June 21, 2005: Why Pushing For A Moratorium On Legal Immigration Is Essential For Reducing Illegal Immigration
ASAP!, or Alliance for Stabilizing America's Population, is the umbrella for approximately 80 conservation, public interest, and immigration-reform groups. Founders are Population-Environment BALANCE and Carrying Capacity Network [CCN].
Subject: ASAP* Coalition Dialogue-Alert
WHY Pushing For A MORATORIUM On Legal Immigration
IS ESSENTIAL FOR REDUCING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!
Some articulate activists for reducing illegal immigration imply that any amount of legal immigration is fine… just so long as it's legal. But this claim fails to consider that LEGAL AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ARE INEXTRICABLY LINKED politically, demographically, and practically.
This is why the Open Borders crowd just loves to have us reductionists focus only on Illegal because it allows their 1.2 million annual, legal flow to continue unabated and unopposed — or even increased!
Only by focusing on a moratorium on the huge legal numbers while SIMULTANEOUSLY pushing for reduced illegal immigration (as, for example, by advocating troops on the borders) can we:
1) Call the whole enterprise of mass immigration into question Pushing for a moratorium on all legal immigration in excess of 100,000/yr. puts the open borders opposition on the defensive by insisting that they justify the enterprise of mass immigration per se: It explicitly or implicitly demands that we all ask questions like:
“Why should we have any immigration at all when we have increasing millions unemployed, huge net costs and wage depression due to legal and illegal immigration, overtaxed infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and roads, and when most immigration today amounts to importing poverty?”
2) Avoid the trap into which some major news media figures and many others have (perhaps inadvertently) fallen of saying “because it is legal it is OK therefore all legal immigration is OK just because it is legal” (we paraphrase) . Failing to SIMULTANEOUSLY call for a moratorium on legal immigration while advocating stopping illegal immigration encourages the kind of thinking that “if it is legal its is OK–regardless of the numbers or other effects”.
3)Reduce the “Family Magnet” effect in which a huge and ever growing legal population continues to attract and harbor ever more illegal aliens and illegal anchor baby mothers.
CONTINUING MASSIVE LEGAL IMMIGRATION CREATES A MAGNET AND SAFE HARBOR FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.
4) Avoid the trap created (inadvertently usually) by those who say “lets stop illegal immigration first, and then deal with legal”. The trap is that, since we can never wholly stop illegal traffic (though we could reduce it a lot with troops on the border), we would never get around to reducing legal numbers.
5) Take fullest advantage of a great weapon we have against Illegal Immigration, which is the powerful rationale for stabilizing U.S. population size, and showing how mass immigration puts us on course to grow until stopped by calamity.
PUSHING FOR A MORATORIUM ON LEGAL IMMIGRATION CREATES THE GREATEST POSSIBLE DOWNWARD PRESSURE ON LEGAL AND ILLEGAL NUMBERS
Remember 1994-1996 when the heroic Rep. Stump (R-AZ) got over 80 signatories on his legal immigration moratorium bill in the House, and the Clinton Administration supported a reduction of legal immigration to 600,000 a year ?
Then, (notwithstanding the fact that a Neo-Con immigration management group undermined us reductionists by supporting a Bill that would have barely reduced the flow — just to 780,000/yr.) , we had our one national “offensive” success in the last 25 years. That is, despite this betrayal, the one positive result we achieved was REFLECTED IN THE WELFARE BILL OF 1996 – IT ELIMINATED SEVERAL FEDERAL FUNDING PROGRAMS USED BY ILLEGALS.
Focusing on a moratorium on legal immigration requires a focus on the illegal flow as well, but not necessarily vice versa. Pushing for a moratorium concentrates attention and downward pressure on overall numbers, which is essential for genuine reductionists.
There you have it! — the primary reason the Neo-Con Mass Immigration MANAGEMENT Groups FAIR and Numbers USA have thus far impeded our getting reductions is that they do not make advocating a moratorium their very first priority in terms of time and resources expended. See www.unfairus.org for details.
Bottom Line: Pushing for a moratorium on legal immigration maximizes downward pressure on legal AND ILLEGAL immigration. We “reductionists” MAXIMIZE THE CHANCES OF CONTROLLING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BY ADVOCATING A MORATORIUM ON LEGAL IMMIGRATION.
Specifically, this moratorium must be a cap on all immigration in excess of an all – inclusive 100,000/yr, the highest number we can admit and still achieve US population stabilization . Alternately, if current trends continue, the United States is on track to reach one half billion in 2050 and one billion in 2100!
Support the ASAP Coalition's four point program, which makes pushing for a legal immigration moratorium its first priority.
Visit www.balance.org for details.
*Alliance for Stabilizing America's Population
