OPINION
Tom Tancredo does not count sheep at night to fall asleep. He
counts people, millions of them, all crowding into the American
dream.
The Republican congressman from Littleton, Colo., counts waves of
illegal immigrants, more than 800,000 a year, streaming through
porous borders. He counts the legions of legal immigrants coming into
the country, one million annually for the past three decades. He counts a population that numbered 203 million people in 1970
but which had swelled to 281 million by 2000. With the current levels
of legal immigration -- not to mention illegal immigration -- U.S.
population will reach 404 million in 2050 and 571 million people by
2100.
"It is not the type of people that come here, it is not color of
people who are coming here, it is not their ethnicity. It's the
numbers that have an impact on the quality of life," Tancredo
insists.
And just before Tancredo, the grandson of Italian immigrants,
finally quits counting numbers and drifts into slumber, he counts his
blessings that the greatest melting pot on earth, has not yet
experienced a monumental meltdown from overpopulation and ineffectual
immigration policies.
Tancredo insists we have reached a point in our national history
where out resources -- our education system, our highways, our health
network, our social services, our energy supplies -- simply won't be
able to sustain everyone who is here and also accommodate so many
newcomers.
He laments that few leaders are willing to consider immigration
policy as public policy and to confront it as a pressing problem
relating to overpopulation, the economy and security.
"Can anybody understand the implication of this?" Tanctredo asked
last summer in a House floor speech. "Does anybody want to deal with
it?"
Tancredo says that his message often is not well received but that
he keeps delivering it anyway and everywhere. He brought it up in
Tulsa last week when he came here to stump for state Rep. John
Sullivan who hopes to win the Republican nomination in the First
District Congressional race. Sullivan has vowed that if elected to
Congress he would join Tancredo's Congressional Immigration Reform
Caucus, replacing Tulsa Rep. Steve Largent, one of 55 caucus members.
Tancredo currently has a bill stuck in House committee that would
limit legal immigration to 300,000 people (which allows for limited
family reunification and some refugees) annually over the next five
years. During that time, if the president could show a reduction in
illegal immigration, the moratorium would end immediately. Tancredo
also has a 15-point plan for securing borders against terrorists and
illegal immigrants. Parts of that plan are included in various pieces
of legislation.
Tancredo believes that the United States will not solve the
problems of poorer countries by continuing to allow massive
immigration here. "We can be much more effective through foreign aid
and by teaching people how to build democratic societies for
themselves," he says. "I suggest that it is counterproductive for us
to accept so many legal and illegal immigrants into our country based
upon some bizarre rationale that we are actually helping them and we
are helping the countries from which they come. We are doing
neither."
Tancredo also wonders how anyone can ignore how overpopulation
affects poverty levels and the environment. In 1900, the number of
people per square mile in the United States was 25.6; now it is at
least 76. "For our sake and for the sake of the world," he said, "we
must work for an immigration moratorium."
But selling such a message is difficult in a country where one out
of 10 was born elsewhere. Most Americans, polls show, are alarmed
about illegal immigration and most don't think there's a lot they can
do about it. The Immigration and Naturalization Service deports less
than 1 percent of the illegal aliens it apprehends each year. The
number of illegal aliens living here is estimated at 11 million.
Debates over immigration, who to let him and who to keep out, have
been with this country always and have accounted for numerous shifts
in policy. Immigration policy, as noted recently by Public Agenda,
should be about deciding what kind of country the United States is
going to be. In centuries past, we accepted large numbers of new
citizens. From the 1880s to World War I, almost 20 million people
came to America, largely from Europe, which had a burgeoning
population of 400 million and was more than willing to give rather
than to receive. Now most immigrants come from Latin America and
parts of Asia, which have overpopulation and economic problems.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform recently commented
that "the problems of high immigration today cannot be dismissed
simply because our ancestors survived the Great Wave of immigration
(from 1905-25). That ignores not only the problems at the turn of the
century but also the fact it was immigration restrictions that saved
the day. The lesson that we should learn from our history is that
rather than emulating the excesses of the Great Wave, we should be
emulating the wisdom of those who ended it before it swamped the
country."
Tancredo's call for a five-year moratorium may be too drastic a
step for Americans to accept without greater debate. But his
challenge to leaders to look at the numbers and to begin reforming
immigration policies, including securing our borders and deterring
illegal immigration, should not be ignored. If we don't get a handle
on this, our magnificent melting pot may in fact be facing a
monumental meltdown. CREDIT:Julie DelCour is an editorial writer for
the Tulsa World.
COLOR PHOTO;
Caption: India native Dinesh Sharma is one of thousands who took the
Oath of Allegiance last year to become an American citizen.
JULIE DELCOUR
It's the numbers
; Is the melting pot facing a meltdown?
JULIE DELCOUR
12/02/2001
Tulsa World
FINAL HOME EDITION
1
(Copyright 2001)