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Selected Letters to the Editor on Colorado, overpopulation, and immigration (2001) See related letters: this year, 2003, 2002, and 2000 - many are excellent. Also see CAIR Letters to Elected Officials Friendly persuasions of an ally - Denver Post, October 7, 2001 Mexico has an explosive population growth rate it refuses to address, more than tripling its numbers the last 50 years and currently on a 32-year doubling course. Mexico will not educate its children, except of course the children of the Mexican elites. And why should Mexico do the right things when with the acquiescence, even encouragement, of a U.S. government driving under the drunken influence of the cheap-labor lobby, Mexico is allowed simply to export north its endless, uneducated numbers. Friends don't dump on friends. When the Mexican foreign minister said the relatively innocuous, "The United States has every right and reason to seek revenge," he was immediately excoriated, with calls for his resignation by Mexican legislators screaming, "It isn't our fight" and "We don't support America's war of terrorism" - hardly the friendly persuasions of an ally. This year the U.S.-Mexican border has seen a 20 percent increase in border crossing attempts by non-Mexican illegal aliens from around the world. On the infamous Sept. 11, 96 Iraqis along with the usual thousands of Mexicans were staging runs at our unnecessarily porous border. That's why when the U.S. House of Representatives, including not just Congressman Tom Tancredo but four of Colorado's six members, voted overwhelming to put our military on our borders, that vote called "xenophobic and racist" by our friends down south. Meanwhile, ABC News reported "Mexican street vendors do brisk 'bin Laden is my hero' T-shirt' sales." Mexico is not our enemy, but with "friends" like that.... MARLENE GUERRERO MIKE McGARRY The writers are spokespersons for the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform. Mass Immigration Reduction Act of 2001 - Colorado Daily, September 4, 2001 by Charles King Congressman Tom Tancredo recently introduced his "Mass Immigration Reduction Act of 2001." His bill would NOT BAN legal immigration, as erroneously reported by the Denver Post(Aug.10), but simply REDUCE legal immigration from one million to a reasonable 300,000, including up to 25,000 refugees, during each of the next five years. Former Gov. Dick Lamm strongly supports Tancredo's bill. The five years in Tancredo's proposal would give the American public as well as Congress and the President time to consider our immigration policy, and reform it into one that will put the longterm interests of America and American citizens first, NOT the interests of foreign nations (and special interests within America). At the same time Tancredo's bill would provide time for the further assimilation of millions of legal immigrants already here. All that Republican Tancredo and Democrat Lamm want, as all reasonable American citizens, new or old, want, is that our immigration policies preserve, not destroy, America as a nation of free people and a desirable country in which to live. In no way does Tancredo's proposal "overreach," as the Denver Post illogically charged (Aug. 10, 2001). America is indeed the world's lifeboat, as former governor Lamm has pointed out. If too many of the world's six billion people, about two billion of whom live in abject poverty, muscle their way aboard our ship, we all sink. Those who argue that we all profit economically from excessive legal immigration and the millions of illegal aliens here are wrong. Some segments of our economy may indeed reap short-term economic gains from mass immigration, illegal as well as legal. But their gains are private, for individuals, not for the nation; they are only short-term profits made at the expense of the long-term interests of all Americans, our nation. Those longterm interests include avoiding overpopulation and its devastating evils, as well as the preservation of our nation's socio-political-cultural heritage. The America immigrants now flock to didn't just happen. It is the agonized product of a distinguished history, one costing the blood, sweat, and tears of several generations of hard-working immigrants who built America's infrastructure. and made us what we are today, the envy of the world. They were legal immigrants who respected our political culture and heritage, and contributed to America's preservation and advancement. Respect and love for America, not racism, inspires the opposition of the vast majority of Americans to illegal immigration as well as to EXCESSIVE legal immigration. Illegal immigrants of today, from whatever country, who sneak in, and stay here illegally, obviously have little respect for what America, a nation of laws, stands for. But it's not just illegal aliens who disregard our laws. Was it not, alas!, our elected national lawmakers who winked at our national laws when they granted up to 3.8 million illegal immigrants amnesty (pardon, in effect, a reward, for breaking our nation's laws) in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986? Five years later Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1991, then failed to fund the Act adequately to stop illegal entries into the country. In effect, many of our political leaders have betrayed our national longterm interests, including our national sovereignty, for a few paltry votes or short-term financial gain. A nation without borders is, in effect, NOT a nation. President Clinton sent troops to Haiti "to defend our borders," yet he and Congress allowed millions of immigrants to violate this nation's borders-first by their illegal entry, then by living here illegally. Millions more entered legally, then stayed on illegally- after their visas had expired. Though President W. recently announced that he had ruled out a "blanket amnesty" for illegal aliens, he is now reported as entertaining a proposal (to be discussed with Mexican President Vicente Fox on Sept.5) that he and Congress institute a guestworker program for ALL illegal aliens. If Bush "junior" follows through on this outrageous proposal which would disguise a mass amnesty plan by calling it a guestworker proposal, he will have betrayed America. Did he not swear as President to uphold our laws, and to defend our nation's interests from all enemies, foreign and domestic? As Americans, we can't have it both ways. Either we stand up and reform our immigration policies-and do it