by Scott Czerwonka

Our nation’s numerous environmental ills, including our energy crisis and urban sprawl, are all rooted in and made more difficult to solve with a continually growing population. What, we are asked, does immigration limitation have to do with environmental protection? The answer is, a lot.

• Stable Population Size Essential to Protect Environment
  
• Carrying Capacity, Not Land Area, is Key Consideration
  
• Why Population Dispersal Will Not Work
  

Stable Population Size Essential to Protect Environment

U.S. immigration policy should be based on the reality that a stable U.S. population size is essential if we are to prevent further deterioration of the very system that supports us - our environment and natural resource base. Regardless of how conservatively we use resources, the fundamental fact is that growing numbers of people unavoidably place increasing demands on our natural and social environment. More people mean more energy use, more traffic jams, more production of toxic wastes, more sprawl, and increased tension that results from living in crowded urban environments.

However efficient we may be in the use of our resources and however much we conserve in our attempt to preserve our environment, more people simply means more stress on the ecosystem. The current energy crisis, urban sprawl, habitat loss, global warming, and a whole litany of environmental problems in the U.S. and elsewhere amply demonstrate that each person uses resources. That use, however modest, adds to the environmental burden. While high per capita consumption in the United States magnifies the environmental stress, simply cutting consumption will not solve our problems - our population exceeds long-term carrying capacity already.

Carrying Capacity, Not Land Area, is Key Consideration

In the United States, why don’t we just disperse our population over the “wide open spaces” that (albeit decreasing) still exist in places such as Alaska, Utah, Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona and elsewhere? Doesn’t our large land area provide the answer? Unfortunately, the answer is an emphatic: NO!

The key to understanding this reality lies in the essential fact of “carrying capacity” - the number of people who can be sustainably supported in a given area within resource limits, and without degrading the natural, social, cultural and economic environment for present and future generations. Carrying capacity includes the capacity of the natural environment to provide the resources, food, clothing and shelter we need, and the capacity of the social environment to provide a reasonable quality of life.

While many factors (e.g., forests, pollutants) could be chosen to illustrate carrying capacity limitations on population size, consideration of one striking example, water, brings home very quickly an appreciation of the necessity of using the carrying capacity concept. The west, southwest and certain central states - indeed, many areas of the United States (generally those experiencing the most rapid population growth) - are afflicted either with water shortages or with the toxic pollution of water. Many areas, often extending over many states, have limited rainfall or few other naturally occurring sources of water, resulting in severe depletion and/or pollution of groundwater. Since potable water is essential to life, the carrying capacity of these limited-water areas is extremely low for all forms of life, including humans.

Moreover, there are no cost- or energy-efficient ways on the horizon for increasing the supply of water. Desalination techniques are expensive and require too much energy to be sustainable in an energy-short world. And the benefits of using conservation techniques, such as drip irrigation, while important, are not (and at current rates of population growth, will not be) sufficient to offset the demands of an increasing population.

Why Population Dispersal Will Not Work

Thus, regardless of what some may contend, we cannot disperse people to relatively unpopulated areas because the carrying capacity simply is not there. Expensive (and very energy inefficient) schemes to supply water to such areas or to others where burgeoning population is overrunning and/or polluting the water supply serve only to reduce the carrying capacity of water source areas, while, in the long run, allowing recipient areas to be overwhelmed once more by ever increasing numbers of people. The regions of the country that are even now depleting underground aquifers at rates far in excess of their recharge rates are, in carrying capacity terms, already overpopulated.

Although emergency measures and unusually heavy rainfall may ameliorate the situation in the short term, such patterns of use are not sustainable in the long term as population continues to increase. Indeed, in many states on the east coast, and especially in Florida, the toxic pollution generated by dense population is already permanently destroying underground aquifers, rivers and wetlands. Sixty-five percent of the 3,900 square miles of the Everglades have been drained or diverted to agricultural centers and urban areas such as Miami, and wildlife has paid the price. The Everglades have lost 93% of its wading bird population since the 1930s, while the human population grew. Nationwide, aquifers are being depleted 25% faster than they are recharged, and of our original 221 million acres of wetlands, only 103 million acres remained in 1990.

