NumbersUSA

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NumbersUSA is an immigration reduction organization whose intent is to reduce United States' annual immigration to pre-1965 levels, but without the "country of origin quotas" that were in place during this period. The organization was created in 1997 with help of leading anti-immigration activist John Tanton and its current executive director is Roy Beck.

From its base in Arlington, Virginia, NumbersUSA lobbies the executive and legislative branches for immigration reduction. Members can create an on-line account and send free pre-written faxes to Congress and the President as well as receive e-mail alerts with instructions for telephone calls to Congress as part of the NumbersUSA Action Network. It operates Americans for Better Immigration, which scores U.S. representatives and senators on their immigration-related votes.[1]

"When a comprehensive immigration bill collapsed [June 2007] on the Senate floor, it was a victory for a small group that had been lobbying Congress for a decade to reduce the number of immigrants — legal and illegal — in the United States."[2]

[edit] Policy positions

NumbersUSA's position is that the United States has become overpopulated due to high levels of immigration caused by the Hart-Celler Act of 1965. Without increased immigration since 1970, America would currently have achieved zero population growth or even a net population reduction. Any recent U.S. population growth can therefore be attributed to immigration since 1970, not the fertility rate of the pre-1970 native population.

NumbersUSA tends to evaluate legislation based primarily on its overall impact on immigration levels. Legislation that would increase immigration is therefore opposed by NumbersUSA and, conversely, legislation that would decrease immigration is lobbied for aggressively by NumbersUSA. NumbersUSA believes that immigration in modest levels is beneficial to the United States, but it defines the optimal immigration level as being about 200,000 new immigrants per year, which is a fraction of the recent levels of one million immigrants or more per year.

Besides reducing the overall numerical levels of annual legal and illegal immigration, NumbersUSA has some immediate objectives, such as the elimination of "chain migration" and the elimination of the Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery.

[edit] Statements

NumbersUSA states that it is a "non-profit, non-partisan, public policy organization that favors an environmentally sustainable and economically just America. [It] opposes efforts to use federal immigration policies to force mass U.S. population growth and to depress wages of vulnerable workers."

NumbersUSA also states that it is "pro-environment, pro-worker, pro-liberty and pro-immigrant. Activists in the NumbersUSA Action network are Americans of all races and include many immigrants and the spouses, children and parents of immigrants."

[edit] Criticism

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists NumbersUSA as part of the anti-immigration network created by John Tanton. [3][4] However, the New York Times reports, "Mr. Beck said Numbers USA had been independent of Dr. Tanton since 2002. On the group’s Web site, Mr. Beck cautions against 'immigrant bashing' and says, 'Even illegal aliens deserve humane treatment as they are detected, detained and deported.'"[5]

[edit] External links

• NumbersUSA official site
• Americans for Better Immigration
• Criticism of NumbersUSA at Right Web
• A Little-Known Group Claims a Victory on Immigration, by Robert Pear, New York Times, 15 July 2007