Posted on 09/02/2007 10:38:37 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
WASHINGTON - Immigrants and their children will account for more than half the country's population growth over the coming half-century, according to a study released Thursday.
The examination of new census figures by the Center for Immigration Studies found U.S. population levels, currently around 300 million, will shoot up to 468 million by 2060. California alone could be home to more than 60 million.
Immigrants - both legal and illegal - as well as their descendants are expected to make up about 105 million, or 63 percent, of the national increase.
"It's important to understand where we're headed in population size and why. The why is largely, but not exclusively, immigration," said Steven Camarota, author of the report.
The Center for Immigration Studies, a D.C.-based think tank, openly advocates immigration restrictions. While demographers across the ideological spectrum verified the group's numbers, opinions vary on what they mean for America's future.
William A.V. Clark, a geography professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, called 468 million "a really huge number, and it's being driven by immigration, there's no doubt about that."
Neither politicians nor city planners are preparing for or even discussing immigration's impact on population growth, he said.
Meanwhile, the impact in California, which is home to about 10 million foreign-born, will be particularly acute.
"If you think the 405 is bad now, it won't be moving unless they put a double-decker bus on it," Clark said.
"This is like the elephant in the bathtub," he said. "We're not building the infrastructure for the population we have now, much less this kind of growth."
But Jeff Passell, spokesman for the Pew Hispanic Center, which also is preparing population projections based on immigration, noted that without newcomers the U.S. could not have a growing labor force.
Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning at USC, agreed.
Myers studies aging trends and called immigration part of the solution to the graying of America.
He noted that the ratio of senior citizens to working-age people will go up 30 percent in the next decade and spike another 30 percent after that.
"That is the central policy question America has to solve, and we have to solve it now," he said. Because foreigners who come to the U.S. tend to be young, he said, immigration can reduce the aging problem by about a quarter.
Myers also cast doubts on the study, noting that the analysis hinges on the assumption that fertility and immigration rates will both remain high.
Currently, the nation sustains an immigration rate of about 1.2 million annually, according to the study. Researchers based their projections partly on the past five decades, during which there has been a net immigration increase.
A half billion, at least half imported, will (and already is) not America.
50% in 53 years? That’s a bit substantial. Gonna need a lot more governent to administer all of the social services they will demand. Nice way to keep wages down as well.
Uh, does anyone remember voting for this to happen, or voting for an elected representative who advocates that this come about? I don’t.
From what I heard an average child birth per woman in Mexico is 2 and a average child birth per woman alien in the US is 5.
The assumption I get is welfare pays enough to have more children.
***********************EXCERPTs***********************
Founded in 1985 as a think tank to support the more activist work of the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), CIS is dedicated "to expand the base of public knowledge and understanding of the need for an immigration policy that gives first concern to the broad national interest. The Center is animated by a pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision which seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted."
CIS describes itself as “independent” and “nonpartisan,” but its studies, reports, and media releases consistently support its restrictionist agenda and works closely on Capitol Hill with Republican Party immigration restrictionists. However, CIS has achieved credibility with the media and in think tank circles because of its lack of the kind of strident anti-immigrant rhetoric associated with many restrictionist groups, its willingness to invite pro-immigrant voices to its forums, and the scholarly format of its reports.
Members of its board of directors are: Patrick Burns, Thomas C.T. Brokaw, George Grayson, David Simoz (chair and president), Carol Iannone, Otis Graham (co-chair), Peter Nuñez, Frank Morris, William Chip, Jacquelye Jackson, Vernon Briggs, Scott McConnell, and Willard Fair. Steven Camarota is director of research, and Mark Kirkorian (formerly a policy expert with FAIR) is executive director. Annual revenues in 2002 were $898,810. (1)
Origins, History, and Impact
The Center for Immigration Studies was founded in 1985 as a spin-off of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Another FAIR spin-off is the Immigration Reform Law Institute, which functions as the litigation arm of FAIR, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. (3)
CIS publishes books, reports, papers, and monthly backgrounders. Its analysis on such issues as immigrant voting and electoral redistricting, impacts on low-wage and high-skilled workers, and tax impacts are closely followed by immigration experts of all persuasions. In the mid-1990s, immigration restrictionists, boosted by findings of congressional commissions, seemed to be on the verge of passing legislation to turn the legislative tide that had favored immigration flows since the 1986 amnesty. But largely because of lobbying by a right-left, corporate-pro-immigrant coalition in which high-tech industries played a leading role, immigration restrictionist groups likes CIS and FAIR saw their restrictionist agenda die in Congress. Lately, as concerns about the plight of low-wage labor, outsourcing, and national security merge, CIS and restrictionism in general are once again gaining a new hearing in Congress.