soon, or we see our way of life permanently undermined, and the United States transformed into the Disunited States of America. With immigrants accounting for up to 90 percent of our future population growth, it won't take long for us to become an overpopulated AND divisive nation of, say 571 million people, the figure given by ex-Governor Dick Lamm. But nevermind all that, say the mindless advocates of open borders , many of them in high places. Don't worry, be happy. But their sentimental hogwash won't cut it for long. Sooner or later, when our national economy turns sour, and overpopulation literally chokes us, we Americans will find ourselves living no longer in America, either politically or economically, but in a scarcely recognizable Third World nation of half a billion people. By 2200, maybe a billion-right you are, spelled with a "b." Unlike most members of Congress and both Presidents Clinton and Bush, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo and former three-term Colorado Governor Dick Lamm have the guts to speak up for America. All they ask is that our national government protect our borders and enforce our laws. They are patriots, not racists. Neither is anti-immigration or anti-immigrant. Neither am I. We need only look at California's explosive growth to see Colorado's future - Rocky Mountain News, January 20, 2001 We need only look at California's explosive growth to see Colorado's future The "growth is inevitable" mentality held by many, and displayed in David Lipson's Jan. 13 letter, is exactly why others and I are forming Beyond Growth-Colorado, a statewide organization dedicated to ending growth. That's right, no more growth! Not "managed," "responsible," "controlled," or the oxymoron "smart growth," but no growth. A human body grows to its natural, full maturity, and any growth beyond that is a pathological condition that will consume and eventually destroy its host - the long-anticipated and feared "overshoot and crash," which every true environmentalist knows is coming. Continuing to develop and nurture the body to optimal health makes sense. Force-feeding it growth steroids does not. We need only look at California to see Colorado's near future. In 1965 California was a state of about 16 million. It is now a huge 34 million, and it will be, in 25 short years, a gargantuan 54 million. California's Central Valley, a breadbasket to the country and the world, is expected to be 50 percent bulldozed to accommodate its explosive human growth rate. Add the water and energy crises that California may never overcome, and it's easy to see why Californians are fleeing to Colorado and exactly where Colorado is quickly heading. Rushing more polluting power plants into production to fuel even more cancerous growth in California is not the answer. Halting growth, while developing and maintaining a healthy state, is the only answer. Mike McGarry, Aspen Growth moving us away from sustainability - Rocky Mountain News, January 18, 2001 This letter is written to correct misinformation in the Jan. 12 letter "Growth is inevitable - let's deal with it." Growth is essential for immature organisms, but when adults grow, in the best case it is obesity while in the worst case it is cancer. Accepting population growth is an immature response to our most serious problem. We want a sustainable world. The First Law of Sustainability is: "Population growth and/or growth in the rates of consumption cannot be sustained." The current population growth along the Front Range is moving us away from sustainability. Population growth never pays for itself. The recent enormous increases in the cost of natural gas to heat our homes is just one of the many costs of growth that must be paid for by the entire public. It is not rocket science to observe that if demand for natural gas grows more rapidly than supplies, the prices will go up. Supplies are finite, so demand growth cannot be accommodated for ever. We simply refuse to learn. The next crisis for Coloradans will be rolling blackouts and enormous hikes in electric rates, all due to population growth. Essentially, all of Europe is at zero or negative population growth. The U.S. is the only industrialized country with big population growth, and Colorado's growth rate is about twice the rate for the U.S. Our constitutional freedoms of life, liberty and the ability to pursue happiness in Colorado are all being seriously reduced by population growth. Colorado's growth is not the result of people just deciding to move here. It is the successful result of decades of well-financed campaigns to recruit people to move their businesses to Colorado. It is interesting to speculate why our leaders are spending such large sums to hasten the destruction of Colorado and raise the cost of living for all of us. Perhaps it is because so many Coloradoans believe growth is inevitable. Albert A. Bartlett Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder Impacts of population on Earth are enormous - Rocky Mountain News, January 15, 2001 The Jan. 15 letter by Molly Archibold claimed that the world overpopulation problem was a popular misconception. Archibold based her argument on an overly simplistic idea, commonly offered by those who don't want to face reality, that all of the world's population could be placed within an area the size of Texas, with an eighth of an acre for every family of four, and the rest of the world would be vacant. However fine this fact may seem, it ignores the real impact of human overpopulation. These impacts, which are well-documented and supported by many of the best scientific minds in the world, include rapidly diminishing species of animals and fish, loss of habitat and wilderness, increasing demands for limited natural resources such as oil, minerals, coal, natural gas, wood and fresh water, and increased air and water pollution. And the world population is growing at an ever increasing rate. The current impacts of overpopulation cannot be dismissed with simplistic comparisons such as Archibold's. Overpopulation will be a major issue at some point in the future and I, for one, do not want to envision a world where most or all of the world's species of animals and plant life have been reduced to living in zoos, wildlife parks, botanical gardens or the like. This issue is a complicated one that will not be resolved with simplistic arguments. Mark Bliss, Lakewood See related letters: this year, 2003, 2002, and 2000 - many are excellent. Also see CAIR Letters to Elected Officials Home |