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ADI 2010 1Fellows--Bankey Immigration Bad DA

Immigration Bad DA Index***1NC***.....................................................................................................................................................................3

1NC Shell (1/).................................................................................................................................................................4

***Uniqueness***.........................................................................................................................................................5

Immigration Decreasing..................................................................................................................................................6

Enforcement Increasing..................................................................................................................................................7

***Links***...................................................................................................................................................................8

Non-Immigrant Visas......................................................................................................................................................9

DREAM Act.................................................................................................................................................................10

H-1B Visas....................................................................................................................................................................11

H-2B Visas....................................................................................................................................................................12

H-5B Visas....................................................................................................................................................................13

Same-Sex Visas............................................................................................................................................................14

***Impacts***.............................................................................................................................................................15

Social Services Scenario (1/)........................................................................................................................................16

Social Services – Link – Illegal Migration...................................................................................................................17

Social Services – Link – Legal Migration (1/)..............................................................................................................18



Social Services – AT: Immigrants Can’t Access Social Services................................................................................21

Social Services – I/L – Hospital Collapse.....................................................................................................................22

Disease Scenario (1/)....................................................................................................................................................23

Disease Scenario (2/)....................................................................................................................................................24

Disease – Link – Healthcare Access.............................................................................................................................25

Warming Scenario (1/)..................................................................................................................................................26

Warming Scenario (2/)..................................................................................................................................................27

Warming – Link – Xenophobia...................................................................................................................................28

Warming – Link – CO2................................................................................................................................................29

Warming – Link – CO2................................................................................................................................................30

Warming – Impact – Oceans.........................................................................................................................................31

Warming – AT: Other Countries Outweigh the Link...................................................................................................32

Peak Oil Scenario (1/)...................................................................................................................................................33



Peak Oil – Link – Oil Consumption.............................................................................................................................36

Peak Oil – Link – Energy Consumption.......................................................................................................................37


***Aff answers***......................................................................................................................................................38

Non-Unique – Immigration High Now.........................................................................................................................39

Non-Unique – Immigration Inevitable..........................................................................................................................40

No Link – No Social Services.......................................................................................................................................41

Social Services Link Turn.............................................................................................................................................42

Economy Link Turn......................................................................................................................................................43

AT: Disease Impact.......................................................................................................................................................44

AT: Oil Impacts............................................................................................................................................................45

AT: Warming Impacts (1/)............................................................................................................................................46

AT: Warming Impacts (2/)............................................................................................................................................47

Language K – Environmental Security Rhetoric..........................................................................................................48


***1NC***


1NC Shell (1/)

Rate of illegal immigration is statistically decreasing – economy and border enforcementCSM 2010 (Christian Science Monitor, “Reasons Behind Illegal Immigration Decline Debated,” 2-13, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/illegal-immigration-economy-border-control/story?id=9820177)

The number of illegal immigrants living in the United States dropped to 10.6 million in 2009 from 11.6 million in 2008, the sharpest decrease in 30 years and a second straight year of decline, according to a Department of Homeland Security report released this week. Some immigration-control groups say the decline is happening primarily because of a buildup of border patrol and surveillance – and that the buildup should thus continue to further reduce illegal immigration. Other groups claim it is a result of the poor economy. Some say it is both, and still others doubt the statistics altogether.

Visas are abused – leads to massive migrationJudicial Watch, Inc. 2010 (“U.S. Ignores Immigrants With Expired Visas,” http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/may/u-s-ignores-immigrants-expired-visas)

While securing the border remains the focus of national attention, the government continues ignoring millions of illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. legally but never left when their visas expired like several of the 9/11 terrorists. Nearly half of the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants fall into this category yet few are ever caught because it’s simply not a priority for the government, according to an Arizona newspaper report that provides alarming statistics on the matter. Border Patrol presence along the U.S.-Mexico border has doubled in the last five years, but there has been no effort to increase the search for illegal aliens who overstay their visas.


***Uniqueness***


Immigration Decreasing

Illegal immigration decreasing – economy and border enforcementCSM 2010 (Christian Science Monitor, “Reasons Behind Illegal Immigration Decline Debated,” 2-13, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/illegal-immigration-economy-border-control/story?id=9820177)

The number of illegal immigrants in the US decreased both because of the poor economy and better border enforcement, says DHS spokesman Matt Chandler. "Most unauthorized immigrants come to the United States for employment. When employment opportunities shrink, as they have during the current recession and particularly in those industries employing large numbers of unauthorized immigrants, then it would not be unexpected to see a decrease in the unauthorized population," says Mr. Chandler. He adds, "DHS believes that the unprecedented resources the department has devoted to deterring crime and smuggling at the Southwest border, as well as smarter and more effective immigration law enforcement the department is implementing across the country, are also contributing factors to this decline."


Enforcement Increasing

Obama is successfully reigning in illegal immigration nowNPR 7-28 (“Under Obama, More Illegal Immigrants Sent Home,” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128826285)

Even as it challenges Arizona's get-tough approach to illegal immigration, the Obama administration has been waging a crackdown of its own. The federal government is quietly deporting hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and scrutinizing hundreds of employers suspected of hiring them. President Obama told an audience at American University this month that's while it's not possible to round up and deport all the illegal immigrants in the United States, his administration won't turn a blind eye to those who entered this country illegally. "No matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable," Obama said. In fact, the federal government under President Obama has steadily increased the deportation of illegal immigrants. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency says it's on track to expel some 400,000 people this year, 8 percent more than 2008 — the last year of the Bush administration.

Obama is successfully increasing enforcementWashington Post 7-26 (“Illegal Immigrant Deportations Up Under Obama,” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/26/politics/washingtonpost/main6715205.shtml)

In a bid to remake the enforcement of federal immigration laws, the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since President George W. Bush's final year in office. The effort is part of President Obama's larger project "to make our national laws actually work," as he put it in a speech this month at American University. Partly designed to entice Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform, the mission is proving difficult and politically perilous.

Enforcement is successfulPolitics Daily 7-26 (“Deportation of Illegal Immigrants Increases Under Obama,” http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/26/deportation-of-illegal-immigrants-increases-under-obama/)

The administration's plan to overhaul federal immigration laws has led to the deportation of about 400,000 people this fiscal year. That's ten percent more deportations than the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007, according to the Post.


***Links***


Non-Immigrant Visas

Non-immigrant visas are empirically abused – leads to mass overstaysVaughan 03 (Jessica Vaughan is a senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies and served as Chief of the Non-Immigrant Visa Section in the U.S. Embassy in Trinidad and Tobago, “Shortcuts to Immigration: The 'Temporary' Visa Program Is Broken,” http://www.cis.org/TemporaryVisaProgram-Broken)

The United States has experienced explosive growth in the number of foreigners admitted to the country temporarily under the “non-immigrant” visa (NIV) program over the last 20 years — from seven million non-immigrants admitted in 1980 to nearly 33 million in 2001. Some of this growth can be explained by the relative ease of international travel compared to decades past. However, co-mingled with multitudes of Disney World visitors, Filipina grandmothers, Ivorian World Bank economists, and Brazilian entrepreneurs found in the annual stream of NIV visitors are hundreds of thousands of others who would not meet the average American’s (or even the average consular officer’s) definition of a non-immigrant. If recent trends hold true, well over 100,000 of those entering this year on an NIV will have a green card within five years.1 Hundreds of thousands more will remain here illegally. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) estimates that roughly 3.2 million of the estimated eight million illegal immigrant population, or 40 percent, originally entered the country on non-immigrant visas. That is a troublingly high number of visa mistakes made each year, with profound security, fiscal, and social consequences. The most obvious of these was the attack on September 11, 2001, which was carried out by terrorists who entered the country on NIVs issued by U.S. consular officers.


DREAM Act

DREAM Act legalizes 360,000 peopleMcCormack 2009 (Lindsey, associate editor at 02138 magazine, “What About Us, DREAM Act?,” http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/what-about-us-dream-act-3672/)

As green card backlogs delay or derail their chances for citizenship, people like Bhaskar are pinning their hopes on a controversial piece of legislation that was meant to address the quandaries of illegal — not legal — immigrants. The DREAM Act, or Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, is a federal bill that would provide immigrant youth who enroll in college or serve in the military an expedited path to citizenship. It would also make it easier for states to offer undocumented immigrants in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. The prospect of legalization for undocumented aliens, even a small portion of them, stirs passions on all sides of the immigration debate. Opponents say the DREAM Act amounts to amnesty for lawbreakers, while proponents stress it would benefit only those who entered the U.S. before age 16, have lived here for at least five years and have a clean criminal record. Versions of the bill foundered in the Senate four times since 2001, but bipartisan support may favor supporters this time around. In March, senators Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., reintroduced the bill in the Senate, while Howard Berman, D-Calif., and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., introduced a similar version in the House. If it were to pass, the DREAM Act would immediately make 360,000 undocumented high school graduates ages 18 to 24 eligible for legal residency, according to the Migration Policy Institute.


H-1B Visas

Hundreds of thousands enter through the H-1B visa, leads to abuseVaughan 2003 (Jessica Vaughan is a senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies and served as Chief of the Non-Immigrant Visa Section in the U.S. Embassy in Trinidad and Tobago, “Shortcuts to Immigration: The 'Temporary' Visa Program Is Broken,” http://www.cis.org/TemporaryVisaProgram-Broken)

The controversial H-1B category for skilled workers, many of whom work in the technology field, is nominally limited by statute. The law caps the number of certain new approvals at 195,000 in 2001, 2002, and 2003. Unless changed by new legislation, it will revert to 65,000 in 2004. However, only between one fourth and one-half of the people approved as H1-B workers are actually subject to the cap. Those working for educational or non-profit organizations and those extending their stay or changing jobs are not counted against the cap.4


H-2B Visas

H-2B visas lead to illegal immigrationSeminara 2010 (CIS Fellow David Seminara is a Chicago-based writer and was a tenured member of the U.S. Foreign Service from 2002-2007, “Dirty Work: In-Sourcing American Jobs with H-2B Guestworkers,” http://www.cis.org/h-2b-guestworkers)

The State Department does not release refusal rates for H-2B visas, or even break down how many were issued by country, but consular officers from busy H-2B posts have told me that the vast majority of H-2B visa applications are approved. Mexico, which is far and away the largest source of H-2B labor, likely has one of the highest H-2B issuance rates, probably ranging between 85-90 percent, whereas posts significantly further from the United States might issue visas to somewhere between 70-80 percent of H-2B applicants. The primary reason for this disparity is that it costs Mexican workers far less to get to work sites in the United States than it would for workers in Asia or Europe, who often pay much higher finder’s and transport fees to their recruiters. In essence, it’s simply more plausible and economically viable for Mexican workers to come to the United States for seasonal work than it is for say, Ukrainians, who, having invested far more and traveled further, might be more inclined to overstay their visas. At least this is the popular wisdom in State Department circles. Sadly, we have no way of quantifying how significant the H-2B overstay problem is because DHS still has no reliable entry/exit tracking system. Anecdotal evidence, however, indicates that the H-2B overstay problem is significant, and will become worse as H-2B workers begin to realize that without the exemption for returning (H-2R) workers, they are much less likely to be able to return to the United States to work year after year. Many H-2B employers also have presented the returning worker exemption debate as forcing them to choose between hiring illegals or going out of business. No one should be surprised if companies that cannot bring their H-2Bs back legally encourage them to overstay their visas, or apply for visitor’s visas and then hire them back to work for them “off the books.”


H-5B Visas

H-5B drastically increases unauthorized migrationHightower 2006 law student, Texas Tech Law School (Trent, “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning To Breathe Free . . . As Long As They Have The Proper Visas: An Analysis Of The Current State Of United States Immigration Law, And Possible Changes On The Horizon,” 39 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 133, Lexis)

For all the good that the H-5A program could do to help dilute the immigration crisis, the H-5B visa, which legalizes the status of thousands of individuals already residing in the United States illegally, could add new problems to those already being experienced. n341 By legalizing the status of individuals, the United States would be issuing a statement that people do not have to take its immigration laws seriously. n342 Hundreds of thousands of law breakers would face no consequences, as the United States government chose [*165] to simply look the other way. n343 This is not a message that the United States needs to send to those seeking to come to the country. n344

H-5B standards are poor to protect unauthorized migrants – leads to mass migration, turns caseEdwards 2005, adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute & coauthor of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, James R, Jr, “McCain-Kennedy Amnesty Bill Opens the Border,” http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=8051

H-5B visas go to all illegal aliens who claim they’ve worked in the United States as of May 12, 2005. The first $1,000 buys up to six years to work here, and the next $1,000 puts them at the front of the permanent residence line, along with spouse and minor children. The bill exempts these lawbreakers from applicable immigration caps. Illegal aliens have an incentive to give as much information as possible about their illegality on the visa application. The bill prohibits any such information from ever being used against the alien. The “evidence” that’s supposed to show that the alien illegally worked in America before May 12, 2005, is very flimsy. Pretty much anything, including an affidavit from a friend, will suffice. The standard of proof of illegal work, “a matter of reasonable inference,” also fails the laugh test. McCain-Kennedy’s smoke and mirrors give the illusion of requiring a penalty for legalization, beefing up the border and stopping an illegal workforce. In fact, aliens get to keep the job they stole in the first place. They don’t have to worry about most inadmissibility standards. They and their family go to the front of the line, ahead of every legal immigrant. They can in turn sponsor as many family members as they want.


Same-Sex Visas

Same-sex visas would immediately admit 36,000 immigrantsHouston Chronicle 2009 (“Immigration law divides gay couples,” http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6478741.html)

Under federal law, gay and lesbian U.S. citizens are not entitled to apply for legal status for their partners, even if their marriage is recognized by state law. That has left an estimated 36,000 binational, same-sex couples like Roland and Racicot with few options to legally build lives together in the U.S., according to Immigration Equality, a New York-based advocacy organization. “The bottom line is that we wouldn’t be going through this if, as an American, I had the right to sponsor my partner,” said Roland, who asked that his last name be withheld for fear of repercussions at his workplace.