One can perhaps get a clearer understanding of the carrying capacity problem by seeing it essentially as caused by a population longage rather than a water shortage. Indeed, the list of carrying capacity factors that limit and that are affected by population longages is extensive, including energy, water, prime agricultural land, timber, open space, and peace and quiet, just to name a few.

The point is simple enough: more people demand more of the shrinking resources and, in using them, create more pollution, species extinction and accompanying loss of bio-diversity. The energy crisis, acid rain, and deforestation of the Tongass and other national forests are among the signals that the United States’ and world’s population increase is pushing the environment beyond its ability to sustain a desirable quality of life.

The Ultimate Environmental Threat: Overpopulation

One result of overpopulation, therefore, is that resources are depleted and the environment is degraded to the point that an area loses part of its capacity to support a given population in the future. When the carrying capacity is exceeded, the environmental damage is usually so severe that the population carrying capacity for future generations is greatly reduced. This chain of events is not just true of the Amazon rain forest, or Central America, or Bangladesh, or deforested Nepal. It is also true for many areas of the United States - and for the United States as a whole.

In southern California and southern Florida for example, absolutely limited amounts of imported potable water are becoming increasingly precious and there is pressure to build ever more pipelines to bring water from ever greater distances. Southern Florida’s recent drought has forced water management officials to declare “severe” water shortage emergencies along Florida’s lower southeast coast. The sight of lush, vibrant lawns are now replaced by barren brown lots. The public at large is beginning to perceive the absolute limits on the population carrying capacity of such areas, but when will our public officials take notice?

Population Carrying Capacity is Adversely Affected by Excess Immigration

The United States’ population (now 285 million) is increasing by over 3.2 million per year (or about 60,000 per week). Since immigration-driven growth from foreign countries results in over 70% of the United States’ population increase (and over 95% in California), and since the United States, too, has a limit on it carrying capacity, excess immigration creates a significant environmental threat. The problem is that such migration not only threatens the carrying capacity of the destination countries, but also creates the harmful illusion in the sending countries that continued population growth is an acceptable option. Fertility rates of the native born and pre-1970 immigrants have been at replacement level (2.1 children per woman) since 1974 - thus the primary population growth generator is immigration.

The signs of overpopulation in the U.S. are becoming more and more serious including environmental damage, urban sprawl, energy and water shortages, traffic congestion, crowding, lower wages, unemployment and social disruption, just to name a few. Populations try to move out of countries where they have overwhelmed the carrying capacity. Today, the pressures from every continent continue to increase -- world population is growing by about 85 million people per year! Many already have come to the United States, but no region, including the United States, has the capacity to absorb all those desiring to immigrate. It is doubly unfortunate, therefore, that the perception of opportunity in the U.S. still acts as a dis-incentive for overcrowded counties to face and begin to correct overpopulation problems at home.

• The Energy Crisis: Flawed Deregulation or Overpopulation?
• Limiting Immigration is Ethically Right, Environmentally Sound
  
• Urban Sprawl, Urban Crawl, and Urban Brawl

The Energy Crisis: Is the Root Cause Flawed Deregulation or Overpopulation?

Californians are being kept in the dark, quite literally, on the underlying cause of the energy crisis. While energy experts and politicians meticulously sort out the numerous reasons that deregulation failed, they ignore the fact that California’s per capita electricity use has actually declined by 5% the past twenty years. However, demand continued to increase because 10.4 million people were added to the state’s population during the 1990’s, over 95% of them immigrants. The crisis is far from over and is threatening to spread across the nation. The U.S. has limited resources, exemplified by the fact that we cannot even provide enough electricity for our current citizens. Yet our population continues to grow at staggering rates. (For a copy of our report on the energy crisis, contact us at 202-955-5700).

