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MYTH
- Taking position on mass immigration / population levels in the U.S. will
cause minority legislators to vote against the environment.
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FACT - Pro-environment legislators look to the Sierra Club for environmental
leadership. The Club should not deviate from the environmental path based
upon perceived opinion of elected representatives. In other words--we are
the advocacy group and we should determine the direction of environmental
politics, not short-term policians.
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MYTH
- Minority legislators who may be offended by the discussion of mass immigration reduction are our "consistent allies."
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FACT
- A quick look at League of Conservation Voter scores shows minority legislators score a
combined 63% average on environmental issues in 1998.
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MYTH
- Taking position on mass immigration / population in the U.S. will cause a drop in Sierra Clubmembership numbers.
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FACT
- The Sierra Club has for decades, prior to 1996, recognized overimmigration as
a factor of U.S. population growth. The Wilderness Society recently took a
strong stand on mass immigration / population, and their membership increased by
11%. ZPG [now Population Connection] lost membership to NPG (according to PEG materials) after ZPG went
neutral on US numbers.
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MYTH
- The Sierra Club has already lost membership over the immigration initiative.
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FACT
- The Club has been losing membership even prior to the 1998 initiative. The assumption by the Board is that this is because their deviation from decades
of policy was challenged. We doubt members would leave because the club
allows democratic decision-making. By contrast, many have left because of
the club's refusal to deal with overpopulation in the U.S.
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Is talking about mass immigration racist?
MYTH - This 1998 initiative was racist.
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FACT
- The initiative called for a reduction in mass immigration along with lower
birth rates. No numbers are mentioned and no nationalities are singled out.
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MYTH
- Reducing immigration levels is anti-immigrant.
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FACT
- If asking for reduced immigration levels (as was done after the Irish came) is "racist," then we must all be anti-child because we call for lower
birth rates.
FACT - Every legitimate poll ever done has consistenly shown strong support
for mass immigration reform amongst virtually all ethnic groups and Americans as
a whole. Here are a few unbiased poll examples:
1996 Roper poll - 83% of all Americans surveyed favor lower mass immigration
levels. 73% of black Americans and 53% of hispanic Americans favor reducing mass
immigration levels top 300,000 or less annually.
Latino National Political Survey (1993) found that 7 out of 10 Latino
Americans believe mass immigration levels are too high.
Hispanic USA Research Group Poll (1993) found 3/4 of hispanics believe
fewer immigrants should be admitted.
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MYTH
- We should drop this environmental issue because some immigration reform groups are racist.
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FACT
- The Sierra Club opposed NAFTA, as did Pat Buchanon. If the Club takes the pro-growth stand, we could be accused of siding with red flag-waving communists and pro-immigration groups who have been documented on tape
physically attacking immigration reform protesters.
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MYTH
- We should not address mass immigration because republicans have favored reform.
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FACT
- Many republicans are now seeing the importance of population as an environmental issue as a result of looking into the effects of unchecked mass
immigration levels. The best way to have sound policies is to have
bipartisan support.
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Isn't this a Global Issue?
Yes. But so is deforestation. Shall we go neutral on logging levels in the
U.S and focus only on consumption because Brazil is losing rainforests?
There are not many issues that can be solved beyond the nation/state level.
It is hard enough to affect a local board, let alone governments of
countries who allow multi-national corporations to come in and rape and
pilliage the land for quick profits.
Is it reasonable to assume we can solve the world's root problems of
poverty, corruption, multi-national corporations and reproductive ignorance
sufficiently to protect our nation from mass migration? What happens when
a nation becomes overpopulated? They become nations of emigrants. We will
have no where to go and will be in no position to help other nations with
rapidly growing populations if we show our generosity by being the escape
valve for the world. This can only result in similar disaster for our
nation.
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MYTH
- Taking position on mass immigration will hurt the Sierra Club's global population program.
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FACT
- Our global population program, when first introduced elicited cries of racism from all over. It was perceived by some radical liberals as a means
to prevent minorities from having children. Look where we are now - the
growth rate in many developing nations has gone down!
