Close Our BordersAdvocating immigration reduction is pro-environment and pro-immigrantBy Yeh Ling-Ling Published in AsianWeek, June 11, 2004 America’s natural resources are more depleted compared to 30 years ago despite the fact that in three years alone, the five largest environmental organizations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars of contributors’ money to work on protecting our environment. Isn’t it high time for them to realize they cannot effectively safeguard this country’s environment without also advocating population stabilization, which inevitably involves a reduction in immigration? According to the Census data, in recent years, more than 3 million people have been added yearly to the U.S. population, mostly due to immigration. Newcomers, like all human beings, pollute, drive, use water, need housing and consume energy. According to David Pimentel, a professor who teaches environmental policy at Cornell University, for the last 10 years each additional person has required one acre of land for urbanization and highways. Many environmentalists blame the degradation of this country’s environment on excessive consumption. Even if we were to cut consumption by half, though, how much progress would be achieved if we allowed the population to double? Certainly this country needs a better land-use policy and growth management, but there is no growth management plan on earth that can cope with unlimited population increases. Environmentalists should be reminded that New York City, Paris and Tokyo have excellent public transit systems and high-density development, but gridlock continues in those cities because they are overpopulated. Many old guards of this nation’s environmental movement argue that migration is a global matter and requires a global solution. However, just like pollution, immigration is a local and international issue. If activists in this country lobby for legislation to reduce pollution and save the environment, why are they reluctant to advocate measures to reduce immigration, the driving force behind the U.S. population growth? The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population but consumes more than 25 percent of the world’s resources. Population growth in this country therefore will do greater damage to Mother Earth. Unless we reduce fertility and drastically cut immigration, the United States will probably have 1 billion people sometime in the future. It is commendable that environmentalists oppose drilling in Alaska’s wildlife refuge. But where should Americans find additional energy to meet the needs of our constantly growing population? Other sources of energy should be pursued, but the impact of mass immigration is multifold and is adversely felt by minorities and immigrants the most. Common sense tells us that an ever-growing pool of workers will depress wages, and many of our unemployed are minorities and legal immigrants. Paul Ong, a pro-immigrant professor who teaches public policy and social research at the University of California at Los Angeles, publicly said in 1994, “In terms of the adverse impact [of immigration] on wages and employment, [it] will be most pronounced on minorities and established immigrants.” Immigration reduction does have the support of minorities and immigrants. A 2001 Zogby poll of California voters on immigration showed that 65 percent of blacks and 34 percent of Hispanics said a three-year moratorium on legal immigration would be “beneficial” to the state. In addition, 83 percent of naturalized citizens indicated that employers could bring in foreign-born workers only if no Americans were available for the jobs. Billions of people abroad wish to immigrate to the United States while there are 35 million Americans still living below the poverty line, many of whom are legal immigrants. In addition, the United States almost quadrupled its population in the last century. Another quadrupling of our current population of 292 million will make our country as populated as today’s India. Do Asians and other Americans wish for the United States to become another India or China? Advocating immigration reduction is not only pro-environment, but pro-immigrant and pro-minority as well. 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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