go forward. And we're in the process of working that through now so I can make a recommendation to the Congress." Bush will travel to the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, next month, where he will likely discuss the issue with other regional leaders. Some lawmakers, however, call such work-related plans little more than an amnesty program, and are opposed them on those grounds. Instead, they are pushing for stricter overall enforcement of existing immigration laws as well as a different approach to creating the so-called "guest worker" programs. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., head of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, says border legislation he introduced earlier this year aims to plug "gaping holes in both America’s porous borders and its dysfunctional guest worker programs." Reform groups like FAIR maintain the first issue Washington should address is continued record-high immigration. "Mass immigration has nothing whatsoever to do with the economic and social well-being of the United States or the American people," Stein said. "Immigration is entirely about the interests of the immigrants themselves, special interest ethnic groups, and business interests that want unlimited numbers of low-wage workers." Jon E. Dougherty
Mass immigration, most of it coming from south of the border, is "swamping" the United States, with six large U.S. cities now consisting mostly of foreign-born inhabitants, a new report warns.
Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2004
People will yell hard enough if and when importing poverty hits them- it will likely be too late.
So then we must always be an immigrant nation?
Do the math, it doesn't worky!
Let me see... we take in over a million a year legally and they are yelling about a 11.3 million jump in ten years..... do I have that correct?Mass immigration
Immigration averaged a near replacement level of 178,000 per year from 1925 through 1965. Then Congress increased immigration approximately 6-fold beginning in 1965. Now the U.S. takes in a million legal immigrants and approximately 700,000 illegal immigrants each year. This unsustainably high level of immigration will be responsible for 70% of U.S. population doubling this century. CLICK
I can answer that one, the ones wanting to come here legally are just as or more motivated and are probably better educated. Many illegals simply don't respect the law because the law is "flexible" in Mexico. The immigrants that built this country had entrepreneurial spirit, these illegals are here to dig ditches or whatever they can find.
I agree with 1,2 and 4. Number 3 I would caveat that it must not dimish the quality of life or "general welfare" of the people. Government involvement normally has a bad effect on markets but NO involvement can be much worse.
Hyper-capitalism can lead to oligarchies where only the elite have and can maintain wealth. Corporations do not have a conscience there mission is to make as much money as possible and apparently partiotism takes a back seat to that goal.
If we weren't so crowded, people would have the freedom to dress and to smoke and to make noise and to believe what they'd like without irritating others, as you have been irritated.
Too many people.
Sickening, wasn't it?
I am not so sure the romantic notion of being a risk taker is an admirable one.
By definition, the more risky an enterprise is, the greater the chance of failure.
Hence, most risk takers will be failures, and the bigger the risks, the more the failures will outnumber the winners.
Sounds like a disastrous strategy for nurturing a society.
I don't believe taking risks is the way to succeed.
I suspect that is a line fed to us by the elites, to cover for their succeeding via connections and insider info.
Sure, some people will take risks and succeed, but for every one who does, there must be many more who fail.
No--I don't believe in risks. I believe in knowledge, and I believe in someone who has the clearness of vision to see an opportunity and not be deterred from that opportunity by succumbing to the herd-like thinking of the people around him.
Good point and makes sense. Its not 1850 anymore and we're running out of room.
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