Immigration reduction refers to movements that
advocate a reduction in the amount of
immigration allowed into their country. This can
include a reduction in the numbers of legal
immigrants, advocating stronger action be taken
to prevent
illegal entry and
illegal immigration, and reductions in
non-immigrant temporary work visas (such as
H-1B and
L-1 in the United
States). What separates it from others who want
immigration reform is that reductionists
see immigration- or one of its forms- as being a significant source
of social, economic, and environmental problems, and wish to cut
current immigration levels.
Many immigration reductionists support continued legal immigration,
only opposing illegal immigration; some want legal immigration to
be set at a percentage of current levels until no adverse affects
are created by legal immigration.
History
Antecedents to immigration reduction or control exist in antiquity,
notably in the Roman Empire, where high living standards were an
attractant to poorer tribes at the edge of the Empire.
Specifically the
immigration of Germanic tribes from the northern European continent
and Pictish peoples north of Hadrian's Wall
in Brittania were viewed
as unwanted population influxes to the more settled and civilized
areas of the Empire.
Modern history of the immigration reduction movement
There are several discernible groups within the movement, with
separate interests, origins, and aims. The modern immigration
reduction movement has many antecedents. Some cite the
nativist United States American Party
(often called the
Know Nothing
movement) of the 19th century and the
Immigration Restriction
League of the early 20th century as antecedents.
Organized labor and parts of the
political
left have also had an ongoing
debate over immigration levels into the U.S. going back to the 19th
century. The
National Labor
Union (1866-1874) campaigned for immigration restrictions as
well as the eight-hour workday, as did the
American Federation of Labor
under the leadership of
Samuel
Gompers. The
AFL-CIO did not reverse its
position on immigration restrictions until 1999. The early
United States Socialist Party
was split over the issue, with some Socialist leaders including
Jack London and Congressman
Victor Berger supporting immigration
restrictions; the party as a whole never had consensus, and only
went on record in opposition to the importation of
strikebreakers.
A separate issue with some overlap was concern over
overpopulation. The leading early influence
on that issue was
Paul R. Ehrlich, who both founded
Zero Population Growth and published
The Population Bomb in
1968. The popular book foretold alarming disasters that would
inevitably occur in the next decades. Though some of his
predictions did not come to pass, many believe his main points are
valid, and they succeeded in inspiring a movement.
Environmentalists including
David R.
Brower and
David Foreman took the threat seriously. The
Zero Population Growth organization did not involve itself, for the
most part, in U.S. immigration policy, and a subset of the
overpopulation movement grew which believed
that immigration needed to be reduced, arguing that immigration was
driving most U.S. population growth. These activists founded
organizations separate from ZPG which would specifically address
immigration issues. Among the important early organizations was
Negative Population
Growth, founded in 1972 by Donald Mann.
The leading inspiration for the modern movement is
John Tanton, a self-described
progressive and critic of
neoclassical economics.
[97367] Tanton founded the
Federation for
American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1979, the largest and
best funded organization in the movement. Three years later, Tanton
formed
US, Inc. as an incubator and funding source to help
form other organizations. According to public tax records, US, Inc,
FAIR, and other Tanton organizations have received large donations
from the
Pioneer Fund and from the
foundations controlled by
Richard
Mellon Scaife. Tanton created
US English (an
English-only advocacy group), the
Center for Immigration
Studies (CIS),
ProEnglish (another
English-only advocacy group), and
The Social Contract Press. US, Inc
and FAIR have provided funding and logistical support to other
organizations, including
American Immigration
Control Foundation (AICF),
California Coalition
for Immigration Reform (CCIR),
Californians for
Population Stabilization (CAPS), and the recent
Protect Arizona Now (PAN) initiative,
Proposition 200. FAIR claims that there is a relationship
between lax immigration policies and
terrorism such as the
9/11
attack, and it asserts there is no connection between itself and
eugenics.