*** Impacts ***


Social Services Scenario (1/)

This policy is resulting in widespread hospital insolvencyOrtega 09 J.D. Boston University School of Law, M.P.H. Boston University School of Public Health, Adrianne, 35 Am. J. L. and Med. 185)Federal legislation creates a heavy burden on hospitals which then transfer social costs to the state. 96 Hospitals often treat non-citizen patients after stabilization in the emergency room while arranging an appropriate discharge. 97 Hospitals largely absorb the cost of this expensive treatment. 98 A recent survey estimated that hospitals are collectively spending about $ 2 billion a year in unpaid medical expenses to treat undocumented immigrants. 99 One hospital spent $ 1.5 million on one patient alone. 100 Sixty California hospitals were forced to close between 1993 and 2003 due to outstanding bills for services rendered. 101 400 emergency rooms closed between 1993 and 1998, and after the enactment of EMTALA, one of six trauma centers decertified. 102 In 2008, the California Medicaid program spent an estimated $ 20 million on about 460 patients. 103 In a New York City public nursing home, undocumented immigrants occupy roughly one fifth of 1,389 beds. 104 Hospitals transfer these financial burdens to the states in the form of social costs. 105 For example, if a hospital in an urban area must close for financial reasons, the individuals served by that hospital must seek treatment at other local hospitals. As one hospital administrator put it, "We're unable to provide adequate care for our own citizens . . . . A full bed is a full bed." 106 Closures, therefore, affect those in surrounding areas with insurance and become a social problem for the state. 107

The collapse of the health sector spills over to every other part of the economy.Klepper and Kibbe 09 (Brian and David, PhD and Health Care Market Analyst and Founding Principal of Health 2.0 Advisors Inc., MD MBA and Senior Advisor to the American Academy of Family Physicians, http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2009/03/intensifying-collapse-of-health-care.html)

As coverage erodes, we are most concerned about the hospitals and health systems that are the anchor health care resources in most communities. With the economy and stocks tanking, the investment income that was keeping many health systems afloat has disappeared. The ranks of the uninsured and underinsured have exploded, so uncompensated care costs and bad debt are skyrocketing. Few health systems have gotten serious about huge supply chain margins, often north of 50 percent, so there's nowhere to turn in the short term. While safety net short term acute care facilities have been under duress for many years, now these trends are conspiring to also threaten the community facilities that cater to those with more resources. One recent survey of 4,500 health systems, published before the economy really began to plummet, found that more than half were "technically insolvent or at risk of insolvency." As the economy has worsened, and jobs and money evaporate, many patients are breaking physician appointments or are unable to pay for services received. Bad debt has become much more of a problem for physician practices, so many have become more aggressive in collections. We have received anecdotal reports that some physician practices are demanding payment in full prior to procedures, and are balance-billing their health plan patients in direct violation of their contractual agreements. The health plans aren't positioned to police every practice's policies. But if this trend is widespread in the system, it suggests that the niceties of business practice are going by the wayside as practices struggle to maintain. Finally, the combination of health coverage erosion and high care costs is fueling an arms race that, until fixes are in place, patients will lose. The two fastest growing segments of the health care financial sector are individual credit scoring and collections, specifically aimed at capturing available dollars for the system. In this economy, aggressive collections practices will drive many more patients into bankruptcy, intensifying consumer dissatisfaction and further fueling the engines of change. Is Health Care A Bursting Bubble? One of us recently had a 3.5 hour diagnostic procedure at a local hospital outpatient surgery center. The EOB (Explanation of Benefits) from the health plan showed the hospital had submitted a facility charge of just over $13,000 - more than four months of total income for one-third of American households - and the health plan paid approximately $1,300, which means that willing vendors and purchasers agreed that the procedure's market value was 10% of the charge. But without insurance, we would have been legally responsible for that bill, with the willingness to negotiate utterly at the discretion of the health system. Setting aside the fact that charges are crazily tied to the evolution of Medicare cost reports and grow out of stuffing every bit of possible cost into each charge, the EOB begs three questions. 1. Is it appropriate to add a 1,000% surcharge for the sin of uninsurance. For not-for-profit health systems especially, is it appropriate to do so while receiving a tax break for providing community service? 2. When a provider chooses to pursue a receivable figure that is more than the established market value (as determined through the contractual figure with the health plan), can that effort properly be understood as inflating the market? 3. Can a system maintain stability when it inflates value beyond the means of most of its purchasers ? The definition of a market bubble is a high variance between the intrinsic value of a product and its market valuation. Bubbles always burst eventually, as inflated market values tumble back towards intrinsic value. We're seeing this with homes and banking stocks. Are we there yet with health care services? Could America's health system collapse? The Threat It's hard to imagine the health care system in free fall. The federal government pays for approximately half of health care already, through allocations for Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, the VA, and the Federal Employees' Benefit Program. The stimulus bill allocates a "down payment" of $634 billion for health care reform over the next ten years, assuming that somehow this money will go to save health care dollars. But it could just as easily become a bail out for the failing health care sector, massively larger than the bailouts for the banks or the autos, and "too large to fail." Keep in mind that health care is now 16 percent of the US economy, one dollar in seven and one job in eleven, so large that any significant disruption in the sector would inevitably cascade to all other parts of the economy.

http://web.lexis-nexis.com/scholastic/document?_m=8fab6c0fba132a20b1dfda629ab52714&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVlb-zSkVk&_md5=3b9c6f49015bccefd6e12448a7c05847#n107













Social Services – Link – Illegal Migration

Immigrants destroy healthcare systemsLamm, 07 former Colorado governor/Director of Center for Public Policy & Contemporary Issues, Univeristy of Denver,Richard, “Immigration - The Ultimate Environmental Issue,” The Social Contract, Volume 18, Number 1, Fall, (originally appeared in the Denver University Law Review , Vol. 84, No. 4, 2007)

Health Care Impact The health care cost of this illegal workforce is also significant and also subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. You can go to virtually any emergency room in Colorado and you will hear Spanish as the predominant language. “Colorado has one of the highest rates of new mothers who speak little or no English”. 13 Over eighty percent of the births in Denver Health and Hospitals are to monolingual Spanish-speaking women. Increasingly we are seeing elderly grandparents with health problems present in emergency rooms as extended families consolidate. No, we don’t know for sure that they are illegal, because it is against Federal law to check, but it is safe to assume that most are. Denver Health alone estimates that they spend one million taxpayer dollars just in interpreting for non-English speakers. What would the total taxpayer cost of interpreting be statewide, and that is just a fraction of the total health care costs? The cumulative cost of this “subsidized” labor is impossible to ascertain and difficult to even estimate, but it is immense and growing as our population of these workers grows. A few benefit, the rest of us pay. It is technically illegal for illegal immigrants to claim Medicaid, but as the Health and Human Services Inspector General found, “Forty-seven states allow self-declaration of U.S. citizenship for Medicaid,” and over half of those do not verify the accuracy of these claims as part of their post-eligibility quality control activities.”14 The barn doors are wide open! Families without a word of English boldly declare themselves U.S. citizens and nobody checks! When states don’t use the tools available to them, it is more the states’ fault than those abusing the system. Many of my liberal friends like to think of themselves as “citizens of the world” who dislike borders, and indeed we all realize we live in a more interdependent, interconnected world. But “to govern is to choose,” and if everyone is my brother and sister than nobody will ever get covered by social programs liberals compassionately seek. I have been fighting all my life for universal health care, but we can’t have “the best health care system in the world” combined with Swiss cheese borders. Social and redistributive programs require borders. It is fine to think of yourself as a citizen of the world, or a loving Christian, but we solve most problems in a national context and therefore we owe a greater moral duty to our fellow Americans than we do to non-citizens. Americans must defend borders or they will lose all the social programs that they care about! No social program can survive without geographic limits and defined beneficiaries. We often hear that 45 million Americans are without health insurance, but this figure is likely overestimated, because it includes over 10 million illegal immigrants. Most of the estimated 12 to 15 million people living illegally in America do not have health insurance. More and more hospitals are going broke because of the constant stream of uninsured, particularly in our border states. The Census Bureau estimates that 11.6 million people in immigrant households are without health insurance. 15 Not all immigrants are illegal; nevertheless, our experience here in Colorado indicates a substantial majority are not legally in the country. The problem is much like when the gods condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, and the stone would fall back of its own weight. It is not unlike when you expand education funding or Medicaid and give extra state aid to impacted hospitals, but the problems grow faster than the solution. We use the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover uninsured children, but a new flood of immigrant children without health insurance quickly overcomes our gains. The Center for Immigration Studies has estimated that for a recent five-year period, immigrants and their children accounted for 59 percent (2.7 million people) of the growth of the uninsured. Ironically, the price of compassion is restriction. The only way we can help America’s poor is to develop programs which are not constantly diluted by the rest of the world’s 6 billion, no matter how sympathetic.


Social Services – Link – Legal Migration (1/)

Increases in immigration overwhelm welfare assistanceBorjas 1996 Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard University,George, “The welfare magnet: for more and more immigrants, America is becoming the land of welfare opportunities”, National Review, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n4_v48/ai_18111837/pg_3/?tag=content;col1)

THE evidence has become overwhelming: immigrant participation in welfare programs is on the rise. In 1970, immigrant households were slightly less likely than native households to receive cash benefits like AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) or SSI (Supplementary Security Income). By 1990, immigrant households were more likely to receive such cash benefits (9.1 per cent v. 7.4 per cent). Pro-immigration lobbyists are increasingly falling back on the excuse that this immigrant - native 'welfare gap' is attributable solely to refugees and/or elderly immigrants; or that the gap is not numerically large. (Proportionately, it's 'only' 23 per cent). But the Census does not provide any information about the use of noncash transfers. These are programs like Food Stamps, Medicaid, housing subsidies, and the myriad of other subsidies that make up the modern welfare state. And noncash transfers comprise over three quarters of the cost of all means-tested entitlement programs. In 1991, the value of these noncash transfers totaled about $140 billion. Recently available data help provide a more complete picture. The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) samples randomly selected households about their involvement in virtually all means-tested programs. From this, the proportion of immigrant households that receive benefits from any particular program can be calculated. The results are striking. The 'welfare gap' between immigrants and natives is much larger when noncash transfers are included [see table]. Taking all types of welfare together, immigrant participation is 20.7 per cent. For native-born households, it's only 14.1 per cent -- a gap of 6.6 percentage points (proportionately, 47 per cent). And the SIPP data also indicate that immigrants spend a relatively large fraction of their time participating in some means-tested program. In other words, the 'welfare gap' does not occur because many immigrant households receive assistance for a short time, but because a significant proportion -- more than the native-born -- receive assistance for the long haul. Finally, the SIPP data show that the types of welfare benefits received by particular immigrant groups influence the type of welfare benefits received by later immigrants from the same group. Implication: there appear to be networks operating within ethnic communities which transmit information about the availability of particular types of welfare to new arrivals. The results are even more striking in detail. Immigrants are more likely to participate in practically every one of the major means-tested programs. In the early 1990s, the typical immigrant family household had a 4.4 per cent probability of receiving AFDC, v. 2.9 per cent of native-born families. [Further details in Table 1]. And that overall 'welfare gap' becomes even wider if immigrant families are compared to non-Hispanic white native-born households. Immigrants are almost twice as likely to receive some type of assistance -- 20.7 per cent v. 10.5 per cent . The SIPP data also allow us to calculate the dollar value of the benefits disbursed to immigrant households, as compared to the native-born. In the early 1990s, 8 per cent of households were foreign-born. These immigrant households accounted for 13.8 per cent of the cost of the programs. They cost almost 75 per cent more than their representation in the population. The disproportionate disbursement of benefits to immigrant households is particularly acute in California, a state which has both a lot of immigrants and very generous welfare programs. Immigrants make up only 21 per cent of the households in California. But these households consume 39.5 per cent of all the benefit dollars distributed in the state. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that the welfare problem in California is on the verge of becoming an immigrant problem. The pattern holds for other states. In Texas, where 8.9 per cent of households are immigrant but which has less generous welfare, immigrants receive 22 per cent of benefits distributed. In New York State, 16 per cent of the households are immigrants. They receive 22.2 per cent of benefits. The SIPP data track households over a 32-month period. This allows us to determine if immigrant welfare participation is temporary -- perhaps the result of dislocation and adjustment -- or long-term and possibly permanent. The evidence is disturbing. During the early 1990s, nearly a third (31.3 per cent) of immigrant households participated in welfare programs at some point in the tracking period. Only just over a fifth (22.7 per cent) of native-born households did so. And 10.3 per cent of immigrant households received benefits through the entire period, v. 7.3 per cent of native-born households. Because the Bureau of the Census began to collect the SIPP data in 1984, we can use it to assess if there have been any noticeable changes in immigrant welfare use. It turns out there


has been a very rapid rise. During the mid-1980s, the probability that an immigrant household received some type of assistance was 17.7 per cent v. 14.6 per cent for natives, a gap of 3.1 percentage points. By the early

Social Services – Link – Legal Migration (2/) 1990s, recipient immigrant households had risen to 20.7 per cent, v. 14.1 per cent for natives. The immigrant-native 'welfare gap,' therefore, more than doubled in less than a decade. Thus immigrants are not only more likely to have some exposure to the welfare system; they are also more likely to be 'permanent' recipients. And the trend is getting worse. Unless eligibility requirements are made much more stringent, much of the welfare use that we see now in the immigrant population may remain with us for some time. This raises troubling questions about the impact of this long-term dependency on the immigrants -- and on their U.S.-born children. There is huge variation in welfare participation among immigrant groups. For example, about 4.3 per cent of households originating in Germany, 26.8 per cent of households originating in Mexico , and 40.6 per cent of households originating in the former Soviet Union are covered by Medicaid. Similarly, about 17.2 per cent of households originating in Italy, 36 per cent from Mexico and over 50 per cent in the Dominican Republic received some sort of welfare benefit. A more careful look at these national-origin differentials reveals an interesting pattern: national-origin groups tend to 'major' in particular types of benefit. For example, Mexican immigrants are 50 per cent more likely to receive energy assistance than Cuban immigrants. But Cubans are more likely to receive housing benefits than Mexicans. The SIPP data reveal a very strong positive correlation between the probability that new arrivals belonging to a particular immigrant group receive a particular type of benefit, and the probability that earlier arrivals from the same group received that type of assistance. This correlation remains strong even after we control for the household's demographic background, state of residence, and other factors. And the effect is not small. A 10 percentage point increase in the fraction of the existing immigrant stock who receive benefits from a particular program implies about a 10 per cent increase in the probability that a newly arrived immigrant will receive those benefits . This confirms anecdotal evidence. Writing in the New Democrat -- the mouthpiece of the Democratic Leadership Council -- Norman Matloff reports that 'a popular Chinese-language book sold in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Chinese bookstores in the United States includes a 36-page guide to SSI and other welfare benefits' and that the 'World Journal, the largest Chinese-language newspaper in the United States, runs a 'Dear Abby'-style column on immigration matters, with welfare dominating the discussion.' And the argument that the immigrant-native 'welfare gap' is caused by refugees and/or elderly immigrants? We can check its validity by removing from the calculations all immigrant households that either originate in countries from which refugees come or that contain any elderly persons. Result: 17.3 per cent of this narrowly defined immigrant population receives benefits, v. 13 per cent of native households that do not contain any elderly persons. Welfare gap: 4.3 percentage points (proportionately, 33 per cent). The argument that the immigrant welfare problem is caused by refugees and the elderly is factually incorrect. Conservatives typically stress the costs of maintaining the welfare state. But we must not delude ourselves into thinking that nothing is gained from the provision of antibiotics to sick children or from giving food to poor families. At the same time, however, these welfare programs introduce a cost which current calculations of the fiscal costs and benefits of immigration do not acknowledge and which might well dwarf the current fiscal expenditures. That cost can be expressed as follows: To what extent does a generous welfare state reduce the work incentives of current immigrants, and change the nature of the immigrant flow by influencing potential immigrants' decisions to come -- and to stay?


