She: "Just to shine some light on what we are discussing, I am a legal resident, and also my family. I guess I misunderstood your previous posts in which you were discussing the DREAM act."
Me: If are a legal resident why aren't you are not entitled to resident tuition under the current rules. I thought you were saying that you were still an illegal alien. My comments in that regard were based on the misunderstanding of your status.
"I am an American, very proud of it, and I expect to contribute to this country as much as others that have lived difficult lives here as well. I still consider myself very young, and don't expect to make a family anytime soon because I still have goals set for myself (and honestly i don't want to be that stereotypical Hispanic girl who gets pregnant at age 15-20)."
Of course, if you really want to do some good, your homeland obviously could use some help so that its citizens no longer have to emigrate. Your attitude toward making a family is very admirable. Former Senator John Edwards gave this advice to young women: "learn a skill and get a job before you think about having babies that you may not be able to support and educate."
She: "There is no need for me to go to a country that I've known for 4 months. Yes I do speak Spanish, but unfortunately not as well as I would like. I think the thing that bothers me is that everyone in the U.S has had a history of migrating. All are immigrants (of course with the exception of Native Americans) some might be 2nd, 3rd, to like 10 generations after their ancestors have come to the land of opportunity. Others have come more recently. What bothers me is when the people, some people, when they become citizens or legal residents, they forget why they came to the U.S and made that decision in the first place."
Actually all of us including the so-called Native Americans are immigrants. The Native Americans first arrived 25,000 years ago but they were immigrants just as much as those who arrived yesterday. It is quite natural for immigrants to realize that their quality of life and standard of living will also be threatened by the arrival by more immigrants and illegal aliens and the excessive population growth they represent. They begin to see the light just as the earlier arrivals see it. That shouldn’t bother you. It is a very natural reaction, once one realizes that natural resources are finite,that the more there are of us the less there will be for each of us. Moreover, the more immigrants we admit and the more illegals we allow to stay, the more this country will resemble the countries the immigrants left behind. It is perfectly natural to want to protect one’s way of life, quality of life, standard of living, national character, culture, ideals, type of government, language and freedoms. Otherwise, what will happen in the long run is all of those cherished ideals will be destroyed; then where will we immigrate to. Ignoring this is just shortsightedness. the primary source of population growth is legal immigration, illegal aliens, their higher birth rates, and their progeny. Unless we do something about that now, the U.S. will be in downward spiral from which we will be unable to escape.
Emma Lazarus’s famous sonnet was an expression of her empathy for those who had fled the anti-Semitic Pogroms in Eastern Europe. The sonnet is a poignant reminder of our immigrant past but the operative word in that phrase is the word “past.” In the 1850s when Emma Lazarus was mounted on the base of the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. population was about 50 million. After a sixfold increase, it now stands at 300 million. What are Hispanics and other potential immigrants doing to to make sure we don't see another sixfold increase to 1.8 billion by the end of this or the next century? Does anyone think that would be a good thing. If they do, they need to visit the hinterlands of China, India,Bangladesh and Sub-Saharan Africa to see what that would be like. I suspect they would change their minds immediately.
We are not obligated to continue any past practice if it is not in the national interest. Does anyone want to go back to the days before woman suffrage, to the days of child labor, and Jim Crow laws? Do you think our country will be better with 600 million or 1.8 billion people than it is with 300 million? I don’t think so and neither do many intellectuals.
For example, Physics Professor Emeritus Albert Bartlett of the University of Colorado had this to say: “Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from the microscopic to the global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
Eminent demographer Joel Cohen came to a similar conclusion: “I personally am very concerned by the vast inequitable and largely avoidable burdens of hunger, disease, violence, ignorance and poverty borne by too many billions of people. But I will not try to persuade you that the world will end in the next ten years unless everybody changes to a diet of soybeans and contraceptive pills, or that a universal diet of soybeans and contraceptive pills would eliminate hunger, disease, violence, ignorance and poverty…. But I will try to persuade you that the world cannot easily and comfortably accommodate an unlimited number of people at any desirable level of material, mental and civic well-being.”
If those quotes are not enough, consider this beautiful quotation from the 1848 Principles of Political Economy of British philosopher John Stuart Mill who commends a change of values.