Limiting Excess Immigration is Ethically Right and Environmentally Sound

People on the move always create moral dilemmas since it is natural to be sympathetic with the migrants. However, the practical and moral question is what to do about those wishing to come to areas, like the United states, that are perceived, falsely, as affording virtually unlimited opportunities and resources. In our case, we are forced to carefully consider whether allowing continued or increased immigration is a net benefit or a detriment to the United States, to the immigrants themselves, and to the countries from which they come.

In addition to the carrying capacity of the natural environment already discussed, a number of social and economic carrying capacity factors are relevant here. Most current immigrants to the United States are poor and either semi-skilled or unskilled. The fact is that they compete with our own working poor, unemployed and homeless for housing, employment and opportunity. According to Professor George Borjas of Harvard University, the cost of immigration includes an estimated $133 billion a year in depressed or lost wages to native-born workers. It is not fair to our own working poor and unemployed to increase competition when we do not have unlimited natural and social resources or unlimited jobs or budgets. The cornucopian notion of unlimited bounty held by many abroad and by some Americans is, in fact, a myth to which our resources shortages, overcrowded cities and environmental ills amply testify. Moreover, studies indicate that allowing migration from abroad actually increases fertility rates in the sending counties.

Urban Sprawl, Urban Crawl, and Urban Brawl

Rapid development, gridlocked highways, and hot tempers are all on the rise as the skyrocketing pace of U.S. population growth requires the constant construction of homes and highways, increases the number of cars on the road, and ignites cultural tensions.

To “accommodate” the 3 million annual newcomers to the United States, we pave over or otherwise convert to human uses an area equal to the state of Delaware every year. This requires the construction of about 1.3 million new housing units annually. Some shortsighted environmentalists ignore the primary role that population growth has on urban sprawl. They believe that promoting “Smart Growth” (i.e. high-density living) will solve the problem, when the only long-term solution is to stabilize our population. Growth can be “smart” only when it does not rely on a growing population.

Traffic congestion in the United States is also at an all-time high with Americans enduring more and more hours on our nation’s roadways. Since 1970, our population has grown by 38 percent, the number of licensed drivers has grown by 64 percent, but the total number of road miles has grown by only 6 percent. This is yet another way in which population growth is extremely costly to Americans and damaging to the environment. The Texas Transportation Institute reported that drivers in 68 urban areas spent about $755 annually per driver in lost time and wasted fuel. In addition, the federal government has budgeted to spend $167 billion over the next six years for highway construction. Congress’ solution is to pave over the problem instead of addressing the root cause.

What has people all a rage these days? Overpopulation and consequent overcrowding have often been the spark to ignite conflict. Road, air, and even yard rage has risen dramatically in the stressed-out, overpopulated society of today. Packing more people tighter together (“Smart Growth” or “high-density living”) often only serves to increase escalating tensions. For example, from 1994 to 1997 incidents of air rage increased over 350 percent. Our nation’s roadways have fared no better with nearly 2/3 of traffic fatalities resulting from road rage. (For our report “The Sprawl Problem” contact us: 202-955-5700).

• Excess Immigration is Extremely Costly to Taxpayers
• Emigration Hurts Sending Countries
• We Must Achieve “Replacement-Level” Immigration

Excess Immigration is Extremely Costly to American Taxpayers

The health of our social environment requires that we refrain from excessive spending. Immigration at current levels is, however, extremely costly given the limited capacity of our economy to productively absorb large numbers of unskilled and semi-skilled newcomers, let alone to handle concentrations of people beyond carrying capacity limits imposed by nature.

For example, according to the U.S. State Department, every 10,000 refugees admitted to the United States receive initial benefits that cost the taxpayers $70 million. But this is only a fraction of the true cost of the refugee program as it does not include costs for public assistance beyond the first few months after arrival. Refugee welfare dependence is high. For instance, more than half of the cash paid out in the welfare program SSI for the elderly now goes to the foreign-born. Among foreign-born users of SSI, refugees from the former USSR and Vietnam and arrivals from Cuba occupy 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place respectively. The vast majority of these started receiving SSI/Medicaid immediately upon arrival. Unlike other welfare programs, SSI is a permanent entitlement.

