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NUMBERS
The bottom line on legal and
illegal immigration is the numbers.
Even though the Census Bureau estimates a
10-12 million illegal alien population, it is commonly known that many
aliens avoid the census count. A more reliable estimate, provided by
Bear Stern, estimates nearly 20 million illegal aliens in the
U.S. as of 2005. Congressman Tom Tancredo, Chairman of the
Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, estimates 18 million
illegal aliens.
The charts below describe legal
immigration, but it is important to recognize that illegal immigration rises
as legal immigration rises.
HISTORICAL LEVELS OF IMMIGRATON INTO THE U.S.
U.S. POPULATION GROWTH CAUSED BY
IMMIGRATON INTO THE U.S.
Advocating U.S. population stabilization
necessitates a reduction in immigration levels. It is virtually
mathematically impossible to be for U.S. population stabilization and
against immigration reduction.
The focus on population limits has waned since the
70's even though the U.S. is now the world's third largest country and the
world's fastest growing industrialized nation. It is pertinent that
Americans understand the true source of growth and be able to link the
symptoms to the source.
The chart below shows the U.S. Census Bureau's
middle-range projection of how much additional population will be forced
into the United States if current immigration and fertility levels continue.
The RED BLOCK shows the phenomenal
population growth being fueled by the federal government's immigration
policies. The red represents all the immigrants (above the replacement level
of 222,000) who have arrived -- or are projected to arrive -- since 1970,
plus their descendants, minus deaths.
The GREEN BLOCK represents U.S.
population growth due to the descendants of 1970-stock Americans. It assumes
that these "old-stock" Americans will continue their present fertility and
mortality rates. There were 203 million people living in the U.S. in 1970.
Births to that population have exceeded their deaths, resulting in the
growth illustrated in the green block. But the below-replacement-level
fertility of "old-stock" Americans will allow this group to stabilize in
size soon after the Baby Boomers' children finish having babies. (The Green
Block also accounts for replacement-level immigration, which the Census
Bureau currently estimates at 222,000 a year.)
Without the radical increase in the
numbers of immigrants coming to the United States since 1970, U.S.
population would almost be stabilized by now and would peak in 2020 at 255
million (52 million higher than in 1970).
The TOP LINE of the chart represents
the actual U.S. population growth between 1970 and now, and is a projection
of what the growth will be between now and the year 2050 if fertility,
mortality and immigration rates remain similar to those of today. The
additional 200 million people contribute to almost doubling the U.S.
population of 1970 -- a time when most Americans believed the country
already had enough congestion and sprawl.
Of the 120 million people who will be
added to the United States over the next 5 decades, 100% are represented in
the RED BLOCK on the chart above.
To find similar population growth in
foreign countries, we must look to the Third World.
Nearly every other advanced country in
the world is moving quickly toward a stabilized population -- or already has
achieved it. But Congress each year endorses immigration numbers that force
the United States to deal with many of the same problems of rampant
population growth that plague the world's poorest countries.
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