TODAY'S LONG WAIT FOR A GREEN CARD
...What will tomorrow bring?

There is no question that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service is a government agency in dire need of revamping. Its "services" tie-up people's lives for years and only frustrate those who want to use the legal channels to live and work in America.

While the Bush administration works on plans to "track" and "assimilate" the 8 to 11 million illegal immigrants currently in our country, the Washington Post reported in February that the current system is already overwhelmed. The backlog for citizenship and green cards (which certify a legal immigrant's right to work) has grown about 60 percent in the past three years, to more than 6 million applications, according to a Government Accounting Office Report. The Post also noted that "the immigration agency has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to reduce the delays. Nonetheless, processing time for many applications has grown - in some cases to more than four years."

Will things move faster under the new Bush immigration plan? Don't bet on it.

Contributing to the delay is a major staffing problem. One union official at the Vermont processing center which handles applications for a broad area of the U.S. noted that security clearances for new staffers often take a year. That same official estimated that with current staffing levels, it would take 10 years just to do the security checks on 8 million applications.

THE NEW IMMIGRATION REFORM PLAN
We have questions, do you?

The more NPG learns about the Bush administration plans for immigration reform and the Daschle-Hagel bill (S. 2010), the more questions we have. We sincerely hope that these queries and concerns will be addressed - and answered - during the coming months as the national debate over immigration gets underway. However, right now, NPG can't help but believe that when all is said and done, the politicians will pat themselves on the back over finding a "solution" when in actuality America's immigration crisis remains little changed. Our questions include:

• With U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services already overwhelmed, who is going to administer this new program?
• Is there a limit to how many immigrants will be accommodated in the temporary work program? How many family members will be permitted to accompany these workers?
• What do we do with the million of illegal immigrants already in our country who are not offered new jobs by employers? Do we create more and more new programs?
• Are our nation's laws going to be enforced to see that "temporary workers" who complete their period of work or are relieved of their jobs return to their home country?
• What do we do about the illegal immigrants who just crossed the border last week?

These are just a sampling of the thousands of questions this proposed legislation is sure to generate. If you have a question about just how the new "reforms" will work, please share it with us by going to NPG's website at www.npg.org, and click on the "Contact Us" button on our home page. We will do our best to incorporate the direct concerns of NPG members when we prepare NPG's testimony for submission to Congress as this legislation moves forward.



THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER
A Message from NPG President, Donald Mann

When President Bush announced his plans to introduce sweeping immigration reform and thus open the doors to "amnesty in disguise", I knew that those of us who have worked so hard to get our elected leaders to enact a responsible population policy were in for the fight of our lives.

It is my fervent hope that after months of heated debate on the Bush administration's plan (now incorporated into the Daschle-Hagel bill S. 2010) Congress will reject the measure as totally unworkable. Then, having become much more aware of the growing immigration crisis, Americans will demand that our leaders come up with a responsible and sustainable population policy which incorporates sensible immigration reform.

However, to make that happen, every NPG member must be very vocal and very active in this battle to ensure that S. 2010 fails.

The simple fact is that if present trends continue, immigrants and their descendants are going to contribute two-thirds of America's future population growth.

When you look back on it, America's experience with immigration has been quite positive. As a growing nation, we absorbed tens of millions of people and combined them into a diversified nation. We've been a magnet for people with dreams and a refuge for the downtrodden. We still are. But as with any good thing, there is a limit.

And when the number of immigrants - especially illegal immigrants - started to explode more than a decade ago, that was the time to take forceful action.

In recent years, we've had dozens of laws to deal with illegal immigrants but no will to enforce them. We have the technology to control our borders but lack the backbone to put it in place.

Even now, our spineless politicians refuse to listen to the American public. For fear of political backlash they won't even consider calling a temporary halt to all immigration and they refuse to take action to send any of the 8 to 11 million illegal immigrants now in America back across the border.

Instead, Congress is about to open a "Pandora's Box" to set new immigration policy and the special interest groups are coming out of the woodwork - not to ensure that the final legislation is best for America, but to guarantee that it satisfies their selfish needs.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO, National Restaurant Association, and other business groups hail the Bush proposal as a major antidote for our nation's economic ills. The National Council of La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund can't wait to push their agendas for an even more expansive amnesty and faster family unification. The American Immigration Lawyers are wringing their hands waiting for Congress to create a new honey pot of income for them. The list goes on and on.

But in the end, you and tens of millions of Americans, who understand that a liberalized immigration policy and a revolving door of new amnesties will be devastating to our nation's future, will have the biggest voice of all. That is why I urge you to work closely with NPG in the coming months to stay on top of the immigration reform debate. Help us educate the American public about immigration's far-reaching impact on their jobs, their families, and their communities. Please don't remain silent on this critical issue. Raise your voice! Protect your future and that of our country!

Thank you again for all you do to keep NPG a powerful force in shaping America's destiny.



