Five Ways Immigration-Driven Population Growth Impacts Our Environment
By Matthew Sussis on November 19, 2018
Population growth in the United States is almost entirely driven by the federal government's immigration policy. The Census Bureau predicts that the nation's population will grow from 325.5 million today to 403.7 million by 2060 — and 96 percent of that increase of 78 million people is due to the current historically high level of immigration. As both Americans and as global citizens, we have an obligation to consider how such rapid growth might impact the planet around us.
As outlined in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), federal agencies are supposed to weigh the environmental impact of any new policies they introduce. Strangely enough, federal agencies have almost completely ignored these laws when it comes to immigration, even though immigration-driven population growth has a huge impact on the environment.
But how exactly does population growth affect America's natural resources and Americans' ways of life? Doesn't America, with its vast swaths of land in the middle of the country, have enough room to accommodate far more people than it currently does? In two now-deleted tweets that went viral last week, New Yorker journalist Osita Nwanevu mocked Americans who are concerned about immigration as "Elmer Whoever
" given that middle America is full of "vast and mostly empty country where 40 percent of the land is for cows":
https://cis.org/Sussis/Five-Ways-ImmigrationDriven-Population-Growth-Impacts-Our-Environment
