Population and US immigration policy

[questor]

Moderation note: The first few posts of this thread originally appeared in, Population and US immigration policy. They were moved because they were only distantly related to the original thread’s subject of global warming

Some statistics on ethnic birth rates in the USA...

''Transcript
Philip C. Chinn:
What are the current fertility rates by racial and or ethnic groups?
Mary Kent:
The total fertility rate (TFR) or average number of children per woman given current birth rates-- was 2.1 children per woman in 2005. Among racial and ethnic groups, the TFR for highest for Hispanics at 2.9 children per woman, compared with 1.8 for non-Hispanic whites, 2.0 for non-Hispanic blacks, 1.9 for Asian and Pacific Islanders, and 1.7 for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Among Hispanics, the rates are highest for Mexicans and Central Americans—who are our fastest growing Hispanic groups.''
Population Reference Bureau PRB Discuss: U.S. Birth Rate: Still Fueling Population Growth?

This could mean that it's not the hated Evangelicals exploding the population, but maybe the illegal immigrants. Is this an advantage of immigration policy?

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by questor

This could mean that it's not the hated Evangelicals exploding the population, but maybe the illegal immigrants. Is this an advantage of immigration policy?

Questor, perhaps this is a bit
Perhaps you want to post it to one of the immigration policy threads?

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by questor

Population Reference Bureau PRB Discuss: U.S. Birth Rate: Still Fueling Population Growth?

This could mean that it's not the hated Evangelicals exploding the population, but maybe the illegal immigrants. Is this an advantage of immigration policy?

I believe questor misrepresents the analysis and opinions states in the online discussion transcript to which he linked and extracted his quotes. From that transcript:

john crow:
how does fertility in illegal families effect our population figures
Mary Kent:
Yes, some of the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants have had children in the US, although a disproportionate share of people here illegally are single and do not have children, according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center report.

This report estimated there were about 5 million children in illegal immigrant households in 2005—and about two-thirds of them had been born in the United States. To put this in perspective, the total U.S. child population (defined as under age 18), was about 73 million in 2005, so children born to illegal immigrants account for less than 10 percent of U.S. children.[/quote]The “less than 10 percent” Mary Kent states is, more precisely, less than 4.6%.

So illegal immigrants do contribute a small amount to U.S. fertility.

Remarkably, a question in the interview appears to suggest why questor concluded that illegal immigrants contribute excessively to the US birth rate, even though the transcript directly contradicts this conclusion:

Dan Gardner:
Media commentators often note that the United States has a higher fertility rate than Canada, Britain and other Western countries but the explanations they offer (eg. the US is more religious, therefore...) seem to be shaped by their own preferences or ideology rather than proper research. Can you please explain what demographers believe are the key reasons why the US fertility rate is higher than that of other modern countries?
Mary Kent:
The short answer is that we don’t know why fertility is higher in the U.S. than in Europe and other industrialized countries (or conversely why it sank so low in these countries). It is true the largest U.S. minority group—Hispanics—has much higher fertility than other racial and ethnic groups (about 2.9 children per woman), but this explains just part of the difference. The rate for the U.S. majority population: non-Hispanic whites—was 1.8 in 2005, still well above the national average for Canada and for all but a few European countries, including France and Sweden.

In addition to the social aspects you mentioned (maybe Americans are more religious, traditional, family-oriented), some demographers have offered these economic explanations: It is easier for U.S. women to balance children and employment because there are more options for part-time jobs, flexible work schedules, and day care. In addition, there is some evidence that women’s wages are better relative to men’s in the U.S. – so children may be more affordable for American couples.

Additional difference between the U.S. and lower-fertility countries that might explain some of the difference: The teen birth-rate, although at an all time low, is higher in the U.S. than these other countries. And, some birth control methods are more easily available in Europe than in the U.S.

Questor’s conclusion also appears to assume that “Hispanic” and “illegal immigrant” are synonyms. The total Hispanic population of the US, however, is estimate to be about 44 million, while the total number of illegal immigrants in the US is estimated to be about 12 million, of which about 81%, or 10 million, are Hispanic. Therefore, the majority – about 75% - of Hispanics cannot be illegal immigrants. (Sources: wikipedia articles “Illegal immigration to the United States” and “Demographics of the United States”)

Questor, I suggest you more thoroughly read the sources from which you reach your conclusions, and more carefully validate you opinions against available data. Couching an opinion contradicted by the source given in support of it in the form of a “this could mean” question is, IMHO, a poor and deceptive technique.