NEW FACTS FROM THE U.S. CENSUS BUREAU

The U.S. Census Bureau is still compiling and releasing data from the 2000 census. The latest brief titled "The Foreign-Born Population 2000" was released in mid-December and included many interesting facts that only serve to underscore NPG's assertions that a strong, restrictive immigration policy must be central to stop the runaway growth of America's population. Among the brief 's highlights are:

• The last decade saw an increase in the foreign-born population: from 19.8 million in 1990 to 31.1 million in 2000. All regions of the country experienced increases - by nearly 90% in the South, 65% in the Midwest, 50% in the West and nearly 40% in the Northeast.
• In 2000 more than half of the nation's foreign-born population lived in three states: California, New York and Texas.
• Also in 2000, foreign-born people constituted the majority in six cities of 100,000 or more - two of the cities are in Florida (Hialeah and Miami) and the other four in California (Glendale, Santa Ana, Daly City and Monte).
• The proportion of the foreign-born exceeded the national average (about 1-in-9) in nearly 200 counties and another 60 counties had a least 2-in-10 foreign-born residents. Some of these counties were far from traditional gateway areas including Clark County, in Idaho; Seward, Finney and Ford Counties, in Kansas; and Franklin and Adams Counties in Washington.
• Between 1990 and 2000, the foreign-born population grew by more than 200% in North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada.
• Places with 40 to 50 percent foreign-born populations were East Los Angeles, Los Angeles, and Garden Grove, California, and Elizabeth, New Jersey.
• The foreign-born who were naturalized U.S. citizens in 2000 (the national average was 40%) outnumbered the foreign-born who were not U.S. citizens in only seven states: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Pennsylvania, Vermont and West Virginia.
• Almost half - 46% - of the foreign-born population was of Hispanic origin.

Keep in mind in reading these statistics that the Census Bureau estimated they missed counting more than 3 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. in the 2000 Census. Also, considering that the above statistics are now almost four years old, all percentages cited are sure to be much higher if you factor in a minimum of at least 1,000,000 total legal and illegal immigrants entering our nation each year.



ABSURDITY CARRIED TO THE EXTREME
Border Patrol to Ask Detainees Questions on President's Proposals

The Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus has posted a story on their website quoting union leaders as noting that U.S. Border Patrol agents are furious about President Bush's proposal to create a guest-worker program for millions of illegal aliens and are bracing for a rush of people trying to sneak into the United States. However, in their infinite wisdom, and anticipating that the President's promised legalization program might be misinterpreted by would-be immigrants, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs - the Border Patrol's parent agency - has added to its duties by providing a questionnaire for agents to use to quiz people they have detained as to what degree the proposal influenced their decision to come.

"Is it just me or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington. Also they track her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country." U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo

NPG'S 2004 LIBRARY PROJECT
...Sign up Your Favorite Library Today!

With the current immigration reform debate helping to raise the public's awareness about our nation's ongoing population problems, we couldn't pick a better time to kick-off our POPULATION EDUCATION PROJECT for 2004. In the coming weeks, we'll be in touch with you as to how you can help make this venture a tremendous success.

The goal of this effort is to put population-related books, such as Elephants in the Volkswagen and Too Many People, as well as NPG Position Papers, Special Reports and Forum Papers, into America's libraries with particular emphasis on high schools and colleges. It is absolutely necessary that we begin now to educate the up-and-coming generation on what it will face in the future if it does not exert pressure on our elected leaders to address our population issues head-on and embrace a comprehensive national population policy.

In recent years, we have sent information to more than 1,000 libraries as part of NPG's ongoing education efforts and we hope to reach thousands of additional libraries this year. However, as we move forward with this project we want to ensure that you and other NPG members have the opportunity to select at least one library of your choice to receive our books and other materials. You can choose your child's or grandchild's college or high school, your alma mater, or even your local community library. We'll ensure that a bookplate and letter with your name listed as the donor will accompany your gift. Please tell us that you will join in this project by using the enclosed response form today to provide us with the name and address of your favorite library.



NPG PUBLICATIONS PROVE TO BE VERY POPULAR

We were very heartened that the inclusion of our current list of 107 NPG publications in our last newsletter mailing was so well received. Having already fulfilled orders for hundreds of individual titles, requests are still coming into our office from members who seek to educate themselves on a wide variety of population issues. If you misplaced your NPG List of Publications and did not have the opportunity to place your order, we urge you to visit our website at www.npg.org to view what's available and tap into this vast wealth of information or call our office at 703-370-9510 to receive another copy. If placing your order online, please remember that members are limited to only five titles free of charge.



SHARE YOUR LETTERS WITH US

If you are like most Americans, the "Letters to the Editor" section is a must-read in your local newspaper. It's a chance to see what's on the mind of your neighbors. Just as important, it's a forum to set the record straight on issues of concern to you.

Through the years, many NPG members have found that writing a letter to the editor is a great way to alert their fellow citizens to critical population and growth issues. It's also a means through which a number of people writing on a common issue can alert political leaders to the depth and intensity of public concerns about key issues.

Today, with our government leaders debating a potentially devastating immigration policy,we urge every member to use this technique to sound the alarm. Remember, when writing about population and immigration issues you can access sample up-to-date "Letters to the Editor", as well as letters to send to your Senators and Congressman on population and immigration issues, at www.npg.org. If you can, send us a copy of your letter too so we'll know you've made your voice heard.



Population and Resource Outlook is a quarterly publication by Negative Population Growth, a national non-profit membership organization dedicated to educating Americans about the devastating effects of overpopulation on our environment and quality of life.