The movement seemed to be triumphant in 1994 when California voters
passed
Proposition 187, an
initiative which limited benefits to illegal aliens that had been
authored and promoted by CCIR. However, one federal judge enjoined
implementation of parts of the law as unconstitutional, and
Democratic governor
Gray Davis refused to
pursue an appeal of the lower court decision, abandoning
Proposition 187. Residual resentment over the racially divisive
campaigns on both sides of the issue made immigration a topic that
politicians largely avoided dealing with.
A notable exception
has been Tom Tancredo, who was elected
to Congress from Littleton, Colorado
in 1994. Together with
Patrick Buchanan and the Tanton network,
Tancredo has emerged as the most conspicuous voice advocating
immigration reform in Congress.
The immigration reduction movement was partly rejuvenated by The
Alliance for Stabilizing America's Population coalition.
In 1997 members from a range of immigration reduction and
environmental organizations met to rededicate themselves to the
effort of population stabilization. Organized by
Population-Environment Balance, it included such diverse groups as:
Another effort was the coalition formed under the name
U.S. Sustainable Population Policy Project
(USS3P) in 1996 by
Douglas La
Follette and
David Pimentel. The
USS3P membership contained many immigration reductionists of the
time. In 1999 it sought cosponsors for a major national conference
on immigration. A number of major individuals and minor
organizations joined as co-sponsors, but no large national groups
joined and it folded in 2000 without holding the intended
conference.
The Internet offered new opportunities for communication by
immigration reductionists, as it has with countless other
movements.
Peter Brimelow founded his
VDARE writers collective in 1999. The year
1999 also saw the founding by
Craig
Nelson of
ProjectUSA in New York
City, which used billboards to advertise
Census Bureau and other statistics about
immigration in a campaign dubbed "Billboard Democracy," and
publishes an ezine in which the term "Minuteman" was first used
(2002) in connection with civilian border patrols. The
NumbersUSA group founded by
Roy Beck set up automated system for website
visitors to send advocacy faxes to their legislators on immigration
topics. Numerous websites, email lists, weblogs, and other
resources furthered the effort.
The
electoral success of Arizona
's
Proposition 200, PAN, indicates the support for immigration
reductionism among voters. The PAN initiative qualified for
the ballot following the expenditure by FAIR of hundreds of
thousands of dollars for signature gathering, plus comparable sums
for campaigning with some additional amounts raised locally. The
initiative was adopted by the public by a significant margin and is
likely to inspire similar efforts in other states. The success of
Proposition 200 in Arizona was followed in April 2005 by the
Minuteman Project, in which
volunteers came to Arizona to help patrol the border, although this
project did not have the support of the
United States Border Patrol and
generated some controversy.
The organizers of the Minuteman Project have
announced plans for similar projects in other states including
Texas
, California
, and Michigan
.
History references
Reasons for reducing immigration
Reasons for favoring immigration reduction given by supporters
include:
- The majority of the population growth in the U.S. is due to
immigration and the children of immigrants. Advocates of zero population growth and others
concerned with overpopulation and
other environmental issues are
often attracted to immigration reductionism because of this.
- Continued strong population growth through immigration drives
up demand for housing. Although various factors impact housing
prices, high population growth conflicts with goals for "affordable
housing."
- High levels of immigration may be seen as providing a steady
source of cheap or low-wage labor
to corporations. This can be seen as
detrimental to wage levels in the U.S., and as
a threat to the ability of labor unions
to organize workplaces, with the threat always present that if
workers organize they can easily be replaced by cheaper legal or
illegal labor.
- Sometimes, the reason is cultural. Some believe the high levels
of immigration into the U.S., whether legal or illegal, are at
rates too high to allow recent immigrants to assimilate into U.S.
society, and also discourages recent immigrants from learning the
English language.
- Illegal immigration is often seen as symptomatic of widespread
lawbreaking by employers, who hire workers illegally in the country
in order to escape wage, workplace safety, and labor laws. This is
especially a problem in the agriculture
sector, where it is estimated that over 80% of workers are in the
country illegally. Supporters and critics of the movement debate
over whether these workers could easily be replaced by legal
workers being paid in accordance with wage laws.
