YES: Immigration will double the population of the United States within the next 60 years.

INSIGHT MAGAZINE ^ | Feb. 18, 2002 | Dirk Chase Eldredge

[dennisw]

YES: Immigration will double the population of the United States within the next 60 years.

Posted Feb. 18, 2002
By Dirk Chase Eldredge

The United States will double its population in the next 60 years unless we take prompt, aggressive action. The doubling will be caused almost entirely by immigration; more than 90 percent of our population growth since 1970 has come from recent immigrants and their children born here. Only Congress and the president can prevent this calamity, but so far neither has taken preventive action. Like Nero, they are fiddling while Rome burns.

To exacerbate matters, Congress legalized nearly 3 million illegal immigrants with amnesties in 1962, 1986 and 1997. Another is being considered for the 8 million to 11 million illegals we now host. This must be stopped.

In 1981, the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, then-president of Notre Dame University, chaired a congressional commission to study immigration policy. The commission told President Ronald Reagan that our population was 200 million, which it labeled "already ecologically unsustainable," and recommended an immediate freeze on immigration. The commission found the root cause of our dramatic population growth to be chain immigration, a concept created by the 1965 amendments to the Immigration and Naturalization Act. The Hesburgh Commission studied chain immigration in detail, concluding that it allowed such aberrations as a family of five immigrants, if all became naturalized citizens, to grow in a relatively short period to 84 immigrants. Other studies found the multiplier to be somewhat less, but all agreed it was substantial. The study was reported more than 20 years ago, yet nothing has been done to halt population growth or reduce the dramatic effects of chain immigration. From the "ecologically unsustainable" 200 million in 1981, our population now is 281 million — and growing.

This growth has not occurred in a vacuum, but rather in the midst of the world's population exploding around us. It took from Adam and Eve to 1800 for the world to accumulate its first billion inhabitants. The pace of growth then accelerated, and the world added 2 billion people in the next 160 years. Then the really frightening growth began: It took only 40 years for Earth to double its population from 3 billion in 1960 to 6 billion by the year 2000!

This accelerating rate of growth created tremendous external pressure on the United States from people in the Third World, where most of this growth occurred. They are desperate to better their lot by moving to more-advanced countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia and those in Western Europe.

Excessive immigration, both legal and illegal, resulting from the amendments of 1965, has exacted a tremendous price from the American people, paid in the coin of overcrowded schools, congested highways, deteriorating ecology and lagging infrastructure. California, for instance, would require the completion of one new school each day to keep pace with the growth of the student populations. Of course, no state is able to finance and build schools that rapidly. This shortfall causes increasingly crowded classrooms and a deteriorating quality of education. Nor is the problem limited to California. Other high-immigration states such as New York, Florida and Texas face similar demands.

Inadequate highways are another manifestation of excessive immigration. Licensed drivers in the United States have increased by 64 percent since 1970, and vehicle miles by 131 percent. Yet during that period the nation's road mileage has grown a scant 6 percent. Remember that deficit next time you are stuck in traffic.

Recently we have experienced power shortages resulting in brownouts and rolling blackouts caused by too many people using a sometimes inadequate power supply. Because in today's politically correct climate it would be considered career suicide, no political leader has admitted that excessive immigration is a major contributor to these problems.

On the ecological front, in spite of impressive progress in some areas, 40 percent of Americans live in cities where the Environmental Protection Agency deems air quality substandard. Thirty-five of our states are withdrawing groundwater faster than it's being replenished. Forty percent of our lakes and streams are unfit for fishing or swimming. Our shortage of convenient open space is a national tragedy. Americans need tranquility more than ever, as overcrowding in our nation's population centers makes the mere absence of cell-phone babble a luxury.

The numbers tell why the United States suffers from immigration indigestion. During the 1960s we were absorbing 300,000 immigrants annually. Resulting from the aforementioned amendments to our immigration laws, the inflow of immigrants by the 1990s had ballooned to an average of more than 1 million per year. The dramatic change in the rate and ethnic composition of immigration brought fundamental changes to our nation, with failure of assimilation being the most profound.

The United States has a proud tradition of assimilating immigrants into the mainstream of our variegated population. Today, however, balkanization has replaced assimilation. Increasingly in America we see ethnic enclaves of recent immigrants making no effort to assimilate. Mexicans are the slowest to assimilate, perhaps because of their homeland's proximity. Alejandro Carrillo Castro, a former Mexican consul general in Chicago, says Mexicans in the United States are especially slow to naturalize, the ultimate act of assimilation. On average they take 22 years; others take seven.

Disturbing examples of balkanization are found in California and Florida, to name just two trouble spots. The Hispanic former mayor of Miami, Maurice Ferre, once declared Spanish the official language of his city and predicted that soon people either would speak Spanish or leave. Fortunately, his abrasive 1981 forecast has yet to materialize. Many Miamians would say the issue still is in doubt. Southern California's Huntington Park and Garden Grove are cities staunchly balkanized by Hispanics and Asians, respectively. Some former Garden Grove residents expressed their frustration through a bumper sticker, widely displayed in the 1990s, that read: "Will the last American out of Garden Grove please bring the flag?"

