Controlling our demographic destiny - impact of uncontrolled immigration on the United States population - Demystifying Multiculturalism - Cover Story

National Review, Feb 21, 1994 by Peter Brimelow, Joseph E. Fallon

AFTER 2050, Americans of European descent, who were 89 per cent of the U.S. population in 1960, will be a minority of less than 50 per cent, according to the estimates of Leon Bouvier, former vice president of the Population Reference Bureau and a leading authority on immigration. But there is nothing natural or inevitable about this demographic revolution. It is essentially a result of U.S. Government policies after 1965 that had the effect of decreasing immigration from Europe and increasing immigration from the Third World.

The plausibility of multiculturalism depends entirely on these policies. Halt them or reduce their impact and the demographic change becomes much less dramatic.

But let us see the facts in more detail. Legal immigration reached an all-time high in 1991, when 1.8 million people were accepted. The INS estimates that 12 to 13 million legal immigrants will arrive in the 1990s, another record, Up to 90 per cent will be from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Today, moreover, the birth rate among white Americans is below replacement level--generally defined as 2.1 children per woman. The post-1965 Great Wave of immigrants, therefore, is having a proportionately higher demographic impact than the pre-1925 Great Wave. Hence the shifting ethnic balance.

By the early 1980s, immigration was running at the equivalent of about 16 per cent of native births-- including births to immigrants once they are resident in the U.S.--and rising. This is comparable to the 19.9 per cent we saw in the first decade of this century.

The effect can be measured by expressing net immigration as a proportion of population growth. Population growth is the birth rate, less the death rate, plus net immigration. (See table below left.)

Thus, net immigration in the 1980s was contributing a significantly higher proportion of population growth (37.1 per cent) than it was in the legendary 1901-1910 decade (27.8 per cent). In fact, immigration had begun to contribute a higher share of population growth by the 1970s (32.6 per cent).

After a lull between 1925 and 1965, immigration bounded upward with the passage of the 1965 Act. By 1990, the numbers had more than quintupled. It is projected that future immigration will continue at the high levels last seen at the end of the nineteenth century. And its impact on the American population will be even more dramatic.

For immigrants have children too--in some cases at a faster pace than native-born Americans. So a better measure of demographic impact is the proportion of immigrants (foreign born) plus their second-generation children in the U.S. population. Let's call this total "foreign stock." In 1990, foreign-born constituted 8.5 per cent of the population, but "foreign stock" represented 18.3 per cent. And this proportion is building steadily.

Dr. Bouvier projects that post-1970 immigrants and all their descendants contributed 25 million people to the population between 1970 and 1990, and will make up about two-thirds of U.S. population growth during the 1990s. Thereafter, they will supply virtually all of the population growth, since pre-1970 Americans and their descendants will have achieved relative population stability.

By 2050, the Census Bureau estimates the U.S. population will reach 383 million. By Dr. Bouvier's count, at that point more than a third (36 per cent) of the population will be post-1970 immigrants and their descendants--a staggering 139 million people.

Note that if it were not for immigration, the U.S. would stabilize its population early in the next century--as every other developed country is expected to do. And if immigration were to be significantly reduced--a matter of government policy the demographic revolution, so beloved of multiculturalists, would simply not occur. In short, there is no "demographic destiny" compelling Americans to abolish their traditional identity and culture and to replace them with a multicultural mosaic reflecting a much trumpeted majority/minority America that may never come into existence. Whether America is shaped by immigrants or by Americans will be simply a consequence of public policy.

Net Immigration as %
Of Population Growth

 1901-1910 28%
 1911-1920 15%
 1921-1930 17%
 1931-1940 net emigration
 1941-1950 10%
 1951-1960  9%
 1961-1970 11%
 1971-1980 33%
 1981-1990 37%

 Future Projections

 1991-2000 35%
 2001-2010 41%
 2011-2020 45%
 2021-2030 53%
 2031-2040 63%

                         Pre       Post
        Total Pop.       1970      1970
Year   (Millions)       Stock     Stock
1970      203            203
1980      227            214       13
1990      249            227       22
2000      275            235       40
2010      298            240       58
2020      322            245       77
2030      345            247       98
2040      364            247      117
2050      383            244      139