Immigration: The Ultimate Growth Issue

IMMIGRATION: THE ULTIMATE GROWTH ISSUE

Sustainable population a key concern for state

By RICHARD D. LAMM

One of the great challenges of public policy is to anticipate challenges. If I could leave anything carved on the Colorado Capitol after my 12 years, it would be something like "Beware of solutions appropriate to the past but disastrous to the future." It is easy to talk about yesterday's issues, but the real policy challenges involve understanding and anticipating the issues of tomorrow.


A new, pressing public policy question faces America: What is our demographic destiny? How big a country do we want to become? How many people can live satisfied lives within our borders? These issues will not go away and will only grow more complicated.

Our natural American birth rate will lead to a stable U.S. population around 2050; with the current level of immigration our population will be about 400 million, on its way to a billion.

I have yet to meet an American who wants l billion neighbors. Or 400 million. This is not an issue of immigrants, but of immigration. What possible public policy advantage would there be to an America of 400 million? Do we lack for people? Do we have too much open space, parkland and recreation area? What will 400 million Americans mean to our environment? Do we need a larger military? Are our schools underpopulated? Do we not have enough diversity? Will our children live better lives if Atlanta and Denver double in size? Do you want a Georgia of 16 or 20 million people? These questions seem to answer themselves.

The growth issue in America is largely an immigration issue. We have a public policy choice: One, to stabilize population or two, to double it and double it again through our current policy of mass immigration.

If we continue with our present policy (America takes twice as many immigrants as the rest of the world combined) we will continue to grow and grow. The geometry is relentless.

The first census in 1790 found 4 million Europeans in America. Two hundred years later we had about 260 million Americans. Please note that two more doublings give us more than a billion people sharing America. Have you ever been to India or China? Is that what you want to leave to your grandchildren?

Of course immigration has been good for America and, yes, we are all immigrants. But is that the extent and depth of the immigration argument? I governed a state like Georgia for 12 years. In my experience, immigration made virtually every problem I was trying to solve more difficult. I have been working all my political life trying to get health insurance for low-income citizens. How can this be done when our borders allow an endless stream of people needing medical care?

A majority of the patients at our large Denver Public Hospital are illegal immigrants. Our standard school scores go down rather than up partly because of the large numbers of immigrant children. Housing? Public housing is filled with legal and illegal immigrants. Crime? Twenty percent of our prison space is filled with the foreign-born. Growth? Colorado, like Georgia, is being flooded by people from other states who move here because they don't like what's happening in their own states.

Bottom line: What problem in America, or Georgia, will be made better by continuing to add massive numbers of people? America before immigration reform averaged about 250,000 immigrants a year. If we would return to those numbers, we would take a great step toward leaving our children a sustainable America.

It is time for a new vision for America. When the Statue of Liberty was erected, we were a relatively empty continent. Now 4 billion people live below the U.S. welfare level (with 80 million more born each year) and dream of America. We must decide how many we want or need.

I would argue that we should move toward a stable, sustainable population. The world's ecosystem does not need 300 million more Americans, nor do we. Immigration has gone from a solution to a problem, and the sooner we recognize this the better America we will leave our children.

After teaching for five months at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, Richard D. Lamm is resuming his position as director of the Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues at the University of Denver. Lamm was governor of Colorado from 1975 to 1987.