The Brown Majority
Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, and other states have recently enacted measures calling for stricter enforcement of existing immigration laws. Some of these measures even aim to deny birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. These initiatives, overwhelmingly supported by Republicans, drive Hispanics to vote increasingly for the Democratic Party.
The laws come as a reaction against profound changes in the U.S. population. According to U.S. Census projections, from 2000 to 2030 the Hispanic share of population of the United States will nearly double, from 13 percent to 23 percent. In the same period, the non-Hispanic white population is expected to drop from 69 percent of the total to 53 percent. The Census Bureau forecasts that by 2042 whites will be a plurality of the population, but no longer a majority.
That shift is already being felt in many states. California ceased to be majority white in 2000. The 2010 Census estimates that whites and Hispanics are nearly equal in numbers there, and the Bureau projects that by 2030 the largest state will be 45 percent Hispanic and just one-third white.
Texas—the second-largest state—is changing even faster. In 2000, 53 percent of Texans were white, and 32 percent were Hispanic. By 2010, whites had fallen to 45 percent of the population and Hispanics risen to 39 percent. By 2020, those numbers will be reversed. The Office of the Texas State Demographer predicts that in 2030 the state will be majority Hispanic.
Most of the demographic change in the American electorate today comes not from waves of new immigration but from the echoes of past immigration: the children of immigrants and their children. Nationwide roughly 21 percent of white citizens are under eighteen years old, compared to 44 percent of Hispanic citizens. Over the coming decade, aging alone will increase the number of Hispanics who are eligible to vote by 25 percent.
Hispanic voters will continue to emerge in Texas, California, and other states where Hispanics have long been gaining in numbers. But the tide of Hispanic citizens is rising in some surprising places as well. The states with the highest percentage of Hispanic citizens under eighteen years old are North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, and South Carolina. And closing the borders will not appreciably affect the increasing numbers of Hispanics and Hispanic voters in the United States for a simple reason: the Hispanic population is already sizable and has a much higher birth rate than the white population. The policies that the parties pursue now on immigration, education, and other matters that particularly affect Hispanics will define electoral politics for generations to come.
[Click on chart to enlarge.]
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About the Author
Stephen Ansolabehere, Professor of Political Science at Harvard University, is coauthor of The Media Game and The End of Inequality.
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If the United States is expected to sustaining its living standards, we must start to conserve our environment and address the use of oil, water and energy. In these current decades we have all observed the deterioration of our highways, infrastructure with clogged traffic lanes that never seem to abate? The continuous requisition for land to build homes, and stretching, concrete pavement that once was farmland. Border states where water supplies are being rationed, because of years of drought. The desperate need for refineries, because of constant production, cannot keep up with demand. Our antiquated national electrical grid that is unable to keep up with requirements, owing to the millions of illegal people who slip across our uneasy border and needing services must be modernized. America, just outside in suburban regions are growing smaller each day, just like the Amazon rain forests. We are daily encroaching on the wild creatures of our lands, who we now find foraging for food in community suburbs--that was once a wilderness. Our President should not be contemplating Amnesty for an unknown number of illegal immigrants or like other administrations keep welcoming over a million legal immigrants annually. Such is the forthcoming harbinger of Overpopulation for future generations. According to the Census Bureau with the current immigration level our population will touch close to a half a billion by 2050.
More than 65 percent of that growth can be attributed to our current immigration rate and irrational polices. Without changing the direction of our current immigration policies, our population by the year 2100 and 2120 will attain the one billion mark. Is this what we want for our own grandchildren? Then Canadian immigration for years have welcomed without prejudice millions of Asylum seekers, but that is about to change? With Obama in charge altering the direction of our immigration laws by decree, we could become the next target for these people. A large majority of these immigrants come from countries, where there are no real functioning police records, so this country could easily become their destination for ineligible immigrant’s future years. Obama has switched dramatically to halt the ICE effort of mass deportation and unless you have some serious criminal charges against them, there is likelihood; they could be allowed to walk.
