COMMENTARY:  by NPG President Donald Mann

            When the Arizona legislature passed their new law getting tough on illegal immigrants they created a new wave of havoc that, typical of today’s politics, is rife with overreaction and deficient in common sense.
            In signing the legislation, Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer made clear that her state and its citizens are ready to fight back when it comes to personal and economic security.  With an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 illegals within its borders, no other state has been so impacted by the immigration problem.
            There is serious concern that the Arizona law goes too far and gives police broad powers that, while they could be quite effective in intimidating illegals, would also impinge on legal citizens’ constitutional rights.  This problem has ignited a national debate as to just how far we can go in getting tough on this issue.  Major national groups which are very aggressive in fighting for open borders and amnesty have already threatened to take this battle to the courts.
            Arizona’s actions have sped up Congressional action on immigration reform with Senator Harry Reid now moving this issue to the forefront of the legislative calendar.  That is quite unfortunate because we will now have what should be a healthy Senate debate on the entire immigration issue conducted in a highly-charged political environment where words such as “racism” will triumph over deliberate and reasoned debate.  Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC), who up until now has been working with Senator Charles Shumer (D, NY) to craft an immigration reform bill that was due to come up later this summer, condemned the rush to take this issue up now by stating, “Moving forward on immigration – in this hurried, panicked manner – is nothing more than a political ploy.  I know from my own experience the tremendous amounts of time, energy and effort that must be devoted to this issue to make even limited progress.”
            What is most troublesome about this entire blow-up is that Governor Brewer and Arizona’s legislators were forced to act because the federal government has failed to enforce the current laws against illegal immigrants.
            NPG believes that while states have a duty to protect their citizens, we cannot have a hodge-podge of 50 states with different rules as to how immigration laws are enforced.  Plain and simple, immigration is a federal issue and the real solutions can only come from Congress and the White House.  We must all keep in mind that the immigration issue goes far beyond just rounding up people who are in our country illegally.  New immigration reform legislation must also place severe limits on the number of new legal immigrants who can enter our country annually.  Without real immigration reform we will never get control of today’s exploding population and reach our real goal to halt and eventually reverse population growth that is so threatening to the quality of life for future generations.

 

AMERICA’S BIGGEST AQUIFER BEING DRAINED TOO FAST

            A recent news article on AOL News highlighted growing concern that the Ogallala Aquifer that stretches from southern South Dakota through northern Texas is being drained at an alarming rate.  The aquifer covers about 174,000 square miles and provides groundwater that is pumped for irrigation of a great portion of America’s most productive farmland.  However, in some places local levels have dropped below the point where water can be pumped.
            David Brauer, program manager for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service Ogallala Aquifer Program noted, “The magnitude of this is incredible…We’re talking about, for the last 20 years, 20 percent of the irrigated acreage of this nation is over the Ogallala.”
            Programs are being put in place to lessen farmer dependence on the aquifer but this is a long-range problem.  AOL notes, “Such measures, however, are mostly designed to delay the inevitable, since the recharge rate for the Ogallala Aquifer is small enough to be considered negligible.”  Brauer notes that dealing with a natural resource such as the Ogallala is much like a vein of coal:  What you take out doesn’t get put back in.  “All we’re doing is buying time,” he says.
            There is hope for new dry-farming techniques to help ease the situation.  But if they do not come in time we are looking at hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland that now feed the nation and the world, returning to its original dry state.  Click here to view the article.

 

BERNANKE NOTES POPULATION CHALLENGES

            In early April, a speech by Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman, warned how an aging American population posed fiscal challenges for the United States but it did not get the full attention it deserved.
            An article in the The New York Times by Sewell Chan and Javier C. Hernandez quoted Mr. Bernanke as stating that the U.S. “must begin now to prepare for this coming demographic transition.”
            The authors covered the speech the Fed Chairman gave to the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce where he “spoke about the budget pressures posed by Social Security and Medicare with greater urgency than he has in the past.”
            Mr. Bernanke stated, “The arithmetic is, unfortunately, quite clear.  To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from defense, or some combination of the above.  These choices are difficult, and it is always easier to put them off – until the day they cannot be put off any more.”
            NPG has long been sounding the alarm on the critical need for future planning when it comes to major government policies.  We cannot permit our nation’s population to continue to grow by tens of millions of people in the coming decades without creating future economic, social and environmental crises.  Mr. Bernanke’s concerns echo our own and underscore the need for a U.S. Commission on Population Growth.  Click here to view full article.

