by Teela Roche
 

I, and many others across the nation, have gone to Washington in the past few years as "citizen lobbyists" for an organization called the Federation for American Immigration Reform (www.fairus.org). We pay our own way and take vacation time out of our schedules in order to talk with our congressmen because we have become concerned about our government's increasingly lax attitude toward immigration and its future (and present) impact on American citizens.

FAIR has existed for 20 years with one main goal - to urge Congress to develop legislation that would reduce overall immigration numbers to manageable levels (about 250,00 per year) from the record-setting numbers that have been typical in the past two decades. In spite of our pleas, with statistics to back up our concerns, Congress has not responded favorably. Instead, they have given Americans ever-increasing numbers of legal, as well as illegal, immigrants each year.

Our honest efforts at even moderate reductions have been stifled and even demonized by special-interest immigration proponents (business lobbyists, immigration lawyers and immigrant advocacy groups) who try to lump FAIR in with the likes of the KKK and white supremacists. I believe this demonization is the result of our opponents' fear of a rational discussion on immigration policy developing amongst the American public. They feel as long as they can keep up the inflamed rhetoric no changes will be made to the law.

I find this hysterical characterization of FAIR particularly ironic, knowing its true origins. Its founding goes back to the late 1970s environmental movement, when it was started by Dr. John Tanton, a Michigan physician, who had been active with the Zero Population Growth organization begun in the '60s.

Dr. Tanton realized that the U.S. population would never stabilize if the country's immigration laws, which had been recently expanded in 1965, were not changed. Even in 1970 with a population of "a mere" 200 million, the United States did not have enough energy resources domestically to sustain its needs.

Presently, we have close to 300 million people and, needless to say, we are considerably more dependent on foreign energy (60 percent comes from abroad). Furthermore, forecasts by the Census Bureau predict the U.S. population will balloon to 570 million people by the end of the century. How much imported energy will we require then? What unholy alliances will we have drawn ourselves into by that time, in order to sustain our need for oil? By then, we may have become the Third World country we are trying to save everyone else from right now.

In the next 50 years, 90 percent of population growth in the United States will be due to post-1970 immigration. These increases are being driven by the fact that about a million immigrants are permanently admitted to the United States each year - four times the rate in 1965. In that year, legislation radically overhauling the system was pushed hastily through Congress by its main sponsor, Ted Kennedy.

The result has been that INS, which is responsible for checking the backgrounds of those they admit, has been saddled with an insurmountable burden due to volume. In addition, the virtual nonuse of the enforcement branch of INS to deport illegals in the last decade and a half has resulted in the accumulation of an estimated 10 million undocumented aliens in the country.

In the past three decades our chaotic immigration system has imported foreign ethnic conflicts, created nefarious enclaves and mafias, burdened law enforcement and diluted procedures to the point where mass murderers can get their training here on student visas.

What is the answer? Well, change may finally be in the wind. This year, freshman Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado formed the House Immigration Reform Caucus with 20 fellow house members (www.ushouse.gov/tancredo/Immigration). Their goals are to develop legislation that would reduce overall immigration and reject the pandering to special interests that have been driving it for the past 30 years. South Carolina Rep. Jim DeMint is to be commended for recently joining this caucus and it is hoped that others in the South Carolina delegation will follow his lead.

Congress has been playing fast and loose with immigration for decades. The recent tragic events have now put a glaring spotlight on problems that have been swept under the rug in the past. Congress has tried to turn INS into an employment agency for processing foreign workers for the U.S. labor force and neglected the organization's role as a law enforcement agency entrusted with looking after American citizens' interests and safety. It's time to put it back on track.
 
 

Appeared in Greenville (SC) News  Oct. 6, 2001