The “liberal coalition” is largely silent on the country’s rapid population growth caused nearly entirely by legal immigration and its impact on the environment, Center for Immigration Studies Director of Research Steve Camarota says.
During an interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Daily, Camarota said that while the political left has made a point to bring environmental concerns to the forefront of national debate in recent years, the country’s mass legal immigration policy — whereby about 1.6 million foreign nationals resettle in the U.S. every year — goes unmentioned.
LISTEN:
“The U.S. population grows a little without immigration, but most of all of the population increases come from immigration,” Camarota said. “So that’s the big question, if you add 75 million people, doesn’t that mean more cars on the road? It means more land development. It means more greenhouse gas emissions.”
Camarota continued:
It seems almost certain that whatever environmental goal you have, having a dramatically larger population because of government policy of allowing so many people in legally, and also tolerating illegal immigration, will have important environmental implications and issues of traffic, pollution, congestion, and sprawl. It’s interesting to note that no one disputes those numbers … and yet we don’t have any kind of national debate about it. [Emphasis added]
In fact, there was a time where environmental groups were concerned about population growth,but because it’s driven by immigration, the environmental groups are generally a part of the progressive coalition or the liberal coalition within the Democratic party, they’ve dropped any discussion of population growth as a concern and simply seem to argue that we just have to manage it. [Emphasis added]
But, common sense, as well as scientific literature, suggests that population [growth] is a variable that impacts the environment. It’s not the only factor and you probably can do things to mitigate it, but it’s an important question if you’re trying to preserve environmental quality. Doesn’t adding 75 million more people make that more difficult? [Emphasis added]
As Breitbart News has reported, the Census Bureau projects that the U.S. will add about 75 million residents to the population by 2060, driving the population to an unprecedented 404 million. Nearly all of this rapid population growth is driven by current legal immigration levels.
Despite plans like the Green New Deal and claims that climate change will lead to environmental doom in a decade if not addressed, elected Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) do not acknowledge immigration-driven population growth as a factor in preserving the environment.
Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), David Perdue (R-GA), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) have reintroduced the RAISE Act — which would cut legal immigration levels in half — that stabilizes the U.S. population to a sustainable population of about 340 million residents.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.