Immigration and Planet Earth
Contributed by Jim Lieb
We as a nation need to wake up to what is going on in the world. There are now over 8 billion humans on this planet. And by USA standards, 80% live in poverty, and according to the World Bank over 1 billion live in extreme poverty. Migrating to a better place is an avenue that many of the world's less fortunate are now focused on. It is happening all over the world, not just in the USA. There are many issues being influenced by the problems of human overpopulation which need to be addressed and hopefully will be…soon.
Immigration is a huge issue today and also needs to be addressed. Both before and after the beginning of our nation, immigration was the driving force that resulted in expansion 'from sea to shining sea’ and resulted in the USA becoming a vibrant strong nation .... "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free". But there comes a time when the cup is full. We can no longer afford to be that nation welcoming uncontrolled immigration. It is long overdue for us to put that part of our history to rest. And less there be any misunderstanding concerning what is being said here, this is absolutely not a race issue.... focused on just Latin Americans or Middle Easterners. All migration and asylum from any country needs to be legally and carefully controlled
Many news articles on immigration focus on the poverty, violence, and hunger that many migrants are trying to get away from. The message in many of these articles seems to be that to prevent such people from entering and staying in the US is 'immoral and un-American. We do have a long history of helping other peoples and other countries in need. Sympathy is understandable when we see, on the TV news, women and children crouch at our southern border.
But there are other very important factors that need to considered and weighed in the process of addressing the immigration issue. Many Americans are concerned about the approximately 12.5 million illegal immigrants and their 4.2 million children living in the U.S today, that cost federal, state and local taxpayers a staggering net $116 billion a year according to a 2017 study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform. This money could be used to improve life for our legal citizens in need .... we have millions of our own children in need of good education programs and millions of US adult citizens in need of career training programs. We need to get our own house in order before focusing on the rest of the world.
The even more important factor is that we need to halt the growth of our 325 million USA population...by immigration, refugees, or by any other means. What is in the best interest of America is to at least bring our growth to an absolute minimum, if not to a halt. Most of the serious problems that exist in our country, and also across most of this planet, are a result of the uncontrolled growth in our species, Homo sapiens, in conjunction with the development of industrial technology over the past approx. 200 years.
What is being suggested here is not going to be easy and simple. Rather it will require changes in our countries entire demographic and associated economic life. For most of our history our success has been based on continual growth of population, infrastructure, communities, more energy, more food, more production….more!
'Undocumented immigrant' is the common term used nowadays, when what is really being addressed is 'illegal migrant'.... someone who is not a citizen of the USA, who does not have a legal visa, but has entered the USA....illegally. Our immigration and asylum laws must be reformed, and we must make clear to both our citizens and to the rest of the world, that from this day forward there will be strict limits to the maximum number of immigrants that will be allowed to enter our country each year for the purpose of becoming a US citizen; and strict limits to the maximum number of refugees that will be given asylum. The application process required for entering, and the criteria used to determine who will be accepted should be clearly spelled out. And anyone caught illegally entering our country should immediately be arrested and deported.
In addition, we will need to deal with the millions of illegal migrants who have been living in our country for a few days to many years. An avenue to citizenship could be made available to illegal migrants who have lived here for a minimum number of years [5?] and have not committed crimes. Providing illegal migrants eligibility for govt. economic assistance only encourages more illegal migration and must be carefully controlled. And laws need to be changed so that children born in the USA to illegal migrants should only gain citizenship if and when their legal mother or father gains citizenship.
In updating our own immigration laws and associated procedures, it may help to examine other countries' immigration systems. For example, consider Australia. Their visa policy is to detain persons entering Australia or present there without a valid visa, until those persons can be returned to their home country. Australia also has a policy of mandatory detention and offshore processing of asylum seekers who arrive without a valid visa. At the same time, Australia does provide the opportunity for legal immigration, including employment visas - granted to skilled workers. Candidates are assessed via a points-based system, with points allocated for certain standards of education and skills; student visas - foreign students are allowed to study in Australia; such a visa requires a confirmed offer from an educational institution; and family visas - can be granted on the basis of family ties in Australia. The most common are the parent visa and spouse visa. These visas can eventually lead to Australian citizenship, after the applicant has lived in Australia for at least four years. Australia grants visas under its Asylum program. The maximum number of visas granted under their program was 13,750 for 2015-16.
The international agreements addressing immigration and refugees that were implemented over the past century, including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1951 Refugee Convention can no longer provide the basis for dealing with immigration. The massive problems that are currently affecting most of our planet require major changes to such agreements.
We are not alone. Many other countries are in pretty much the same situation as we, working to control and halt illegal migration. With our planet nearly universally electronically connected through our 21st Century devices, the message must be spread: ‘Migration is no longer an acceptable solution to your problems. People must not leave their country; rather they must focus on solving their own country's problem. Other countries will try to help you as much as possible’.
Recently the news has also talked about the importance of immigrants providing the work force needed for agricultural and other low skilled work. The other side of coin is that if such manual labor is absolutely needed, then it must be carefully controlled with laborer pickup at the border and then returned as soon as the growing process or harvesting process has been completed. Note that recent technological advances can or soon will replace much of such manual labor need.
The ecological mechanism controlling population size for most species of animals on planet Earth involves numbers increasing in response to favorable habitat conditions and intrinsic biological characteristics. There is always a limit to this increase. Sooner or later as numbers increase, habitat conditions begin to decline, involving less available food, less available niche space, and associated deteriorating environmental conditions and inter-and intra-specific conflict. As a result, species numbers decline or crash, often as a result of starvation, reduced reproduction associated with declining food sources and associated health, and increased stress, injury and mortality associated with intra- and inter-specific aggressive interactions. Members of populations also respond by dispersing into areas adjacent to and outside their normal home range, where they may or may not be able to successfully function. After numbers are reduced, less disturbed habitat begins to recover, eventually allowing the associated population to again begin increasing. This cycling up and down is common over much of the planet.
Many people recognize that this ecological process is applied to animal. But they do not believe that this applies to humans. They believe that humans aren't, or no longer are, part of the animal world. Unfortunately, this disbelief is probably one of the most important factors in understanding the problems that exist on planet earth today.
In addition, man's technological development of numerous solutions to disease and other inherited deficiencies has destroyed natural selection ability to remove imperfection and promote and maintain positive development of the human species. In place of the natural selection process, often referred to as 'survival of the fittest', that has ruled this planet for millions of years, modern man has developed the technological ability to save the diseased and deficient who now can pass their less than fit genes far and wide throughout the worldwide populations of homo sapiens.
Solving our planet's problems.... climate change, air pollution, freshwater pollution, water table damage, soil damage, ocean pollution, the extinction of thousands of species of animals, often through the loss of habitat, the destruction of and damage to many important ecological systems such as the tropical rain forests must include homo sapiens capping, and eventually reducing, its population. At the same time all the 1st world nation do-good organizations and individuals need to focus on helping problem nations fix their broken political, economic and social situations so that their citizens will no longer want to leave.