Immigration now adds more than one million people—the equivalent of two Denvers—to our population every year. At our current pace of immigration, our population will grow to more than 400 million people by 2050. That’s tens of millions of additional people needing schools, jobs, and housing—as well as water and other precious natural resources.
Today’s immigration is extremely costly.
Unlike previous eras of immigration, today’s immigrants are 50 percent more likely to use welfare than native-born Americans. Providing for the needs of immigrants costs American taxpayers as much as $20 billion a year. We cannot provide high quality education, health care, and retirement security for our own people if we continue to bring in endless numbers of poor, unskilled immigrants. America is still working to meet the challenge of assisting our own poor and disadvantaged; mass immigration compounds the problem and impedes efforts to raise the standards of living for all.
Mass immigration depresses the wages of poorer Americans.
The gap between rich and poor in America continues to widen. Job competition by waves of new immigrants depresses the wages and salaries of American workers and hits hardest at minority workers and those without high school degrees. America’s focus must be on training our own labor force to face competition from abroad, not on importing new workers to compete for jobs at home.
Mass immigration conflicts with today’s national security priorities.
Current immigration levels are so high that immigration officials are unable to thoroughly screen immigrants before allowing them into the country—as September 11, 2001 tragically underscored. Lower legal immigration levels, an entry-exit system to detect those who have overstayed their visas, and heightened enforcement efforts are essential in order to regain control of the system and meet today’s heightened need to know who is coming into the country.
Mass immigration is overcrowding our schools.
In the last decade, school enrollments have increased by 16 percent, an increase that the U.S. Census Bureau attributes largely to the immigration influx. Department of Education officials say that by 2100, the nation’s schools will have to find room for 94 million students-nearly double the current number.
Mass immigration is straining our already fragile environment.
As our population grows, demands for resources increase; increased pollution, deforestation, waste, habitat destruction, and soil erosion are the result. America’s environmental priorities can’t be reconciled with the new infrastructure and resource consumption that continued population growth will require. Resources like water and energy are straining under the constantly increasing demand.
Already, America’s sprawling urban areas are encroaching on fragile coastal wetlands and paving over farmland at alarming rates. Just maintaining the current massive level of immigration will require the construction of millions of new homes (and the resulting loss of farmland and open space) and put tens of millions more cars of already crowded roads.
The U.S. today is a fully populated nation of almost 290 million people, not the sparsely settled territory of 150 years ago. Our priority should be preserving our remaining wilderness areas, conserving our natural resources, and ensuring a better quality of life for future generations.
The best reason we have to reform immigration is this:
Text taken from: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_research9964
2 comments:
how about this one.... Educated, Healthy Europeans have to struggle even to get in and be sponsored by an american.....through a process of about 2-3years And once they get here - they contribute!
No please -- bring more stupidity, violence, disease.....
I did stupid things when I was in high school too. I said things for which I had no way to comprehend the gravity. I expect that the students who did this were A) caught up in a moment of spring skip-day adrenaline B) trying to make a statement of "hey America, we're not going to be ignored!" C) genuinely fearful of what may happen to them or their families if or when illegal immigrants are forced out of this country D) not fully cognizant of the important role that "freedom of speech" played in making their disgraceful action legal and E) not at all aware of the irony pointed out by some guy named Keith M.:
"The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property. I am sure you can see the irony. The folks that think they are showing disrespect for the flag are actually signaling to everyone th[at] the US is in trouble."
I'm in no way condoning the actions of the students, but only arguing for leniency and patience. These are people who are already doing so much more than many natural citizens of this country -- they are getting involved. They should be encouraged to speak their mind and guided to do it in a constructive and sensitive manner.
There is a whole lot more to this discussion, but images are very powerful and this is one that can steer this debate off-course. Shame on the students who did this and shame on those who propigate this kind of image as though it represents the whole statement of the pro-immigrant voice.
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