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CCN Makes the News!
From the Washington Times, June 18, 2002

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CCN takes on Frank Sharry, the Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, part of the open borders lobby, by countering his pro-open borders pitch on mass immigration in an article entitled "Illegals in U.S. Exploit Loophole."

Immigration, on the level
An insightful article last Thursday, "Illegals in U.S. exploit loophole," reveals that until April 2001, illegal immigrants received permanent resident status through a law dubbed 245(i), by which aliens can apply for green cards without leaving the country. However, the article quotes Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum claiming the problem does not lie with 245(i). According to Mr. Sharry, "The problem is that we have few legal immigrant visas, that our legal immigration levels are overly restricted and do not match up to the reality of immigration in this country."

Mr. Sharry should be reminded that legal immigration is at its highest level in the history of the United States. Our nation granted permanent resident alien status to an average of 1 million people each year throughout the 1990s and 1.5 million last year. Mass immigration caused more than 70 percent of our 3.3 million person annual population growth during the 1990s — the fastest among industrialized countries. Census Bureau statistics indicate that we are on track to reach a half-billion U.S. residents by 2050 and 1 billion by 2100. In other words, we'll become the size of China today.

According to George Borjas, Harvard University professor of public policy, the negative impact of our mass-immigration-generated population growth includes: an annual taxpayer cost of more than $70 billion for public services (i.e., after subtracting immigrants' tax contributions); $133 billion in depressed wages for American workers; and one acre of wild land or farmland lost for each person added to the population.
Mr. Sharry apparently welcomes an increasingly crowded America with negative returns. Some of us don't.

Zach Boren
Carrying Capacity Network
Washington

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Note: CCN is anti-mass immigration but NOT anti-immigrant.