Why an immigration moratorium would also benefit legal immigrants

Today's legal immigration averages one million a year, much higher than the peak levels of immigration, even including the so-called "Golden Age" of immigration in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The numbers of legal immigrants from 1924 until 1965 averaged less than 200,000 a year. The United States did quite well over those 40 years during which most newcomers were able to assimilate and contribute to their new home land. Drastically lower levels of legal immigration -- resulting in less competition for jobs -- produced an expanding economy, rising wages, benefits, and working conditions for U.S. and foreign-born American workers and created the American middle class, an unprecedented standard of living for all while fighting and winning the Cold War and becoming the envy of every country in the world.

Then U.S. population exploded from 203 million in 1970 to over 305 million in 2009, with immigrants and their U.S.-born descendants accounting for 70% of the increases. In the last 15 years, more than 50 million people, largely low-skilled, have been added to the U.S. population. Due to many of our domestic and foreign policies, the United States changed from being the world's most prosperous nation in the 1960's to the greatest debtor country in human history in the last several years.

Presently, more than 10 million Americans, including legal immigrants of diverse backgrounds, are unemployed. Furthermore, 47 million people in this country are without health insurance, with immigrants and their U.S.-born children under 18 contributing to over 70% of the growth of the uninsured population in this country. Our schools and other infrastructure are also overburdened. Therefore, the federal government should seriously enforce our immigration laws across the board, so that we can put adult able-bodied welfare recipients, non-violent prison inmates and other unemployed low-skilled legal residents to work in jobs currently held by illegal migrants. Enforcement has proven effective according to many recent news reports.

Although some immigrants are great assets to the United States, our economy is no longer labor-intensive. We are borrowing from China and other countries to finance our current needs. Instead of adopting the misnamed "comprehensive immigration reform" promoted by open border advocates, which could add over 120 million people to the United States over the next 20 years who will need jobs, health care and other expensive social services, Congress should enact some sort of immigration moratorium. Such a time-out would give us a chance to effectively address many problems affecting all legal residents, which are not caused by immigration, but are exacerbated from exploding U.S. population growth.

Since 10% of the 4.3 million babies born in the U.S. in 2006 were to mothers between 15 and 19, we should also increase efforts to reduce teen pregnancies, for the fiscal, environmental and economic health of this nation.