Our Lecturer for the Video

His Population Models Since 1970: US Population in Green, Immigrant Population in Red.

Apparently, We've Built Much Infrastructure for Immigrants (2X the Previous Amount)

Wow! Look at the Radical Divergence in Population Models...Is That Right?

Holy Hannah. Look at Those Models. Who Came Up With Those? What Are the Underlying Assumptions in the Models that Make Them Wildly Divergent? (Hint: You Can't Tell)

A friend send me this video link in email with the subject "Compelling Discussion on Immigration".

I watched the video with great interest, and several thoughts came to mind ... one of which was that there may be a bunch of racist viewpoints proffered in the video, along with some invalid assumptions. I think he raises some valid points, but along with those are some pretty suspect points.

What do you think? My thoughts/reaction to the video is below, along with the specific times in the video of the statements I'm calling into question.

Not everything he said is true.

1. At 0:46, he mentions that we'll eventually stabilize our population, along with "all of the other advanced nations of the world". Let's assume "advanced" means Canada and Western Europe (correct me if i'm wrong).

   Most, if not all, of Canadian population models show a steady linear increase over time, regardless of the underlying model used to project the population: statcan.ca

   In Western Europe, population isn't stable - it's in freefall, and has been for some time... from 728 million in 2005 to a projected 654 million in 2050. This is causing significant problems in Europe, e.g.: the number of working people per citizen receiving social welfare benefits is falling to dangerous levels

   Among the lowest fertility rates in the world: Italy and Spain. grist.org

2. We didn't build 2X the number of roads for immigrants (~2:46) ... the underlying assumption that immigrants consume resources at a ratio of 1:1 w/r/t American citizens is false.

   As well, road congestion isn't increasing because immigrants are taking up the roads ... road congestion is increasing because American affluence is increasing - the number of cars per family is increasing, people are driving further and further for their jobs (because they can), and more single-vehicle trips are being made.

   Read: traffic isn't an immigration problem, it's a problem because Americans are addicted to their cars.

   It is a convenient vehicle (pun intended) to get people who are stewing in their cars while sitting in traffic to think god damn immigrants! taking up the roads ... however, next time you're stuck in traffic, look around - it won't be immigrants you'll see - it will be regular old bona-fide American citizens.

3. His population model is very misleading - if you look at the chart at ~8:40, you see that the immigrant population grows from 5M to gosh - i'm not even sure how many - it looks like ~100M, over 50 years.

   What he's assuming is that immigrant reproductive behaviors remain constant over time ... which means they would remain constant over changes in the standard of living, which is false.

   In reality, as people's standards of living increases, they have fewer children, which is why there's such a radical difference between the American population module and the immigrant population model.

   Additionally, predicting population growth is tricky business, and so most more reasonable population models have several projection lines, with labels like:

   "High Fertility, High Migration"

   and
   

   "Average Projected Population Increase"

   ... the fact that his model only has one projection, and it's proffered as if it's an accurate projection should be regarded with great suspicion. If he was honest, there would be ranges, along with his set of underlying assumptions for his model (as well as some transparency as to who created the model itself).

4. Also, we don't bring immigrants into the country because we feel bad for poor people in the world (~4:20 into the video) ... that's certainly not what his article is about (amnesty and such). His article is about illegal immigrants that come to this country looking for work - which we provide in copious amounts.

   The economy of California is wholly dependent on a constant supply of cheap migrant labor ... from grape pickers, to nannies, to landscapers, the list goes on and on.

   Immigrants are here because Americans hire them. if you want to stop immigration, don't ask Congress for help ... and don't spend 10s of millions of dollars building walls between Mexico and the US, because it won't work.

   If you want to stop immigrants from coming here, stop providing jobs for them. if there is no reason to come to America, then people will stop coming. Coming to America is oftentimes a perilous journey, you leave your family, your friends, and take your chances of being bilked out of your life savings by someone waiting to cheat you by guaranteeing safe passage to the US only to drop you off in the middle of the desert. Coming to this country illegally is a safe distance from a "no risk proposition".

5. And "destroying the social fabric of this country" (~8:00/8:48) is just plain racist. The implicit statement there being that immigrants are inherently destructive to institutions like family, and religion, and work (whereas in many cases immigrants are more family-oriented, as well as religion-oriented, than many Americans).
6. The answer to funding urban schools (~8:40) is to take some of the defense budget and put it towards education.

   Independent of immigration, we don't spend enough on education in this country... this has been going on for a very long time, decades before the recent discussions on immigration began. Blaming these fiscal problems on immigration is convenient in it's timing only.

   It's similar to the "blame traffic problems on immigrants" approach ... pick a problem, retro-fit the cause to accomplish your goals.

7. He also is "counting the hits and not the misses", which might be considered fair given his subject is "illegal immigration" (as opposed to "legal immigration"). E.g.: Microsoft just opened a research campus in Canada because they can't get enough visas to hire the foreign people they want to. If American wants to stay globally competitive in areas like technology, we need to be able to poach [quite frankly] the brightest people from around the world (read: there are several up-sides to immigration, he only focuses on the potential down-sides).

I agree w/ several things he said ... e.g.: this is a biggie:

• We can't solve the world's poverty problems by bringing everyone to this country.
• What i want to know is: what is he doing about poverty relief in other countries? One way to remove the impetus for illegal immigrants to come here is to help enable the development of good schools, roads, housing, utility infrastructure, etc in other countries.
• Say we all sign up and agree with this guy - let's leave the world's people where they are and help them where they currently live - okay, So, what's next? Is he going to start a fund for global poverty relief and third-world infrastructure development?

Something tells me he's not ...