Social Services – Link – Legal Migration (3/)

Increasing legal migration overstretches social servicesSoroka et al., 03 (Stuart Soroka, McGill University; Keith Banting, Queen’s University; and Richard Johnston, University of British Columbia, “Immigration And Redistribution In A Global Era,” forthcoming in Globalization and the Politics of Redistribution, Russell Sage Foundation, December 1, 2003, http://degreesofdemocracy.mcgill.ca/other/ImmigrationandRedistribution.pdf)

The literature suggests a number of possible pathways or links between immigration and social spending: A. Increased immigration is associated with increased social spending, at least in the short term: 1. In Europe and the United States, recent immigrants have lower levels of education and training, weaker economic performance, and heavier reliance on unemployment and social assistance benefits than both previous generations of immigrants and natives. 2. Immigrants tend to be younger on average than natives, altering the demographic profile of the country and raising expenditures on child-related programs, such as child benefits and education. B Increased immigration leads to reduced social spending: 1. For the same reason, that immigrants tend to be younger than natives, immigration reduces the share of the population over 65. To the extend that the welfare state is oriented more to the old than the young, immigration reduces demand for social services quasi-automatically, and this alone would create a negative relationship between immigration and social spending. This relationship would be causal, certainly not spurious, but in contrast to the effect in A.2., it is of little political consequence. Its possibility alerts us to the need for a fully specified setup, however. Conceivably, over the full life-cycle the net demographic impact of immigration on the destination country’s fiscal position is small and ambiguous. 2. Most critically, increasing proportions of “new” beneficiaries – who have not been contributors – may lead to a decline in general public support for redistributive policies, whatever the beneficiary group. 3. Immigration could lead to pressures to reduce the eligibility of immigrants in particular for welfare. If immigrants come to dominate the traditional categories of welfare eligibility, this would reduce the system’s overall transfer capacity or limit growth in social expenditures. 4. Over time, political resistance to high levels of immigration increases support for conservative political parties. In the European context, the vehicle for this protest tends to be radical right-wing parties. Voters supporting such parties may not intend any signal about the welfare state but find themselves inadvertently sending such a signal anyway.

http://degreesofdemocracy.mcgill.ca/other/ImmigrationandRedistribution.pdf


Social Services – AT: Immigrants Can’t Access Social Services

Government expenses prove immigrants access services, and children are eligibleArmstrong 09, host of Money Matters on WTSN 1270 AM and a registered representative with Securities America, Inc., Barry, 02 15, "Illegal immigrants burden taxpayers and services," http://www.fosters.com/apps/ pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090215/GJBUSINESS_01/702159838/-1/FOSBUSINESS)

What effect does illegal immigration have on unemployment and what financial burdens does it cause? Illegal immigration causes an immense financial burden to taxpayers on the local level. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that the cost to local communities will reach $61.5 billion in 2010. This figure includes the price to educate children in grade schools, paying for incarceration and the cost of providing medical attention in area hospitals. Taxpayers in Massachusetts alone are expected to pay nearly $1 billion on the education of illegal aliens and children in 2010. In New Hampshire, the estimated toll by 2010 is a $20 million hit. These estimates are only expected to grow dramatically in the next 10 years. On the federal level, back in 2002, households that were headed up by illegal immigrants cost the country nearly $27 billion while only paying $16 billion in taxes. This causes an immediate fiscal debt on the federal level. A major impact on the debt incurred by illegal immigrants is their education level. Their typically low pay-scale means that they pay fewer taxes in the long term. The children of illegal aliens born on U.S. soil significantly impact the deficit as they are eligible for federal social programs.With the unemployment level reaching unprecedented levels and climbing, jobs are being scooped up by illegal immigrants rather than U.S. citizens due to the low pay-scale incurred . The fiscal responsibility that burdens the country deserves assessment as we look to get more jobs available to qualified individuals.

Illegal immigrants use housing, Medicaid, food, and education assistance Center for Immigration Studies 04, an independent research institute that examines the impact of immigration, 08-25 "The High Cost of Cheap Labor," http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscal.html)

A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies is one of the first to estimate the impact of illegal immigration on the federal budget. Based on Census Bureau data , the study estimates that households headed by illegal aliens used $10 billion more in government services than they paid in taxes in 2002. These figures are only for the federal government; costs at the state and local level are also likely to be significant. The study also finds that if illegals were given amnesty, the fiscal deficit at the federal level would grow to nearly $29 billion. Among the findings: Illegal alien households are estimated to use $2,700 a year more in services than they pay in taxes, creating a total fiscal burden of nearly $10.4 billion on the federal budget in 2002. Among the largest federal costs: Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).


Social Services – I/L – Hospital Collapse

Health expenditures for immigrants are causing hospitals to close—the trend is clear that they are the causeYoung et al 04 (Jamie, Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School ofMedicine, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/114/5/1316)

Latinos have become the largest minority population in the United States, making up 13% of the total US population. Approximately 40 million Latinos in the United States are citizens or documented residents, along with a large and growing number of undocumented Latinos.1 In 2000, it was estimated that _4.8 million undocumented persons from Mexico were living in the United States.2 Almost every community in the United States faces the challenge of providing care to this population, because the federal government has left much of the funding of health care for uninsured undocumented persons to individual states, local governments, hospitals, and clinics. Emergency Medicaid was established in 1986 by the federal government to help pay for health care expenses when certain defined groups of persons, including any uninsured documented and undocumented children, are sick enough to be hospitalized with a specifically defined “emergency medical condition.”3 The Medicaid Act defines an emergency medical condition as: “a medical condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including extreme pain) such that the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected to result in any of the following: (1) placing the health of the individual (or, with respect to a pregnant woman, the health of the woman or her unborn child) in serious jeopardy, (2) serious impairment to bodily functions, or (3) serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.”3 Individual states administer the program and are allowed to broadly interpret eligibility requirements and benefits set by the federal government.4 The states are reimbursed for part of the costs of the emergency Medicaid program. In the vast majority of cases, if a child receives emergency Medicaid in the hospital, it will not cover the costs of out-of-hospital ongoing care. Furthermore, undocumented children cannot qualify for state Medicaid insurance to cover ongoing treatment for a given illness. Increasing health care expenditures for this population in an environment of widespread state budget deficits are adding to the already severe financial and resource problems for public safety-net hospitals and clinics as well as not-for-profit community hospitals. Pediatricians and hospitals with special pediatric expertise are facing the dilemma of rationing care to uninsured undocumented children, especially for expensive life-saving care such as transplants, chemotherapy, and dialysis. The following case history and discussion illustrate many of the ethical and policy issues associated with this problem. <Card Continues> DISCUSSION This case highlights the following important but complex questions: 1. Should hospitals with special pediatric expertise have formal policies on providing expensive lifesaving care to uninsured children who are undocumented? If so, how should these policies be developed? In this case, a not-for-profit community hospital had a policy to neither perform transplants nor carry out chronic dialysis for uninsured undocumented children but was more flexible in its approach to uninsured documented children eligible for Medicaid. Dialysis is the only chronic therapy for acute renal failure that is covered by Medicare regardless of the patient’s age. In the case of noncitizen children, developing standardized policies that are disseminated to hospital staff and the public may be more just and equitable than making individual arbitrary decisions by a poorly defined process. However, deciding which therapies are too costly can be extremely difficult and seemingly arbitrary, not only from a monetary standpoint but also from an ethical one. For example, in some hospitals, chronic dialysis is not allowed, whereas more expensive cancer chemotherapy is provided. In certain situations, expensive interventions such as a transplant ultimately may be more cost-effective by reducing the need for frequent emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and expensive chronic care therapies. However, both the hospital administration and physicians must be willing to provide the transplant as well as the patient’s chronic posttransplant management, including life-long medications and follow-up. In addition, the hospital may have to accept the full cost of the transplant, whereas emergency Medicaid may only pay for a portion of the hospitalization costs. Implementing a uniform policy for care to undocumented children is likely to be restrictive and would probably fail to consider all possible outcomes such as risks and benefits of a given procedure for a given child, extenuating life circumstances, possible outside funding opportunities, and the hospital’s current finances. Establishing a structured process with a panel of pediatricians and hospital staff who would assess these considerations and make a recommendation may be a more just and equitable approach. This approach could result in the formulation of a type of medical individual expense plan for uninsured patients that could include providing financial aid, discounted treatment, and payment plans as well as philanthropic support and active fund-raising for undocumented children requiring care. Potential sources of funding to help establish local health-coverage programs for undocumented children might include targeting financially successful immigrants in a given community as well as businesses that employ a significant number of immigrants. 2. To what extent can hospitals absorb the expenditures associated with providing expensive lifesaving care to undocumented children without compromising new and/or existing clinical programs? Hospitals that traditionally serve large numbers of low-income families are facing many challenges to their financial stability as the numbers of uninsured increase, public insurance programs such as Medicaid and Medicare pay less than cost of care, and the ability to “cost shift” to commercial insurance plans continues to diminish. Some safety-net hospitals in communities with substantial immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, California, Arizona, and Texas have become financially insolvent trying to serve large numbers of uninsured patients who are citizens/legal residents or undocumented.


Disease Scenario (1/)

Immigration spreads swine fluSeattle Times, 09 (Richardo Alonso-Zaldivar, “How will the uninsured fare in swine flu outbreak? Swine flu could shine a glaring light on the best and worst about American-style health care,” 5/4/2009, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2009172221_apusmedswinefluuninsured.html)

Swine flu could shine a glaring light on the best and worst about American-style health care. At top labs, scientists are optimistic they can make a vaccine that's effective against the new virus. But in a country where one in seven people lack medical insurance, doctors worry that some individuals won't get needed protection because of cost. It could leave the rest of society more vulnerable. In a flu epidemic, the uninsured face the worst options: flooding the emergency rooms or self-medicating with cold preparations and hoping for the best. Many might not be aware they can also go to a federally-funded community health center and see a doctor or nurse for little or no cost. Helping the estimated 50 million uninsured will mean more than just paying for their health care. For example, if they're here as illegal immigrants, should taxpayers still cover the costs? Public health experts say obstacles to getting medical attention are counterproductive if you're trying to stop an infectious disease in a highly mobile society like the United States. "The person I'm most worried about is the one who decides to delay getting care, and does it in such a way that they infect others or put themselves at greater risk," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. "To have an epidemic with millions of people who may not go to the doctor because they can't afford to pay remains one of the unique challenges of our system." Lawmakers are already proposing fixes. The big health care overhaul Congress is working on probably won't be ready if a bad flu strikes later this year. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., have introduced legislation to pay for temporary medical treatment for uninsured people during a public health emergency. It could be a natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane, a bioterror attack, or a medical emergency such as a flu pandemic. "We can't afford to have barriers that keep people from getting care when an epidemic is sweeping the community," Capps said. Separately, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has proposed to offer all individuals a free flu shot each year. The Obama administration has not taken a position on either bill. But it has started shipping anti-flu medicines to community health centers, which provide basic medical care to the uninsured. Trust for America's Health, a public health group that has focused on pandemic flu preparedness, is supporting the Durbin-Capps bill. "During a public health emergency, the federal government would step in and take care of the needs of the people who are affected by that emergency," said Jeff Levi, executive director of the group. "Health care providers would not be left holding the bag for people who are uninsured. It will be a 'win' for individuals because they'll be able to get the care they need." Many details of the legislation are still being worked out. Government coverage would be limited to treatment for problems that are related to the public emergency. Dealing with immigrants could be one of the most difficult issues. The uninsured are mostly native born. But immigrants are more than twice as likely to be uninsured as people born here. When Congress was under Republican control it sharply restricted safety net benefits for immigrants, even legal ones. The Democratic-controlled Congress reversed that trend for legal immigrants when it expanded health insurance earlier this year for children in low-income families. It would be another issue to cover illegal immigrants, even if only for a short time. But since Mexico is the epicenter of the outbreak, some experts say that may be prudent. "We don't want to have a policy that drives people underground," Benjamin said. "It's better to have them present for care so that they don't put anybody else at risk." Risks extinction


Disease Scenario (2/)

Risks extinctionUPI, 09 (Martin Sieff, 4 May 2009, Swine flu-HIV could devastate human race, http://www.upi.com/news/issueoftheday/2009/05/04/Swine-flu-HIV-could-devastate-human-race/UPI-43071241461493/, RBatra)