- Temporary work visas are often used to replace high-wage
workers in industries such as computer
programming, biotechnology and
engineering with lower-wage workers
imported from other countries. This is seen by many as closely
related to the practices of outsourcing
and offshoring of jobs. The over all
erosion of wages has been claimed to have resulted in many fewer
Americans opting to pursue scientific majors in college and
careers, and an over all decrease in the scientific ability of
America's citizenry.
Target immigration levels
Immigration reductionists differ on the ideal level of immigration
they would like to see into the United States. Some believe the
numbers should be set each year at whatever level would, in
conjunction with the current
fertility
rate and emigration from the U.S., maintain zero population
growth in the country. The most prominent immigration reductionist
in government today is U.S. Congressman
Tom
Tancredo R-CO. Tancredo has authored a bill that calls for
limiting annual immigration to between 30,000 and 300,000. The
organization,
Population-Environment
Balance (PEB), has issued a
Immigration Moratorium Action
Plan [97368] calling for a "non-piercable" cap of
100,000 persons annually, which would be a 95% cut from current
levels.
Carrying Capacity
Network (CCN), another small reductionist group closely related
to PEB, shares that goal while repeating that it is not opposed to
immigration.
There are also some who support a moratorium on immigration. The
Diversity
Alliance for a Sustainable America claims that 43% of
Californians polled said that a 3-year moratorium on immigration
would be beneficial to the state (compared to 40% who said it would
be unbeneficial).
[97369] The
America First Party calls for a
ten-year moratorium, with only spouses and children of citizens
allowed in.
[97370] Other advocates for moratoriums include the
Reform
Party[97371] and 2004
Constitution Party
presidential candidate
Michael
Peroutka [97372].
Robert
Locke surpasses them by calling for a negative immigration
rate. He has defined this as restricting immigration to the U.S. to
what he calls the "normal" (i.e., pre-1965) average flow of
immigrants throughout U.S. history, combined with the
deportation of all illegal immigrants.
[97373]
The Carrying Capacity Network (CCN) and Population-Environment
Balance, two groups that both operate out of the same Washington,
D.C. address, issue frequent statements that advocating for the
numbers recommended by the Jordan Commission, 700,000 annually, is
"counter-productive". In a
National Alert the CCN warned
that organizations supporting numbers higher than 300,000 undercut
the movement, and they specifically criticize the Federation for
American Immigration Reform and NumbersUSA.
[97374]
Some groups not connected to the immigration reduction movement
nonetheless support a reduction to legal immigration levels of
around 500,000 to 600,000. In their 1997 book,
Misplaced
Blame, Alan Durning and Christopher Crowther of Northwest
Environment Watch write that illegal immigration gets too much
attention, and identify five main sources of population growth,
including lack of access to
family
planning as well as a misguided legal immigration policy, and
subsidies to domestic migration. They readily admit that immigation
should be reduced by an unspecified amount, but they also show
concern for the rights of existing residents.
[97375]. The AFL-CIO and some mainstream
environmentalist groups used to be
on record favoring lower immigration numbers, although most have
quietly dropped this position in recent years.
Proposed methods of reducing illegal immigration
Border barriers
The focus of some immigration reduction groups is hindering
illegal entry by building barriers on
the border. The
United
States-Mexico barrier has been partially constructed to reduce
the flow of unauthorized migrants into the United States.
Presently,
India
is constructing a fence along the border to
restrict migrants from Bangladesh
, the 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) long Indo-Bangladeshi barrier; The
stated aim of the fence is to stop infiltration of terrorists,
prevent smuggling, and to bring a close to unauthorized migration
from Bangladesh. The People's Republic of China
is building a security barrier along its border
with North
Korea
to prevent defectors or refugees from North Korea
from entering the country illegally. On January 25, 2008 Egyptian security forces
blocked almost all illegal entry
points
along the border with Gaza to try to stem the flow
of Palestinians wanting to leave. Egyptian forces in riot
gear erected barbed wire and chain-link fences along the border to
prevent more Palestinians from crossing.
Intergovernmental cooperation
Conservative blogger
Michelle Malkin
supports coordination with federal authorities through the use of
Section 287 of the
Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Section
287(g) provides for the deputization of state and local law
enforcement officers, for the purposes of reporting of immigrants
who have violated immigration law.
