Immigration by the Numbers: This video should be required viewing for every liberal politician

View Comments (6)

• This man's numbers don't square with readily available information. For instance, he's advocating a return to 1965 levels of immigration in order to moderate population growth, but available data (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_future_population) indicates that the American population growth prior to 1965 was at a higher rate than at any time since 1965. Putting his numbers aside, however, his analysis assumes that immigration can be controlled by simple government fiat. But,immigration is about something we have that other people want: it's about the market for presence in America. Conservative economic theory holds, correctly, that the market always wins. There are jobs here and there are civil rights here and there is room here. We have the largest economy in the world and more land per person than three quarters of the planet. (The world arithmetic average population density [excluding Antartica] is about 132 people per square mile. The median population density worldwide - approximately 205 people per square mile - is in Sierra Leone. Population density in the U.S. is only about 82 people per square mile.) About 175 countries in the world have a higher population density than does the United States. We have it (jobs, rights and room) and they want it: can border control measures neutralize the law of supply and demand? How much are we willing to spend and what are we willing to do as Americans, to preserve the population density advantage we enjoy over three quarters of the world? If we can't keep drugs or wolves or ducks from coming across our border, how will we keep men and women who want a better life for themselves and their children from coming across the border? We've got it, they want it and all we can do is either run up their cost of acquiring it or make ourselves sufficiently unattractive so as to disillusion them from their desire to be here? Immigration law is totally screwed up; but there are not enough dogs or guns or electronic fences in the world to fix it.

  • "...there are not enough dogs or guns or electronic fences in the world to fix it."

    Sure there are... all we lack is a government that is willing to implement them.

• Because of liberalism this country will be like Bangladesh in 100 years.Or actually more like the movie Idiocracy.

• this is just scary. controlled legal immigration is one thing but illegal immigration is a complete different thing and it will bankrupt this country. Once that happens everyone who is not a citizen will just wash their hands and move back to their countries of origin with their kids.

  • Yes, he is talking about LEGAL immigration. FOr every 1 legal immigrant we welcome, hoe many illegals are coming through uncounted?

• I'm taking a course on economic population and demography, and another in the history of economic thought. If Beck were to demonstrate this seminar today, he would have to add another teir to the chart.