Population - Environment Balance

Alert Archive: May 2008

May 2008

Demographics Boost Immigration Costs

and Food Supply Risks

Noted economist and public policy expert Ed Rubenstein has recently issued an important study called “The Fiscal Impact of Immigration – An Analysis of the Costs to 15 Federal Departments and Agencies”. The findings serve to support what we at BALANCE have been saying for many years: Massive Immigration, legal and illegal, is a drain on the U.S. economy in myriad ways and this problem is only going to worsen as our population, currently at about 335 million, continues to grow.

It bears repeating that immigration and children born to recent immigrants account for approximately 90% of the approximately 5 million annual U.S. population growth. Over the last decade, half of the flow has come from legal immigration and half from illegal. Hispanic women in the U.S. average 2.9 children according to a recent National Vital Statistics Report (Births: Preliminary Data for 2006, Table I, December 5, 2007).

This is well above "Replacement Level" of about 2.1. Immigrants – not generations-long established American families – account for the high level of child-bearing within the Hispanic population. Without Hispanic immigration input, the U.S. total fertility rate would be slightly below replacement level, population would soon stabilize, and might gradually decline without hardship to the descendents of present-day Americans.

But if current mass immigration and related trends continue, the USA is on track to reach 1 billion people in 2075. Consider, for example, what our food supply situation will be then given that we are having food supply problems in the USA and abroad now. Reports of hoarding and shortages are already coming in from California to New York.

The following are some of the more dramatic findings of the Rubenstein study, along with comments by BALANCE.

1) Dr. Rubenstein cites a National Research Council study which concludes that the average immigrant household generates a fiscal deficit of $2,682. In 2007 dollars this is $3,408. Nine million households are currently headed by immigrants, and more than $30 billion of the federal deficit represents money transferred from native taxpayers to immigrants.

BALANCE: The U.S. population is on trend to hit 1 billion by 2075, with about 90% of that growth coming from immigration. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that the costs of that growth would be staggering.

2) 25% of the $499 billion spent on public and secondary education was spent on immigrants’ foreign and U.S.-born children.

3) Some states continue to offer subsidies to illegal alien students. Three Kansas state universities currently have more than 9,000 students enrolled who are identified as non-U.S. citizens. During the fall 2004 term, students at UK, KSU and Emporia State University all received a tax-payer subsidized reduction over $3,000. Bills to grant in-state tuition subsidy to illegal aliens have been introduced in at least 23 states.

BALANCE: Our public education system is increasingly severely stressed and will continue to be if current demographic trends continue.

4) Criminal aliens – non-citizens convicted of crimes – are an increasing burden on U.S. prison systems. Rubenstein estimates the cost of holding foreign born, non-citizen inmates in Bureau of Prison facilities at $1.5 billion.

5) At the federal level, illegal aliens receive more than $26 billion a year in federal services and pay only $16 billion in federal taxes, creating an annual fiscal deficit of about $10.3 billion (cites 2004 CIS report).

6) State and local governments incur even larger deficits. Using the 1997 NRC study of immigrants in California as a model, Rubenstein estimates that state and local deficit attributable to illegal aliens is currently $15 billion.

Our country needs a five year zero-net-immigration moratorium. This is the only way we can get the economy back on track and avoid demographic and food supply disasters in the near future. Please call your Senators and Congressman today and tell them to support a Moratorium.

A ZERO-NET-IMMIGRATION MORATORIUM IS A NECESSARY CONDITION FOR ACHIEVING U.S. POPULATION STABILIZATION, THUS AVOIDING OR MITGATING THE UNFOLDING FOOD AND ENERGY SUPPLY AND RELATED PROBLEMS.

Only BALANCE and its ASAP Coalition allies push a five year zero-net-immigration moratorium. We earnestly ask you to dig down deep and make as large a Special Donation as you can this year to support the #1 population and environment organization in the U.S -- Population-Environment BALANCE!