IMMIGRATION

Ned professes to be unable to understand why the mere discussion of changing our immigration "policy" sets off such anger, hate mongering and fear in a lot of people. It could be that a lot of people who want immigration stopped or even slowed are motivated by racism. But then, just because a few racists happen to advocate something doesn't mean that end is necessarily bad: hell, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Ned happens to believe that this country allows in too many people, for the following reasons:
First, the country is already the planet's greatest consumer of natural resources per person, and anyone who comes here starts consuming at domestic levels, further harming the global environment, and the people in developing countries.
Second, Ned is troubled when the best and brightest from foreign countries, especially developing countries, migrate to the U.S. Ned feels this makes it even harder for the countries abandoned by their migrating nationals to develop a society that promotes a sense of well-being for all citizens when those blessed with the benefit of an expensive education, leave. Surely India would benefit more if its doctors stayed in India and ministered to the sick there, that if they migrate to the States.
Third, Ned can do the math. This country already has more than 300 million people, and is running out of resources such as water and room for the folks we have here now. Ask anyone who lived in California in the 1950s whether it is better now than then, with more than twice the people and five times the cars. Consider how much easier it would be to restore California's environment with 15 million people instead of 40. And consider what is happening to the state as its population gets more and more divided between aging white people and relatively young people of color. The politics of California are as polarized as anywhere in the country, and Ned fears this will become a too-common pattern across the country. True, much of California's growth is population growth by migration from other states, and much of that is migration from other countries.
But Ned considers the country as a whole. At a population growth rate of an innocent sounding 1% per year, the population of the US will double in 70 years, and this does not count immigration. Add 1-2 million immigrants, many of them illegal, and you just compound the problem.
Another issue: children born to illegal residents are citizens of the US, but in many cases the parent or parents are reluctant to seek the care the children need due to their undocumented status. Thus, the children suffer. And, last time Ned looked, Americans do not want to pay higher taxes to support social programs except of course for those programs that benefit them directly, like Social Security and Medicare.
So, whether we want to face it or not, eventually this country will have to cap its population growth, and that cannot avoid capping immigration.
Some have called for a color-blind policy that admits as many people as leave every year, or about 200,000.
To Ned, this seems about right.