Portlanders should ask representatives to control immigration

Portland has attracted national attention for its efforts to limit urban sprawl. It is noteworthy to find a mindset that bigger is not necessarily better. However, that effort has been less than successful...

Is that the cost to be paid for being attractive? Some natural population increase comes from more births than deaths.... 

...other source of population growth is identified by the Census Bureau as Net International Migration (NIM). That is the surplus of immigrants plus U.S citizens moving home from abroad minus U.S. residents moving out of the country – mostly immigration. During the 1990s, NIM accounted for 14 percent of Portland's population increase and about 23 percent the following decade.

Actually, the population impact of immigration is larger than those numbers indicate. That is because the immigrant population has a much larger share in their child-bearing years and they often come from cultures that embrace large families.....jumps to about one-fourth of the increase in the 1990s and to about two-fifths in the next decade.

... Immigration policy is discretionary, and it can be decreased or increased by policymakers. A major increase was set in motion by legislation in 1965 and further increased in 1990. As a result the country has the largest flow of legal immigrants ever with more than one million admitted every year ... leaving aside the issue of those who should be prevented from coming illegally. Clearly this immigrant flow could be reduced...

Unfortunately, there is a concerted effort to increase the immigration flow still further...

Underrepresented in this dynamic is the average American who does not relish more competition for jobs and housing or more claims on already overstretched educational and social welfare resources.

Portlanders' only say in the issue of whether national policymakers increase or decrease the growing population pressure due to immigration is through expressing their view to their elected representatives.

Jack Martin, who was born and raised in Portland, is a retired diplomat who joined the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1995.