The global swine flu threat is receding, but it could return in a far more deadly form in the fall. The warning was given Monday by Dr. Margaret Chan, head of the 193-nation World Health Organization, in an interview with the Financial Times of London. Chan warned that the swine flu virus known as H1N1 that caused the Mexico City-centered outbreak could return in the fall as a far more dangerous mutation. After last week's warnings, school closings across the United States and the near shuttering of Mexico City, the current outbreak seems to have peaked. The WHO said Monday there were 985 confirmed cases of H1N1 spread over 20 countries. There have been 25 confirmed deaths. As of Monday there were 286 reported cases of swine flu in 36 U.S. states. Both U.S. and Mexican authorities expressed confidence that the spread of the disease was slowing down. The World Health Organization said the higher number of reports of cases from Mexico -- 590 -- comes from testing of previously gathered samples. The four strands of the swine flu virus come from pigs, humans and birds. Experts believe that the virus mutated into its current form in the bodies of pigs. Health authorities are particularly worried that the capability to mutate already exhibited by the virus could eventually let it combine with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. That could cause a lethally dangerous global health problem on a comparable scale to the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic that eventually infected more than 500 million people -- more than one-quarter of the human race -- and killed 10 percent of them. That death toll of 50 million was more than five times the total fatalities of World War I. The epidemic killed more Americans than died in World War I and World II combined. Canadian health officials said Sunday they have confirmed that the H1N1 swine flu virus had, in at least one case, leaped back into a herd of 200 pigs. That raised the possibility it could mutate again in pigs and move back into the human population. Chan told the Financial Times that, given the potential scale of the possible threat, the World Health Organization did not overreact to the swine flu threat. While the number of new cases hasn't grown as fast as expected, Chan said the disease could return in a few months in a much more lethal strain. She also said she would rather be over-prepared than have to answer questions about why the World Health Organization didn't take sufficient action. The reaction of the U.S. government headed by President Barack Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was measured, restrained and less tough than that of the 27-nation European Union or of nations like China in closing cross-border traffic or imposing comprehensive screening. The Chinese government was horrified at the possibility that swine flu could spread among its 1.3 billion people, almost 20 percent of the human race. Its emergency measures, however, have infuriated the Mexican government and led to a major diplomatic row between the two nations. Mexican travelers were quarantined in hotels, and the Mexican ambassador to China was not allowed to meet with one group he tried to visit. The anger of the Mexican government at the Chinese measures, however, has obscured the real possibility that the global impact of swine flu has been limited precisely because of the swift measures that were taken globally to contain it. The global swine flu crisis recalls the so-called millennium bug, which was supposed to crash computers around the world as the machines' internal clocks turned over Jan. 1, 2000. That didn't happen, but some experts said that was because the precautions taken helped prevent the problem. Some said there wasn't a problem to begin with. The whole controversy revolved around a negative proposition that couldn't be proved. Skeptics are already arguing that the global fever over swine flu should fall into the same category. However, human history is filled with little-known but horrifying examples of global pandemics from diseases like Spanish flu, cholera, syphilis or bubonic plague that swept the world, killing hundreds of millions of people, destroying civilizations and reshaping the demographic patterns of the planet. In a modern world of unprecedented population scale and social mobility, Chan's caution therefore appears completely justified. The alternative is to risk a biological disaster that could eventually prove more devastating than a thermonuclear war.


Disease – Link – Healthcare Access

Immigrants can’t access healthcare – risks epidemicsOrtega, 09 (Adrianne, J.D., Boston University School of Law, American Journal of Law & Medicine, “. . . And Health Care For All: Immigrants in the Shadow of the Promise of Universal Health Care,” 2009, 35 Am. J. L. and Med. 185)

Preventing undocumented immigrants' access to health care also creates a serious public health problem. The discipline of public health aims to identify the source and stop the spread of disease, while championing straightforward solutions to health care problems such as preventive care and vaccination. n40 One author described a quintessential public health nightmare: "identify a large, rapidly growing population that is known to have high levels of communicable disease and high fertility rates, then deny them access to most health care other than emergency services, and devote as little funding as possible to the few services for which they are eligible." n41 This nightmarish scenario, unfortunately, represents the reality of the United States immigration and health care policy.


Warming Scenario (1/)

Immigration causes an increase in fossil fuel use which increases CO2 levels – There are no alt causes – this is the key internal linkPRNewswire 09 (Washington) Controlling Immigration Critical to Meeting Goals on U.S. Greenhouse Emissions, Finds New Report by FAIR, Congress Considers Caps on Energy Consumption, but Not on U.S. Population Growth, http://sev.prnewswire.com/oil-energy/20090701/DC4125201072009-1.html, 7-1]

Immigration, Energy and the Environment addresses America's stifled immigration policy debate: it finds that America's massive immigration-fueled population growth was the single largest contributing factor to the nation's increased energy consumption and carbon emissions over the past 35 years. Even without a massive amnesty for illegal aliens supported by President Obama and congressional leaders, immigration will be the driving factor as U.S. population approaches the half billion mark by mid-century. "Most Americans support the idea of reducing our nation's dependence on fossil fuels, out of concern for the environment and national security," observed Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "As Immigration, Energy and the Environment finds, Americans have reduced their per capita energy consumption, but population growth caused by unchecked immigration has steadily increased our energy use and our carbon emissions. "It's like buying an SUV that gets half the gas mileage of your previous car while claiming its OK because you'll only drive half as far each day - these forces operate against one another to the detriment of Americans here today," Stein said. "It is simply incongruous to believe that the nation can have an energy and environmental policy without also having a coherent population policy," Stein stated. "Controlling runaway U.S. population growth must begin with rational and enforceable immigration policies and dramatic, sustained reductions in overall immigration. But, while Congress and the president are asking Americans to alter the way they live and work, they are simultaneously pursuing immigration policies that would unleash even more massive population growth in the U.S." Among the key findings of Immigration, Energy and the Environment: Americans achieved more than a 9 percent reduction in per capita energy consumption between 1973 and 2007. During that same period, U.S. population increased nearly 70 percent and total energy consumption grew by 33 percent. In order to meet the 2012 goals set forth in the Kyoto Treaty, per capita U.S. energy consumption would have to be reduced by 37 percent, even as U.S. population increases by 3.4 million people annually. "U.S. population growth is the single greatest obstacle to achieving energy independence and reducing our greenhouse emissions," said Stein. "It is not the fault of immigrants for requiring energy resources. It is the fault of U.S. policymakers for failing to recognize and correct immigration policies that undermine our ability to achieve vital energy and environmental goals. "The role of immigration generated population growth cannot be ignored as Congress and the Obama administration tackle these very difficult issues," concluded Stein.


Warming Scenario (2/)

Unchecked warming causes extinction – positive feedbacks leads to disease, heat waves, drought, starvation, and the death of billionsAssociated Press 2007 (Climate Report Maps Out ‘Highway to Extinction’) April 1, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17889856/

WASHINGTON - A key element of the second major report on climate change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the effects of global warming with every degree of temperature rise, most of them bad. There’s one bright spot: A minimal heat rise

means more food production in northern regions of the world. However, the number of species going extinct rises with the heat, as does the number of people who may starve, or face water shortages, or floods, according to the projections in the draft report obtained by The Associated Press. Some scientists are calling this degree-by-degree projection a “highway to extinction.” It’s likely to be the source of sharp closed-door debate, some scientists say, along with a multitude of other issues in the 20-chapter draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While the wording in the draft is almost guaranteed to change at this week’s meeting in Brussels, several scientists say the focus won’t. The final document will be the product of a United Nations network of 2,000 scientists as authors and reviewers, along with representatives of more than 120 governments as last-minute editors. It will be the second of a four-volume authoritative assessment of Earth’s climate released this year. The last such effort was in 2001.University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said the chart of results from various temperature levels is “a highway to extinction , but on this highway there are many turnoffs. This is showing you where the road is heading. The road is heading toward extinction.”Weaver is one of the lead authors of the first report, issued in February. While humanity will survive, hundreds of millions, maybe billions of people may not , according to the chart—if the worst scenarios happens. The report says global warming has already degraded conditions for many species, coastal areas and poor people. With a more than 90 percent level of confidence, the scientists in the draft report say man-made global warming “over the last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.” But as the world’s average temperature warms from 1990 levels, the projections get more dire. Add 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit -- 1 degree Celsius is the calculation scientists use—and between 400 million and 1.7 billion extra people can’t get enough water, some infectious diseases and allergenic pollens rise, and some amphibians go extinct. But the world’s food supply, especially in northern areas, could increase. That’s the likely outcome around 2020, according to the draft. Add another 1.8 degrees and as many as 2 billion people could be without water and about 20 percent to 30 percent of the world’s species near extinction . Also, more people start dying because of malnutrition, disease, heat waves, floods and droughts—all caused by global warming. That would happen around 2050, depending on the level of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.At the extreme end of the projections, a 7- to 9-degree average temperature increase, the chart predicts: “Up to one-fifth of the world population affected by increased flood events ... “1.1 to 3.2 billion people with increased water scarcity” ...”major extinctions around the globe.” Despite that dire outlook , several scientists involved in the process say they are optimistic that such a drastic temperature rise won’t happen because people will reduce carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming . “The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can’t be that stupid,” said Harvard University oceanographer James McCarthy, who was a top author of the 2001 version of this report. “Not that I think the projections aren’t that good, but because we can’t be that stupid.”


Warming – Link – Xenophobia

Mexican Immigration causes a xenophobic backlash Nontgomery 2007 , Journalist for the Kansas City Star, Dave, August 19, “Backlash against illegal immigration grows,” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19043.html

The latest wave of immigrants — both legal and illegal — is predominated by Mexicans and other Latin

Americans who are venturing deep into the U.S. interior to follow the job market, often settling in towns and cities that, just a few years earlier, were unaccustomed to Hispanics. In South Carolina, for example, nearly 50 percent of the state’s foreign-born population comes from Latin America, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The pattern is similar in Georgia, where Latin Americans make up 55 percent of the foreign-born population. The resulting demographic impact on local communities can often lead to social tensions that help explain the intensity of feelings over illegal immigration, said Meissner and other experts. "Immigration is now affecting the entire country," Meissner said. "A larger share of the immigrants are going to these newer areas. The rate of change is dramatic." The growing presence has resulted in a proliferation of predominately conservative advocacy groups, many of whom weighed into the congressional debate, to demand the government halt the flow of illegal aliens. Many, bowing to America’s legacy as a land of immigrants, stress that they support legal immigration — though possibly in reduced numbers — but view illegal immigrants as lawbreakers who take jobs that should go to U.S. citizens. "It’s real important that we keep the word 'illegal’ in front when we talk about what these groups stand for," said Marlett, the ProAmerica Cos. founder. He said groups in his coalition have no tolerance for extremists who "try to glom on" to the immigration issue. But John Trasvina, president of the Los Angeles-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), said the backlash over illegal immigrants is clearly generating widening anti-Hispanic sentiments, often exemplified in hate rhetoric on talk shows and over the Internet. MALDEF has thus far prevailed in legally defeating municipal immigration ordinances, but Trasvina said that "a poisonous atmosphere" remains.

Xenophobia destroys domestic and international efforts to solve global warming Shellenberger 2008 (Michael, The Breakthrough Institute, “Xenophobia Destroyed Immigration Reform – Is Health Care Next?” http://www.thebreakthrough.org/blog/2008/04/xenophobia_destroyed_immigrati_1.shtml)

Anti-immigration/anti-"other" attitudes also impede progress on global warming and other environment issues. Recall that in the early 1990s, we saw appeals to xenophobic values in the debate over NAFTA in some of the arguments that lower wages in Mexico would attract jobs from American workers. That same logic could apply to the adoption of tough emissions standards in the United States for American companies, without corresponding standards in Mexico and Central America. We saw a similar dynamic at work in global warming focus groups conducted for the Foundation last fall, in which Tucson residents (especially men) were far more likely to blame global warming on developing countries than attributing the problem to U.S. sources. Results from American Environics' American Value Survey echo those views, showing that adults who are high on the "Xenophobia" values construct are significantly more likely to believe the U.S. shouldn't be required to limit its greenhouse gas emissions unless developing countries like China and India do too. In fact, AVS data reveal that being high on Xenophobia is stronger predictor of holding this opinion than either being ideologically conservative or a Republican. Anti-immigration attitudes also hinder environmental efforts on the diplomatic front, as America's trading partners prove less amenable to negotiating more stringent environmental safeguards when American politicians are demonizing their countries and citizens.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19043.html


Warming – Link – CO2

Immigration increases global CO2 emissionsCamarota, 08 (Steven, senior demographic analyst at the Center of Immigration Studies, August, “Immigration to the United States and World-Wide Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, http://www.cis.org/GreenhouseGasEmissions)

The findings of this study indicate that future levels of immigration will have a significant impact on efforts to reduce global CO2 emissions. Immigration to the United States significantly increases world-wide CO2 emissions because it transfers population from lower-polluting parts of the world to the United States, which is a higher-polluting country. On average immigrants increase their emissions four-fold by coming to America. Among the findings: The estimated CO2 emissions of the average immigrant (legal or illegal) in the United States are 18 percent less than those of the average native-born American.However, immigrants in the United States produce an estimated four times more CO2 in the United States as they would have in their countries of origin. U.S. immigrants produce an estimated 637 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually — equal to Great Britain and Sweden combined. The estimated 637 tons of CO2 U.S. immigrants produce annually is 482 million tons more than they would have produced had they remained in their home countries. If the 482 million ton increase in global CO2 emissions caused by immigration to the United States were a separate country, it would rank 10th in the world in emissions. The impact of immigration to the United States on global emissions is equal to approximately 5 percent of the increase in annual world-wide CO2 emissions since 1980.

