Posted on 08/31/2007 10:39:06 AM PDT by bill1952
Immigration Could Add 100M to U.S. by 2060 Written by Randy Hall, CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
If both legal and illegal immigration continues at its current pace, the U.S. population will grow by 1.25 million per year and reach a net total of 468 million by 2060, according to a report issued Thursday by a Washington think tank.
That increase of 167 million people over the next 53 years "is equal to the combined populations of Great Britain, France and Spain," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), during a news conference at the National Press Club.
Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Camarota wrote in his report, "100 Million More: Projecting the Impact of Immigration on the U.S. Population, 2007 to 2060," that "about 1.6 million new legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year.
About 350,000 immigrants go home, so net immigration is about 1.25 million."
Immigrants who will arrive in the future and their descendants "will account for 105 million, or 63 percent of the increase," a total that by itself "is equal to 13 New York Cities," he said.
"If the United States actually started enforcing its immigration laws and reduced illegal immigration, that would have a very significant impact on future population increases," Camarota said.
However, net immigration "has been increasing to the United States for about five decades."
"While illegal immigration is certainly a very large number, the overwhelming majority of the population increase will come from legal immigration, which is very high," he said.
"Last year, for example, the United States allowed 1.2 million people to settle in the country permanently on a legal basis."
"The central question these projections raise and the American people must answer is what costs and benefits come from having a much larger population and a more densely settled country," he added.
Roy Beck, executive director of Numbers USA, said during a panel discussion on the report that he found the study "thoroughly depressing" and "a devastating prognosis for the country" because of what its data predict about the future quality of life in America.
"Every time an American complains about traffic congestion, infrastructure overload, private schools, loss of natural habitat, the possibility to get out of town and have some spiritual recreation in nature, that is a result of federal policy" on immigration, he said.
- here comes the liberal counterpoint -
However, Ben Wattenberg, senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), responded that despite the findings in the report, he considers the U.S. to be "under-populated" as evidenced by all the "flyover country" he sees when traveling "from sea to shining sea."
The AEI scholar dismissed the phrase "'population explosion,' which we have been told is something to dread.
That is putting into two words something that can be put in one, which is 'growth.' The question is whether or not that growth is harmful."
"In 1790, there were 4 million Americans in our first census.
Today, there are 301 million in the country, a 75-fold increase," he said.
"Now, what happened to that nation, which suffered from the most terrible population explosion?
It became the most prosperous and influential nation in human history - so what's the problem?"
-the problem, Benny, is that a couple of million people 200 hundred years ago, has nothing to do with a 100 million increase in 50 years today-
Wattenberg also said America "is a wonderful place to live, because wonderful people live here," but there is "always some kind of nativist, anti-immigrant feeling."
All immigrant groups "start out being hated," but one or two generations later, "they end up being assimilated into U.S. society."
- Nothing to do with today, benny - -
Today's "hate du jour" is toward Mexicans, even though the largest percentage of Medal of Honor winners are Mexican immigrants, he added.
"I hope you're not suggesting that anybody who's critical of current immigration levels is wearing a white sheet," Camarota replied.
Regarding history, "World War I came along in 1914, as well as restrictive legislation in the 1920s, and immigration was low for about 50 or 60 years," he continued.
"If that's to be our guide, then we need to have low immigration for many years so we can assimilate the immigrants already here."
"Immigration is not the weather.
It is not something outside our control,"
Camarota added. "What the American people have to decide is whether they want to live in the society these projections lead us to."
I’m not sure I agree with you on”Legal”immigation.We are way too crowded here as it is in this country and whether someone is legal or illegal matters little in the resources they consume and the amount of federal dollars that will have to be shelled out in benefits to them.
I would like to see a moratorium on ALL immigration into this country.
How is it racist? A ban on all immigration would include Europeans too.
The thing is, why reject people who are potentially productive members to society? A meritocracy would benefit us all.
Are you talking albout legal or illegal immigrants. We take in legal mmigrants from the rest of the world. In fact, we take in more legal immigrants than the rest of the world combined. The world's population will increase from 6 billion to nine billion before it starts leveling off. There will be no shortage of immigrants wishing to come to the US.
Right now, the birthrate of Mexico has dropped to between 2.1 and 2.3 children per family. So unless Mexico opens the door wide to immigrants from central and South America, everybody else will have to cross either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans.
Mexico's total fertility rate is 2.39 children born/woman (2007 est.) compared to our 2.09. Mexico's population is growing at an annual rate of 1.153% (2007 est.) compared to our .89%. So there will be no shortage of Mexicans wishing to come to the US anytime soon. Illegals from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala are transiting Mexico to come into the US and they have even higher fertility and national population growth rates.
top of that, though few people realize it, most of the people in the US are clustered around New York and Los Angeles. The secondary clusters are on the East and West coasts. But look at the rest of the US! There are about 13 ENTIRE STATES that don’t have hardly any people at all!
That is irrelevant. The question is do we want to have a government policy that gives the US a population of 468 million by 2060? Shouldn't the people be at least given a say in this process? Most Americans have no idea what the Immigration and Naturalization of 1965 has meant in terms of population growth and demographics. The US has added 100 million people since 1970 and will add another 62 million by 2030--just 23 years from now. Is that what we want?
Few of you with everything that you have earned - many of them with nothing.
But they all will vote - hence:
Still don't think that it will happen?
That is because you do not know the diferrence between race and culture.
And that is how you were taught.
It would be considered racist by most people since we know that most immigrants who would be affected are non-Europeans.
Yes, lets bring in millions more people. This will solve our problems!
:o
The 3rd world supremacists love open borders
BS. We already have limits. The question is how many do we need and with what skills and talents. The Jordan Commission in the 90s [headed by Barbara Jordan, the first black Congresswoman from Texas] recommended reducing the numbers significantly from the current 1.2 million LEGAL IMMIGRANTS a year. Prior to 1965, we use to admit 178,000 a year. And that doesn't include the 500,000 to 1 million who enter illegally.
>You’re insane!!
No. You have been brainwashed into believing that.
A total stop on immigration would have great import to America. Think about the juxtaposition of those words.
Immigrants need to assimilate into our culture and speak English. Okay? I am simply rattled by these calls to completely shut all borders as if this is realistic. We all know that it isn’t
and the issue os not black and white..there are gray areas that have to be negotiated
and the issue is not black and white..there are gray areas that have to be negotiated
This kind of irrational, sentimental crap makes be wanna rip my hair out by the roots - it is so idiotic, its criminal.
Its not worthy of someone otherwise as intelligent as Dr Wattenberg. He sounds like an emotional pollyanna.
And I'd like to see a citation for this claim as well.
Yet, our legal immigration policies support such Balkanization thru entended chain migration and the sheer numbers that work against assimilation. We [the US] is accommodating ourselves to the immigrants [Hispanics] by making it easier for them to function in Spanish and not learn English, e.g. drivers tests, ballots, ESL courses, etc. We have never accommodated any other immigrant group to that extent.
America's current mass immigration mess is the result of a change in the laws in 1965. Prior to 1965, despite some changes in the 50's, America was a low-immigration country basically living under immigration laws written in 1924. Thanks to low immigration, the swamp of cheap labor was largely drained during this period, America became a fundamentally middle-class society, and our many European ethnic groups were brought together into a common national culture. In some ways, this achievement was so complete that we started to take for granted what we had achieved and forgot why it happened. So in a spasm of sentimentality on the Right and lies on the Left, we opened the borders.
....Further, the Communist Party USA supported higher immigration on the grounds that it destabilizes working Americans.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={55D115DA-C68A-40B5-831C-6071D194CE83}
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.