Month: August 2021

Border Surge And Drought Are Incompatible

By Joe Guzzardi

The federal government’s U.S. Drought Monitor indicates that nearly half the nation is suffering from abnormally dry drought conditions. States in the West are the most adversely affected, but parts of the Midwest and the East are classified as experiencing extreme, severe or moderate drought. The Pacific Northwest had not seen a spring this dry since 1924, and this is the second driest March to June on record for Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

In California and Nevada, reservoirs are low, approaching but not quite matching 2012 to 2016 levels. Continued drying increases wildfire risk throughout the region, reflected in several recent out-of-control incidents in northern California, which has more than 200 vulnerable communities. The Dixie Fire, California’s second largest in the state’s history, destroyed iconic Greenville, burned hundreds of homes and forced evacuations in the adjacent 48,000 acres. As of August 8, Dixie has torched more than 463,000 acres and is only 21 percent contained.

Nevada and California, both states in 100 percent drought conditions that range from moderate to exceptional, had record warm temperatures in June which escalated the severe effects, including fire potential, water temperature impacts on fish and increased evaporative demand. Drought impacts on pasture conditions, ecosystem health, water supply, recreation and fire potential have intensified and expanded.

Just as the National Weather Service predicts no relief in sight, neither do population analysts foresee a reduction of the numbers of new arrivals that will drink, cook with, bathe in, irrigate or flush with the increasingly scarce water normally available for everyday activities. California Gov. Gavin Newsom asked residents to voluntarily cut water use by 15 percent. Many but not all will comply. Posh resorts, golf clubs, baseball diamonds, college football fields as well as the rich and famous like the Kardashians likely won’t do their share. Post-pandemic California anticipates millions of visitors this summer season, and through 2023. Out-of-state tourists who pay an average $2,757 per week to visit California may take their 15-minute shower and opt for freshly laundered linens.

Whether California residents heed Newsom or whether visitors pay attention to their lodgings’ pleas to consume less water is beyond anyone’s control. But controlling the millions of future water consumers pouring across the Southwest border is well within the federal government’s power. At the current pace, by the end of his first year in office President Biden will have overseen and unconstitutionally sanctioned the unlawful entry of more than 2 million illegal immigrants. Add those 2 million to the autopilot annual 1 million lawful permanent residents and hundreds of thousands who arrive on employment-based visas but rarely return home, and more than 3 million new arrivals will join the country’s already overcrowded 330 million.

Here’s the simple formula: too many people will equal not enough water. Some areas have been dramatically hurt by too little water, and too rapid population growth. The Texas Commission on Environmental Equality found that since 1940 the population of the 10 largest sister cities that straddle the U.S.-Mexican border, an arid region already short of water, has exploded twentyfold, from 560,000 people to roughly 10 million today.

Without taking into consideration the ongoing border surge, the Census Bureau predicts that the nation’s mid-century population will exceed 400 million, a 25 percent increase from today’s level, and about 90 percent driven by immigrants and births to immigrants.

Don’t blame immigrants for the water crisis. The Biden administration graciously invited border crossers to live in the U.S., and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas facilitated their safe and orderly dispersal throughout the nation. After immigration officials apprehend the aliens, they’re released into the interior, often on charter flights. Eventually, they’ll receive the government’s full complement of affirmative benefits. Those who have come, and those who will continue to come. are here to stay. But the water that they’ll need can’t be manufactured. The looming, acute water shortage will create a hard time for all, immigrants and citizens alike.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Border Surge And Drought Are Incompatible

Border Surge And Drought Are Incompatible

Gov Lamm Supported Sensible Immigration

By Joe Guzzardi 

On July 29, Richard D. Lamm, Colorado’s three-term governor, 1975-1987, died of complications from a pulmonary embolism. He was a week away from his 86th birthday. Lamm was a Democrat who earned his J.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, served in the U.S. Army and became an attorney for the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Commission. Once his third gubernatorial term ended, Lamm was executive director of the University of Denver’s Center for Public Policy, and wrote several books.

During his 12 years as Colorado’s governor, Lamm spoke out unflinchingly about the issues most important to him – protecting the fragile environment, defending women’s rights and promoting commonsense immigration. Lamm, who criticized overdevelopment and the relentless sprawl it spawns, opposed Interstate 470, a proposed circumferential highway around the Denver Metropolitan area. Years later, and because of never-ending development, the highway was built. Today, Denver has some of the nation’s most congested highways, and much of Colorado’s open spaces are a distant memory as housing projects have paved over what was once rural land. Lamm knew and loved Colorado’s countryside; in 1974, running on his campaign to limit growth, he walked across the state to promote his platform.

Because it adds millions of new residents to the U.S.’s population annually, Lamm, unlike many Democrats with similar academic and professional credentials, bluntly criticized federal immigration policy as ill-conceived, destructive to the environment and harmful to low-wage American workers.

In 2003, Lamm gave his most widely known speech, “I Have a Plan to Destroy America.” At the time of Lamm’s speech, Congress had passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, and the Immigration Act of 1990. Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had signed the two legislative acts that opened the borders to more illegal immigration, and created more employment-based visas that, over the last three decades, helped displace millions of American low- and high-skilled workers.

Presciently, Lamm foresaw immigration’s growing, detrimental effect on the U.S., as well as the amassed power that its advocates had on Congress and the media. Lamm’s eight-point program, which he subtitled “and many parts of it are underway,” include, despite multiculturalism’s multiple global failures, making America a bilingual, bicultural country; encouraging immigrants to maintain their own language and culture instead of, as previous immigrant waves did, assimilating; ensuring that the fastest growing demographic is the least educated, thereby creating a second, permanent underclass; getting big business and powerful foundations to donate huge sums toward promoting ethnic identity, victimology and diversity. Lamm’s most compelling point noted that all of his above observations must be treated as “off limits…taboo.” Make sure that opposition is squelched on unfounded xenophobe and racist charges that end debate. Because immigration was “once good,” Lamm predicted that its advocates would insist that it “must always be good.” Lamm anticipated that the immigration-related problems he identified in 2003 would grow worse over the years to come.

Although often at odds with Lamm, especially about immigration, the Denver Post’s editorial board wrote a mostly gracious commentary about the former governor, and referred to him as “a kind, humble and generous man…. a man of conviction… whose policy on immigration was drastically different from that of the modern Democratic Party.…”

I knew Dick from several Washington, D.C., conferences where we met, began and maintained a friendship. On a trip to Denver years ago, Dick and his wife, Dottie, invited me to their home for dinner. Dottie, once a Colorado U.S. Senate candidate, Dick and I spoke about his 2003 speech, and bemoaned how much of it had come true.

Dick enjoyed a long, full life. In an era where most politicians speak double talk or test which way the wind blows before addressing a crowd, Dick spoke his mind even when he knew his foes were ready to pounce. As the Postwrote: “Colorado will be poorer without him here offering his unvarnished and genuine takes on the most important policies of our time.”

Governor Lamm’s many allies in the uphill climb for stable, sustainable population and manageable immigration will deeply miss his strong, rational voice. The fierce battle that Dick predicted will be more challenging without him.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Gov Lamm Supported Sensible Immigration