If the Obama presidency is recycled this country could be heading for trouble with lax incompetence of easy access of foreign nationals into through the border and by overstay visitors by aircraft. With no means of tracking aliens as other Industrial nations have accomplished and where even Mexico can track these illegal alien fugitives. But then unlike the Mexican authorities, entering illegally into our sovereign nation our government doesn’t prosecute as a FELONY. As I have said many times before, I believe this was an intended action, so millions of illegal aliens remained unafraid if confronting no real criminal measure if they could bypass the border agents. Both sides of Congress have had the perfect opportunity to trick the General audience that they were enforcing immigration laws, but really just playing lip service to this massive predicament?
If President Obama introduces a new Immigration policy, this would be a disaster for the new generations of our children? We already settle over 1.5 million new legal immigrants each year in this nation. This is more people than any other country in the world? What we need is an amendment to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). This would allow specialized people, with highly skilled abilities in Engineering, Computer and Science technologies to enter the US workforce, contributing to this countries success in the global marketplace?
We already have millions of low skilled, many uneducated American workers who remain jobless in this economic morass. Lama Smiths E-Verify “the Legal Workforce Act." At the very least, it is a surefire step in the right direction to obstruct illegal labor from taking American jobs. Even though E-Verify has some flaws and some illegal aliens can obtain employment, it won't last very long before new upgraded version of E-Verify will be able to detect criminal alien workers. ICE has already gained the implementation of Mississippi’s Drivers Licensing Bureau, so as citizens WE SHOULD DEMAND THAT EVERY STATE VEHICLE DEPARTMENT GIVE ICE THE DIRECTIVE TO ACCESS THEIR PHOTO ID DATABASES, TO CROSS REFERENCE WITH ALL HIRED WORKERS BEING CONFIRMED USING E-VERIFY.
Those hired illegally will be caught eventually when irregularities are corrected as ICE auditors return to a previous company. It's better to have something as a deterrent, than to have nothing at all. As illegal immigrants start their movement from our nation, wages, benefits should slowly start to rise, as employers will have no choice but to hire American workers, instead of cheap labor from foreign lands. Steve King’s (R-IA) Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 (H.R.140) would amend the law so the unborn babies of illegal aliens smuggled calculatedly through borders or by international flight are ineligible for citizenship. The cost to hospitals and an array of welfare payments and entitlements is the most costly for US taxpayers totaling billions of more dollars. This is another demand, you should make of the politicians who represent your state.
Join the TEA PARTY and fight back, before there is no way back? The TEA PARTY does not discriminate any nationality, if you arrived in this nation by—LEGAL MEANS? We can all stand with our fellow jobless countryman by Calling House and Senate Leadership NOW at 202-224-3121, which is the Capitol Switchboard.
Be very aware that illegal aliens do vote and will in gubernatorial, county and municipal races. This has been proved beyond doubt, as ACORN and other fraudulent canvassing groups will be looking for signatures. These entities were prosecuted in eleven states and although they were dismantled, they have risen to the surface under an assumed name in other states. One thing’s for sure that without unbiased referees overlooking current and future elections, there will be forged absentee ballots and even irregularities within the confines of the voting precincts. Also I have investigated the major instigators, that are in summary been the Liberals and Democrats. Department of Justice Eric Holder, one of Obama’s Leftist hard core Czars, not only dropped the ‘Black Panther” intimidation of voters in Pennsylvania—but has been harassing sovereign states and using the judiciary undermine policing policies. This originating with Arizona that was suffering terribly from unfunded mandates, forced upon them by the courts? Public assistance programs to support illegal aliens with welfare payments, food stamps and federal low income housing.
Currently in New York supervisors with the party affiliation have intentionally assisted in passing non-citizens as verified voters and are being prosecuted. Although voter fraud has been around for generations, all aspects of it have been ignored by the federal government as limited. However, large numbers of none citizens can have negative repercussions in close races. This will be adamantly opposed by the usual suspects, namely the open border zealots. These radical groups as La Raza, can take advantage and overturn honest elections The Tea Party leadership and members should be vigilant of irregular voting tactics as illegal aliens are a very large majority in Arizona and will commit perjury to claim a Democratic successful win.