After Immigration Bill Stalls

The Bush backed immigration bill might have been the only viable game in town, but that heavily burdened "freight train of legislation" bogged down. Lot's of last minute riders being tacked onto the sausage. Remember Hillery Clinton's health care reform package?

Ah, the complexities of legislation and Congress.

To try and put this in simpler terms, there are basically more people wanting to come to the USA than the quotas for legal immigration allow.

More people.

Also there are jobs here in USA in need of labor. The growing economy.

World population keeps growing. Does the number for legal immigrants allowed into the country per year grow with world population growth?

Actually, I don't know. The quota is set politically and that number relates to how much population growth the US officially wants with-in our borders.

Immigration is really a population issue and this is an opportunity to talk population issues. Time to discuss birth control and lifestyles; reducing world population.

Also time to discuss ways of accommodating our growing populations as long as the people keep coming.

America's first immigrants are now called Native Americans. They lived in hunter gatherer societies. Also had some agriculture. Only a few million of them could live in the space that is now called America. Their lifestyles required lots of space for herds of buffalo to roam. If we ever go back to that way of life, we would have too many people to survive.

Then along came millions of European immigrants. They brought fences and more mechanized agricultural practices. More people could survive, but the way of life in America was changed.

Technology marches on and allows us to put more people on the landscape. Still, some folks are nostalgic for old ways.

300,000,000 Americans cooking on wood stoves? I'd hate to see the air. Better to use microwave ovens for 300,000,000 folks.

This story continues. As more people pour in, the way of life will have to change again.

I hear that median price for single family detached home in King County (Seattle metro) is now well over $400,000. More people chasing same amount of land, also more dollars. Traffic may render the automobile obsolete. Public transit and more urban lifestyles will have to become common place.

Less "suburban 1 acre lot grown to weeds with residents living on the freeway commuting to work."

Density increases. This may not be all bad news. It's been the changing story of the American landscape for hundreds of years.

As politicians have to go back to the drawing board on immigration reform, it's time to bring the broader issue of population growth into the discussion. This isn't necessarily a specific answer. It's just another way to understand the issue.

There are more and more people in the world and many of them want to come to the USA.