A 1998 U.S. Government study of refugees who arrived between 1992 and 1997 found 33% receiving food stamps and 38% receiving cash assistance through TANF, SSI or state administered General Assistance. When long-term welfare costs are included, the price tag of the refugee program may be as high as 10 billion dollars a year.

Since 1975 approximately 2.5 million refugees have been admitted to the U.S. As many as 130,000 have entered in each of several recent years. In addition, many other groups with privileged immigration status, such as Cubans, also arrived with the same benefits and entitlements as refugees. Historically, refugee flows have lead to increased immigration in all categories both legal and illegal. When the first Southeast Asian refugees arrived in 1975 experts confidently predicted that the refugee flow would be over in a matter of months. A quarter century after the last American left Vietnam there is still an official refugee program in place for Southeast Asia and this region has become a major source of non-refugee immigration to the United States.

Moreover a number of persons who are presently admitted as refugees do not meet the traditional test for classification as a “refugee”--that is, having a “well-founded fear of persecu- tion.” This is because legislation was passed in the 101st Congress that substantially broadens the definition of refugee for certain Soviet, Eastern European and Southeast Asian citizens so that many are admitted who do not meet the traditional test. Indeed, many who are admitted as refugees would be more appropriately classified as persons seeking economic opportunity. While it is natural to sympathize with such persons, it is questionable whether they should be called refugees with all the sympathetic connotations that term evokes. The issue for many is economic, not emotional.

A study by Professor of Economics Dr. Donald L. Huddle of Rice University estimates that immigration since 1970, (both legal and illegal), to the United States cost taxpayers in 1997 alone a net $68 billion, that is after subtracting the taxes immigrants pay. If current immigration trends continue, the net cost to taxpayers will be over $932 billion from 1997-2006, that is, over $90 billion per year.

Legal immigrants (plus their offspring) to the United States add about 1.6 million to the U.S. population per year. Illegal immigration adds approximately another 500,000 a year. Recent estimates indicate about 11 million illegal aliens currently reside in the U.S. Unless U.S. laws and enforcement policy are changed, the annual public cost of immigration (both legal and illegal) will increase annually.

The 1990 Immigration Act created additional funding obligations in many federal and local programs for which immigratns are eligible: Medicaid, AFDC, SSI, Food Stamps, School Lunch, Head Start, Housing Assistance, Student Aid, Unemployment Compensation, Earned Income Tax Credit, Low Income Energy Assistance, Public Higher Education, Bilingual Education, Vocational training for SEP students, Job training, WIC, Elderly Nutrition, General Assistance, Criminal Justice and Community Block Grants.

Excess immigration into the United States is, simply, very expensive, and victimizes our ownworking poor, homeless, and unemployed who compete for jobs, housing, health benefits, education and the like. And immigration causes over 70% of U.S. population growth, which is threatening the carrying capacity limits of the natural environment.

Emigration Hurts Sending Countries

Emigration does not benefit the countries from which immigrants come, either. It is often the politically dissatisfied or economically unfulfilled who decide to leave. Their feelings are understandable, but BALANCE believes that we should not encourage them to migrate. These dissatisfied people are precisely the ones who should stay at home because they are often the most motivated to rectify the problems of their own societies. What, for example, would have happened to the Polish reform movement had Lech Walesa emigrated to the United States? Although most immigrants to the United States are relatively unskilled, an increasing number of skilled immigrants are allowed to reside in the U.S. on H-1B visas. Is it fair to other countries to allow the “brain drain” to the United States to continue? Their exodus is their country’s loss.

Perhaps most importantly, many countries from which prospective immigrants come are countries with very high and entirely unsustainable population growth rates. Many have population doubling times of between 20 and 30 years, large numbers of children per family, and an extremely large proportion of the total population which is very young. Studies show that allowing significant immigration to the U.S. actually increases fertility rates in sending countries. If present trends continue, Central America (including Mexico) will double in size to 272 million in just 33 years. A continuing flow to the United states would soon overwhelm our country.

