As the Obama Administration enters its final two years, the White House, key Congressional leaders, ethnic lobbyists, and the Chamber of Commerce are intent on ensuring that illegal immigrants will not be repatriated to their homelands and both low- and high-skilled immigration will increase.
In our lead article, Rick Oltman reviews President Obama’s set of ten memorandums relating to immigration policy. The thrust is that there will be even less enforcement of the laws on the books, with prosecutorial discretion being liberally applied. As Mr. Oltman warns, “the actions described in these memoranda will be ‘fundamentally transforming the United States of America.’”
The Obama immigration initiatives can be blocked by Congress. Public opinion polling (such as by the Gallup organization) shows little support for increasing immigration levels. But at the insistence of the Chamber of Commerce, which spent over $70 million on congressional races in the recent midterm election, lawmakers have drafted bills offering additional visas for both low-skilled and allegedly “high-tech” workers. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) is the sponsor of a bill that would allow approximately 350,000 additional low-skilled foreigners to enter the country every year. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) plans to introduce legislation making more visas available for “high-tech” workers. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) is working with Republicans, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), to revamp the agricultural visa program by meeting the demands of agri-business for additional cheap, exploitable labor. [Laura Meckler, “GOP Readies Immigration Measures,” and Patrick O’Connor, “Chamber of Commerce Pushes Its Priorities,” Wall Street Journal, December 27-28, 2014, p. A4]
While national policy makers strive to increase the U.S. population through immigration, the “Less” is eventually bound to hit not just us, but the world at large. Walter Youngquist contends, “We are headed toward a future of less for every single nonrenewable that we have known in history.” Chris Clugston details the rising scarcity of nonrenewable resources in his important report (see page 15).
Writes Leon Kolankiewicz,
Earth’s population of 7.3 billion vastly exceeds the sustainable carrying capacity of the planet. The population boom of the last two centuries was only made possible by the discovery and ever more intensive exploitation (through brilliant technological innovation) of rich deposits of fossil fuels and mineral lodes that took millions of years to accumulate through natural processes. With the inevitable depletion of these concentrated stocks of nonrenewable resources, humanity will suddenly find itself in [a] perilous position….
Clearly, those of us concerned with these issues have our work cut out.