Introduction

Immigration is currently very much a hot-button item at the local level, the state level, and nationally. Public discus- sions generally focus on three separate aspects of immigration;

1) law and order, 2) economic, 3) humanitarian.

In the law and order discussions we hear advocates stress that the success of our democracy is based on respect for the laws of the land. By implication, those who are here in violation of these laws should not be here, nor should they be beneficiaries of governmental programs.

The economic discussions offer the assertion that we must import people because we can’t find Americans who will do the work of America.

The humanitarian aspect centers on the assertion that “We are a nation of immigrants” and that therefore without question and without limit, we must open the doors. This aspect also says that we must always welcome more immigrants, legal and illegal, including their immediate and extended families, whether they are fleeing tyranny, or are simply seeking to improve their situations.

I wish to focus on a fourth aspect that is crucial to our national long-term survival but which, like Mark Twain’s “Silent Lie,”1 is almost never mentioned in the polite conversations or in the heated rhetoric that we encounter in the discussions of the first three aspects of immigration.

The Numbers Aspect

The fourth aspect of immigration is the “numbers aspect.”

What I will demonstrate is that the population of the United States has exceeded the carrying capacity of our land: This means that the United States in 2007 is overpopulated.

Operationally, this means that in 2007, the economy of the United States is not sustainable.

From this it follows that any actions that increase the population of the U.S. move us away from sustainability and hence should be stopped.

Immigration, legal plus illegal, is the main driver of population growth in the United States in 2007; therefore any discussion of sustainability in the U.S. must address the need to reduce or eliminate immigration, both legal and illegal, into the U.S.

From the demonstration that the United States is overpopulated, it follows that the United States has an urgent need for a national policy that would lead to a gradual and humane reduction of the U.S. population to a sustainable level. Such population reductions are taking place today in much of Europe where they are a consequence of the complex social and economic evolution of European societies. Unfortunately, these European reductions are not recognized as being the constructive steps that are necessary in order to move societies toward sustainability. This lack of recognition has tragically led some thoughtless European governmental leaders to extrapolate their declining populations to predicted extinction in a few centuries. To head off this extrapolated extinction the leaders seek to generate great alarm among their citizens. These leaders are flagrantly unaware of the meaning of sustainability, so they speak in apocalyptic terms, appealing to national pride, calling for their people to get “back into production.”