 

BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

            When the Senate takes up immigration reform the issue of birthright citizenship will probably not be addressed, although it should be.
            The issue of whether or not a baby born in the U.S. to an illegal immigrant automatically earns the full rights of American citizenship has been debated in the legal and academic communities for years and it is time to decide one way or another where the law stands.
            George F.Will, nationally-syndicated columnist, wrote a thoughtful piece on this problem on March 28, 2010 whereby he presents the various interpretations of the 14th Amendment which compound the problem as to how this issue can be resolved.
            Will presents a number of opinions as to how scholars view the meaning of those who drafted the 14th amendment in 1868.  He perhaps makes his strongest point in stating: “The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.”
            In summing up his column, Will writes:  “Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to illegal immigrant mothers.”
            NPG has long been against birthright citizenship which allows a child, upon turning 21, full rights to bring their extended family to the U.S. to also become citizens, thus greatly increasing our population.  Also, far too often an illegal mother who gives birth to a child who is an American citizen is rarely targeted for deportation.  Click here to view the full column.

 

POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION NEWS

ONE IN THREE AMERICANS FAILED TO RETURN CENSUS FORMS

            The Census Bureau reported that nearly a third of Americans did not get their Census forms back by the April 16th deadline and that Census workers will start to go door-to-door in May to follow up.  The Census Bureau said that the mail participation rate (the percentage of forms mailed back by households that received them) was 68 percent.  They noted that it is too early to gauge how effective this year’s costly publicity campaign that ran in recent months to encourage citizen participation had been.  The states with the highest percentage of returns were Wisconsin (78%), Minnesota (76%) and Iowa (75%).  Those with the lowest rates were New Mexico (59%) and Louisiana (60%).  Final Census counts will not be issued until early in 2011.

 

CHESAPEAKE BLUE CRABS STAGE A COMEBACK

            NPG spent a good deal of time in 2008 focused on the plight of the Chesapeake Bay and how current and future population growth greatly threatened this national treasure – America’s largest estuary.  Thus, we were pleased to read in The Washington Post in mid-April that the Bay’s famed blue crabs, which have been in decline for more than a decade, are back in sizeable numbers.  The increase in crab population is heartening news and David A. Fahrenthold who wrote the article states, “…scientists said the crab is now an ecological success story, which stands out in the Chesapeake’s grim history of over-fishing and pollution.”
            According to The Post,the story behind the reemergence of the crab population stems from the fact that:  “In 2008, Virginia and Maryland lowered the number of female crabs that could be taken at certain times of the year, with the aim of reducing the overall harvest of females by 34 percent. Virginia also banned dredging crabs out of their winter burrows to sell – a practice that captured pregnant females.  Both states said they were reluctant to ease these rules now, wanting to make sure the crabs’ comeback isn’t undercut.”

 

MEXICO’S PRESIDENT CONDEMNS ARIZONA IMMIGRANT LAW               

            Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to grab a headline, Mexican President Felipe Calderón was quick to condemn Arizona’s tough new immigration law as discriminatory and warned that relations with the U.S. would suffer.
            Calderón’s words were backed up by the government of the Mexican state of Sonora, which borders Arizona, announcing that its representatives would not attend a cooperation meeting the two states have held annually for four decades.  The meeting was scheduled for June.  The potential for a Mexican boycott against Arizona also exists and that would be extremely hurtful as it is estimated that Arizona sent $4.5 billion in exports to Mexico in 2009.
            The violence among major drug cartels along the Mexican border that is carrying over into Arizona has initiated the tough Arizona law.  It is important for all parties in this fracas to step back from their strong-arm tactics and work together to generate responsible cooperation.  Most important, the U.S. government must take the lead – to bring this problem under control.

 

TEXAS GOVERNOR WEIGHS IN ON IMMIGRATION CRISIS

            Weeks before the Arizona legislature enacted the immigration legislation that has become the center of attention in recent days, Texas Governor Rick Perry, another hard-line border state governor, was interviewed by Time Magazine and had this to say about the issue:
            “The fact is, we shouldn’t have to be doing anything.  The federal government’s responsibility has always been to operate the security mechanism along the border…We don’t have the resources or the manpower to secure the border the way it needs to be.  A 1,000-troop National Guard request has been in front of this president for more than a year, and no response.  We are forced by Washington’s inaction to take action ourselves.  Immigration reform can’t happen until you secure the border.  This isn’t a chicken-or-egg issue.  You can have all the discussions and all the debates you want, but they are all going to be failures unless and until you secure the border.”

 

JOBS AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

            Congressman Steven King (R, IA) has long championed responsible legislation that seeks to address illegal immigration issues and he is to be commended for recently introducing H.R. 3580.
            Called the New IDEA (Illegal Deduction Elimination Act), this bill would deny federal income tax deductions for wages and benefits paid to illegal workers and would level the playing field for those employers who play by the rules.  In addition, the legislation would make the current E-Verify program (where business must confirm legal status of employees) permanent.  Employers that use E-Verify would not be punished if they mistakenly hire an illegal worker.  Finally, the bill would require the IRS to notify both the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security of identity theft and immigration law violations.
            With millions of unemployed Americans now seeking jobs, it is only right that Congress fast-track this legislation.

