With so many legitimate arguments to employ in the immigration debate, it is a shame to see the Center for Immigration Studies stoop to invoking increased greenhouse-gas emissions as a reason to revisit U.S. immigration policy. But that is indeed what they do, joining the environmental pressure groups many of which support stricter immigration controls on the grounds that, if countries were forced to solve their own problems without the ability to vent “excess” population, they would do so. Ultimately this would lead to reductions in their domestic, and therefore global, population. Population being the greens’ real bogeyman, this would advance their agenda.
The CIS release opens as follows:
The findings of a new study indicate that future levels of immigration will have a significant impact on efforts to reduce global CO2 emissions. Immigration to the United States significantly increases world-wide CO2 emissions because it transfers population from lower-polluting parts of the world to the United States, which is a higher-polluting country.
First, CIS cites State Department official Harlan Watson as noting that immigration matters when it comes to emissions — though of course Dr. Watson specifically means when dealing with absolute-cap regimes such as Kyoto (the U.S. is gaining population, while Europe isn’t, further disadvantaging us under that scheme).
For some perspective on its claims, note that the CIS implication is that the average U.S. immigrant — legal or illegal — is an average resident of Sudan or Honduras. [Using Wikipedia for a global warming inquiry is generally a fool’s errand, but here let’s presume they repeat the cited World Resources Institute numbers accurately.
CIS claims “The estimated CO2 emissions of the average immigrant (legal or illegal) in the United States are 18 percent less than those of the average native-born American. However, immigrants in the United States produce an estimated four times more CO2 in the United States as they would have in their countries of origin.”
U.S. CO2 equivalent per capita in 2000 was appx. 22.9 MMT; multiplied by .82 and divided by 4 yields 4.69 MMT per capita. In 2000, Sudan was 4.6 and Honduras 4.7 MMT. This is a rough estimate based upon inexact estimates, and U.S. emissions since 2000 have risen more slowly than those of most of the rest of the world, but this suffices for these admittedly limited purposes of illustration].
Immigrants come here to improve their lives and the lives of their families; to become richer, freer, and safer. We stand to benefit greatly from their contributions. We also have a strong national interest in — and laws and rules designed to promote — orderly and manageable immigration. Regrettably, we adopt immigration laws but do not enforce them, leaving the ensuing debate a very confused one.
None of this changes the ultimate if accidental implication of CIS’s argument, however, which is that GHG emissions track with prosperity. Since Man developed they always have and, for the foreseeable future, CO2 emissions will remain a fact of industrialized life (Hoffert et al. Science 2002). Industrialization makes one wealthier, and thereby healthier, and ultimately cleaner (see Iain Murray’s book for a wonderful treatment of this).
It follows logically that a wise policy imperative would be to encourage broader access throughout the world to affordable, reliable energy supplies (in addition to promoting property rights and the rule of law). Putative immigrants would therefore find a dramatically increased ability to create wealth for their families right in their own backyard, reducing immigration pressures — both legal and illegal — while also not cutting off our pool of talented aspiring.
So if only for the opportunity to make that point, we should be thankful to CIS for their contribution to the energy-rationing debate. Still, because CIS really wants prosperity abroad — and the increased CO2 emissions that go with it — I don’t think they should be siding with fans of worldwide energy poverty.