“Let’s be clear,” wrote Frank Sharry of the National Immigration Forum, “CIS was birthed by FAIR, the militant anti-immigration group. The CIS executive director moved from FAIR to CIS to head up the organization. Although now independent, the two organizations share the same basic agenda: an American version of what in Europe is called ‘zero immigration.’” According to Sharry, CIS masquerades as an objective, “squeaky clean” think tank, but CIS is “simply churning out high-sounding, low-credibility grist for the high-pitch, low-road anti-immigration forces in the United States.” This assessment of CIS is widely shared among pro-immigrant groups, but CIS studies are not only frequently cited by the “low-road” nativist forces but also by major news media. (4)
CIS has also been critiqued as being part of a network of anti-immigrant groups that cater to a white supremacist constituency by right-wing economic libertarians who believe in the benefits of mass and unfettered immigration. A Wall Street Journal op-ed (June 15, 2004), that was widely praised and circulated by pro-immigrant groups, reported that despite the fact that CIS “may strike right-wing poses in the press,” it and other like-minded groups “support big government, mock federalism, deride free markets, and push a cultural agenda abhorrent to any self-respecting social conservative.” A follow-up article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Borderline Republicans” described the anti-immigration network this way: “CIS, FAIR, NumbersUSA, ProjectUSA—and more than a half-dozen similar groups that Republicans have become disturbingly comfortable with—were founded or funded (or both) by John Tanton. In addition to trying to stop immigration to the U.S., appropriate population control measures for Dr. Tanton and his network include promoting China’s one-child policy, sterilizing Third World women, and wider use of RU-486.” (5) Replying to this charge, Krikorian wrote in National Review Online that CIS does not take a “position on anything that does not involve U.S. immigration policy.” (6)
Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) has come under sharp criticism by CIS and other immigration restrictionist groups for his pro-immigration positions. According to Cannon, “Tanton set up groups like CIS and FAIR to take an analytical approach to immigration from a Republican point of view so that they can give cover to Republicans who oppose immigration for other reasons.” (5)
Executive director Krikorian, who appears regularly before congressional committees discussing immigration policy, describes himself and CIS as being “conservative” but as not belonging to the “high-immigration Right” as represented by the Wall Street Journal. According to Krikorian, “The high-immigration Right works hand-in-glove with the anti-American Left.” Like many anti-immigrant groups, CIS believes that Corporate America and leftists share a common agenda of open borders, albeit for different reasons. (6)
Funding
Early funding for CIS was channeled through U.S. Inc, a nonprofit established and still directed by John Tanton, who was one of the cofounders of the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR). (3) Among the right-wing foundations that fund CIS are Sarah Scaife Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Jaqueline Hume Foundation, Carthage Foundation, and Scaife Family Foundation. (2)
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I know that some may disagree but..........Considering the Electoral Vote when we elect Presidents, I was taught in school that one important reason for it is so that someone that is proven to be a major enemy of our way of life, cannot be elected President. The Electorial College can put a stop to this person getting elected. In other words, if we had a person of Hispanic decent running for President that favored supporting all Mexicans the right to enter this country, uncontrolled, the Electorial College can refuse to allow him/her to be President. Even if California had all of its Electorial votes go for the Hispanic, other states could stop it. I believe that the Electorial College is a safety valve and should be kept in place.
God help us.
bttt
The whys are fully understood -- inadequate (to say the least) border enforcement, a huge influx of legal immigration from the Third World since the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, and anchor baby laws combined with an out-of-control welfare state that encourages new arrivals (both legal and illegal) to have large families.
**************************EXCERPTS******************************
WASHINGTON – If flows of legal and illegal immigration continue at current rates, they will boost the population of the United States by 105 million by 2060, according to a study released yesterday.
That growth, coupled with births among current residents, would boost the nation's population to 468 million from its current level of 301 million, reported the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that advocates lower levels of immigration.
“The central question these projections raise is – what costs and benefits come with having a much larger population and a more densely settled country,” study author Steven Camarota said during a panel discussion that included both a leader in the effort to restrict immigration and a prominent advocate of expansive immigration policies.
Net annual immigration is about 1.25 million people, comprising 800,000 legal immigrants and 450,000 illegal immigrants. Camarota's projections include growth only from future immigrants, not from the 38 million immigrants now in the United States.
In the panel discussion, Roy Beck, a former environmental journalist who now heads NumbersUSA, a group that favors immigration restrictions, called the report “thoroughly depressing.”
What I have noticed since the sixties is that a systematic campaign to neutralize population growth of middle class Americans has been implemented through birth control and abortion. Now, they cry that we have an “aging crisis” and need to replace the population that would have been her with poor immigrants. My question is always why?
Yes, the birthrate for Mexican-born women is significantly higher in the United States than it is in Mexico. I call this the cuckoo factor. The cuckoo bird lays its eggs in other birds’ nests and lets those other birds provide for its offspring.
“the cuckoo factor”
That’s a good analogy.
How true.
My location has become so hidiously overcrowded that I am seriously thinking of moving to Alaska or even Canada.
I'd rather freeze than this.
The idea of over a billion Americans is considered a bad one by many here, but personally see a large American population as one of the most effective ways to keep the United States' preeminent position to the country's will (economically, culturally, and militarily) abroad as China and India rise.
I remember when they changed the immigration rules in the 1960's, they assured us that the new rules might increase immigration just a tiny amount at most.
It’s shocking to realize how overpopulated America already is.
Currently, only China and India have more people than America.
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