COMMENTARY: by NPG President Donald Mann

            Within a matter of days we will begin celebrating NPG’s 40th anniversary.  A few weeks ago, we mailed out our 2012 NPG Membership Cards.  If you have already renewed your membership, thank you.  If not, please let us hear from you soon.  We’ve made it through these many years thanks to the support of tens of thousands of individuals.  And whether you have been an active member for years or just recently signed on to help us advance our mission, we owe you all a great debt of gratitude.
            I know that there are still quite a number of people who remember NPG’s earliest days.  It was a time when a confident new generation of Americans recognized that by speaking up, standing together, and fighting for a livable world, we had the power to shape a better future for all mankind.  In many areas, such as the environment where NPG partnered with other powerful organizations to change laws and disastrous policies, we’ve made tremendous strides.  Yet the battle to rein in America’s population growth remains as challenging as ever.  Who would have ever predicted four decades ago that our elected leaders would permit legal and illegal immigration to spin so totally out of control? 
            Fighting and winning the battle for responsible population and immigration policies remains our top priority.  And we pledge today to continue to use our clout to educate all Americans on the vital need to halt and eventually reverse skyrocketing population growth before our nation is forced to pay an even greater social, economic and environmental price.
            The good news is that NPG’s clout increases with each new technological breakthrough.  Gone are the days when we had to spend tens of thousands of dollars per year mailing NPG Forum Papers, research data and other critical information to community and school libraries.  Today, thanks to the influence of the Internet and NPG’s  informative website, www.npg.org, there is no limit as to how far our educational reach extends.
            As we welcome the year 2012, I am pleased to announce that our 40th Anniversary year will see the launch of the most aggressive and far-reaching educational outreach programs we have ever put together. 
As outlined below, we are launching three major student scholarship competitions.  Our sixth Annual Essay Contest has become a mainstay of our student programs.  Our second Student Poster Contest will surely bring forth another batch of tremendous images which we can once again put to use in our marketing efforts.  And finally, we are initiating our very first NPG Video Contest with the goal of tapping into the talents of today’s high-tech students whose creativity can help us further expand our reach.
            What is exciting about all of these programs is that it gets our younger generation focused on the population problem. 
            Just this week we received more than a dozen individual letters at our office from students at Spring Lake Park High School in Minnesota.  In the letters (which apparently were written as an exercise organized by their teacher following a discussion on overpopulation using NPG’s Student Poster, our 2011 Student Fact Sheet, and our website as background) each student presented his or her personal opinion on the issue of population growth.  Some students took issue with our premise that our nation’s population growth is out of control, others agreed that it is.  One student, perhaps only familiar with the wide open spaces of rural Minnesota wrote:  “There is much more arable land and space in the U.S. than we use today….”  Other students noted that world population problems are much worse than here in America, while some did extensive demographic research to challenge or add to our arguments. 
            The point is that all of these young students learned a great deal about immigration and population issues.  And that’s our objective – to get today’s youth and all Americans thinking about this critical issue.  We don’t expect everyone to agree with us 100% on the extent of the problem of immigration and population growth.  They just have to realize that this is a problem that is going to get much worse in their lifetimes – unless we work together to find realistic solutions.
            Hopefully, in the coming years a number of these students will emerge as leaders in the war against immigration-driven population growth in the U.S. and carry on our successful fight to halt and eventually reverse it before it is too late.  
            With a proud 40 years behind us, NPG remains as eager and determined as ever to meet – and change – the future.  Again, thank you for helping us meet this important milestone.

 

U.S. DEPORTATION NUMBERS – REAL OR UNREAL?