Immigration ensures the US can’t reduce CO2 emissionsCAIR, 07 (Colorado allegiance for immigration reform, Mass Immigration's Impact on U.S. Energy Usage, 9-17-2007, http://www.cairco.org/energy/energy.html)

Increased population, not increased consumption, is almost entirely responsible for the one-third increase in U.S. energy usage since 1973. • In 2000 the U.S. used over 30 percent more energy than in 1973. But this is not because individuals are using more energy; it's entirely because there are more people. • Per capita motor gasoline consumption in the U.S. was virtually unchanged between 1974 and 2000 despite major improvements in the fuel efficiency of new vehicles. Per capita motor gasoline consumption was 471 gallons in 1974 and 463 gallons in 2000. Over this same time period the fuel efficiency of the U.S. passenger car fleet increased from 13.6 miles per gallon (mpg) to 21.4 mpg and the fuel efficiency of the light truck fleet (including vans and SUVs) increased from 11.0 to 17.1 mpg. • Immigration is the cause of 40 percent of U.S. population growth in the last quarter century and has been directly responsible for one-third of the increase in energy usage during that period. • Residential energy use has increased by 34 percent since 1973. Almost all of that entire increase was due to population growth. • "From 1970 to 2000, U.S. population growth was related to approximately 87% of the increase in total U.S. primary energy consumption. To date, since less than 10 percent of U.S. energy supply is derived from renewable sources, the increasing number of American energy consumers is pushing the country down an ever-more precarious, polluting path of dependency on fossil fuels. Not only will global oil and gas reserves be exhausted for all intents within this century, but their exploitation is altering the earth's atmospheric composition and probably its very climate."2 • The U.S. won't be able to meet emission-reductions goals unless we slow down immigration-driven population growth. Assuming that U.S. immigration levels continue at their current rate, meeting the Kyoto Protocol goals will require that per capita energy consumption in the year 2012 be reduced by 28 percent from the 2000 level. This would require major lifestyle changes for Americans and cause serious economic dislocations. • If immigration continues at current high levels, the U.S. will not be able to achieve any meaningful reductions in carbon dioxide emissions without serious economic and social consequences for American citizens.


Warming – Link – CO2

Immigration to the U.S. significantly increases GHG emissions. Camarota and Kolankiewicz 08 (Steven A. Camarota, Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in public policy analysis and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Pennsylvania, and Leon Kolankiewicz, environmental scientist and national natural resources planner, has a B.S. in forestry and wildlife management from Virginia Tech and an M.S. in environmental planning and natural resources management from the University of British Columbia, August 2008, Center for Immigration Studies, Immigration to the United States and World-Wide Greenhouse Gas Emissions, http://www.cis.org/GreenhouseGasEmissions)

It is instructive to put the estimated output of immigrants into context. The estimated 637 million tons of CO2 emissions generated by immigrants is roughly equal to the annual CO2 emissions of Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela combined (the three largest emitting countries in South America). It is also equal to the CO2 emissions of Great Britain and Sweden together. If immigrants in the United States were a separate country, they would rank seventh in world CO2 emissions, behind China, the United States, Russia, Japan, India, and Germany. Of course, if immigrants had stayed in their home countries, they also would have produced greenhouse gases. If the current stock of immigrants in the United States had stayed in their countries of origin rather than migrating to the United States, their estimated annual CO2 emissions would have been only 155 metric tons, assuming these immigrants had the average level of CO2 emissions for a person living in their home countries. This is 482 million tons less than the estimated 637 tons they will produce in the United States. This 482 million ton increase represents the impact of immigration on global emissions . It is equal to approximately 5 percent of the increase in annual world-wide CO2 emissions since 1980.17 If the 482 million ton increase in global CO2 emissions caused by immigration to the United States were a separate country, it would rank 10th in the world. Immigration to the United States thus has significant implications for global greenhouse gas emissions . And it is the total output that matters to CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, because CO2 emitted anywhere is dispersed everywhere . It should be noted that Tables 3 and 4 are based on the assumption that immigrants in the United States would have emitted CO2 at rates like the average person in their country of origin if they had remained there. However, in certain cases, particularly Asian countries, this assumption may understate immigrants’ actual emission rates if they had stayed in their home countries because immigrants in the United States from several Asian countries are more educated than is the average person in their home countries. Higher education levels should result in higher incomes and higher CO2 emissions in their home countries. This would mean that the immigrant-induced increase in global emissions would be lower than estimated above. However, there is a strong reason to believe that even if CO2 emissions were higher for immigrants from these countries it would not significantly change the above estimates. If we assume that immigrants from India would have produced three times the CO2 emissions as the average person in that country and that those from China, the Philippines, and Vietnam would have doubled, it changes the underlying findings only slightly.18 Even making this assumption of much higher emissions in their home countries would still mean that immigrants overall would produce 3.7 times as much CO2 in the United States as they would have in their home counties. This is very similar to the 4.1-fold increase found in Table 4. It must be remembered that highly educated immigrants from Asia account for a modest share of all immigrants in this country. It also should be remembered that immigrants from the largest sending country, Mexico, have very similar education levels to the average person in that country. Moreover, even if their emissions were much higher in their home countries, their output would still be much less than in the United States. Assuming no change in U.S. immigration policy, 30 million new legal and illegal immigrants are likely to settle in the United States in the next 20 years.19 Primarily because of immigration (new immigrants plus their descendents), the U.S. population is projected to grow by more than 20 percent over this time period, or by at least 60 million.20 Even if per capita CO2 emissions could be reduced by 20 percent in the United States over the next 20 years, total annual U.S. CO2 emissions would remain the same. Total emissions are what matters for the global environment. Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must include some understanding of how immigration and population growth contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.


Warming – Impact – Oceans

Increased CO2 causes ocean acidification.Caldeira, 05 (Dr. Ken, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington; Dr. Ken Caldeira preformed this work while at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, “Oceans turning to acid from rise in CO2,” June 30, 2005, http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/ci-ott063005.php)

A report issued by the Royal Society in the U.K. sounds the alarm about the world's oceans. "If CO2 from human activities continues to rise, the oceans will become so acidic by 2100 it could threaten marine life in ways we can't anticipate," commented Dr. Ken Caldeira, co-author of the report and a newly appointed staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, California.* The report on ocean acidification was released today by the Royal Society. See http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/ Many scientists view the world's oceans as an important sink for capturing the human-induced greenhouse gas CO2 and slowing global warming. Marine plants soak up CO2 as they breathe it in and convert it to food during photosynthesis. Organisms also use it to make their skeletons and shells, which eventually form sediments. With the explosion of fossil-fuel burning over the past 200 years, it has been estimated that more than a third of the human-originated greenhouse gas has been absorbed by the oceans. While marine organisms need CO2 to survive, work by Caldeira and colleagues shows that too much CO2 in the ocean could lead to ecological disruption and extinctions in the marine environment. When CO2 gas dissolves into the ocean it produces carbonic acid, which is corrosive to shells of marine organisms and can interfere with the oxygen supply. If current trends continue, the scientists believe the acidic water could interrupt the process of shell and coral formation and adversely affect other organisms dependent upon corals and shellfish. The acidity could also negatively impact other calcifying organisms, such as phytoplankton and zooplankton, some of the most important players at the base of the planet's food chain. "We can predict the magnitude of the acidification based on the evidence that has been collected from the ocean's surface, the geological and historical record, ocean circulation models, and what's known about ocean chemistry," continued Caldeira. "What we can't predict is just what acidic oceans mean to ocean ecology and to Earth's climate. International and governmental bodies must focus on this area before it's too late." The pH (potential of Hydrogen) scale is from 1 to 14, with 7 being neutral. Anything that lowers pH makes the solution more acidic. The scientists calculated that over the past 200 years, the pH of the surface seawater has declined by 0.1 units, which is a 30% increase in hydrogen ions. If emissions of CO2 continue to rise as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's IS92a scenario, there will be another drop in pH by .5 units by 2100, a level that has not existed in the oceans for many millions of years. In addition, the changes in the oceans' chemistry will reduce their ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, which in turn will accelerate the rate of global warming. "This report should sound the alarm bells around the world," remarked Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Department of Global Ecology. "It provides compelling evidence for the need for a thorough understanding of the implications of ocean acidification. It also strengthens the case for rapid progress on reducing CO2 emissions."

ExtinctionCraig 03 Associate Prof Law, Indiana U School Law [McGeorge Law Review, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155 Lexis]

Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. n856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. n857 More generally, " ocean ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." n858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." n859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. n860 Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. n861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take most of the biosphere with us.


Warming – AT: Other Countries Outweigh the Link

The U.S. emits most of the world’s CO2 Hansen 08 head of NASA Goddard Institute and professor of Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, James E., Briefing before the Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, US House of Representatives. “Twenty years later: tipping points near on global warming,” 2008 http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf)

The fossil industry maintains its strangle-hold on Washington via demagoguery, using China and other

developing nations as scapegoats to rationalise inaction. In fact, we produced most of the excess carbon in the air today, and it is to our advantage as a nation to move smartly in developing ways to reduce emissions. As with the ozone problem, developing countries can be allowed limited extra time to reduce emissions. They will cooperate: they have much to lose from climate change and much to gain from clean air and reduced

dependence on fossil fuels. We must establish fair agreements with other countries. However, our own tax and

dividend should start immediately. We have much to gain from it as a nation, and other countries will copy our success. If necessary, import duties on products from uncooperative countries can level the playing field, with the import tax added to the dividend pool.

We produce a quarter of the world’s emissionsICTA 04, “Gasoline Cost Externalities Associated With Global Climate Change”, International Center for Technology Assessment, (http://www.icta.org/doc/global%20warming%20rpg%20update.pdf)

Estimates of the cost of global warming used for this report are based only on U.S. emissions and the resulting domestic externalities. Obviously this narrow estimate of the costs of climate change ignores the significant impact of U.S. emissions on the rest of the world. The United States produces approximately a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, even though the country’s population is less than 5% of the world total. Automobiles and other gasoline-powered vehicles account for more than 21% of U.S. CO2 emissions5 and more than 17% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.6 If China, for example, with almost one quarter of the world’s population and already in the grip of a severe environmental pollution crisis, were to match the per capita gasoline usage of the United States, the implications for global warming would be catastrophic. Americans continue to waste energy and emit greenhouse gases as if there were no climatic or environmental costs. U.S. political leaders have failed to recognize the long-term implications and communicate with industry and the public in order to formulate responsible energy and transportation policies.


Peak Oil Scenario (1/)

Immigration exacerbates the energy crisis and prevents transition to renewablesAttarian, 02 (John, Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, “The Coming End of Cheap Oil: To Hubbert’s Peak and beyond,” The Social Contract, Volume 12, Number 4, Summer 2002, http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1204/article_1095.shtml)

The coming oil crunch makes curtailment of mass immigration an urgent imperative. Mass migration from Third World countries with low per-capita energy use to affluent nations with high per-capita energy use must necessarily increase total energy demand. Surging immigration, the main contributor to America’s population growth, will greatly increase demand for costlier energy. In 1973-1995, American energy consumption rose some 22 percent, some roughly 90 percent of it due to population growth.42 It is well known that immigration accounts for some 70 percent of population growth since the Seventies. This means immigration accounts for the lion’s share of the increase in energy use – roughly 63 percent (.9 x .7 = .63). It necessarily follows that we cannot tackle energy without tackling immigration. This is not nativism, this is arithmetic. California’s energy crisis is grimly instructive as to what continued mass immigration means. As Ric Oberlink observed, California’s total energy consumption more than doubled in 1969-1999, even though per-capita use grew only 22.9 percent (from 5,655 kilowatt-hours to 6,952). The reason? California’s population rose from 19.7 million to 33.1 million (up 68 percent), some 95 percent of it due to immigration.43 Not only will mass immigration worsen the oil problem, most immigrants have no human capital to offer to help cope with it. In fact, immigration will make coping disastrously harder. Floods of immigrant labor will exacerbate productivity and wage stagnation, thereby worsening economic stagnation, making it harder to afford costlier energy, goods, services, and entitlements – and harder to finance the urgently needed huge investments in alternative energy sources, meaning our energy plight will worsen. Should hydrocarbon inputs for agriculture decline, yields on already-heavily worked c roplands, depleted of natural nutrients, will fall, forcing us to bring more land under cultivation – which will collide with the urban sprawl due to immigration-driven population growth. Mass immigration and the decline of conventional oil, then, will create a vicious circle, each one worsening the problems spawned by the other. Colin Campbell warns that America “has to somehow find a way to cut its demand [for oil] by at least five percent a year.”44 This will be impossible without a complete moratorium on immigration, for at least two decades, to see us through the transition from cheap oil to a sustainable mix of substitutes. We cannot simultaneously cut demand for oil while allowing the main force driving it higher to keep operating. The longer mass immigration continues, the more per capita energy use must fall to compensate – meaning the more austere and impoverished our lives must become. Put another way, continued mass immigration in a context of declining conventional oil output will rapidly turn America into an impoverished nation with Third World living standards. Obviously, we must promptly develop alternatives to conventional oil and natural gas. But equally obviously, we must take measures promptly to conserve energy. And an immigration moratorium is at the top of the list.

http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1204/article_1095.shtml


Peak Oil Scenario (2/)

Peak oil causes global catastrophe – renewable energy solves all terminal impactsHeinberg, 07 (Richard, Senior Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, “#185: Peak Everything,” MuseLetter #185, an edited version of the Introduction to Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, September, 2007, http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/richard_heinbergs_museletter_peak_everything)

