Dear HCN,
In the seven pages of
your special issue “El Nuevo West” devoted to illegal immigration,
I wish you’d found space for at least a few lines on the wholesale
transformation of the environment and quality of life in “El Futuro
West” if present record levels of both legal and illegal
immigration are allowed to continue (HCN,
12/23/96).
Throughout the country, and especially
the West, mass immigration is fueling a population boom without
precedent. Already, it is responsible for over 60 percent of our
annual national population growth of nearly 3 million, and unless
reduced substantially, it will account for about 90 percent of our
projected growth of at least 130 million additional Americans (the
equivalent of 70 more cities the size of metropolitan Denver!) by
the year 2050. The Western heritage of open spaces, big sky,
wilderness, elbow room, rugged lifestyles, land-based economies,
and freedom will not survive this crush of
humanity.
Although much of the current boom in
Western states is due ostensibly not to foreign immigration, but to
the in-migration of droves of Californians, even here mass
immigration shares culpability, by exacerbating the overpopulation,
congestion, severe job competition, high housing prices, crime,
ethnic tensions and deteriorating quality of life that so many
Californians are fleeing.
In addition, a rising
influx of too many unskilled, desperate immigrant workers into
Western states invariably drives down wages and working conditions
in numerous low-skill occupations. It will also ensure that the
myth that immigrants take only those jobs Americans reject becomes
self-fulfilling. Working-class Americans are not rejecting jobs per
se, but the deplorable wages and conditions brought on whenever too
many workers chase too few jobs.
Any viable
attempt to save the West as we know and cherish it must include
cutbacks in both legal and illegal
immigration.
Leon
Kolankiewicz
Washington,
D.C.
The writer is vice
president of the nonprofit Carrying Capacity
Network.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Stop immigration.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