            When the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives openly challenges the Obama Administration’s deportation numbers, it should make major headlines.  However, late in October, Congressman Lamar Smith (R, TX) spelled out his frustrations regarding present deportation policies in a column presented in Politico which did not get much national attention.  We bring you a portion of his comments here and urge you to access the Congressman’s entire article at: Politico.com (Politico – October 25, 2011)
            Highlights of the Chairman’s concerns include:
            “The administration appears to have artificially inflated its deportation numbers.  It includes voluntary removals in the deportation statistics…”
            “Even The Washington Post found the Obama administration used questionable methods to achieve its deportation numbers last year.  Just like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, the Obama administration’s record is a trick.  In reality, President Barack Obama and his administration are giving amnesty to illegal immigrants through inaction.  It’s no wonder that the president recently admitted to Hispanic voters that his administration’s deportation numbers are ‘deceptive.’”
            “Take away the hocus-pocus, and it is clear the Obama administration is neglecting to enforce immigration laws.  The administration has all but abandoned worksite enforcement actions.  Over the past two years, worksite enforcement has plummeted 70 percent.”
            “Last year, nearly half a million immigrants were caught trying to enter the country illegally, and those are just the ones we apprehended.  There are an estimated three successful illegal immigration entries for every illegal immigrant apprehended.  That means more than 1 million illegal immigrants cross into the U.S. each year.”
            “It is disappointing that the Obama administration continues to put illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of U.S. citizens.  Fourteen million Americans are now looking for work.  Meanwhile, 7 million illegal immigrants have jobs in the U.S.  We could free up millions of these jobs for citizens and legal immigrants if we simply enforced our immigration laws.”

 

THE FUTURE OF ARCTIC DRILLING

            It is hard to tune into the news these days without hearing stories about how the discovery of vast new oil and gas deposits in the lower 48 states and Canada could make our nation energy independent in a matter of decades. 
            Such headlines beg the question:  Do we still need to drill in the remote Arctic Ocean and subject that pristine and fragile area to a potential oil spill?
            One group that wants all Americans to answer that question with a resounding “NO” is the Alaska Wilderness League.
            They are presently reaching out to all concerned Americans asking that they contact the White House and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to register their opposition to a proposed draft plan on offshore drilling that will promote “business as usual.”
            NPG stands with the Alaska Wilderness League on this important issue and we urge members to go to their website to obtain key facts that they can put into a personal letter to the White House.  If you do not wish to write your own letter, please consider signing a petition at www.alaskawild.org.

 

ILLEGAL ALIENS AND VOTING

            Have things gotten so out of control with elected leaders catering to the demands of illegal immigrants that we are now going to allow them to vote in our elections?
            If you live in New Haven, CT that may soon be the norm.
            Mayor John DeStefano has announced that he will “lobby the state for a ‘resident voting rights’ bill that would allow any resident of New Haven – regardless of immigration status – to vote in municipal elections.”
            According to an article by Don Pesci which ran in The Waterbury Republican American newspaper in the nearby city of Waterbury, “DeStefano has estimated that his city is home to 10,000 ‘noncitizen immigrants,’ half of them above 18.”
            Pesci notes that:  “It is not clear at this writing whether the legislature would be willing to consider New Haven the equivalent of a separate state, conferring upon its illegal residents a right of citizenship that is usually a prerequisite to voting in municipal elections.”  He also cited a story from Newsday which stated that Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy reacted “coolly” to Mayor DeStefano’s plan but that the Governor “did not freeze out DeStefano completely” and that he was “willing to ‘hear the mayor out’ on his proposal.”
            NPG believes that as we go into the bitter 2012 elections it is terribly unfortunate that officials in many areas are not going all out to see that illegal aliens cannot cast ballots in any elections.  We condemn Mayor DeStefano for his proposal and are very sad to see that Governor Malloy did not automatically state that he would veto such a measure should it reach his desk.  We encourage Connecticut residents to contact the Governor’s office demanding he veto this measure.

