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We, the 300m American people. . .
By Tom Baldwin, in Washington
THE population of the United States will reach 300 million in October, but America is approaching the landmark with some anxiety about what this means for the future.
It is highly possible that the milestone will be achieved not by a birth on American territory but by Mexicans who are preparing to slip across the US border this autumn and join the ranks of an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants already in the country.
When the 200 millionth American was judged to have arrived, in 1967, the demographic clock was deliberately slowed so that President Johnson could be present at the Commerce Department for the ceremony.
The magazine Life, which positioned 23 photographers around the country to record the moment, dedicated a five-page special to the chosen baby, Robert Ken Woo Jr. The son of Chinese immigrants, he has turned out to be a model citizen, graduating from Harvard and producing three more Americans in his native Atlanta.
A substantial rate of reproduction is regarded as essential to sustain the growth of a US economy increasingly threatened by the hugely populous China and India. While other countries, notably Japan, are shrinking in population, America is expanding and should reach 400 million in less than 40 years. The population is gaining annually by slightly less than 1 per cent — a rate that is equivalent to adding the population of Chicago each year; but more than a third of this increase is through immigration, not childbirth. Immigration levels over the past 20 years have been higher than at any time since the end of the great influx from Europe in the 1920s.
The new arrivals are not from Europe. They are from Latin America or Asia, and they tend to have children at a far more prodigious rate than either the white or black groups.
The median age of the US, sustained by this young and fertile immigrant population, will remain at 35 for the next half-century, compared with Europe, where it will rise from 38 to 53, and Japan, where it will rise from 41 to 53.
“If we didn’t have (such immigration), we would be moving into a situation like Japan and Europe, where the populations are greying in a way that is very alarming and endangering their productivity and their social security systems,†Louis Goodman, an expert on US-Latin American relations, said.
Some elements on the Right are beginning to get jumpy about the resulting changes in American society. Although it has always prided itself as being a melting pot, the US has had protracted periods of population stability that have been crucial for assimilation. The US Census Bureau estimates that, in the second half of this century, whites of European origin will be in a minority.
Congressional Republicans, partly because they are uneasy about such a prospect, recently passed a Bill for building a $2.2 billion fence equipped with cameras and infrared lights along 800 miles of the Mexican border, where increasingly violent clashes between would-be migrants and security patrols have taken place.
The Bill from Representative James Sensenbrenner would also jail illegal immigrants for a year, and those who help them could be imprisoned for up to five years.
President Bush has so far tried to avoid alienating the Latino vote. Instead, his Adminstration has introduced guest-worker programmes for many of the illegal immigrants in the US. “We have to recognise,†he said recently, “that if an American does not want to do a job, people are going to come in to do it. But this has to be done legally and for a temporary period.â€
His strategists believe that the Hispanic population has conservative leanings. They are highly productive, family- orientated and rely on welfare less than any other ethnic group. More important, a significant number of them voted for Mr Bush in 2004.
“Hell, if they’ll walk across Big Bend,†the President once said of illegal Mexican immigrants crossing the border at the Rio Grande, “we wan ’em!â€
By Tom Baldwin, in Washington
THE population of the United States will reach 300 million in October, but America is approaching the landmark with some anxiety about what this means for the future.
It is highly possible that the milestone will be achieved not by a birth on American territory but by Mexicans who are preparing to slip across the US border this autumn and join the ranks of an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants already in the country.
When the 200 millionth American was judged to have arrived, in 1967, the demographic clock was deliberately slowed so that President Johnson could be present at the Commerce Department for the ceremony.
The magazine Life, which positioned 23 photographers around the country to record the moment, dedicated a five-page special to the chosen baby, Robert Ken Woo Jr. The son of Chinese immigrants, he has turned out to be a model citizen, graduating from Harvard and producing three more Americans in his native Atlanta.
A substantial rate of reproduction is regarded as essential to sustain the growth of a US economy increasingly threatened by the hugely populous China and India. While other countries, notably Japan, are shrinking in population, America is expanding and should reach 400 million in less than 40 years. The population is gaining annually by slightly less than 1 per cent — a rate that is equivalent to adding the population of Chicago each year; but more than a third of this increase is through immigration, not childbirth. Immigration levels over the past 20 years have been higher than at any time since the end of the great influx from Europe in the 1920s.
The new arrivals are not from Europe. They are from Latin America or Asia, and they tend to have children at a far more prodigious rate than either the white or black groups.
The median age of the US, sustained by this young and fertile immigrant population, will remain at 35 for the next half-century, compared with Europe, where it will rise from 38 to 53, and Japan, where it will rise from 41 to 53.
“If we didn’t have (such immigration), we would be moving into a situation like Japan and Europe, where the populations are greying in a way that is very alarming and endangering their productivity and their social security systems,†Louis Goodman, an expert on US-Latin American relations, said.
Some elements on the Right are beginning to get jumpy about the resulting changes in American society. Although it has always prided itself as being a melting pot, the US has had protracted periods of population stability that have been crucial for assimilation. The US Census Bureau estimates that, in the second half of this century, whites of European origin will be in a minority.
Congressional Republicans, partly because they are uneasy about such a prospect, recently passed a Bill for building a $2.2 billion fence equipped with cameras and infrared lights along 800 miles of the Mexican border, where increasingly violent clashes between would-be migrants and security patrols have taken place.
The Bill from Representative James Sensenbrenner would also jail illegal immigrants for a year, and those who help them could be imprisoned for up to five years.
President Bush has so far tried to avoid alienating the Latino vote. Instead, his Adminstration has introduced guest-worker programmes for many of the illegal immigrants in the US. “We have to recognise,†he said recently, “that if an American does not want to do a job, people are going to come in to do it. But this has to be done legally and for a temporary period.â€
His strategists believe that the Hispanic population has conservative leanings. They are highly productive, family- orientated and rely on welfare less than any other ethnic group. More important, a significant number of them voted for Mr Bush in 2004.
“Hell, if they’ll walk across Big Bend,†the President once said of illegal Mexican immigrants crossing the border at the Rio Grande, “we wan ’em!â€