Not just about the numbers

One of the more infuriating political lie-names I’ve heard recently is the one used by a lobbying group that supports dramatically reducing legal immigration to this country. The group calls itself “NumbersUSA.”

Unfortunately, the group’s use of the seemingly objective word “numbers” in its name is not the most infuriating aspect of its message.

The group ran a national TV ad during a recent Republican presidential debate. Various speakers delivered the following message: “The immigration debate should not be about the color of people’s skin or their country of origin ... The debate should be about the numbers.

Should Congress give work permits to 1 million new legal immigrants again this year, when 20 million Americans of all colors, national origins and religions are having trouble finding jobs?”

NumbersUSA clearly doesn’t mean we should literally be debating about the numbers. Rather, the members hope to sneak their faulty assumptions and perverse values into viewers’ minds while coating the message in a layer of professed objectivity.

Let’s take a look at what they’re sneaking in. First, when talking about how the debate should not focus on factors such as national origin, the group is clearly assuming that it’s only wrong to discriminate on that basis once someone is already an American.

They clearly think it’s perfectly okay to tell a Guatemalan that, simply because he wasn’t born here, he should be made to wait years to take part in the freer, more open society he wishes to join.

Second, the group makes the related assumption that people already in this country are more deserving of finding a job here than those who are just arriving. That’s why the group pits new legal immigrants against the native unemployed population.

Astoundingly, this assumption ignores the fact that people who are trying to immigrate here are usually doing so because they want jobs, too. In addition to the group’s shamelessly deceptive commercial, we have its new website, ChangeTheNumbers.

The site focuses on four areas (population growth, oil use, carbon footprint and green space) to impress upon its visitors the allegedly dire consequences of our current immigration patterns.

Because leaving immigration at current levels will increase the first three factors and decrease the fourth at faster rates than NumbersUSA would like, the group advocates reducing legal immigration to 1970 levels, when Congress allowed in 250,000 people per year.

The problem underlying the analysis is the group’s silliest assumption yet: If fewer foreigners are allowed into this country, then the increased oil use, increased carbon footprint and decreased green space they would have otherwise caused won’t happen at all. If they weren’t assuming this, then they would be advocating decreased birth rates worldwide.

In reality, allowing fewer foreigners into this country will not keep oil prices down because the price of oil is greatly affected by global demand, and foreigners will still demand oil even while in their own countries.

This means they will also be adding to humanity’s carbon footprint, and the fact that people everywhere always need space means that the reductions in green space, instead of being eliminated, will simply take place outside this country.

Astonishingly, the group makes no mention of the fact that, compared to the rest of the world, America is still dramatically underpopulated. Countries like Mexico, China and India are all more than the world average population density of 122 people per square mile (at 142, 363 and 953, respectively).

The U.S. has just 83 people per square mile, which means it’ll take  more than 40 years for us to reach the current world average, even at today’s immigration rates.

These facts bring us to the final absurdity of the NumbersUSA position: The group assumes that new Americans, those born here and those who immigrate here, are nothing but problems, bringing with them higher oil prices and a damaged environment.

The group ignores the fact that people can not only cause problems but also solve them. After all, every new mouth to feed is accompanied by a brain that can think and two hands that can create.

As an advocate of unrestricted immigration and an opponent of those who would attempt to dictate any group’s birth rate, I wish NumbersUSA would regroup and try to approach this issue more honestly.

They should just admit to the public its real reason for wanting to restrict foreigners’ freedom of movement: pure xenophobia.

­— jarlower@indiana.edu