The United States has always been a land of plenty and wide open spaces.

Tuesday, March 27, 2001

The United States has always been a land of plenty and wide open spaces. But today, the country is growing faster than the world population.

&uot;The U.S. is on an incredible rocket ship to China when we look at density,&uot; Roy Beck told some 80 people gathered at a League of Women Voters-sponsored program Monday evening at Riverland Community College.

Beck is an author and lecturer, and founded NumbersUSA.com, a non-profit, non-partisan organization which supplies tools, including videotapes and foldout charts, based on U.S. Census Bureau figures.

Beck outlined the history of immigration in the U.S., the effects of sprawl, where current immigration policies are leading, implications for smaller cities, and an overall ethical framework.

The U.S. population numbered 4 million for the first census. The years between 1880 and 1924 were known as the Great Wave of Immigration, Beck said, and the number of immigrants entering the U.S. was 507,000 per year.

&uot;It tripled the level of immigration,&uot; Beck said. &uot;It was the only time in history when the American worker was moving downward.&uot;

The years from 1946-1970 were known as the Baby Boom, another period of rapid growth for the country. Then in 1970, President Richard Nixon appointed a commission to study immigration and to set goals for what’s best for America. Its findings, Beck said, included the conclusion that America would not be able to meet its social, economic and cultural goals if it added another baby boom.

&uot;We also wouldn’t be able to meet our environmental goals,&uot; Beck said.

Indeed, he said, some 14,000 square miles of land have been &uot;gobbled up&uot; in urban sprawl in the last 20 years. About half of the sprawl nationwide appears to be related to the land-use and consumption choices that lead to an increase in the average amount of urban land per resident, and the other half of sprawl is related to the increase in the number of residents within urbanized areas, he said. In turn, that’s taking its toll on ecosystems, farmland and scenic open spaces.

&uot;Anyone advocating U.S. population stabilization who derides the importance of consumption and planning controls is ignoring half the story of American sprawl,&uot; Beck said.

Similarly, he said, anyone who relegates population growth to a side issue is turning a blind eye to half the problem.

&uot;If you want to stop sprawl, you have to stop population growth,&uot; he said, adding if growth continues at its current rate, this country will no longer be able to feed other countries with its surplus food. &uot;This country could hold 1.2 billion people — if we’re willing to live like the Chinese,&uot; Beck said.

Of the million people entering the U.S. each year, only 50,000 are refugees. Beck said the United Nations expert on immigration said the U.S. is taking the &uot;wrong refugees and too many and is hurting the refugee situation in the whole world.&uot;

Beck said his organization stands on the population recommendations of 1970 — a fertility rate of 2.1 and replacement level immigration — 230,000 immigrants per year.

Unfortunately, he said, immigration laws like the one passed in memory of President John F. Kennedy changed quotas to allow equal numbers of immigrants from all countries. The blame should lie with Congress, not the late president, the speaker said.

&uot;He never said increase immigration. He said it should stop being biased and lose its racial component. What he wanted to do was put the law in sync with the civil rights era,&uot; Beck said.

One of the chief advocates of the 1965 act was Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who now says pushing that bill was his biggest mistake, Beck said.

&uot;He said it was put through for the right reasons, but it was the wrong bill,&uot; he said.

The current immigration policy not only contributes to urban sprawl, but it hurts American workers and the immigrants who are already in this country, as well as small towns.

&uot;Immigration is the law of supply and demand,&uot; Beck said. &uot;With it, we buy into a low- wage economy.&uot;

He cites the meatpacking plants of the country as a good example of this.

Beginning in the 1940s, meatpacking plants had high-paying jobs and man could support his family and buy a house and car on the wages he earned there. But once companies like Iowa Beef Processors found out how to undercut other meatpackers but hiring refugees at much lower wages, other meatpackers found they were locked into paying for jobs Americans were willing to do, Beck said. They couldn’t compete. IBP would come in after a plant had been closed and reopen it with mostly foreign workers.

&uot;The turnover rate is tremendous,&uot; he said, adding immigrants don’t want to

do the job for very long, so the company ends up asking for more foreign workers.

An audience member, who currently works in the meatpacking industry, asked who would do the work then, if not foreign workers. Beck said the focus needs to be on helping those in the jobs now: making the positions safer, and compensating workers for dangerous tasks.

&uot;Towns have gone through tremendous economic and social changes because of

this,&uot; he said of the current trend, which is also forcing young people to leave small

towns in search of higher-paying jobs. &uot;Our country was founded on a tight labor market, and that’s why we always had better wages than Europe.&uot;

The current immigrant system is unjust, Beck said.

&uot;There have been a lot of commissions,&uot; he said. &uot;Every study has said that high immigration hurts immigrants the most.&uot;

The speaker said the poor of this country need to take precedence over others.

&uot;We have to have a responsibility to our own communities first,&uot; he said.

The projected rapid growth of the U.S. is not inevitable. It is the result of congressional policies, Beck said, citing recommendations of Barbara Jordan and a presidential commission which said current policies make America and unjust place to live. She recommended doing away with chain migration (allowing extended families of refugees to enter the country) and visa lotteries.

&uot;NumbersUSA is dedicated to carrying out the recommendations of Barbara Jordan and her commission,&uot; Beck added.

Beck said what is needed in federal population growth policy is &uot;adult thinking.&uot; If the trend continues, he said, some major new government programs will have to be adopted to deal with the problems which are cropping up, thereby increasing taxes. Or we can choose to change the system and reduce immigration to traditional levels.

&uot;People have asked, since we can’t help everyone, should we help no one?&uot; Beck said.

&uot;Immigration to the U.S. has been called the single greatest threat to world development.&uot;

Currently, the U.S. is able to feed third world countries.

&uot;But if the farmland acres per American continue to be cut, we will eat our surplus at some point and be unable to help feed third world countries. Is that a moral and ethical thing to do?&uot; Beck asked.