[questor]

Craig, there are certain problems here.
1. We do not have a clue how many illegals there are in the US.
2. Since we don't know, we don't know how many children are being born to them.
3. We do know that our borders are still porous and the flood from the South still continues, albeit possibly somewhat abated.
What we do know is that these are generally untrained day work individuals that put a strain on our welfare, education, medical, and governmental systems. They use our water, gas, housing inventory, roads and produce 4.5
lbs of trash per day. Is this a good thing? What is the benefit to our society?

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by questor

Craig, there are certain problems here.
1. We do not have a clue how many illegals there are in the US.

Although there is uncertainty to the census of any population cohort, I don’t believe it’s accurate to say “we do not have a clue how many illegals there are in the US”. As the many links from the wikipedia article “Illegal immigration to the United States” linked to by my previous post show, many high-quality studies estimating this population size have been and continue to be conducted. The consensus of these studies is that the number is about 12 million. The highest estimates put the number at 20 million. An estimated 2 million people born in the US, and thus generally assumed to be citizens due to the 14th Amendment, have parents who are illegal immigrants.

Originally Posted by questor

2. Since we don't know, we don't know how many children are being born to them.

As described above, yes, we do know with high confidence and limited precision the number of illegal immigrants in the US, and how many children are being born to them

Originally Posted by questor

3. We do know that our borders are still porous and the flood from the South still continues, albeit possibly somewhat abated.
What we do know is that these are generally untrained day work individuals that put a strain on our welfare, education, medical, and governmental systems. They use our water, gas, housing inventory, roads and produce 4.5 lbs of trash per day.

This seems to me a reasonable, but not something I can immediately support. Questor, can you back these and your previous claims up with links or references to a reliable source?

Originally Posted by questor

Is this a good thing? What is the benefit to our society?

These questions are, central to the debate over US immigration policy, and by extension, many other countries’.

The predominant argument I’ve heard that illegal immigration is a good thing, and of benefit to US society, is that due to their willingness to work for less than legal minimum wages, illegal immigrants reduce the cost of goods and services in the US. Others argue that, while this low-cost labor pool reduces the cost of goods and services, it also reduces the wages of legal US citizens, resulting in a zero or negative net benefit. Others, such as Congressman and recent US Presidential candidate Ron Paul, argue that the reduced cost of labor by illegal immigrants is not in general and/or significantly passed to consumers, but taken as profit by their employers.

I’m unaware of any high-reliability economic analysis of modeling supporting any of these positions. Highly speculative discussions of the debate can be found in many online articles, such as the NCBJ article “Anti-Immigration Policies Could Affect Labor Force, Consumer Prices”)

My personal opinion is that the unregulated, clandestine labor is not beneficial to society, and that the labor-driven illegal immigration currently seen in the US should be “brought above the table” by requiring proper documentation, regulation, and enforcement of regulations of both immigrants, and their US employers. In short, I believe the problem of illegal immigration into the US to not be due to criminal intentions by immigrants, but the failure of the US government to properly regulate them and their employers. Although I know of employers of illegal aliens who I don’t believe harbor criminal intent, I’m uncertain if all individuals and businesses so involved lack or have criminal intent.

[questor]

Craig, here are a few links to information. Note the date on this one is 2006..


''Illegal immigrants in the US: How many are there?
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

No matter how the Bush administration and Congress act on illegal immigration in the US, any legislation or executive order is unlikely to answer the question: How many immigrants living in the country today are here illegally?
Depending on the source, the numbers range widely - from about 7 million up to 20 million or more.

For environmentalists, a growing split over immigration.
Nailing down such figures is impossible. Even settling on a ballpark figure is difficult given the official sources: the US Census, apprehensions along the US-Mexico border, and social service agencies. For one thing, illegal immigrants avoid responding to census questionnaires, states a 2005 report by Bear Stearns Asset Management Inc.''

Crime at the border...
http://www.reuters.com/article/world...14060972008042
Economic costs...
Economic costs of mass immigration (legal and illegal immigration) - CAIR - Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform
National security..
Agents Scour Nation's Critical Facilities for Illegal Aliens, Thursday, July 5, 2007, By Kevin Mooney
Cost of cheap labor..
Center for Immigration Studies
Anchor babies..
$6 Billion a Year for Mexican “Anchor Babies?”
Illegal aliens threaten<br>U.S. medical system
These are but a few of the voluminous articles available to anyone wishing to read about the immigration problem. After you read these, please tell me your thoughts.