News-Record.com

The infrastructure and resource challenges outlined in "States should plan now for surging population" (letter, Brian A. Roth, June 28) have a root cause:

"Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage." (Jacques Cousteau, French oceanographer)

Moreover:
"U.S. population growth is 95 percent driven by foreign immigration, which is discretionary, chosen by Congress. Cap annual U.S. immigration at about 300,000 and in time the nation's population growth stops. And North Carolina growth problems then become very small, i.e., relocating Americans from a stabilized national population." (Otis L. Graham, immigration historian, professor emeritus, UC-Santa Barbara)

To preserve North Carolina's quality of life, citizens and their representatives must confront the elephant in the environmental room, high rates of immigration: Each year 1 million legal immigrants and 880,000 illegal aliens take up residence in the U.S.
That's because on immigration Congress has for decades heard exclusively from narrow interests — business and ethnic.

NumbersUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform are broad-based groups that are helping lawmakers see the elephant.

Tom Shuford
Lenoir