Moreover, studies have shown that since many in these countries hold the illusion that the United States has unlimited resources and an unlimited capacity to accept immigrants, and will continue to accept large numbers of them, their governments have no real incentive to take steps to limit their own population by encouraging small family size and making contraception more widely available. The conclusion they can justifiably draw from the present “open door” U.S. immigration policy is that a significant portion of their “excess” numbers can always go to the United States. This misconception only delays their attempts to slow their own population growth.

How Much Immigration is “Excessive?”

Given these considerations, how much immigration is excessive? Answering this question involves considering what population size is “optimal” for the United States, given our population carrying capacity. Precise answers are difficult, but honest observation and common sense suggest that from a carrying capacity perspective the United States may well be overpopulated already.

The evidence for overpopulation is widespread, including chronic water and energy shortages, excessive pollution, our great pressures to cut ever more timber from our national forests, our decreasing wildlife habitat, our loss of nearly one and a half million acres of rural land a year, our overcrowded recreation areas, crowding in our cities, and our inability to provide and maintain an adequate infrastructure of schools, roads and other physical facilities.

All of this and more point to the fact that the United States may already have exceeded the optimal population carrying capacity. After all, we must reemphasize that sparsely inhabited and open land does not necessarily signify additional carrying capacity.

To Protect the Environment, We Must Achieve “Replacement-Level” Immigration

To safeguard our carrying capacity and maintain our quality of life, BALANCE believes that the most sensible course to take is to stabilize our population size as soon as possible.

Although the U.S. total fertility rate has remained near replacement-level since 1974, our population will still continue to grow.

In sum, achieving environmental protection through population stabilization requires that we reduce immigration into the U.S. from its current level to a “replacement-level” immigration rate that would parallel replacement-level fertility. We need to attain a replacement-level immigration level of no more than 200,000 (legal and illegal) because about 200,000 people leave the United States voluntarily every year. Balancing immigration and emigration will be instrumental in balancing U.S. population with our environment. However, to “dampen” population momentum we need a period of below replacement-level immigration. Therefore:

A Five-year Moratorium on Legal Immigration in Excess of 100,000 is the Most Realistic and Necessary First Step in Stabilizing U.S. Population.

To stabilize our population, we would also need to reduce illegal immigration to around 50,000 per year through strict enforcement. After the five year moratorium on legal immigration in excess of 100,000 per year, legal immigration rates could be increased slightly, provided that the all-inclusive total (i.e. all categories plus illegal) did not exceed 200,000 per year. That is, it should include refugees, asylees, relatives and all other immigrants. Anything short of an all-inclusive ceiling would risk discriminating against certain groups of people, would unfairly undermine the principle of replacement-level immigration, and would undercut our goal of attaining a stable population within carrying capacity limits.

While BALANCE is primarily concerned with numbers only, certain factors should be considered regarding who should be admitted under such a ceiling. BALANCE believes a responsible immigration policy would admit mostly skilled workers plus some individuals facing imminent persecution (refugees and asylees), and some immediate family members of U.S. citizens. Some of each of these categories should be admitted, but only to the extent that the total does not exceed replacement-level and is in the national interest.

We must acknowledge, and others must recognize, that the United States simply cannot take in all those who want to come to this country. We are full! We must be fair to ourselves and to others by being realistic. The cornerstone of our environmental and immigration policy must be population stabilization.

In sum, overpopulation is the ultimate threat to the environment. The United States has the highest rate of population growth in the industrialized world. Most of this growth is caused by immigration. We owe it to ourselves and future generations, to our poor, homeless, and unemployed, and to the cause of environmental protection to act now by reducing immigration to replacement-level in order to protect our environment and safeguard our long-term carrying capacity. By working first in the United States to stabilize our population, we can send a signal to other countries that says we have limits in our capacity to absorb immigrants. We must become a model of population stabilization so that we can each work toward safeguarding our own carrying capacity and thus help safeguard the carrying capacity of our planet.

Population-Environment Balance is a national, non-profit membership organization dedicated to maintaining the quality of life in the United States through population stabilization.