The Houston Chronicle reported a jarring example of nonassimilation: "At a soccer game against Mexico in February [1988], the American national team listened in frustration as a chorus of boos erupted during 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' Thousands of fans threw cups and bottles at the U.S. players, often striking them. They also attacked someone in the stands who tried to unfurl an American flag. The match didn't take place in Mexico City but in Los Angeles."

Failure of assimilation weakens America's social fabric and makes it difficult for immigrants to succeed here by participating fully in our economy. When immigration takes place at a reasonable rate, assimilation is more likely to occur. Adding to the problem of nonassimilation are more affordable airfares between the United States and immigrants' homelands, and such conveniences as reasonable long-distance telephone rates. In 1965 it cost $10.59 to call the Dominican Republic for three minutes and $15 to call India; now those rates are $1.71 and $3.66 respectively.

Through concerned, engaged leadership, the United States can stem the tide of immigration and prevent the statistically inevitable doubling of our already-too-large population in the next 60 years. First, a 10-year moratorium for all immigration would provide time for us to assimilate and acculturate the torrent of immigrants of the last three decades. Second, it would give our underclass a chance to improve their incomes and working conditions absent the flood of cheap, immigrant labor with which they now compete for entry-level jobs. And, finally, it would give us time thoughtfully to plan future immigration policies. What characteristics will we seek in future immigrants? What level of education, what skills, what ages and how many will we admit? The moratorium would provide time to develop a consensus on future immigration, supplanting today's "policy-by-pressure-group" approach.

For national-security and other reasons, our borders must be bolstered against today's silent invasion by illegal immigrants, 40 percent of whom enter with temporary visas and simply stay, melding into our society as did 13 of the Sept. 11 terrorists. Other illegals sneak across our porous borders and shorelines. There currently is no downside to breaking U.S. immigration laws. If illegal aliens are apprehended, they often are simply taken back across the border and released. Hispanics at the border say: "Es un juego." Translation: It's a game.

We should put teeth into our laws by incarcerating apprehended illegals in military facilities made available in recent rounds of base closures; 90 days for the first offense, six months for the second and a year for the third.

It's also time to demagnetize the magnet drawing them here: jobs. By replacing the easily counterfeited Social Security card every working American now must have with one containing a biometric representation of the carrier's fingerprints, we could make it simple to determine who is legally in our country and who is eligible for welfare and unemployment. Sanctions on employers who hire illegals should be part of the new paradigm.

A free, quality education is another element of the magnet. The simultaneous states of illegal immigrant and legal student are an affront to common sense and the rule of law and should be discontinued.

"There is nothing so permanent as a temporary farm worker" is more than a clever turn of phrase; it is a truism. This should be recognized and such programs discontinued. They simply perpetuate economically unsound arrangements where U.S. farmers produce labor-intensive crops that cannot be grown and harvested profitably without cheap immigrant labor, the availability of which discourages development of automated methods. If we cannot grow such crops profitably, their production should be left to countries that can. That's how a free market, unfettered by a flow of unrealistically cheap labor, efficiently allocates its resources.

Eldredge is the author of Crowded Land of Liberty – Solving America's Immigration Crisis. He writes about national policy issues from Long Beach, Calif.

 

 

[F.J. Mitchell]

Doubling the population, while halving the intellegence. We are on the way to confirming evolution by reversing the proccess and paving the way for our heirs to crawl back into that stagnant pool, that our ancestors are said to have crawled out of.

Wonder how many illegal aliens will be swarming across the borders of what was once the USA, in the year Twelve zillion, seven hundred thousand billion and two, to work at chores our tadpolesque, great, great, great, billion times great and then some grand chilluns are accused of being too uppity to do? If a lie was told and not one imbecile was around to believe it, would it still be a lie?

[FITZ]

i employ a couple from el salvador to take care of my house..

I hope you're paying them enough money so they can buy their own health care or health insurance. If you employ illegals to get out of paying decent wages, knowing your illegals can just go get their free health care at some county hospital at taxpayer expense, then you are just abusing taxpayers so you can have cheap maid service.

[dennisw]

 

20%-25% of all Salvadorans live in the United States. This is not good. I am against huge chunks of certain nations picking up and moving to the United States via a combination of legal and illegal immigration. I know some very nice immigrants too. So what? It's a macro problem and it ain't just about me and them. There is a much larger picture. 

A picture where huge parts of one nation are moving into my nation. After they have messed up their own.

[dennisw]

Whasa matter? You like loud mariachi music?

[FITZ]

That's a problem ---we have immigrants now who come over illiterate and uneducated. They don't educate their children and have a very high drop out rate and illegitimacy rate. What we spend trying to educate them, keep them in school, feed and clothe their teen mothers, we could save Social Security ourselves. They don't make enough even when they work to pay income taxes, most qualify for the "earned income" welfare handout. Plus they bring in their own elderly and get Medicare and Medicaid, SSI and SS for them.

