This February marked what would have been have been my grandfather’s 125th birthday. We called my father’s dad, Zadie. He was born in Russia near Kletsk in 1895. An unwilling Jewish soldier in Tsar Nicolas’s army, he and most of his siblings sought a better life in the US. Not all made it here, which is why to this day I have cousins in Argentina. Yes, I am a proud granddaughter of an immigrant. But he and his relatives came here in the 1920’s, back when the US had a population of around 110,000,000 and the world’s population was just under 2 billion. US immigration was limited in those days for a lot of reasons that most would not be proud of today. Anti-Semitism and a general xenophobia informed much of our policy and kept legal immigration to a more ecologically sane number, approximately 150,000.
This century, the persecuted around the globe have increased. Their desperation runs deeper and their numbers climb higher. This is due to many factors, including global overpopulation, climate change pressures, the hangovers of colonialism and the ravages of the US military industrial complex which have kept developing countries in poverty. No one blames refugees for trying to get to a country of apparent riches. I am certainly glad my relatives were able to get in. I have unconditional empathy for those seeking entrance to a country, which promises a better life, even though our racism and xenophobia roots have not disappeared.
The trouble is that due exponential growth, medical advances and a huge increase in legal immigration limits over the years, the US has nearly tripled to an unsustainable 327,000,000. So has immigration policy stayed low to compensate for the higher population? No it has not. At about 1.1 million, legal immigration has grown about 6-fold. To be blunt that is half-assed backwards. Our dominant story has followed the poem on the statue of liberty without any regard to the physical, ecological limits that are built into every country’s landscape, including our own. Over a million new drivers, job seekers, and consumers of limited water supplies are now added each year because we feel it is our moral duty to absorb those in need. Our public discourse has shunned all conversation about bringing sanity back into our immigration policies. We need to stress that we also have a moral duty to preserve our fragile ecosystems. Officials in both political parties need to show some courage, integrity and encourage this much needed conversation.
All who care about this country and its environment should join in a chorus of reducing the number of legal immigration back to the days when my grandfather arrived in a ship to Boston harbor. Policies need to reflect the needs for preservation of habitat for wildlife and to protect our local natural resources. We behave as if we expect to avoid congestion, large carbon footprints, water shortages, increases in solid waste and air pollution while adding over 1 million new consumers into our country. If we continue with current immigration policies we can expect an additional 75 million Americans by 2060. According to Global Footprint Network, we passed our sustainable number at 150 million. Overshoot is here and eating away at our promises. If clean and available water, open space, less traffic congestion and lower carbon footprints are truly valued, we must look to all sources of population growth and address them. Fertility rates and immigration are both causes of US overpopulation. As such they must both become a part of a civil discussion about how we address our problems at their source.
My Zadie knew how lucky he was to make it to America and worked hard all his life to make better opportunities for his family. He made me respect the challenges all immigrants face and the way they must learn to fit into a prejudiced society. I just wish I had the wherewithal to tell him, years ago, how much I appreciate the sacrifices he made so that my siblings, cousins and I could grow up in the US. I also wish people realized that my Zadie and his peers lived during a time when we had a population we could have sustained. It is in our best interest to convince Americans and our leaders that we have long said goodbye to a number the environment in the US can handle.