Newspaper article this weekend titled: Census: Foreign-born decline in South

Some tidbits:

The foreign-born population in Texas stood at nearly 2.9 million in 2000, almost half of whom arrived during the 1990's.

Arizona had one of the highest percentages of foreign-born residents who were not citizens: 70% in 2000, up from 61% the previous decade.

The population of foreign born residents are over 20% in the states of California and New York.

Data was only available for 33 states, so the mid-atlantic wasn't given. Seems like the data was more directed at the surge in hispanic immigration more so than the surge of mid-eastern/indian immigration in states not released as yet.

-- Granny Hen (cluckin along@cs.com), May 28, 2002

Answers

Granny, The lifeboat is sinking! Please tell us what you want us to do. You must have had a purpose for your post. Did you want suggestions?

Should we arbitrarily estabish a date and forcibly repatriate everyone who came after it? If so, please let us know which would be your choice; 2002? 1952? 1902? - or how about "Fourteen Hundred and Ninety Two, When Columbus Crossed the Ocean Blue"? Pick one in which you believe the lifeboat became overcrowded.

A hundred or so years ago, when life was less complicated, if we needed a canal dug or a railroad built, we would import them and when it was finished, just kill them if they wouldn't or couldn't go away. In these times of human rights and lawyers we would have to compensate them to return to the land of their ancestors, perhaps based on a points system, established by two stages. For instance, when each of us comes before the Citizen Eligibility Tribunal (assuming that you might need the help of two others), proven descent from the Mayflower would qualify us for 99% citizenship. (The other 1% is a gratuity for the First Americans who claim to have walked here 15,000 years ago. They have no green cards or documentation, but we won't quibble about it if they don't make a fuss). Then we deduct points for each succeeding generation until our ancestry is first recorded, at which point our basic percentage is firmly established, with no exceptions like, "Daddy's name used to be Koswinzky but my great, great grandma was the daughter of a Cherokee chief". Nope, we already gave them their 1%. In my case, my ancestor was said to have come with Leif Erikson, but they all went home again and the paperwork got lost so I'm back at almost zero %.

When everyone has been assigned their score, you move to Stage Two: Here you deduct points for race, religion, country of origin, complexion, sexuality, hair, age, preference of soccer over baseball (a dead giveaway - all the nasties play it!), etc, etc, and all that fail the cut get a free trip OUT! They can keep their hat on.

Admittedly this programme will be enormously expensive to implement and may even have to wait until the country sees another surplus, but economic savings could be made in certain areas like; withholding their Social Security payments and using military aircraft to repatriate those of Third World origin by parachute. Indeed, further savings could be made in the case of countries of extreme poverty or plain "uppityness" by withholding the parachute as well. A large patch of rags and raspberry jam in the middle of the village square with a few well-chosen words laminated in plastic would really bring home the message. Those bound for more affluent countries would have their expenses gladly paid by those governments in order to avoid the mess.

Alternatively, we could spend a few bucks on finding and fixing the leaks on their boat. Might be cheaper in the long run.

This is off the cuff. You've obviously given this a lot more thought than I have. Let us know your solution.

All the best,

-- Griff in OR (griff@hangnail.com), June 02, 2002.

Wow, Griff, that is some great writing! Very clever!

I am wondering, however, if perchance you may have jumped the gun in assuming granny hen was goin where you think she was goin. Course you might know somethin I don't about her; since I have only seen her name recently, is it possible (s)he has had a recent name change? :)

Peace,

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), June 02, 2002.

Hi Griff,

No. . . I haven't given it much thought. Perhaps that is why I thought the article interesting. I don't even recall my reasons for posting it, except I have a pile of things on my desk I was going to post that I thought people might find interesting. Note the time of the post. It was when the "MOVE" was at it's height, and I thought it would be nice to have some interesting things to discuss here.

Now that you have challenged me, I'm trying to think what I found interesting. Perhaps that the "non-citizen" percentage was so high. Or maybe so low. Hmmm. I don't know.

Now that I'm thinking even more about it. . . . . . I guess I think it is time to CLOSE the borders sort of/kind of. At least limit immigration till we can get a handle on it. There is too much immigration and the resources and infrastructure are being seriously challenged, not only in major metro areas, but in rural areas as well. I'm thinking in terms of water, schools, and housing. The farm acreage here in the east is disappearing so rapidly it is alarming.

It drives me nuts that the developers take the PRIME ag areas, instead of the scrub land to pave over.

And PS, I'm here because a "non-citizen" arrived on these shores 257 years ago.

So, since you asked *ME* what would *YOU* do to resolve the problems inherent with immigration numbers above even the recommended quotas?

-- Granny Hen (Cluckin along@cs.com), June 02, 2002.

I would start with making it clear up front that, unless you are a native born US citizen, you are not eligible for any welfare or any other free money.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), June 03, 2002.

Meant to add, "whether you are naturalized or not". It is no different from laws stating that no foreign-born citizen can be President or Vice-President.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), June 03, 2002.