New Nightmare Census Projections Reveal CHAIN MIGRATION Still Choking Our Future
Well, more bad news from the Census Bureau.
Looking at today's trends in immigration and in immigrant fertility, the Bureau now says that its previous projection of 420 million people in the U.S. in 2050 is too low.
Instead, it now looks like we are headed to 439 million in 2050 -- if Congress doesn't finally start correcting the collossal immigration mistakes set in motion in 1965, accelerated in 1990 and snowballing because of the effects of Chain Migration.
At least four-fifths of the additional 135 million people crammed on top of the 304 million already in our communities will be the result of new immigrants and births to immigrants, according to Census data.
ELIMINATE CHAIN MIGRATION FOR A BETTER FUTURE
The good news is that we don't have to ruin the future quality of life of our children and grandchildren.
If Congress adopts the plan of action advocated by NumbersUSA, U.S. population in 2050 won't have to be anywhere near 400 million.
The key is to eliminate the Chain Migration categories that create endless chains of relatives of immigrants coming to America, without regard to their skills, education or their ability to serve the national interest. (Please continue to use our free faxing system to press your Members of Congress to co-sponsor bills to end Chain Migration and to carry out the other solutions to our immigration problems.)
You can learn more about Chain Migration on various sections of our website (Read about Rep. Gingrey's bill to reduce chain migration). In a nutshell, this absurd program that was invented in the late 1950s and expanded to the whole world in 1965 takes immigration policy away from Americans and allows immigrants to choose most of the future immigrants.
The Anchor Immigrant (who is allowed into the country on the basis of skills, education or special humanitarian need) can then bring an unlimited number of adult children, siblings and parents -- none of whom have to meet any of the above criteria. Then each of them can bring their own spouse, children, siblings and parents. And each of them can do the same!
Pretty soon, you have a chain of expectation involving in-laws, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, second-cousins-once-removed, etc.
Most of the people in the world are now part of a "six degrees of separation chain," according to our current policies.
We simply have to limit family immigration to spouses and minor children -- no chain!
EVERY ASPECT OF AMERICAN LIFE THREATENED
If we don't quickly and substantially reduce annual immigration, the additional millions will threaten nearly every aspect of life for not only the human residents but also the plant and animal inhabitants of this country. (Read how immigration-fuelled sprawl is destroying Americans' quality of life)
By most measures, America's local, state and federal governments are unable to provide fully proficient infrastructures to handle our current population.
Bridges, roads, schools, water and sewage systems, parks and other public infrastructure in many parts of the country are inadequate.
Using immigration to force another hundred million people into our communities over the next few decades is a recipe for deteriorating quality of life for the American people.
If U.S. Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid were truly concerned about the future, today's Census announcement would trigger their call for an emergency session of Congress to determine how this country can possibly handle another 135 million people the next four decades -- and, more importantly, why it would want to handle that number.
I remain convinced that if Congress had to confront the amount of infrastructure required to handle 135 million additional people, it would decide to take the easy way out and reduce immigration.
While world population is projected to finally peak some time this century, U.S. population is on a trajectory to grow for centuries to come -- if Congress doesn't reduce immigration.
This population growth poses huge energy problems. Even if Americans somehow cut their energy consumption by one third over the next half-century, the projected growth in population would negate nearly all the gain.
The same is true about America's contribution of greenhouse gases. U.S. population growth threatens to erase all the gains the country might make over the next few decades in terms of per capita emissions, leaving the total U.S. contribution to greenhouse gases unchanged despite herculean efforts and expenses.
For four decades, Congress has forced high levels of immigration and high levels of population growth, adding more than 100 million people to our communities in the process and congesting our streets and schools while contributing to the deterioration of much of our infrastructure.
Americans should resolve today to push their favorite congressional candidates this fall to pledge to keep the new Census projection from happening by working to lower overall immigration to a traditional level.
LIKE ADDING MEXICO & CANADA
If you can't get your two U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative to understand that their immigration policies are choking the country, remind them how big 135 million is.
The Census projection of 135 million more people crammed into our communities by 2050 is like adding the entire current population of Mexico and Canada.
Does that really make sense?
Why would our elected leaders think we want to pile all of Mexico and Canada on top of ourselves?
Another comparison is that 135 million is approximately the entire population of the United States during World War II in the 1940s.
Or here is another: Visualize half of all the roads and streets, houses, shopping malls, office buildings, mining sites, industrial sections that are now required to support our current population. All of that will have to be added in order to support the population growth being created by federal immigration policies.
How many of you live in an area where adding half of the current physical structures on top of what is already there would improve the quality of your life?
PROJECTIONS CONSTANTLY GROW HIGHER
Among the bad news is that today's elevated projection probably will be raised again -- if Congress doesn't pass sensible immigration legislation.
Until 1993, the Census Bureau had assumed that the latest giant wave of immigration that began in 1965 would subside and that U.S. population would level off somewhere around 300 million in the 21 century.
In other words, we would have had to add only 50 or 60 million people since 1970, instead of the 100 million that actually happened by this year. And we would have had another half century before we reached today's 305 million mark.
But in late 1993, the Census Bureau began making projections with the assumption that Congress would continue to bow to the corporate lobbying for cheap labor. Overnight, the projection for 2050 jumped from around 300 million to 383 million, carrying gigantic implications for all the institutions of America.
Since then, Congress has allowed overall net immigration (legal and illegal) to rise above 13 million a decade (with around 9 million babies born to immigrants each decade). The Census Bureau has had to continually raise its projections.
Congress is solely responsible for this nightmare. Congress can wake us up from this bad dream by correcting the bad immigration legislation it has approved in the past.
The two most important actions needed are (1) the elimination of Chain Migration categories and (2) mandatory use of E-Verify by all employers for all employees.
ROY BECK IS FOUNDER & CEO OF NUMBERSUSA.