Brianna Kohr
UCLA

NPG Scholarship Essay

It is no secret that America's unprecedented population boom is putting immense pressure on a country that is already struggling to provide for its current residents. A growing population means a growing number of families seeking jobs, social security benefits, welfare, healthcare and access to public education. Proof that the United States cannot sustain this exponential population growth is right before our eyes. American jobs are disappearing overseas, social security is on the verge of bankruptcy, lawmakers are about to enact a massive cutback in government welfare, the classrooms of America's failing public schools are becoming increasingly crowded and the number of Americans without health insurance is steadily rising every year. Additionally, as the U.S population continues to grow, more human demands are placed upon an already overtaxed environment.

With increasing demands being placed upon programs that cannot even sustain the present population of the United States, it is frightening to ponder the consequences of the continued population growth that is sure to take place in the coming years. While it is no secret that the United States cannot sustain its current population of three hundred million residents, how the United States came to be so grossly overpopulated seems to be a well-guarded secret. A report by the Pew Research Center estimates that 850,000 illegal immigrants enter the United States each year. They are joined by another one million legal immigrants. According to a 2005 report by the Center for Immigration Studies, immigrant women, both legal and illegal, have an average birthrate of 2.9 children per woman.

Conversely, the fertility rate of non-immigrant American women has consistently hovered at 2.0 children per woman for many decades. The CIS also notes that more than half of the estimated twelve million illegal immigrants in the United States are from Mexico. A 2006 Pew Hispanic Center study reports that among Mexican immigrants in the United States, the birth rate averages 3.5 children per woman.

What conclusions can be made from these numbers? First, it is not native-born Americans who are responsible for the population boom the United States is currently experiencing. Immigrants to the United States, both legal and illegal, are the primary contributors to this rapid rise in population. Additionally, Mexican immigration, which accounts for the majority of legal and illegal immigration to the United States, represents the greatest contribution to America's rapid and unsustainable population growth.

Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, place a heavy burden on the resources of the United States. Many legal immigrants to the U.S. come from poor countries, most notably in Latin America. When these immigrants arrive in the country, they require aid from the welfare system, which is already overtaxed. Additionally, when an illegal immigrant gives birth to a child in the United States, that child is guaranteed American citizenship under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. These citizen babies born to parents residing illegally in the U.S. are termed "anchor babies" as they give impetus to the immigration of entire extended families of illegal immigrants who place an even higher demand on this country's resources. The heavy influx of immigration from non-English speaking countries, especially Latin American countries, creates a whole sub-sector of the population that cannot communicate effectively with the rest of American society.

The children of these non-English speaking immigrants require special attention in school and the implementation of costly immersion and ESL programs. With a shocking number of American schools already failing to provide for the basic educational needs of average children, the cost of special immersion and ESL programs is a backbreaking strain on the resources of the public education system. Furthermore, sixty percent of the country's patients without health insurance are not U.S citizens, and illegal immigrants in the United States are uninsured by default. Therefore, their only option is to misuse hospital emergency rooms, which are required to provide all visitors with service. I live in the city of Los Angeles, where over sixty emergency rooms have closed in the past year due to bankruptcy caused by uninsured immigrants who use facilities without footing the bill. Those emergency rooms that have not closed are overcrowded with patients who are using the facilities for non-emergency purposes and seriously threatening the safety of those who do need immediate attention.

Therefore, legal and illegal immigration trends must be studied when determining a population size that would be sustainable in the long term. In 1965, immigration policy was forever changed with the passage of the Immigration Reform Act. Quotas were imposed to limit the number of European immigrants with lifestyles and birthrates more akin to those of native-born American citizens, while great allowances were given to those from poor, third world countries. Before the Immigration Reform Act was passed, the United States enjoyed a quota of 170,000 immigrants per year. Furthermore, illegal immigration was not the problem of enormous proportions it is today. Consequently, in the early 1950's, the United States population rested at a comfortable one hundred fifty million.

This population size, half of our current one, would be reasonably sustainable. 150 million is a number that represents a time when the United States had a sustainable population, as was evidenced by the thriving programs that are now virtually bankrupt today.

In order to achieve this goal, the United States must return to the reasonable legal immigration quotas of the pre-Immigration Reform Act era. Policymakers must also make more than a halfhearted effort at cracking down on illegal immigration. Unfortunately, this goal appears almost unfeasible judging by the current political climate. The U.S. Congress is about to pass a liberal Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act that would allow 10 million illegal immigrants amnesty and permit 100 million persons to legally immigrate the U.S. over the next twenty years. This is over one third of the current population of the United States. Sadly, it appears that there is little concern among American lawmakers for sustainable population, and the United States population will continue to climb at its current breakneck speed.