[WRhine]

Only Congress and the president can prevent this calamity, but so far neither has taken preventive action. Like Nero, they are fiddling while Rome burns.

It’s a bit worse than that. They started the fire and continue to feed the flames.

[WRhine]

Why will the US become a socialist country? Because the population groups that love the democrat socialist party are increasing in numbers much faster than those who are members of all other political parties that are anti socialism. Open the borders wide! Here comes Big Brother!

That seems to be where we are headed. Unless some new dynamic emerges that changes the direction we are going with uncontrolled immigration this country will be facing some very hard times and the American Dream for many will be a thing of the past.

[dead]

Ahh but you see we just haven't noticed. 281 mil is unsustainable

If I'm starving, why am I so friggin' fat?!

[usadave]

We, the American voters, need to get out of this mindset that we must vote either Democratic or Republican. Neither of these two major political parties seems to give a hoot about the voters. The Democratic and Republican parties are each pushing forward with their respective agendas and they really don't care what we voters think or how we feel about it.

The Democrats and Republicans look at elections as simply a formality in which party loyalists vote for their party's candidate and both ambivalent and disgusted voters tend to approach voting with a "vote for the lesser of two evils" philosophy. As long as the majority of American voters keep thinking and voting this way, certain problems, such as illegal immigration, will never be solved.

The time has come for each American voter who is "mad as hell" at ineffective government to seriously consider voting for a third party candidate. Our current two party political system is no longer working. We, the American voter, have the power to change the system and I believe the time has come to begin the process.

[WRhine]

The time has come for each American voter who is "mad as hell" at ineffective government to seriously consider voting for a third party candidate. Our current two party political system is no longer working. We, the American voter, have the power to change the system and I believe the time has come to begin the process.

This is very good political advice. I've seen enough of Bush to know that he will only make matter worse on the immigration front. I don't know what world these people live in but it certainly isn't mine.

[koba]

No, the elite probably don't live in the same world you do. They live in gated communities and large ranches. They've decided that's it'd up to the middle-class "average" Americans to deal with the problems caused by immigration by themselves. In a sense, the elites have thrown lower-middle and middle-class Americans to the wolves.

[blaze]

The only difference between Mexico and the U.S. is a line in the dirt!!!If the pilgrams would have landed in Mexico, Mexico would be the most powerful country in the world!!!!http://www.petitiononline.com/immiGBA/petition.html....checkit out and sign.

[Young Rhino]

Soylent Green is People!

[Young Rhino]

I am against huge chunks of certain nations picking up and moving to the United States via a combination of legal and illegal immigration.

1. Then ship Pat Buchanan, Ted Kennedy, and the rest of the Irish back to the Emerald Isle.

2. Proposed solution: Annex Canada and use it as the exclusive intake area for immigrants. Chinese surpassed French up there this past year as the second most spoken language due to immigration.

[truth_seeker]

Since 1965's Ted Kennedy immigration bill, 85% of our legal immigrants have been non European. You really think this is right?

I don't look it as "right" or "wrong." It is mainly because the US has, from the start, been a destination for people hoping to improve upon their own lives, and their childrens' lives.

Most of Europe is fairly close to the US, as far as material well being. Hence there is less reason to move here. For people from poorer places, the US still has the same appeal, so they will risk a lot, to get and stay here. That means they will risk being "illegal." That status is still a few steps above the old country situation.

It is easy to get here, and stay here. Should it not work out, it is easy to get back home.

Immigrants are probably much less committed to becoming Americans, and a lot more interested in the material aspects. As I said in my first post, I don't care if they are non-european. I sure do care if they are potential terrorists, and that mainly means Muslim, to me. If you don't like that, then we disagree.

I am a lifelong resident of Southern California, so being around many Hispanic people, recent immigrants, and native born, doesn't bother me. My attorney is of Mexican ancestry (native born, Vietnam era vet, same college as me), my tax accountant is of Vietnamese ancestry (came here as a child, same college as me) and I know my cousins, in several countries.

People who come here to work, and live peacefully don't bother me; people who come here, but hate the US and kill Americans (or condone it) make me angry enough to be ready to take up arms against them, if it comes to that.

[lentulusgracchus]

....start bitching that no one will ever touch the almighty produce companies.

Okay, Bella, put me down. Register me right now.

[lentulusgracchus]

Most of Europe is fairly close to the US, as far as material well being. Hence there is less reason to move here.

The Eastern Europeans who had the most economic and political incentive to move here were restrained by Communism. Now they are free to move, and numbers of Russians are coming -- I ran into one, to my surprise, driving a beat-up Chevy cab in my city, ten years ago. I have also run into a Romanian nurse, blonde as she could be, I thought she was German, but no, she's a daughter of Trajan's legions. Interesting.