Address Voters' Concerns, Advocate Sustainable ImmigrationBy YEH LING-LING [Similar versions of this article appeared in six newspapers, including the Des Moines Register (February 27, 2000), the Omaha World-Herald (April 7, 2000) and St. Paul Pioneer Press (April 11, 2000), under the title of "Too Many People, Too Many Problems," and Rocky Mountain News on Sunday, January 30, 2000, under the title of "1 Billion Americans?"] Many voters across the U.S. are concerned about education, health care, congestion, and Social Security problems. But can presidential candidates effectively address those issues if the U.S. continues to add some 2.6 million people every year to this country who drive and need social services? In 1996 the U.S. Department of Education projected 2.6 million new enrollments to our public schools, K through 12, for the coming decade. However, public schools in many parts of the U.S. are swamped with kids speaking little or no English: In Twin Cities and Nashville, children speak at least 80 languages. Even in Rogers schools in Northwest Arkansas, the number of ESL children have increased by at least 27 times since 1991! Is the solution to our overcrowded schools to keep pouring billions of dollars to hire more teachers, and build more classrooms, or to advocate sustainable immigration? President Clinton recently proposed spending a $110 billion health plan to insure more Americans over 10 years, especially families with low incomes. However, according to the Census Bureau's March 1998 Population Survey, immigrants' poverty rate is about 50% higher than that of natives, and there are about 22% of immigrant-headed households now living in poverty. Can this nation fight poverty and achieve sensible health care reform if the U.S. keeps importing large numbers of poor? Have our policy-makers realized that record levels of immigration have contributed to the rising number of Americans without heath care, from an estimated 35 million in 1994 to some 42 million in 1999? Many politicians offer to fix our Social Security problems. However, one third of recent immigrants have no high school diplomas and most are low-wage earners. They therefore do not pay enough taxes just to cover the cost of educating their children, let alone other infrastructure. The Social Security taxes they pay are not likely to cover the benefits they will receive when they retire. Isn't mass immigration compounding the problems we are trying to solve? Residents in many cities are exceedingly frustrated with growing congestion. Even though billions of tax dollars have been spent in recent years to widen and build more freeways and to fund other traffic improvement projects, the gridlock is more severe than ever. And the worse is yet to come. The U.S. Census Bureau's new high-en projections show that this country could have 1.2 billion people by 2100-- China's current population within the lifetimes of today's babies' babies. Most of this growth is immigration-driven. Can 'smart growth' effectively cope with unlimited population increases? To skeptics who doubt that the U.S. could ever become as crowded as China, they should be reminded that the U.S. population has almost quadrupled since 1900. Two more doubling will make the U.S. almost as crowded as today's China. Also, in the 40's, Los Angeles County was mostly farm land, few Californians then believed that the area could become highly congested within less than 40 years. Furthermore, the Metro Detroit has now one of the largest concentrations of Arabs outside the Middle East. In 1998, the Census Bureau reported that Arkansas was leading the nation in percentage of growth of Hispanic population. Adding some 70 million people to the U.S. in the last 30 years, who are mostly immigration-related, have also exacerbated racial and ethnic tensions in many communities. While frequent conflicts have been reported in Metro Detroit between Arabs and non-Arab, native blacks in many parts of the U.S. feel outcompeted by recent immigrants. In Palisades Park, New Jersey, many whites feel that the town has become like Korea due to heavy influx of Korean immigrants. In California, a prominent Mexican immigrant leader, Mario Obledo, has affirmed his view on the air that California is going to become a Hispanic state and that anyone who does not like it should leave. Mr. Obledo is a former California Secretary of Health and Welfare. Immigration and diversity are like health food, excess is bad. Continue record levels of immigration, over 1.2 million a year, on the average, will only turn America into another Mexico, India or China. They will do little to provide relief to global poverty and overpopulation especially when the world's population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. As we are at the dawn of a new millennium, America needs courageous and visionary leaders who understands that all causes are lost causes unless we also stop the population growth. Yeh Ling-Ling, herself a Chinese immigrant, is the Executive Director of Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America, a national non-profit organization. |
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