Morristown, New Jersey
mayor Donald
Cresitello (Democrat) has sought to
deputize his police as immigration agents. Newark, New
Jersey
city councilman Ron Rice, Jr. has proposed a
resolution mandating police to report felony suspects when they are
found to be in the United State illegally. Furthermore, the
Attorney General of New
Jersey Anne Milgram has expanded
officers power regarding
illegal
immigrants. She told the
state
police to inform federal authorities when an illegal immigrant
is arrested in an indictable crime or for drunk driving. There are
an estimated 380,000 people living in New Jersey without proper
immigration documents. She said that she wanted local, county and
state police to hand more serious cases directly to
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.
Legislative initiatives
Others focus on
lobbying to lower future
illegal immigration levels through congressional action, and to
fight amnesties for existing illegal immigrants.
Many immigration restrictionists question the 1898 Supreme Court
ruling
U.S. v.
Wong Kim Ark, which
held that individuals born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents are
U.S. citizens and guaranteed all the rights thereof. They feel that
citizenship should be denied to the children of immigrants without
valid immigration status. Thus they have sought to end
birthright
citizenship, through a constitutional amendment or a
congressional act.
Denial of public benefits to undocumented individuals is believed
to remove the incentives and rewards for illegal immigrants. The
1994 California
Proposition 187 and the
2004 Arizona Proposition 200
Protect Arizona Now were written to
require proof of legal status in order to receive non-mandated
benefits.
Differences within immigration reductionism
Many who support reduced immigration numbers oppose association
with the more extreme groups.
[97376]. The Federation for American
Immigration Reform has spoken out in 2004 against the views of
another reductionist leader,
Virginia
Abernethy, calling her views "repulsive separatist views," and
called on her to resign from the advisory board of Protect Arizona
Now in Arizona. PEB and CCN are also critical of FAIR for FAIR's
support of a national ID card, which PEB and CCN oppose. The
Protect Arizona Now movement split, with two rival state-level
organizations, one supported by FAIR, the other supported by PEB
and CCN, working to support the passage of the ballot
initiative.
See also
References
- Tom Tancredo's 2003 Bill [1]As used in this Act, the term `immigration
moratorium' means the period beginning on October 1, 2003, and
ending on September 30 of the first fiscal year after fiscal year
2008 during which the President submits a report to Congress, which
is approved by a joint resolution of Congress, that the flow of
illegal immigration has been reduced to less than 10,000 aliens per
year and that any increase in legal immigration resulting from
termination of the immigration moratorium would have no adverse
impact on the wages and working conditions of United States
citizens, the achievement or maintenance of Federal environmental
quality standards, or the capacity of public schools, public
hospitals, and other public facilities to serve the resident
population in those localities where immigrants are likely to
settle.
- Burke, B. Meredith. " Immigration's Dire Effect on the Environment."
Seattle
Times. June 15, 2000.
- What
is NPG?. Negative Population Growth: Who We Are. Accessed
January 5, 209.
- Dan Stein, Recognizing the Holes in Immigration
Policies, June 22, 2004
- Signatories - Alliance for Stabilizing America's
Population. Population-Environment Balance. June 2005. Accessed
July 12, 2008.
- USS3P - U.S. Sustainable Population Policy Project,
updated May 11, 2003
- " U.S. Population Growth." Population and Habitat.
National Audubon Society. Accessed January 5,
2009.
- Michelle Malkin » BUSH’S OPEN-BORDERS
NOMINEES
- Gee! Let Us Just Enforce 287(g) ... Really! ::
MAXINE | The News is NowPublic.com
- Elizabeth Llorente, "Newark killings become immigration flash
point," North Jersey Media Group, August 14, 2007
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MTgxNjYzJnlyaXJ5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Ng==
- Tom Baldwin, "State AG broadens officers' power over illegal
immigrants" "Gannett New Jersey" August 23, 2007
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070823/NEWS01/708230422/1006/news01
Additional reading
External links
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