Associated Press, Census Bureau offer immigration promotion, faulty logic

Posted Wed, Apr 4, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Consider the widely-distributed AP report by Stephen Ohlemacher (apparent original title: "Census: Immigration Helps Big Metros Grow"):
Without immigrants pouring into the nation's big metro areas, places such as New York, Los Angeles and Boston would be shrinking as native-born Americans move farther out.

Many smaller areas, including Battle Creek, Mich., Ames, Iowa, and Corvallis, Ore., would shrink as well, according to population estimates to be released Thursday by the Census Bureau...
If you teach a third-grade class, a slightly challenging assignment might be to help the AP and the Census Bureau understand such fairly simple concepts as cause and effect. Namely, if there weren't so many immigrants/"immigrants" (the Census Bureau doesn't differentiate on legal/illegal status) moving in, would those native-born Americans be moving "further out"? That's certainly a strong possibility, yet the AP and apparently the Census Bureau don't consider it. Neither do others:
"Immigrants are filling the void as domestic migrants are seeking opportunities in other places," said Mark Mather, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a private research organization.

Many demographers associate shrinking populations with economic problems, typically poor job markets or prohibitive housing prices.

"A lot of cities rely on immigration to prop up their housing market and prop up their economies," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank...
The second paragraph above seems to offer a bit of an unfollowed clue. While the article does include a quote from the Center for Immigration Studies, it also mentions Bush's latest amnesty scheme. I'll mark this one down as "propaganda".

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Comments

amanda (not verified)

Thu, 04/05/2007 - 09:42

"filling the void", "helped them grow", "leaving immigrants to provide the only source of growth"... Gawd, all that article needed for a cherry on top was a scary lie about our perilously low 'native' birthrate. As usual, not a lot of subtlety--population growth is good, a cure for all that ails so say these medicine show barkers. Europe will dry up and blow away, but not America thanks to the genius of the open border. The simple-mindedness of this 'filling the urban void' stuff reminds me of those alarmed over a Social Security shortfall who twistedly say it is only fixable by massive immigration. Ooooohhhh, beware! Silly me, I always thought economic problems *cause* a population to shrink, not the other way around. But they're claiming NYC would have dropped 600,000, implying that the economy would thus have gone to hell. I'm scared straight and now realize that without unlimited immigration, the U.S. would fall into economic ruin. 'The New York metro area, which includes the suburbs, added 1 million immigrants from 2000 to 2006. Without those immigrants, the region would have lost nearly 600,000 people.' '[W]ithout those immigrants', NO ONE knows how that would have affected the overall population of the metro area. The impression the open borders crowd wants to give is of natives who were for sure leaving anyway, with immigrants heroically riding to the rescue of the region. The two phenomeona could't POSSIBLY have anything to do with each other.

amanda (not verified)

Thu, 04/05/2007 - 09:45

Oops, forgot to quote 'Many demographers associate shrinking populations with economic problems' after the 2nd paragraph.

jeebie (not verified)

Thu, 04/05/2007 - 15:41

Good one, Amanda. I can't imagine living in a Nation without overpopulation. Enough food and water to go around, no dependance of foreign oil, no need for new nuclear or coal plants, uncrowded freeways, fresh air, good schools, no illegals, lower crime, that's pretty scary! Thank God for Bush, Ted Kennedy and the chamber of commerce.

mary (not verified)

Thu, 04/05/2007 - 20:21

Thanks for that story on immigration booming in cities. Now I know why people are getting shot in the head in Boston in broad daylight!

Smitty (not verified)

Thu, 04/05/2007 - 22:54

They also failed to mention the Anti-American anti-capitalist nature of America's citi-states, everyone of which advances their anti-American Socialist agenda.

Fred Dawes (not verified)

Sat, 04/07/2007 - 01:25

mary is dead on the money and Smiitty is right, the control ideals are in place, the next move by the rats is replacement of the population any-way-it can, watch the next year's, its going to be funny in hell.

Fred Dawes (not verified)

Sat, 04/07/2007 - 23:09

just one more way to do the mass eliminate Dance and someday that dance will place millions of non hispanics on the end of a rope for mexico and bin laden and the third world ruler's, "hey people your kids will never see a future of peace or freedom", and that is sad, ask why was this nation built? to aollow the monkey rulers to run things? by using mass population as a weapon against you? That is what is happening here! buy gun's