Essay About Twenty-Year Increase And Number Of People

Analysis Of The Immigration Problem
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Analysis of the Immigration Problem
The world has gone through a revolution and it has changed a
lot. We have cut the death rates around the world with modern medicine
and new farming methods. For example, we sprayed to destroy mosquitoes
in Sri Lanka in the 1950s. In one year, the average life of everyone
in Sri Lanka was extended by eight years because the number of people
dying from malaria suddenly declined.
This was a great human achievement. But we cut the death rate
without cutting the birth rate. Now population is soaring. There were
about one billion people living in the world when the Statue of
Liberty was built. There are 4.5 billion today. World population is
growing at an enormous rate. The world is going to add a billion
people in the next eleven years, thats 224,000 every day! Experts say
there will be at least 1.65 billion more people living in the world in
the next twenty years.
We must understand what these numbers mean for the U.S. Lets
look at the question of jobs. The International Labor organization
projects a twenty-year increase of 600 to 700 million people who will
be seeking jobs. Eighty-eight percent of the worlds population growth
takes place in the Third World. More than a billion people today are
paid about 150 dollars a year, which is less than the average American
earns in a week. And growing numbers of these poorly paid Third World
citizens want to come to the United States.
In the 1970s, all other countries that accept immigrants
started controlling the number of people they would allow into their
countries. The United States did not. This means that the huge numbers
of immigrants who are turned down elsewhere will turn to the United
States. The number of immigrants is staggering. The human suffering
they represent is a nightmare. Latin Americas population is now 390
million people. It will be 800 million in the year 2025. Mexicos
population has tripled since the Second World War. One third of the
population of Mexico is under ten years of age, as a result, in just
ten years, Mexicos unemployment rate will increase 30 percent, as
these children become young adults, in search of work. There were in
1990 an estimated four million illegal aliens in the United States,
and about 55 percent of them were from Mexico.
These people look to the United States. Human population has
always moved, like waves, to fresh lands. But for the first time in
human history, there are no fresh lands, no new continents. We will
have to think and decide with great care what our policy should be
toward immigration. At this point in history, American immigration
policies are in a mess. Our borders are totally out of control. Our
border patrol arrests 3000 illegal immigrants per day, or 1.2 million
per year, and Two illegal immigrants get in for every one caught. And
those caught just try again!
More than 1 million people are entering the U.S. legally every
year. From 1983 through 1992, 8.7 million of these newcomers
arrived-the highest number in any 10-year period since 1910. A record
1.8 million were granted permanent residence in 1991. Because present
law stresses family unification, these arrivals can bring over their
spouses, sons and daughters: some 3.5 million are now in line to come
in. Once here, they can bring in their direct relatives. As a result,
there exists no visible limit to the number of legal entries.
Until a few years ago, immigrants seeking asylum were rare. In
1975, a total of 200 applications were received in the U.S. Suddenly,
asylum is the plea of choice in the U.S., and around the world, often
as a cover for economic migration. U.S. applications were up to
103,000 last year, and the backlog tops 300,000 cases. Under the
present asylum rules, practically anyone who declares that he or she
is fleeing political oppression has a good chance to enter the U.S.
Chinese are almost always admitted, for example, if they claim that
Chinas birth-control policies have limited the number of children
they can have.
Right now, once aliens enter the U.S., it is almost impossible
to deport them, even if they have no valid documents. Thousands of
those who enter illegally request asylum only if they are caught. The
review process can take 10 years or more, and applicants