 

IMMIGRATION AND THE U.S. SUPREME COURT

            When the U.S. Supreme Court announced last week that in 2012 it will hear the case as to whether or not Arizona’s laws protecting citizens against an ever-building wave of illegal aliens will be permitted to stand, they set the stage for a ruling that will have huge implications for our nation’s immigration policy. 
            This will be a major showdown for all states – not just Arizona – where legislators have stood up to the powerful open-border lobby in an effort to bring sanity to immigration enforcement.  The presence of huge populations of illegals within many state borders has cost states billions of dollars.  Stepping in to enforce laws where the federal government has failed is an effective way to address this problem.  If the states lose the power to enforce laws against illegal aliens, there is no question that the pro-immigration forces will have won a major victory and the crises we have today in dealing with this problem will become exponentially worse.
            NPG firmly believes that our elected leaders on the national level, rather than appointed judges, should decide our nation’s immigration policy.  However, in these challenging times when the federal government has purposely failed to enforce federal immigration laws, we stand with the state legislators who seek to protect the safety of their constituents and are fighting to protect the future of their states.

 

THE LEGALITY OF BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

            It is always a plus when a major well-funded organization with hundreds of thousands of members joins forces in fighting for responsible immigration policies.  That is why NPG applauds the recent actions by The Heritage Foundation to put its weight behind changing America’s current birthright citizenship laws which are often incorrectly interpreted to convey automatic U.S. citizenship to children born on American soil.
            In writing on this issue, Heritage notes:
            “Birthright citizenship should be easy to change.
            Birthright citizenship is based on a mistaken interpretation of the Constitution.  The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.’
            This Amendment was passed after the Civil War in order to make clear that slaves who had been freed were U.S. citizens.
            The Senators who wrote the Amendment did not intend it to mean that everyone born here is a citizen.   The Heritage Foundation’s legal experts have studied the history of the Amendment, the statements of those who wrote the Amendment, the laws Congress passed on citizenship at the time, and the legal cases about the Amendment…
            …and they have determined that we are not required by the Constitution to grant birthright citizenship.
            These experienced constitutional scholars have concluded that Congress can eliminate birthright citizenship simply by passing a resolution.”
            A new Rasmussen poll shows that 65% of likely voters oppose birthright citizenship.
            NPG has already obtained thousands of petitions from our members seeking Congressional action on this important issue through passage of H.R. 140, The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011.  As we continue to send them on to Members of Congress, it is very clear that changing the current policy is going to be an uphill battle.  We welcome The Heritage Foundation as an integral partner in getting this legislation through Congress as soon as possible.

 

DESTRUCTION OF WILDLIFE HABITAT

            There are already 1,000 species in the United States that are threatened with extinction because too many people are encroaching on and damaging their natural habitat.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, from 2000 to 2030, housing development is projected to increase on about 21 million acres of rural, private land surrounding national forests and grasslands scattered around the country, which will result in excessive pollution of our streams, rivers and estuaries.

 

WATCH OUT AUSTRALIA – DON’T FOLLOW IN U.S. FOOTSTEPS…

            In a recent letter to the editor of The Herald Sun in Melbourne, Australia, Frosty Woolbridge, an NPG friend and researcher, commented on that nation’s fate if they continue on their current path of inviting immigrants to settle into their country while turning a blind eye to the consequences:
            “A short 40 years ago, our Congress of the United States of America attempted to alleviate the plight of the world’s poor by immigrating 100 million of them into our country.  What happened?  Today, we suffer gridlocked cities, massive poverty, blackened air over our cities, degraded educational systems, horrible debt, multiple languages, distinctly separated cultures…, and dwindling resources with a loss of quality of life…
            …We are a nation in denial.  We suffer 15 million unemployed, but import 125,000 green card (able to legally work in the USA) carrying legal immigrants every 30 days.  That means we will never be able to employ our own citizens at a living wage.  The wages will continue to drop.  That is what immigration causes, but our government and the elites force us to swallow politically correct claptrap as if it will solve the problem.”

 

SHOULD WE HAVE MORE LEGAL IMMIGRATION?  THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE VERY DIVIDED

            Ryan James Girdusky, writing about immigration on Townhall.com notes:
            “According to Gallup, a plurality of Americans and at times a majority have favored reducing the amount of legal immigration SINCE 1987.  Most recently in 2011, 43% of Americans said we should reduce the amount of legal immigration while only 18% said we should increase legal immigration.”