As we have seen, just a few core trends have driven many others in producing the global problems we see today, and those core trends (including population growth and increasing consumption rates) themselves constellate around our ever-burgeoning use of fossil fuels. Thus, a conclusion of startling plainness presents itself: Our central survival task for the decades ahead, as individuals and as a species, must be to make a transition away from the use of fossil fuels - and to do this as peacefully, equitably, and intelligently as possible. At first thought, this must seem like an absurd over-simplification of the human situation. After all, the world is full of crises demanding our attention - from wars to pollution, malnutrition, land mines, human rights abuses, and soaring cancer rates. Doesn't a monomaniacal focus just on fossil fuels miss many important things? In defense of the statement I would offer two points. First, some problems are more critical than others. A patient may suffer simultaneously from a broken blood vessel in the brain and a broken leg. A doctor will not ignore the second problem, but since the first is immediately life-threatening, its treatment will take precedence. Globally, there are two problems whose potential consequences far outweigh most others: climate change and energy resource depletion. If we do nothing to dramatically curtail emissions of greenhouse gases soon, there is the substantial likelihood that we will set in motion the two self-reinforcing feedback loops mentioned previously - the melting of the north polar icecap, and the melting of tundra and permafrost releasing stored methane. These would, if set in motion, lead to an averaged global warming not just of a couple of degrees, but perhaps six or more degrees over the remainder of the century. And this in turn could make much of the world uninhabitable and make agriculture impracticable in many if not most places, and could result not only in the extinction of thousands or millions of other species but the deaths of hundreds of millions or billions of human beings. The post-peak decline in availability of oil, natural gas, and coal - if our dependence on these fuels continues unabated - could trigger economic collapse, famine, and a general war over remaining resources. While it is certainly possible to imagine survivable transition strategies away from fossil fuels involving proactive efforts to develop alternative energy sources on a massive scale and to create policies mandating energy conservation, also on a massive scale, the world is currently as reliant on hydrocarbons as it is on water, sunlight, and soil. Without oil for transportation and agriculture; without gas for heating, chemicals, and fertilizers; and without coal for power generation, the global economy would sputter to a halt. While no one envisions these fuels disappearing instantly, we can avert the worst-case scenario of global economic meltdown - with all of the human tragedy that implies - only by proactively reducing our reliance on oil, gas, and coal ahead of depletion and scarcity. In other words, all that would be required in order for the worst-case scenario to materialize would be for world leaders to continue with existing policies. These two problems are potentially lethal; they are first-priority ailments. If we solve them, we will then be able to devote our attention to other human dilemmas, many of which have been with us for millennia - war, disease, inequality, and so on. If we do not solve these two problems, then in a few decades our species may be in no position to make any progress whatever on other fronts; indeed, it will likely be engaged in a struggle for its very survival. We'll be literally and metaphorically burning the furniture for fuel and fighting over scraps. My second reason for insisting that the transition from fossil fuels must take precedence over other concerns can likewise be framed in a medical metaphor: Often a constellation of seemingly disparate symptoms issues from a single cause. A patient may present with symptoms of hearing loss, stomach pain, headaches, and irritability. An incompetent doctor might treat each of these symptoms separately without trying to correlate them. But if their cause is lead poisoning (which can produce all of these signs and more), then mere symptomatic treatment would be useless. Let us unpack the metaphor. Not only are the two great crises mentioned above closely related (both peak oil and climate change issue from our dependence on fossil fuels), but - as I have already noted - many if not most of our other modern crises constellate also around fossil fuels. Even long-standing and perennial problems like economic inequality have been exacerbated by high energy-flow rates. Pollution is no different in this regard. We humans have polluted our environments in various ways for a very long time; activities like the mining of lead and tin have produced localized devastation for centuries. However, the problem of chemical pollution that is spread generally throughout the


Peak Oil Scenario (3/) environment is a relatively new one and has grown much worse over the past decades. Many of the most dangerous pollutants happen to be fossil fuel derivatives (pesticides, plastics, and other hormone-mimicking chemicals) or by-productions from the burning of coal or petroleum (nitrogen oxides and other contributors to acid rain). War might at first seem to be a problem completely independent of our modern thirst for fossil energy sources. However, as security analyst Michael Klare has underscored in his book Blood and Oil,13 many recent wars have turned on competition for control of petroleum; as oil grows scarcer in the post-peak environment, further wars and civil conflicts over the black gold are almost assured. Moreover, the use of fossil fuels in the prosecution of war has made state-authorized mayhem far more deadly. Most modern explosives are made from fossil fuels, and even the atomic bomb - which relies on nuclear fission or fusion rather than hydrocarbons for its horrific power - depends on fuel for its delivery systems. One could go on. In summary: We have used the plentiful, cheap energy from fossil fuels quite predictably to expand our power over nature and one another. Doing so has produced a laundry list of environmental and social problems. We have tried to address these one by one, but our efforts will be much more effective if directed at their common root - that is, if we end our dependence on fossil fuels. Again, my thesis: Many problems rightly deserve attention, but the problem of our dependence on fossil fuels is central to human survival, and so as long as that dependence continues to any significant extent we must make its reduction the centerpiece of all our collective efforts - whether they are efforts to feed ourselves, resolve conflicts, or maintain a functioning economy. But this can be formulated in another, more encouraging, way: If we do focus all of our collective efforts on the central task of energy transition, we may find ourselves contributing to the solution of a wide range of problems that would be much harder to solve if we confronted each one in isolation. With a coordinated and voluntary reduction in fossil fuel consumption, we could see substantial progress in reducing many forms of environmental pollution. The decentralization of economic activity that we must pursue as transport fuels become more scarce could lead to more local jobs and more fulfilling occupations, and more robust local economies. A controlled contraction in global oil trade could lead to a reduction of international political tensions. A planned conversion of farming to non-fossil fuel methods could mean a decline in environmental devastation caused by agriculture and economic opportunities for millions of new farmers. Meanwhile, all of these efforts together could increase equity, community involvement, intergenerational solidarity, and the other intangible goods listed earlier. Surely this is a future worth working toward.


Peak Oil – Link – Oil Consumption

Immigration increases oil demand.Attarian, 02 (John, Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, “The Coming End of Cheap Oil: To Hubbert’s Peak and beyond,” The Social Contract, Volume 12, Number 4, Summer 2002, http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1204/article_1095.shtml)

The coming oil crunch makes curtailment of mass immigration an urgent imperative. Mass migration from Third World countries with low per-capita energy use to affluent nations with high per-capita energy use must necessarily increase total energy demand. Surging immigration, the main contributor to America’s population growth, will greatly increase demand for costlier energy. In 1973-1995, American energy consumption rose some 22 percent, some roughly 90 percent of it due to population growth.(42) It is well known that immigration accounts for some 70 percent of population growth since the Seventies. This means immigration accounts for the lion’s share of the increase in energy use – roughly 63 percent (.9 x .7 = .63). It necessarily follows that we cannot tackle energy without tackling immigration. This is not nativism, this is arithmetic.

Immigration worsens the energy crisis.Attarian, 02 (John, Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, “The Coming End of Cheap Oil: To Hubbert’s Peak and beyond,” The Social Contract, Volume 12, Number 4, Summer 2002, http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1204/article_1095.shtml)

California’s energy crisis is grimly instructive as to what continued mass immigration means. As Ric Oberlink observed, California’s total energy consumption more than doubled in 1969-1999, even though per-capita use grew only 22.9 percent (from 5,655 kilowatt-hours to 6,952). The reason? California’s population rose from 19.7 million to 33.1 million (up 68 percent), some 95 percent of it due to immigration.(43) Not only will mass immigration worsen the oil problem, most immigrants have no human capital to offer to help cope with it . In fact, immigration will make coping disastrously harder. Floods of immigrant labor will exacerbate productivity and wage stagnation, thereby worsening economic stagnation, making it harder to afford costlier energy, goods, services, and entitlements – and harder to finance the urgently needed huge investments in alternative energy sources, meaning our energy plight will worsen. Should hydrocarbon inputs for agriculture decline, yields on already-heavily worked croplands, depleted of natural nutrients, will fall, forcing us to bring more land under cultivation – which will collide with the urban sprawl due to immigration-driven population growth. Mass immigration and the decline of conventional oil, then, will create a vicious circle, each one worsening the problems spawned by the other.




Peak Oil – Link – Energy Consumption

Immigration drives population growth – high birth rates and lower average age means they have a unique impact on energy consumption and emissionsAnthrop, 07 (Donald F., Consultant to Californians for Population Stabilization; Dr. Anthrop is a Professor of Environmental Studies, Emeritus, San Jose State University; former consultant to the California Energy Commission, “Immigration and Energy - Some Inconvenient Truths,” The Social Contract, Volume 17, Number 3, Spring 2007, http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1703/tsc_17_3_anthrop.shtml)

Environmentalists would like Americans to believe that SUVs and pickup trucks are responsible for America’s growing oil consumption and that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions could be halted if only the U.S. switched from fossil fuels to “renewable” energy sources and Congress raised the fuel economy standards for motor vehicles. The reality is rather different. In the first place, both energy consumption and gasoline consumption in the U.S. are being driven almost entirely by population growth. U.S. per capita energy consumption in 2005 was 337 million BTU (British thermal units)—little changed from the 347 million BTU in 1974, the year of the Arab oil embargo.1,2 The 35 percent increase in energy consumption during this time period was due almost entirely to the 83 million people added to the U.S. population. Per capita gasoline consumption in 2005 was 11.2 barrels—the same as in 1974.3 Although the average fuel economy of passengers on the road increased from 13.6 [mpg] (miles per gallon) to 22.4 mpg, this improvement in fuel economy was offset by increases in the number of vehicles and the mileage each vehicle was driven.4 The 39 percent increase in gasoline consumption between 1974 and 2005 essentially matches the 39 percent increase in population. Environmentalists and many members of Congress who should know better talk glowingly of reducing the nation’s oil consumption by converting the gasoline supply to E85—a mixture consisting of 85 percent gasoline and 15 percent ethanol. If this ethanol were produced from corn, about 82 percent of the existing U.S. corn crop would be consumed for ethanol production.5,6 It is worth noting that approximately 14 percent of the U.S. corn crop is irrigated, and this irrigated acreage consumes almost 18 million acre-feet (MAF) of water—most of which is overdrafted from the Ogallala aquifer in the Great Plains.7,8 To put this water requirement into some perspective, the average annual flow of the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry is only about 14 MAF. Furthermore, much of this corn acreage in the Great Plains states is easily erodable land, and numerous studies have conclusively demonstrated that row crops—such as corn—result in much higher erosion rates than cereal grains or forage crops.9 In one study done near Zanesville, Ohio, a continuous corn-row sequence produced a soil loss nine times that for wheat grown in a rotation sequence with corn.10 The Congressional Budget Office, in its recent report on the Senate immigration reform bill, S.2611, has estimated the Senate bill would give permanent residence to 24.4 million immigrants over the next 20 years.11 Population growth in the U.S. is being driven by immigration. The birth rate among immigrants is higher than for the native-born population. Because the average age of immigrants is lower than that of the native-born population, the death rate is lower. Consequently, the natural rate of increase for the U.S. population is about 0.565 percent per year compared to zero for most European countries.12 If we assume the net rate of increase remains constant, the immigration allowed under the Senate bill will result in a population increase of approximately 62 million by 2026.13 If per capita gasoline consumption remains constant, this population growth will increase gasoline consumption by 695 million barrels/year or 21 percent—dwarfing the savings that would be realized by switching to E85. Indeed if corn ethanol were to supply just the additional gasoline requirement for the 62 million people, corn acreage would have to be increased by 117 million acres—which equals about 25 percent of all the cropland in the U.S.14 Growing a crop that results in soil erosion nine-fold greater than wheat or with overdrafted groundwater just to support the immigration of more people into the U.S. hardly qualifies as a sustainable policy. Recently a number of articles have appeared in the popular press touting the supposed benefits of biodiesel fuel as a substitute for conventional diesel. However, none of these have addressed the question of potential production of biodiesel or compared such production to the demand created by population growth. Biodiesel fuel is produced from fats and oils, but these fats and oils are also consumed in food, animal feed, and chemical production. The only oils that currently can be considered surplus and available for biodiesel production are those that are exported. These exported oils (primarily oilseed oils, such as soybean) could produce about 40 million barrels of biodiesel per year, or about 0.5 percent of U.S. petroleum consumption.15 In order to increase the supply of oils for biodiesel production, the acreage of oilseeds (mostly soybeans or canola) would have to be expanded. The top 5 soybean producing states (Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, and Nebraska) are also the top 5 corn producing states. Consequently, soybean acreage is in competition with corn acreage for ethanol production, and indeed, soybean acreage in the top 7 producing states declined between 2001 and 2005.16 Since soybeans require a warm, humid climate, they are not grown in the arid west, even with irrigation. Consequently, the potential for expansion of soybean acreage is limited. It has been suggested that some land in the CRP [Conservation Reserve Program] might be planted to canola when the CRP contracts expire. There are currently 34.8 million acres under CRP contracts, of which 11.1 million acres, or almost one-third of the total acreage, are in the four states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Kansas.17 If all 11 million acres were planted in canola, 19 million barrels/year of biodiesel could be produced.18 The Senate immigration bill would give permanent residence to approximately 24.4 million immigrants. Since U.S. per capita oil consumption in 2005 was 25.4 barrels/year, these immigrants would increase U.S. petroleum consumption by 620 million barrels/year or 32 times the amount of biodiesel obtainable from the 11 million acres of CRP land.19 Furthermore, if the present energy mix remains the same, these 62 million people will produce a 21 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions.20 And, the energy mix is unlikely to change much. As the gasoline data show, renewable energy sources simply cannot provide either the liquid fuels or the total energy required by the U.S. economy. Indeed, even if it were possible to collect all of the above-ground residue from the 200 million acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, and oats in the U.S., the energy content of that residue represents only 35 percent of the energy needed by these 62 million people.21 Clearly, the impact of immigration will overwhelm all efforts to produce fuels from biomass. The European Union (EU), which has been one of the leading advocates of the Kyoto Protocol, is finding that even with a stable population, carbon dioxide emissions in 2004 were 4 percent above 1990 levels, and the EU’s goal of reducing the collective emissions of its members by 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 is rapidly becoming more elusive.22 Many of the same members of the U.S. Senate who complain about global warming and America’s “addiction” to oil are also staunch supporters of S.2611 and amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants—which suggests they are more interested in buying votes through pandering to immigrant communities than in the long-term interests of the United States.