“There is room in the world, no doubt, and even in old countries, for a great increase in population, supposing the arts of life to go on improving, and capital to increase. But even if innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain, in the greatest degree, all the advantages both of cooperation and of social intercourse, has, in all the populous countries been attained. A population may be too crowded, though all be amply supplied with food and raiment. It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species. A world, from which solitude is extirpated, is a poor ideal. Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character; and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrapeds or birds which are not domesticated for mans’ use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture. If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger but not a better or happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, moral and social progress; as much room for the Art of Living, and much more likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on. Even the industrial arts might be as earnestly and as successfully cultivated, with this sole difference, that instead of serving no purpose but the increase of wealth, industrial improvements would produce their legitimate effect, that of abridging labour….Only when, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers, become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot.”
More recently there was a program on PBS narrated by the eminent naturalist Charles Attenborough which should convince you that you are on the wrong side of any argument that tends to increase the U.S. or world population.
She: "There are sooooo many stories and situations that caused so many of these undocumented people to come to the U.S.. And still people rather focus on the fact that they are illegal, they broke the law, and have no compassion towards what they went through."
These people are quite proprly focusing on the much more important issues of finite natural resources, pollution produced by people, growing energy demands, and all the other detrimental aspects of population growth. They are having compassion on all of their fellow citizens while others choose to limit their compassion to foreigners.
"You yourself explained how it took 10 years for your grandparents daughters to come to the U.S legally. That's was just plain luck. Do you know how long it takes in times like these for someone to migrate to the U.S legally? And if so, do you think some of the families that are illegal here had the time to wait for that green light to happen? I can name you 10 people that were so close to death because their own country would not provide them proper food, and shelter. Families were threatened because one member of the family would speak out of the injustice that was going on, etc."
Where is Pancho Villa and Emilio Zapata when we need them? I don’t doubt what you have written but it doesn’t change the fact that we have no obligation to accept all those who wish to come here. To do so would ultimately be the end of America as we know it. We should make provision for the skilled few who are in real danger in their homelands and we do, if the applicants for asylum can prove their cases. But we cannot and should not take them all. To do so would simply mean the re-creation here of the very conditions that led the illegal aliens to leave their homelands in the first place -- corruption, oligarchs, crime, poverty, joblessness, starvation, pestilence and disease. If you believe as I do, that we need to take steps to stabilize our population before it is too late, then you have to set the bar for admission very high. That means most applicants will never be able to come here and we should let them know that. We should accept only a limited number of the most skilled applicants for immigration.The others must begin to expend more effort to fix the governments and institutions of their homelands, even if it takes revolution as it did in Egypt and Tunisia. We should lower the legal immigration quota to no more than 200,000 per year focused on those who can do the most good for America not just anyone who wants to come here. I know this sounds like I am lacking in compassion for the unfortunate souls you describe. I do feel compassion for them but my allegiance to America comes first and that means enforcing the immigration laws and pursuing policies that will stabilize our population.
She: "But you’re right when you wrote, 'You cannot expect anyone to readily and without protest give up what they have long enjoyed and what they consider the heritage of their children.'
I and others that support my cause can affect one mind at a time. It is a repetitive and tiresome process, but if I can persuade at least one mind, I am much closer to making people understand how much we can gain with the immigration reform and the Dream Act. "
Me: As I have indicated, I believe we have much to lose and little to gain from any immigration reform that increases the number of immigrants and fails to secure the borders. You need to present a balanced argument to those who might be persuaded to support your cause. Otherwise, they will know they are hearing only half of the story. We simply do not need any more people. We need to let all the countries of the world know that and that our immigration policies will be structured to serve our national interest not the demand for immigration. Every person you convince to support immigration reforms that do otherwise is just another nail in America’s coffin. I hope you will give some more thought to that and try to take the long view of what America will be like 50, 100, or even 200 years from now if you are successful in your advocacy and our population balloons to the level of China or India. The people there in the hinterlands live in abject poverty and misery simply because of their numbers and their adherence to old cultures and beliefs.
She: "Thank you so much for supporting one of the causes I am fighting for. Even though we don't agree on some things, it really means a lot to me if we get support on one side then the other. There are many people that spread hate towards immigration but many others, like you, prefer to make logical and important counter-arguments that we all should carefully consider. If only everyone could be like that. You’re one of the few that we can actually have a civil conversation with. (Some people yell at us, curse, spit etc. and would deny even one illegal alien to get a higher education in the U.S.)
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