Perspectives on Immigration: The Issue is Overpopulation (NPG Footnote)

• Lindsey Grant
• August 1, 1994
• Forum Papers
• Forum Paper
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An NPG Forum Paper
 (NPG Footnote) 
by Lindsey Grant and Leon F. Bouvier
August 1994

This Op-Ed piece was originally published in the August 10, 1994 edition of The Los Angeles Times.

Given recent budgetary problems, it may be difficult to convince Californians that the drain on public services is not the principal issue in determining how much immigration we can afford. In the long run, however, the impact on population growth will be the most lasting legacy of our current immigration policies.

Largely as a result of immigration, the United States now has the fastest-growing population in the developed world, while immigration-driven population growth in California rivals that of some Third World countries. Population growth comes at great cost that cannot always be measured in dollars and cents.

First, we must realize that the human race is a part of the natural ecosystem of the Earth, not a privileged super-species that can transcend the laws of nature. The United States, because of its size and consumption habits, is most destabilizing entity within Earth’s fragile ecosystem. Population growth here has a far more profound impact on that ecosystem than growth elsewhere.

The disturbances caused by human activities have accelerated dramatically in the past half a century. Driven by population growth and the technological explosion, these disturbances threaten not only the perpetuation of a way of life we have come to take for granted, but even the continuation of life systems as we understand them.

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