NUMBERS

The bottom line on legal and illegal immigration is the numbers.

Even though the 2010 Census Bureau estimates a 10-12 million illegal alien population, it is commonly known that many aliens avoid the census count and it is widely believed that as many as 20 million illegal aliens are illegally present in the U.S. as of 2005. 

The charts below describe legal immigration, but it is important to recognize that illegal immigration rises as legal immigration rises. 

HISTORICAL LEVELS OF IMMIGRATION INTO THE U.S.

U.S. POPULATION GROWTH CAUSED BY IMMIGRATION INTO THE U.S.

Advocating U.S. population stabilization necessitates a reduction in immigration levels.  It is virtually mathematically impossible to be for U.S. population stabilization and against immigration reduction.

The focus on population limits has waned since the 70's even though the U.S. is now the world's third largest country and the world's fastest growing industrialized nation. It is pertinent that Americans understand the true source of growth and be able to link the symptoms to the source.

The chart below shows the U.S. Census Bureau's middle-range projection of how much additional population will be forced into the United States if current immigration and fertility levels continue. 

The RED BLOCK shows the phenomenal population growth being fueled by the federal government's immigration policies. The red represents all the immigrants (above the replacement level of 222,000) who have arrived -- or are projected to arrive -- since 1970, plus their descendants, minus deaths.

The GREEN BLOCK represents U.S. population growth due to the descendants of 1970-stock Americans. It assumes that these "old-stock" Americans will continue their present fertility and mortality rates. There were 203 million people living in the U.S. in 1970. Births to that population have exceeded their deaths, resulting in the growth illustrated in the green block. But the below-replacement-level fertility of "old-stock" Americans will allow this group to stabilize in size soon after the Baby Boomers' children finish having babies. (The Green Block also accounts for replacement-level immigration, which the Census Bureau currently estimates at 222,000 a year.)

Without the radical increase in the numbers of immigrants coming to the United States since 1970, U.S. population would almost be stabilized by now and would peak in 2020 at 255 million (52 million higher than in 1970).

The TOP LINE of the chart represents the actual U.S. population growth between 1970 and now, and is a projection of what the growth will be between now and the year 2050 if fertility, mortality and immigration rates remain similar to those of today. The additional 200 million people contribute to almost doubling the U.S. population of 1970 -- a time when most Americans believed the country already had enough congestion and sprawl.

Of the 120 million people who will be added to the United States over the next 5 decades, 100% are represented in the RED BLOCK on the chart above.

To find similar population growth in foreign countries, we must look to the Third World.

Nearly every other advanced country in the world is moving quickly toward a stabilized population -- or already has achieved it. But Congress each year endorses immigration numbers that force the United States to deal with many of the same problems of rampant population growth that plague the world's poorest countries.