 

NPG NOTES
           
EARTH DAY PRESS RELEASE

            NPG took advantage of the nation celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day last week by issuing a national press release titled, “NPG’S EARTH DAY MESSAGE: POPULATION MUST BE TOP ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN.”  The goal was to remind national policymakers that without a responsible national population policy we can only look forward to future deterioration and destruction of America’s environment.  NPG President Donald Mann noted:  “An almost fifty percent gain in America’s population in the next 40 years will mean more and more air and water pollution and continued destruction of millions of acres of valuable farmland and natural habitat.”  Click here to read full press release.
            Within 48 hours of its release our Earth Day message was picked up by over 60 national media outlets including US Politics Today, CNBC.com, Yahoo! Politics, AOL Daily Finance, Earth Times, Forbes.com, and TV and newspapers in Pittsburgh, PA, Miami, FL, Philadelphia, PA, Jacksonville, FL, and Los Angeles, CA.


NPG 2010 SCHOLARSHIPS

            The deadline is now past for NPG to receive entries for our 2010 NPG Scholarships and we are pleased to announce that nearly 2,000 students nationwide participated in this year’s competition.  We will award $1,000 and $500 scholarships to six students in August.
            This year, students were asked to craft a print ad that would persuade the general public to support programs that are designed to slow, halt and eventually reverse population growth and we will use many of the creative ideas we received in future newsletters, the NPG Journal and also post them online at www.npg.org.

 

QUOTES

            “If next week’s protests turn out like some past May Day rallies—when chanting demonstrators waved the flags of nations that illegal aliens do not wish to return to while criticizing the country they most certainly wanted to remain in—it’ll only further turn off the general public.  In a multiracial society, our system will implode if some residents can pick and choose which federal laws to follow.”                      

                                   Victor Davis Hanson
                                   National columnist

 

            “A huge immigration bill is waiting in the wings, and Obama and Co. label it ‘comprehensive.’   Translation:  It will be intrusive, expensive and infuriating because Washington will pick winners and losers.”  

                                   Michael Goodwin
                                   New York Post Columnist

 

            “[President] Felipe Calderón is whining about the way we are treating immigrants in the U.S. because they may be asked to produce documents proving they are here legally, while immigrants in his very own country are being kidnapped, robbed, raped, and murdered by the tens of thousands…”

                                   Rich Galen
                                   National Columnist

 

            “We are not just toying with nature; we are compromising the capacity of natural systems to do what they need to do to preserve a livable world.”

                                   Former U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D, WI)
                                   Founder of Earth Day

 

WHY THE NPG JOURNAL?

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     The NPG Journal (offered free to all recipients) exists to give more widespread distribution to timely news stories and articles related to population, immigration, environmental and political issues that currently affect our daily life – or have the potential to seriously impact our future. 

     We realize not all news stories covering population issues will reflect NPG policies and goals.  One of our main purposes in creating the NPG Journal is to expose these items to a wider audience, and to draw attention to the fact that so many articles speak to immigration and population issues but often fail to address the central cause of many problems – TOO MANY PEOPLE. 

     Ultimately, NPG would like to see writers at all levels make the obvious (to us, at least) connection between environmental and resource problems and the growing number of people in both the United States and the world.  Unfortunately, most do not.  To that end, we comment as necessary to help our readers see those links in hopes they will continue to speak out on what we deem to be the most pressing issue of our time – population size and growth and its negative impacts on our environment, resources and quality of life.

     NPG President Donald Mann offers his personal insight and commentary on individual stories, especially those that challenge, confirm and/or complement our NPG Research and Forum Papers.  The goal of the NPG Journal is to greatly expand NPG’s educational programs.  NPG’s activities continue to emphasize the need for Americans to speak up on population issues and keep our nation – especially our elected leaders on the national, state and local level – focused on taking action to help resolve today’s immigration crisis and work to halt, and eventually reverse America’s out-of-control population growth.

     We welcome your feedback to articles posted on the NPG Journal and urge you to forward to us the e-mail address of friends you think would like to receive a complimentary copy of the NPG Journal on a monthly basis.  Contact us at www.npg.org.  

 

ABOUT NPG:

     Negative Population Growth, Inc. (NPG) is a national nonprofit membership organization with over 30,000 members nationwide.  It was founded in 1972 to educate the American public and political leaders about the devastating effects of overpopulation on our environment, resources, and standard of living.  We believe that our nation is already vastly overpopulated in terms of the long-range carrying capacity of its resources and environment.

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