By Rob Sanchez
03/03/2009
Three very good online videos about the sorry state of California’s economy are now available.These commentaries are long but worth reading to find out more about the mortgage meltdown. WARNING, they aren’t politically correct!
The Minority Mortgage Meltdown (contd.): How The Community Reinvestment Act Fits InTowards the end of the first ABC video Charlie Gibson stated that the nonimmigrant population of California has decreased by 1.5 million in the last ten years. huh? What is he talking about???
Gibson’s statement gives the impression that the population of California was depopulating due to out-migration, but just the opposite is happening! According to Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) the population is increasing by approximately one person every single minute, or 60 per hour. Perhaps what’s most interesting is where the population growth is coming from:
"In the last decade immigration and births to immigrants have accounted for nearly 100% of California’s population growth." Diana Hull, President of CAPS, August 11, 2008So, California’s population is increasing and immigration is at record highs. That got me to wondering, who are those nonimmigrants Charlie Gibson is referring to? With a little research I figured it out. The answer is intriguing but discouraging.
The classification "nonimmigrant" officially includes employment visas such as H-1B, student visas such as J-1, and even tourist visas for foreigners. Millions of nonimmigrant visas are issued every year. Nonimmigrant visas are by definition temporary and the people who use them come from foreign countries. Foreigners on nonimmigrant visas are not included in population counts because in theory they are only in the U.S. temporarily. Many types of nonimmigrants can and will stay here by changing their status to permanent residency. Since nonimmigrants are not tracked or used in population counts it’s unlikely that Gibson was referring this type of immigration.
California has a mass migration of immigrants into the state, and a much smaller number of migrants leaving the state. California’s immigration inflow and migration outflow results in a net increase in the state’s population by about a million people per year. That’s hardly the picture Gibson leaves near the end of that video.
Assuming that Gibson’s numbers have some basis in fact we should be able to figure out what he is talking about by looking at California’s immigration statistics. Here are some statistics on California immigration:
Legal immigrants in 2007: 228,941I contacted Gretchen Pfaff, Director of Communications and Legislation for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) to find out the number of illegal immigrants that sneak into California every year. She based her calculations with an estimate that 25% of the 2,895,300 illegals that enter the U.S. settle in California, which is over 700,000. Thank you Gretchen for the bad news! [CAPS press release: "The Primary Factor Driving Future U.S. Population Growth Is Immigration"]Illegal immigrants: 724,000
Total immigrants: 1,000,000
DHS Yearbook for 2007[PDF]
So, we now know that California is gaining over 1 million immigrants per year from 2007-2008, but who is leaving? A look at census data reveals that a net total of 144,000 people leave California per year, which equals the 1.5 million he quoted for 10 years.
Charlie Gibson characterized the people leaving California as "nonimmigrants", which is a total misnomer. I don’t think what he said was a mistake — it was a deliberate obscuration of the facts. Most of those leaving are U.S. citizens and legal California residents. Apparently Gibson is so beholden to political correctness he can’t even say things like "U.S. citizen", or even worse he is one of those globalists that don’t recognize citizenship of any kind. In his view everyone is an immigrant or nonimmigrant.
There is another underlying issue that probably scares Gibson too much to mention — most of those migrants leaving California are middle class whites! It’s a classic case of white flight. What he failed to admit is that California is transforming itself into impoverished third worldism by importing desperate poverty from south of our border while at the same time creating conditions that are causing a mass exodus of educated middle class whites. There is nothing new about this phenomenon. In the references section I included a link to the late great Sam Francis who described the exodus in 2003.[In California, Immigration Is The Real Terminator, August 14, 2003]
NOTE: While the largest percentage of the illegals in California are from south of the border, they come from all over the world by every means of transportation you can imagine.
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