***Aff***


Non-Unique – Immigration High Now

Economic recession increases immigrationKeefe, 09 (Patrick Radden, fellow at The Century Foundation, “Snakeheads and Smuggling: The Dynamics of Illegal Chinese Immigration,” World Policy Institute, Spring 2009, Vol. 26, No. 1, Pages 33-44, http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/wopj.2009.26.1.33)

Still, China’s migrant labor market is exquisitely sensitive to even the most incremental shifts in the local and global economy. Lin Li is right to observe that the dynamics of out-migration in Fujian Province have changed dramatically over the past decade. But with the possibility of a prolonged global recession setting in, it remains an open question what developments the near future holds, and how the potentially mobile segment of China’s workforce will react to those developments. Already, many of the same construction workers who have manned new developments like Lin Li’s in recent years are struggling to find jobs as the pace of growth slows. They are now reversing the migration trend, returning west to their hometowns and ancestral farms. If the economy continues to suffer, laborers like these could employ snakeheads to transport them to North America, or Europe, to Africa, or the Middle East—anyplace where they might be more likely to make a decent wage. Fujian could once again become a major source of migrants, either in the form of strivers like Lin Li, who suddenly find that it is not as easy as it once was to start a business or land a contract, or in the form of displaced laborers from the west, who would rather try their luck abroad than return to the villages they left behind. If the price of passage is currently prohibitive to all but a few prospective emigrants, it seems more than likely that the snakeheads, entrepreneurial to the end, will find ways to lower their prices and economize on the costs of the journey. Whatever the outcome of the current financial crisis on China’s labor market, chances are good that many migrants will once again turn to the snakeheads. And when they do, the snakeheads are certain to oblige.

Recession is increasing migration to the USKeefe, 09 (Patrick Radden Keefe, fellow at The Century Foundation, “Snakeheads and Smuggling: The Dynamics of Illegal Chinese Immigration,” World Policy Institute, Spring 2009, Vol. 26, No. 1, Pages 33-44, http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/wopj.2009.26.1.33)

Magnet for the Undocumented As the United States confronts a dire economic crisis and soaring unemployment, illegal immigration and the role that undocumented laborers play in the American economy will inevitably become a source of controversy and debate. During the past few decades of sustained economic growth, the United States has been a magnet for undocumented migrants from China and dozens of other nations, to a point where by some estimates as many as 12 million people without legal status live in the country today. There are real questions, however, about whether the hard times ushered in by the financial crisis in the past year will diminish the attractiveness of the United States as a destination for migrants, and the risks that paperless laborers are prepared to undertake in order to get here. One possibility is that a contraction of economic opportunities will discourage further illegal immigration, and even persuade some undocumented sojourners already living in American cities to return to their native countries. But the prospect of a widespread global recession could also mean a dramatic uptick in irregular migration, as hard times hit the developing world with increasing fury, pushing ever greater numbers of migrants to leave their home countries in search of any economic environment that is even marginally more promising than their own. The Chinese labor force is astonishingly mobile. Enterprising Chinese have proven willing, even eager, to pursue better opportunities not just outside their villages or on the other side of the country but at the farthest reaches of the earth. Chinese traders have laid down roots in Lima, Havana, Singapore, and Sydney. Today, Chinese companies are building roads and power networks throughout Africa, and Chinese farmers are cooperating with local counterparts to grow crops for export in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, and Senegal. Through the darkest years of the war in Iraq, the Chinese restaurant was a durable feature in Baghdad. So how Chinese laborers respond to the global economic crisis may provide a sort of bellwether for the broader trends in irregular migration that we are likely to witness in the future. As China’s economy has boomed in recent years, the number of people who chose to emigrate illegally has leveled off. But China has not been immune to the grim economic troubles of recent months, and it could very well be that as Fujian and other manufacturing centers along the coast begin to suffer, dramatic numbers of under-employed laborers will again pay to be smuggled abroad.


Non-Unique – Immigration Inevitable

Climate change makes immigration inevitableReuters 7-26 (“Climate change equals more Mexican migration: study,” http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66P5TP20100726)

Continued climate change will drive Mexican farm workers to migrate to the United States in greater numbers, environmental experts predicted on Monday. For every 10 percent of lost crop yields, 2 percent more Mexicans will leave and most will try to come to the United States, Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University in New Jersey and colleagues predicted.


No Link – No Social Services

Illegal Immigrants don’t receive benefits Borjas 97 (George J. Borjas is the Pforzheimer Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was awarded financial support by the Estrada Fellowship in Immigration Studies, given by the Center for Immigration Studies.) “Immigration and Welfare” The National Review, June 16, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n11_v49/ai_19517838/,

In 1996, after years of concern over the link between welfare and immigration, Congress included a number of immigrant-related provisions in the welfare-reform bill. According to the Congressional Budget Office, almost half of the $54-billion savings in this legislation can be traced directly to the restrictions on immigrant use of welfare. The welfare-reform bill banned most types of assistance for immigrants who would enter the country after August 22, 1996 (with the ban being lifted when the immigrants become citizens), and it mandated that most non-citizens present in the country on August 22, 1996, be kicked off the SSI and Food Stamp rolls within a year. The welfare-reform legislation was a capitulation by Congress to the idea that the problem was indeed welfare, not immigration.

Healthcare won’t help illegal immigrantsMontopoli 09 (Biran. 7-21. “Obama: No Health Care for Illegal Immigrants”. CBS News – Political Hotsheet. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/07/21/politics/politicalhotsheet/)

Asked by CBS News' Katie Couric in an exclusive interview whether illegal immigrants should be covered under a new health care plan, President Obama responded simply, "no." But he said there may need to be an exception to that policy for children. "First of all, I'd like to create a situation where we're dealing with illegal immigration, so that we don't have illegal immigrants," he said. "And we've got legal residents or citizens who are eligible for the plan. And I want a comprehensive immigration plan that creates a pathway to achieve that." "The one exception that I think has to be discussed is how are we treating children," he continued. "Partly because if you've got children who may be here illegally but are still in playgrounds or at schools, and potentially are passing on illnesses and communicable diseases, that aren't getting vaccinated, that I think is a situation where you may have to make an exception."


Social Services Link Turn

Immigrants have a net-positive effect on social spendingGittelson, 08 (Robert, immigration attorney, text of a speech given by the author to the Notre Dame Law School “Dispelling The Divisive Myths Of Comprehensive Immigration Reform” September 30, 2008, http://www.ilw.com/articles/2009,0107-gittelson.shtm)

This leads me to the second myth that I'd like to tackle, that being that our illegal immigrants are a net burden to our tax base. This is perhaps the most disingenuous myth in the Restrictionist's arsenal. I've heard tons of erroneous propaganda to this effect. Often they site the "costs of illegal immigration" as totaling in the billions of dollars. Well, they are half right. Illegal immigrants do cost taxpayers billions of dollars in social services. However, it is disingenuous to stop the argument there. It's like saying that it costs Toyota $15,000 to build a car. Yes, there is a cost associated with building a car, just as there is a cost associated with illegal immigration. On the other hand, if Toyota sells that car for $25,000, then there is actually a gross profit of $10,000, which is an entirely different and much more accurate way to look at the picture. The same is true with illegal immigrants in this country. The vast majority pay income taxes. Many pay property taxes, some pay corporate taxes, and all of them pay sales taxes. The vast majority of the academic and government studies have concluded that illegal immigrants actually pay more taxes into the system then they receive in benefits, although to be fair, there have been a few studies commissioned by anti-immigration organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Immigration Studies, which have not surprisingly reached an opposite conclusion. According to Francine Lipman, a Tax Law Professor at Chapman Law School, "Every empirical study of illegals' economic impact demonstrates the opposite . . .: undocumenteds actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services. Moreover, undocumented immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs. Eighty-five percent of eminent economists surveyed have concluded that undocumented immigrants have had a positive (seventy-four percent) or neutral (eleven percent) impact on the U.S. economy."6 That being said, I say that these academic arguments are, well, academic. The reality is that it really doesn't matter if the undocumented population pays a little more or a little less then what they receive back in social services, because these revenue figures are dwarfed by the only figure that really counts. The important figure is the amount of tax revenue that is generated directly and indirectly to our tax base because of, and through the presence of, these 12,000,000 to 20,000,000 undocumented people. While of course these people pay taxes, (and they would pay even more taxes after CIR), their tax contributions are minute compared to the taxes paid by: The corporations that the undocumented workers generate revenue for. The additional legal co-workers that owe their income, in whole or in part, to the presence of the undocumented workers that work with them, (often at much higher tax rate salaries or commissions then the undocumented lower wage employees). The owners or shareholders of the companies that they work for, (again, at much higher tax rates because of much larger incomes). The property taxes paid by the business's that the undocumented work for. The taxes paid by the companies, owners, and the employees of business's that produce revenue by working with the companies that employ the undocumented workers, (grocery chains, for example, that sell produce picked by undocumented workers). However, even these figures, while much larger then the direct taxes paid by the undocumented workers, really don't tell the whole story at all. To really appreciate the fiscal impact of the 12,000,000 to 20,000,000 undocumented people on our economy, and therefore on our tax base, you have to look at the full macroeconomic impact of these

people on the overall economy. When one considers the multiplicative effect of each dollar spent or generated by the undocumented people, as well as the legal citizens that they work with directly and indirectly, on the overall economy, the amount of tax revenue attributable to the labor of the undocumented workers skyrockets. This is because the multiplicative effect takes into consideration the fact that when one person spends a dollar, that same dollar gets recycled several times throughout the economy, generating tax revenue at each stop along the way. When you look at this equation through a macro-economic lens, (which is the only accurate way to look at it), then the tax revenue generated through and because of the undocumented population is several times the amount that they receive back in social services. It's not even remotely close. Many economists believe that immigrants are not the problem, but rather are the solution to many economic problems. Julian Simon, renowned economist, has noted that "every study that provides dollar estimates show that when the sum of the tax contributions to city, state and federal government are allowed for, those tax payments vastly exceed the cost of the services used, by a factor of perhaps five, ten or more."7 In fact, contrary to the myth that illegal immigrants cost us more in social services than they contribute to our tax base, I would also argue that the legalization of our undocumented immigrant population, not to mention our future need for additional immigrants, will greatly and positively impact the viability of our country's future social service commitments to our aging citizenry, particularly Social Security and Medicare. In short, we will need the vital financial contributions that these immigrants will be paying into these programs for years to come. According to Dowell Myers, a planning professor in the USC school of Policy, Planning, and Development, in his book Immigrants and Boomers, "Immigrants and boomers need each other. These are two populations whose destinies are going to converge in less than 20 years. We already know a lot about the boomers' coming retirement impacts, but we still underestimate the immigrants and how they can help. Between 1980 and 2015, the cost of programs for the elderly will increase from 31 percent of the federal budget to 48 percent. Meanwhile, the ratio of seniors to working-age residents, including immigrants, will grow from 250 seniors per 1,000 working-age residents in 2010 to 411 per 1,000 in 2030."8 According to Francine Lipman, "Over the next 75 years, new immigrants will provide a net benefit of approximately $611 billion in present value to the Social Security system."9 Also, according to the Immigration Policy Center, "Immigrants Pay More in Taxes Than They Use in Services Over Their Lifetimes: Depending on skills and level of education, each immigrant pays, on average, between $20,000 and $80,000 more in taxes than he or she consumes in public benefits. Immigrants' Relative Youth Contributes To Social Security's Health: Current levels of immigration will provide a net benefit to the Social Security system of nearly $450 billion in taxes paid over benefits received during the 2006-2030 period, and almost $4.4 trillion during the 2006-2080 period. This is because 75 percent of immigrants arrive in the United States when they are in their prime working years (age 18 to 65). But the share of native-born citizens in their prime working years now stands at only 60 percent, and will decline rapidly over the coming decades as the Baby Boomers retire."14 So, in point of fact, we either have to start having many more babies as soon as possible, or we need to face up to the reality that we need Comprehensive Immigration Reform going forward, if for no other reason that we need the tax contributions of all of these immigrants to help pay for our retirement.


Economy Link Turn

Immigrants boost economic growthFix, 06 (Michael Fix, Vice President and Director of Studies, “’Immigrants’ Costs and Contributions: The Effects of Reform’ Testimony Prepared for the Committee on Ways and Means U.S. House of Representatives Hearing on the Impacts of Border Security and Immigration on Ways and Means Programs,” Migration Policy Institute National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, July 26, 2006, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/FixTestimony072606.pdf)

To close let me indicate a few additional impacts that affect the federal purse. Decade after decade we have found that immigrant entrepreneurship creates jobs and, as a result, boosts tax payments. Immigrants are increasingly associated with further openings to trade and other forms of exchange that promote business. The foreign-born population’s willingness to follow jobs to other states and localities makes the US economy run more efficiently. High-skilled immigrants innovate in key sectors of the economy. And immigrant workers both produce and, in turn, consume goods and services – thus creating jobs that might not otherwise have existed that in turn have wider economic ripple effects.


AT: Disease Impact

Claims of immigration increasing diseases are wildly exaggerated.Beirich 07 (Heidi, Southern Poverty Law Center, 05/08/2007 “Immigration: Getting the Facts Straight” accessed 7/7/09 http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?site_area=1&aid=255 aes)

The nativists' favorite health claim, about the frightening disease of leprosy, is false. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "200-250 new cases" of leprosy, or Hansen's disease, are reported each year. In a 2006 report, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the number of reported cases of leprosy in the country "peaked at 361 in 1985 and has declined since 1988." The claim that malaria is being spread by immigrants also is wildly exaggerated. The Centers for Disease Control says the disease, which can only be transmitted by mosquitoes, was "eradicated" in the 1950s in America, although there is a remote possibility that a mosquito could transmit the disease from an infected immigrant to a native American. The reappearance of bedbugs is a real phenomenon, but is largely blamed on "widespread use of baits rather than insecticide sprays for ant and cockroach control," according to a fact sheet from the Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. It is true that most new cases of tuberculosis have been diagnosed in immigrants, according to a 2002 government study. It is also true that immigrants from Latin America have brought Chagas disease; however, it is transmitted only by blood-to-blood contact, like HIV, so the risk of contagion is limited.


AT: Oil Impacts

Nonconventional oil will fill-inRist 99, former senior writer at both People and New York NewsdayCurtis, Discover, June, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_6_20/ai_55926786,

When and if supplies of natural gas begin to run out, the oil companies will focus on squeezing usable fuels out of even more difficult prospects. Already, the Canadians are starting to mine the tar sands of Alberta, where an estimated 300 billion barrels of oil are trapped. And Venezuelans are beginning to excavate the solid tarry deposits of the Oronoco sludge belt, which contains as much as 1 trillion barrels of oil. If those supplies run out, there's always coal--the most abundant and environmentally damaging of all fuels. Ninety percent of the world's fossil fuels are contained in coal deposits. Tapping it and converting it to liquid fuels (a process nobody has fully mastered yet) could yield a supply lasting a millennium.