 

LEGAL IMMIGRATION AND CALIFORNIA

            Californians for Population Stabilization has been a powerful voice in highlighting the out-of-control immigration crisis in our nation’s most populous state.  A few weeks ago they launched a series of TV ads calling on President Obama to cut back on legal immigrants and temporary foreign workers.  The core message of the ad, and the accompanying Press Release, states:
            “In Los Angeles, the unemployment rate is currently more than 11% but several areas of California have topped 16% within the last year.  The national unemployment rate is 9%.
            More legal immigrants settle in California than in any other state in the country.  Additionally, the Los Angeles metropolitan area is second only to New York in highest number of legal immigrants settled annually.  Yet, at the same time when millions in California can’t find jobs, the Federal Government continues to flood California with legal immigrants and temporary foreign workers.  The policy is having a particularly insidious effect on states like California, where the state has been forced to borrow $40 million a day from the Federal Government to pay unemployment benefits.
            Even if you haven’t lost your job, you’re paying a price for the flood of legal immigration.  It’s coming out of your paycheck in the form of unemployment benefits for our fellow Californians…But you can’t blame legal immigrants.  Blame our country’s leaders for continuing policies that are simply antiquated, stale, out of touch and unrealistic.”

 

DEFINING “OVERPOPULATION”

            Here at NPG we have consistently pushed our members to use the “Letter to the Editor” column in their local paper to spread our message and our mission.  We do so because for all that we do to disseminate the research contained in our Forum Papers and other publications, a well-stated explanation of our goals by a fellow citizen can often have huge educational repercussions.  A perfect case in point is the following letter written by Lisa Marie Daniel of Bethesda, MD which appeared in The Washington Post in mid-November:
 
“Five Myths commentary on population missed the point
            The Nov. 6 Outlook commentary ‘5 Myths About Global Population’ stated that ‘most serious demographers, economists and population specialists rarely use the term ‘overpopulation’ – because there is no clear, demographic definition.’  There absolutely   is a clear, agreed-upon definition of overpopulation:  Overpopulation is a condition where an organism’s number exceeds the carrying capacity of its habitat.  This definition comes from the hard science of ecology—a field with which, sadly, few economists, demographers or population specialists have significant familiarity.  You might as well ask ballerinas to opine on the latest fuel-injection technology.
            Talking about discussion of individual countries’ economies is misleading because an otherwise overpopulated country may be able to specialize and prosper through trade.  Unless the Earth quickly develops trade partnerships with other planets, however, the human race will continue to be limited by the overall carrying capacity of the planet we’re on.”

 

NPG NOTES

NPG PETITIONS DELIVERED TO HUNDREDS OF STATE LEGISLATORS

            We would like to extend a special thanks to the hundreds of NPG members who took the time to sign and return the Member Authorization that accompanied our NPG Fall Newsletter that permitted NPG to use their name in contacting state legislators and urge them to participate in our recent National Survey of State Legislators. 
            To date, we have received a considerable number of responses from the 7,300 legislators nationwide who were asked to participate in this project and we await even more in response to the personal pleas from you, their constituents.
            If you receive a personal reply from your State Senator or State Representative related to this issue, please share it with us by faxing it to 703-370-9514.

 

GETTING OUR MESSAGE TO THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE

            President Obama seems insistent on deciding our nation’s immigration policy without going to Congress to change the current laws, but NPG members will have none of it.
             That was definitely clear from the hundreds of signed petitions we received from NPG members in recent months taking President Obama to task and protesting the new deportation policies he announced in October.
            In the cover letter addressed to the president that will accompany the petitions, we wrote:
            “NPG members definitely feel that by taking unilateral action on deportation that goes against the will of the majority of Americans you have created “defacto amnesty” for millions of illegal aliens presently in the country.  We very much consider this effort to be a major setback for our nation as it will set the stage for more illegals to violate our borders and feed future population growth which is already growing at an alarming and unsustainable rate.”
            Again, our thanks go out to all of our dedicated NPG activists who understand that numbers count in politics and how crucial it is that we speak with a strong voice in getting our message to our elected leaders.

