Amidst the interminable bloviating about how Republicans in Congress should capitulate and support mass amnesty, ever increasing levels of legal permanent residents, and expanded guest workers programs, there are some commentators whose incoherent ramblings sets them apart from the more mundane offerings. Joshua Culling, writing on behalf of Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, argued that the Republican Party can “dilute” the Democrats’ edge with “the immigrant community and its descendants” by bringing in tens of millions of more immigrants and…that’s about it. It is tantamount to arguing that one must “abandon free market principles to save the free market system.” Mickey Kaus eviscerates Culling’s piece here: The Grover Plan: More Cowbell!

Jim Powell from the Cato Institute offers up actual specifics, which make his argument even more ridiculous. Among his proposals to “reach immigrants”: cut taxes for the “job creators;” do away with troublesome regulations, particularly on “energy production”; pass more NAFTA-type legislation; end all immigration quotas (i.e. implement a policy of open borders). Boldly disregarding the fact that there is no proof that any of these things would appeal to immigrants, let alone to U.S. voters, a distinction Powell seems unable to grasp (just the same old libertarian agenda that Cato has been peddling for years), he presses forward.

Powell makes the argument that we need to have mass immigration because it will promote racial and ethnic resentments (some of “the ‘biggest bigots’ are often minorities,” he declares). Why is racial and ethnic resentment a good thing, you might ask? Because if you resent the people who live around you, you will be less willing to pay taxes to provide social services and benefits to them, thereby reducing the size and cost of government!

Powell says a lot of silly things, and cites “research” that has been discredited by those who aren’t spokespersons for industries intent on driving down wages for American workers (see here and here). But he surpasses the inanity of all other recent sermonizing on the nirvana of mass immigration in his discussion of why we need so many unskilled, uneducated foreign workers. Americans have no interest in physically demanding jobs, he claims, so admitting millions of low-skilled immigrants every year is an economic necessity, but there are immeasurable cultural benefits as well. Below is a small sampling. Mr. Powell, take it away:

Archeological evidence suggests that chickens were first domesticated in Pakistan….

Italians gave us mainly words about good living — spaghetti, ravioli, pizza, arugula, artichoke, broccoli, chianti, minestrone, ciabatta, panini, coffee, latte and cappuccino, as well as vista, harmonica, piano and opera. Then there’s volcano, umbrella, bankrupt, mafia, fiasco and gonzo.

The New York Amsterdam News ran an article attacking FAIR’s report on the chronic water shortages emerging across the United States.  The headline was “FAIR’s Extreme Madness.”  Our insanity, in the view of Felicia Persaud who penned the article, is that we brought attention to the reality that U.S. population growth driven by mass immigration has negated the tremendous gains in water conservation made over the last thirty years.  Ms. Persaud seems to think that since “immigrants have made a significant contribution economically to the United States” that limits don’t matter and that environmental considerations concern only the lunatic fringe.

There is an ongoing and lively debate about how “significant” the economic contributions of immigrants are, but that is beside the point.  We cannot continue to grow by almost three million people every year, overwhelmingly due to immigration, and not run up against the limits of our national resources.  We have long passed the point where we are using water faster than it can be replenished naturally.  The key now is to not reach the point of no return, where a supply of clean water is something that can not be made available to all Americans.

Take New York City, for example, where the average age of city water pipes is 76 years and raw sewage is regularly released into surrounding waterways.  Where are the billions of dollars going to come from to repair the city’s water and sewer infrastructure?  I doubt Mayor Bloomberg’s soda tax is going to cover it.   Ms. Persaud’s article perfectly illustrates the intellectual bankruptcy of the ever-more-immigration crowd.  FAIR asks questions about how this will affect America’s future.  Ms. Persaud labels any discussion of population growth “laughable.”  Wherein doth the madness lie?

FAIR was unsurprisingly not contacted for comment before the article was published, but you may do so on the paper’s website.

FAIR has released a new report that tackles a subject that does not get a lot of attention but is one of the most serious issues we face in the United States: chronic water shortages. Even with parts of the country enduring some of the worst drought conditions in our history, the conventional wisdom seems to be that a few good rain showers will make everything better. In fact, the real problem is that Americans are using and polluting water faster than it can be replenished. Despite the fact that major gains have been made in reducing individual consumption over the last three decades, rapid population growth due to immigration has keep overall water usage at unsustainable levels. Exacerbating this problem is our nation’s crumbling water infrastructure, which is in dire need of an overhaul in most major urban areas. Most Americans take a clean, abundant supply of water for granted. Unless we address our growing population and its impact on our most important natural resource, we will face catastrophic consequences in the very near future.

Report highlights:

• Critical water supplies are being drawn down faster than they are being replenished despite major successes in reducing per capita usage.
• Higher concentrations of pollutants in aquifers make drinking water increasingly unsafe.
• Aging water pipes and infrastructure are allowing harmful chemicals to seep into water supply systems, and creating a heightened danger of sinkholes.
• Using water for irrigation and fossil fuel extraction is increasing strains on the water supply, and raising food and energy prices.
• Desalinization — increasingly being used to supplement fresh water needs — is extremely energy-intensive and expensive.