Posted on 11/22/2004 10:07:13 PM PST by LouAvul
WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 34 million U.S. residents were born outside the United States, with arrivals from Mexico driving much of the growth in the foreign-born population since 2000, a private research group says.
The foreign-born population grew at a clip of over 1 million a year between 2000 and 2004, even though the U.S. economy was suffering, according to the analysis being released Tuesday by the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter immigration policies.
That pace was roughly equal to the growth rate between 1996 and 2000, when the economy was on the upswing.
It is more evidence that stricter immigration enforcement after the Sept. 11 attacks did little to stop the influx of immigrants, said Steve Camarota, who wrote the report. Often the worst of economic conditions in America are still better than the financial situations in an immigrant's native country.
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Time to make English the official language of the U.S.A.
I think many Texans would disagree.
and that's only the number they "admit to"...I am seeing aliens in every small town in New England
and I visit the mother ship, too...:)
God help us.
Uh, no. Just a very large amount. I think that number is actually much larger than that. That is only counting documented people, not illegal aliens.
A common language unites a people.
Why?
I only speak three or four languages but that's a bad idea in any of them.
If folks aren't assimilating, then too many are coming in. And while a polyglot society is almost certainly more problem-beset than not, there's also the matter of the third world skillsets and behavioral norms that are washing in too. After all, these folks aren't exactly getting off the plane from Madrid.
Just like France has made Parisian French the langue de riguer and wiped out Breton etc.? While I do agree that everyone should know English, I'm against mandatory enforcing of it. People learn English because they know they need to, to survive. If Spanish becomes the lingua franca int he future, then so be it. Learn the language, what's the harm? Or are people just too scared to learn something new?
About four or five years ago I read a piece by Pat Buchanan that detailed a sports event -- I think it was soccer -- in which American athletes were boo'ed and Mexican athletes cheered in L.A.
I actually downloaded it, saved it to a file, re-read it, etc. So, a couple years after that I mention it to a demographer (don't ask) and he backs up the story. So, I ask him why current populations aren't integrating at the same rate as past population groups and he says -- it's because of technology. When the Irish came over, they were pretty much here. Same for the Italians, Eastern Europeans, North Europeans, etc. These people could go back home, but not easily and they could communicate typically only in writing/letters.
Today's immigrants ae more mobile. They can travel back and forth frequently. They can speak on the phone at will. The ties to the "old country" aren't as thoroughly broken.
So, I say, make English the official language, if only as a symbolic gesture.
And every single one is of inestimable benefit to the U.S., nary a one can be spared. The U.S. would be impoverished indeed were there only 20 or 30 million of these diversity bestowing residents. It would probably be even better to have 40, 50 million, but 34 million is what we have and that is to be celebrated. Those of you who think that any less than 34 million might be ideal are most assuredly racists whose opinion need not be considered.
Probanbly foreign born percentage of population is even higher in Europe?
There are a lot more things that we should be spending our time on in this world rather than teaching everyone multiple languages.
The natural thing to do is gravitate toward one language.
It may come as a shock to you, but some people learn languages more easily than others, but these are relativly few and far between. My sister was one such person. For the rest of us its a never ending struggle.
Would you buy a computer that that could not communicate in TCP/IP?
I do think these folks should assimilate, but I am against creating a kind of mono-culture where everyone thinks alike, walks alike etc -- that's not what the USA is about. We talk English to each other, or any other language if we need to communicate, we believe in God and the flag.
And every single one of them are in California.
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