Reserves aren’t fixed – technology and need can expand recoverable oilMitchell 01, Chairman of the Energy and Environment Programme and Associate Research Fellow at the RoyalInstitute of International Affairs, John et al., The New Economy of Oil: Impacts on Business, Geopolitics, and Society, 2001, p. 46-47

Michael Lynch has pointed out the errors of the pessimists’ past predictions. His own assertion in 1989 that oil prices would actually fall in the 1990s as non-OPEC supply grew — called ‘heretical’ at the time — fits what actually happened.’ As a result, pessimists have had to defer their estimates of the date of peak production. Furthermore, a 1997 study of supply functions in over 40 countries has shown that there is as much evidence of supply expansion as of contraction, with findings providing little or no support for the notion that the world is ‘running out of oil’. ’ Lynch has argued that the Hubbert method fails because it takes recoverable reserves as fixed , whereas in fact the dynamics are rather more complex: of prime importance is the continuity of the mix of knowledge, technology and investment that sustains the process of exploration and production sufficiently to meet short- and medium-term demand expectations. Reserves depend on the interaction of this process, government policies and, finally, the price people are willing to pay for oil products. Since we cannot know future technology or prices, we cannot quantify future reserves. This should not be a concern, since it is these processes that are important. Ultimately, as Adelman has commented, ‘ oil resources are unknown, unknowable and unimportant.”

Economic demand can overcome oil shortagesLynch 04, President of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, Inc., and Research Affiliate at the Centerfor International Studies at MIT, Michael Minerals and Energy, July, http://www.gasresources.net/Lynch(Hubbert-Deffeyes)

The primary error for Hubbert modelers is the assumption of geology as the sole motivator of discovery, depletion and production. In the work of Campbell, Deffeyes, and Laherrere, they go further, equating causality with correlation. This is one of the most basic errors in (physical or social) scientific analysis. “Oil is ultimately controlled by events in the Jurassic which are immune to politics” (Campbell 2000) and “…discovery and depletion are set respectively by what Nature has to offer and the immutable physics of the reservoirs.” (Campbell 2002) The idea that production is influenced by oil prices (which determine the amount of capital available for drilling) and by policy choices in producing governments, which decide when exploration will be allowed, and/or set production ceilings, is considered foolish. And yet, they do acknowledge restrictions on operations, particularly in the Middle East. The argument that the drop in global discoveries proves scarcity of the resource is the best example of the importance of understanding causality. While it is true that global oil discoveries dropped in the 1970s from the previous rate, this was largely due to a drop in exploration in the Middle East. Governments nationalized foreign operations and cut back drilling as demand for their oil fell by half, leaving them with an enormous surplus of unexploited reserves. It is noteworthy that none of those pessimistic about oil resources show discovery over time by region, which would support this. And two recent discoveries, Kashagan in Kazakhstan and Azedagan in Iran, reportedly would together equal over ten percent of Campbell and Laherrere’s estimated remaining undiscovered oil. Statistically speaking, this is unlikely. Laherrere’s argument that the Middle East is near the end of its undiscovered oil is entirely based on the assumption that the observed fall-off in discoveries was due to a lack of geological opportunities, rather than


government decision-making. (Laherrere 2001b) To an economist, the drop in exploration reflects optimal behavior: they do not waste money exploring for something they will not use for decades.


AT: Warming Impacts (1/)

No impact – warming slowing now. Science Daily, 08 [May 5, “Will Global Warming Take A Short Break? Improved Climate Predictions Suggest A Reduced Warming Trend During The Next 10 Years” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080502113749.htm

To date climate change projections, as published in the last IPCC report, only considered changes in future atmospheric composition. This strategy is appropriate for long-term changes in climate such as predictions for the end of the century. However, in order to predict short-term developments over the next decade, models need additional information on natural climate variations, in particular associated with ocean currents. Lack of sufficient data has hampered such predictions in the past. Scientists at IFM-GEOMAR and from the MPI for Meteorology have developed a method to derive ocean currents from measurements of sea surface temperature (SST). The latter are available in good quality and global coverage at least for the past 50 years. With this additional information, natural decadal climate variations, which are superimposed on the long-term anthropogenic warming trend, can be predicted. The improved predictions suggest that global warming will weaken slightly during the following 10 years. “Just to make things clear: we are not stating that anthropogenic climate change won’t be as bad as previously thought”, explains Prof. Mojib Latif from IFM-GEOMAR. “What we are saying is that on top of the warming trend there is a long-periodic oscillation that will probably lead to a to a lower temperature increase than we would expect from the current trend during the next years”, adds Latif. “That is like driving from the coast to a mountainous area and crossing some hills and valleys before you reach the top”, explains Dr. Johann Jungclaus from the MPI for Meteorology. “In some years trends of both phenomena, the anthropogenic climate change and the natural decadal variation will add leading to a much stronger temperature rise.”

Warming is not anthropogenic. Singer and Avery 07, distinguished research professor at George Mason & director of the Center for Global Food Issues at Hudson Institute (S. Fred, Dennis T, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, pp 7-8)

The Earth has recently been warming. This is beyond doubt . It has warmed slowly and erratically-for a total of about 0.8 degrees Celsius-since 1850. It had one surge of warming from 1850 to 1870 and another from 1920 to 1940. However, when we correct the thermometer records for the effects of growing urban heat islands and widespread intensification of land use, and for the recently documented cooling of the Antarctic continent over the past thirty years, overall world temperatures today are only modestly warmer than they were in 1940, despite a major increase in human CO2 emissions. The real question is not whether the Earth is warming but why and by how much. We have a large faction of intensely interested persons who say the warming is man-made, and dangerous. They say it is driven by releases of greenhouse gases such as CO2

from power plants and autos, and methane from rice paddies and cattle herds. The activists tell us that modern society will destroy the planet; that unless we radically change human energy production and consumption, the globe will become too warm for farming and the survival of wild species. They warn that the polar ice caps could melt, raising sea levels and flooding many of the world's most important cities and farming regions. However, they don't have much evidence to support their position-only (1) the fact that the Earth is warming, (2) a theory that doesn't explain the warming of the past 150 years very well, and (3) some unverified computer models. Moreover, their credibility is seriously weakened by the fact that many of them have long believed modern technology should be discarded whether the Earth is warming too fast or not at all. Many scientists - though by no means all- agree that increased CO2 emissions could be dangerous. However, polls of climate-qualified scientist show that many doubt the scary predictions of the global computer models. This book cites the work of many hundreds of researchers, authors, and coauthors whose work testifies to the 1,500-year cycle. There is no "scientific consensus," as global warming advocates often claim. Nor is consensus important to science. Galileo may have been the only man of his day who believed the Earth revolved around the sun, but he was right! Science is the process of developing theories and testing them against observations until they are proven true or false. If we can find proof, not just that the Earth is warming, but that it is warming to dangerous levels due to human-emitted greenhouse gases, public policy will then have to evaluate such potential remedies as banning autos and air conditioners. So far, we have no such evidence. If the warming is natural and unstoppable, then public policy must focus instead on adaptations-such as more efficient air conditioning and building dikes around low-lying areas like Bangladesh. We have the warming. Now we must ascertain its cause.


AT: Warming Impacts (2/)

Growing emissions in developing countries make CO2 reduction impossible—modeling is irrelevantKoetzle 08, Ph.D. and Senior Vice President of Public Policy at the Institute for Energy Research, William, 4/13 (“IER Rebuttal to Boucher White Paper”, http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2008/04/13/ier-rebuttal-to-boucher-white-paper/)

For example, if the United States were to unilaterally reduced emissions by 30% or 40% below 2004 levels[8] by 2030; net global CO2 emissions would still increase by more than 40%. The reason is straightforward: either of these reduction levels is offset by the increases in CO2 emissions in developing countries. For example, a 30% cut below 2004 levels by 2030 by the United States offsets less than 60% of China’s increase in emissions during the same period. In fact, even if the United States were to eliminate all CO2 emissions by 2030, without any corresponding actions by other countries, world-wide emissions would still increase by 30%. If the United States were joined by the other OECD countries in a CO2 reduction effort, net emissions would still significantly increase. In the event of an OCED-wide reduction of 30%, global emissions increase by 33%; a reduction of 40% still leads to a net increase of just under 30%. Simply put, in order to hold CO2 emissions at 2004 levels, absent any reductions by developing nations like China and India, all OECD emissions would have to cease.[9] The lack of participation by all significant sources of GHGs not only means it is unlikely that net reductions will occur; it also means that the cost of meaningful reductions is increased dramatically. Nordhous (2007) for example, argues that for the “importance of near-universal participation to reduce greenhouse gases.”[10] His analysis shows that GHG emission reduction plans that include, for example, 50% of world-wide emissions impose additional costs of 250 percent. Thus, he find’s GHG abatement plans like Kyoto (which does not include significant emitters like the United States, China, and India) to be “seriously flawed” and “likely to be ineffective.” [11] Even if the United States had participated, he argues that Kyoto would make “but a small contribution to slowing global warming, and it would continue to be highly inefficient.”[12]The data on emissions and economic analysis of reduction programs make it clear that

GHG emissions are a global issue. Actions by localities, sectors, states, regions or even nations are unlikely to effectively reduce net global emissions unless these reductions are to a large extent mirrored by all significant emitting nations.


Language K – Environmental Security Rhetoric

Conflation of immigration and the environment plays into the hands of dangerous eco-fascists and prevents policy-makers from addressing the root of the problemNeumayera 05 Professor of Environment and Development at the London School of EconomicsEric, “The environment: One more reason to keep immigrants out?” Ecological Economics, Volume 59, Issue 2, 12 September 2006, Pages 204-207, received 8 July 2005 (available online 21 April 2006), Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Should developed countries close their borders to immigrants for environmental reasons? Some like the Carrying Capacity Network (CCN), an interest group pressing for strict immigration limits to the United States, and its supporters as well as Neo-Malthusians like Hardin (1974), Abernethy, 1993 and Abernethy, 2002 and Daly (2004) call for such policies. The argument of CCN is that whereas immigrants consume few resources and produce little pollution in their home country, once they come to America (or any other developed country for that matter) they consume more resources and produce more pollution since they command greater wealth and adopt a different lifestyle. In the words of CCN: “The last thing the world needs is more Americans. The world just cannot afford what Americans do to the earth, air, and water” (DinAlt, 1997). Keeping immigrants out of America to prevent a further increase in Americans is the conclusion drawn from this reasoning. I would define eco-fascism as a position that holds that some people have the right to consume a lot of resources and pollute much based on nationality, citizenship or race, but all the rest, which is the vast majority of people, do not have this right. And to ensure this, they need to be kept where they are. The position of CCN and its supporters is not identical to eco-fascism as defined above since they deny of course that, say, Americans have the right to consume lots of resources and pollute much at the expense of people from other nations. However, if the American way of living really is a danger to the global environment, then this way of living needs to be changed. Full stop. To say that as long as this way of living is not or cannot be changed, immigrants should stay outside is, to repeat, not eco-fascism, but it will find support among eco-fascists since the immediate conclusions with respect to restrictions on immigration are the same. It is therefore no wonder that extremist right-wing parties like these kind of arguments. In Germany, a country with one of the oldest environmental movements and some of the oldest ecologically oriented parties, environmental justifications for anti-immigration policies have been around since the 1970s. They have been made first by Herbert Gruhl, one of the founding fathers of the German Green Party. The Green Party itself never shared such a proposition and Gruhl soon left the party and founded his own right-wing ecological party Ökologisch-Demokratische Partei (ÖDP). Later, Neonazi parties such as the National-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) also jumped on the ecological bandwagon in the 1980s declaring that immigrants are major environmental polluters to provide further justification for their anti-immigration propaganda. Why mention this? Because whatever one might think about the substantive merit of the propositions put forward by CCN and its supporters, one should at least be aware that these are propositions that extremist right-wing parties have propagated for much longer . I have argued elsewhere that ecological economics is at its heart a left-wing political project and is more likely to be supported by left-wing parties and individuals (Neumayer, 2004). However, the anti-immigration stance of CCN and its supporters clearly appeals to those on the far right of the political spectrum. Of course, just because one has some ugly people as bedfellows does not mean that one is not allowed to hold a certain position. I agree with Meyerson (2004, p. 62) that ‘playing the race card virtually ensures the end of intelligent debate on immigration (or any other) policy’. In other words, it must be possible to seriously discuss and call for strict restrictions to immigration without being called a racist or fascist. But one would wish that CCN and its supporters showed some awareness of this sensitive issue and tried to explicate what distinguishes them from the far right. To be fair to Daly (2004), he makes it very clear that his position should be understood as anti-immigration, but not anti-immigrant, i.e. he is in favour of strict limits on (further) immigration, not in favour of policies directed against existing immigrants. To my knowledge, he also does not share the termination of food and other aid to developing countries favored by Hardin (1974) and Abernethy (1993). With its simplistic anti-immigration stance CCN makes no effort to understand, let alone tackle the root causes of migration. In my own work on the determinants of asylum migration to Western Europe, I have provided evidence that economic hardship, discrimination against ethnic minorities, political oppression, human rights abuse, violent conflict and state failure are all important determinants of asylum migration (Neumayer, 2005). They push people out of their countries of origin. It is highly likely that large-scale environmental degradation in the wake of global climate change will add another cause to (forced) migration. Conversely, people are pulled toward developed countries where they have hope for a more secure life and for improving their living standards. If developed countries want to tackle the root causes of forced migration, a major component of overall migration, then they need to undertake policy measures that promote economic development, democracy, respect for human rights and peaceful conflict resolution in countries of origin and promote sustainable development on a global scale. Restrictive immigration measures merely pass the burden of migration on to third countries or the countries of origin (witness the rising number of internally displaced persons), but they do not tackle the root causes.

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