There are two issues in the news almost daily, each of which may contain a solution to the other.
There are people sometimes referred to as illegals, illegal aliens, poisoners of our blood, anchor pregnancies, spies, vermin or some other pejorative reference. Other Americans try to minimize the stigma by calling them undocumented immigrants. Actually, the border crossers fall in a range of categories from criminal border violators, to refugees or asylum seekers. Some call it an invasion, although the crossers are seldom armed, violent or organized. Many are children, some unaccompanied, orphaned or even abandoned.
The other problem, which almost never seems to be discussed in the same article or even the same page, is the low birth rate in most industrialized countries. This ranges from almost 2 children per woman or completed family in the U.S. to 0.7 in Korea. The traditional American goal was 3 children, one boy, one girl, one to increase the population. An average of 2.1 children per woman is what statisticians recommend to maintain a stable population. In China it’s a man made, or actually government made, catastrophe. The one child policy collided with a male preference culture to create a population with too few women to reasonably sustain the population coupled with a voluntary lower birth rate consequence of industrialization.
This manifests itself in a shortage of employable working age residents almost everywhere but Africa. In many species of animal, population limit occurs almost naturally when the population exceeds the supply of food, water or range. One way nature compensates is a decrease in fecundity, fewer offspring or fewer surviving offspring. Some animals emigrate to a new range.
Our food supply is abundant. So abundant that we are a leading food exporter. All sorts of less efficient fad dietary cultures spring up. That obviously is not a problem. Water and energy could be limitations, but well within our engineering capability. We could run on just coal if we had to.
Land is not a valid issue; we in the US have an average of 96 people per square mile. Seven acres per person. Some Africans feed a family from one hectare (2.5 acres). The entire 7 billion people of earth could have a dance in an area smaller than Jacksonville, Fla., and be less crowded than a cruise ship.
America has always been a nation of immigrants, as far as science knows even the earliest humans in the Americas came from somewhere else. Most likely from Asia via the Bering strait, although there is some controversial evidence of early visitors from the East, the South Pacific or even space.
Regardless of origin, immigrants continue to express with their feet the desire to settle here as the best of all possible countries. Many take devastating risks and some die trying. The logical, humanitarian, or if you will, Christian, thing to do is find a way to assimilate them. The high estimate of immigrants is less than 4 million a year so it would take 100 years for the immigrant population to catch up to the current resident population, even at our low birth rate.
I prefer to think of immigrants as future taxpayers, consumers, entrepreneurs and often overqualified employees. Many of our most successful enterprises were started or enhanced by immigrants. (Brin, Chrysler, Einstein, Grove, Nadella, Huang) Other immigrants built the railroads and canals.
We need to build modernized equivalents to Ellis Island near the busiest border crossings, places where they can be vetted, identified, examined, quarantined or even deported if necessary. Then they can be integrated to a location where there are opportunities, or families to be reunited with. There is really no problem that can’t be fixed with sincere effort, administrative staffing, lawyers, medics, social work, architecture and engineering. Yes, it will be expensive, but the current policy is ruinously so.
Immigrants are the logical answer to the declining birthrate in geriatric countries. Twenty years from now, who else is going to weed your garden, paint your house, fix your car or fly your Jetliner? Don’t count on AI to do those things, every innovation since the plow or spinning wheel has created more jobs that it eliminated.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for West Hawaii Today. Send feedback to obenskik@gmail.com