 

NPG’S 40th ANNIVERSARY MULTI-MEDIA SCHOLARSHIP CONTESTS
           
            Calling all students interested in competing for some sizeable scholarship money!
            To celebrate NPG’s 40th Anniversary we are launching three Scholarship Contests which will award a total of $22,500 to 18 talented students for the 2012-2013 scholastic year:
            Scholarship Essay Contest: High school seniors and college freshmen, sophomores, and juniors will be presented with the following challenge: 
            Without critical changes, U.S. population growth will reach 438 million people in less than 40 years.  Explain how this projected growth will negatively affect the United States socially, economically and environmentally.  Submissions must be between 500 and 700 words.
            A total of six scholarships, ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 will be awarded.  Text from the winning essays will be used in print advertisements, newsletter stories, the NPG Journal and other outreach projects as well as being posted on NPG’s website and Facebook page.
            Student Poster Contest:  Building on the success of our 2008 effort, high school students will be asked to:
            Submit a multi-color poster designed to display the negative consequences of allowing U.S. population to grow to an unsustainable level of 438 million people.
            The theme for this contest is intentionally designed to pair with the Essay Contest Question to give NPG a wide pool of material for advertising and other informational material.  A total of six scholarships, ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 will be awarded for the best posters. 
            Video Contest:  New this year is an invitation to film and video production students at the college level (as well as college-bound high school seniors) to:
            Create a one to three minute video that strongly conveys the negative effects of permitting population growth in the United States to grow to an unsustainable level of 438 million people in the next 40 years.
            A total of six scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 will be awarded to winners of the video competition.  Winning entries will appear on NPG’s website and Facebook page, linked to our email-based NPG Journal, and posted to popular websites such as YouTube where they can gain widespread distribution.
            Information and additional details about all three of these exciting programs will be posted on the NPG website starting January 15, 2012.   If you know of a talented high school or college student who is interested in competing for one of our scholarships, please bring this article to their attention.

 

QUOTES

            “Let’s go back to square one.  The purpose of American immigration laws and policies is not to be either humane or inhumane to illegal immigrants.  The purpose of immigration laws and policies is to serve the national interests of this country.
            There is no inherent right to come live in the United States, in disregard of whether the American people want you here.  Nor does the passage of time confer any such right retroactively.”

                                    Thomas Sowell
                                    National Columnist

 

            “A quarter-century after Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, his example remains instructive:  Reagan supported one provision of the 1986 act, an amnesty for the three million undocumented aliens then in the country, only because he believed that other provisions, which fortified border enforcement and required employers to verify the legal status of their workers, would end illegal immigration.  ‘Future generations…will be thankful,’ the president said, ‘for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve one of the most sacred possessions of our people:  American citizenship.’
            Thankful?  Americans instead feel angry – and, for all of his big-hearted openness toward immigrants, I believe Reagan would have shared their anger, recognizing the failure of the federal government to ‘regain control of our borders’ as a profound breach of faith.  The breach of faith, he would have insisted, must now be repaired.”

                                    Peter Robinson
                                    Former Reagan Speechwriter

 

            “I won't be intimated by the Obama Justice Department just as I won't be intimated by the Mexican Drug Cartel's placing a $1 MILLION bounty on my head…and just as I won't be intimated by the daily death threats I receive…all for doing the job I was elected to do!”
                                    Sheriff Joe Arpaio
                                    Maricopa County, Arizona

 

            “According to the State Department, more than 5 million people are now waiting to immigrate to the United States in various family and employment categories.”

                                    Star Parker
                                    National Columnist

 

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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