January 5, 2006

More or Less

By Donna Locke
Tennesseans for Immigration Control and Reform
As we fill in for the blogfather, I've cast about for topics and have decided to write about, well, immigration. Immigration is actually my least favorite thing to write about, but most of my nonfiction writing during the past seven years has dealt with that subject. Here are some bits of information and commentary I posted on my old Web sites.

We've heard the U.S. Chamber of Commerce tell us we face a severe shortage of workers. Back in 1995, immigration agents removed thousands of illegal-alien workers from six Southern plants, and most of those jobs were filled within days by American workers. Just after that, such workplace enforcement essentially ceased upon orders from our federal government and never resumed, except for a few token prosecutions each year. During the 1990s, illegal immigration to the United States increased to unprecedented levels. Logic tells us that the massive influx of people from other countries has created the need for many, if not most, of the jobs these folks are filling as U.S. population skyrockets, driven almost entirely by immigration. We are caught in a seemingly endless and destructive cycle.

According to Monica Heppel, former director of research for the U.S. Commission on Agricultural Workers, American natives, particularly black Americans, were systematically rooted out of farm work by the relentless "Latinization" of the fields. As late as 1985, the agricultural industry was profitable using American labor, mainly black Americans. Between 1965 and 1992, Mexican workers succeeded in establishing footholds in every important crop production region in the United States. This story has been repeated in several other industries. Mechanization in U.S. agriculture has been delayed because of dependence on cheap, often illegal, human labor. When I get a chance, I'll post links to some stories about the mechanization situation.

The United States has taken in 1 million legal immigrants and 1 million or more illegal aliens every year for a number of years now. During our Colonial Era, the annual average was 3,500 immigrants. The largest wave of immigration before 1965 was between 1880 and 1924, when 584,000 people a year came in. Between 1925 and 1965, the annual immigration average was 178,000. Our traditional levels of immigration ensured assimilation and many other things critical to our national survival.

In May 2002, the United Nations reported that human development "across more and more areas of the planet is not sustainable. Unless we alter our course, we will be left with very little." The report, based on contributions from more than 1,000 scientists, says a quarter of the world's mammal species could face extinction within 30 years, and millions of people could suffer severe water shortages unless firm political action is taken to protect the environment. Earth faces more rapid, dramatic, and devastating environmental change over the next three decades. Those 30 years will determine the future of our planet and the fate of humanity.