[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13227]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 MASS IMMIGRATION AND FUTURE PROSPERITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Brooks) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROOKS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, if not for the massive 
immigration wave of the last 40 years, America's population would have 
stabilized or had very modest growth. Instead, America's population has 
exploded to 321 million people, due primarily to 62 million foreign-
born people, plus their minor children.
  As an aside, illegal aliens are estimated to account for roughly 25 
percent of that growth. Overall, America's foreign-born population grew 
from 4.7 percent of total population in 1970 to over 13 percent of 
population in 2015.
  Consistent with the above, the Census Bureau estimates that, within 7 
years, America's population will have the highest percentage of 
foreign-born people since the Revolutionary War, adding another 74 
million people to America's population over the next 45 years.
  Although Americans are supportive or tolerant of legal immigration, 
they are showing a growing unease in the face of this record-breaking 
immigration tidal wave that drives up welfare costs, overcrowds schools 
and hospitals, and increasingly subjects American citizens to growing 
crime and terrorist attack risks.
  Consistent with this growing concern, a recent poll found that 61 
percent of Americans believe ``continued immigration into the country 
jeopardizes the United States.'' Notwithstanding America's concern, 
America's wealthy elite use their campaign contributions, political 
influence, and popular media to glorify legal and illegal immigration 
to ensure their continuance.
  Puppet-like politicians expand visa programs, ignore laws that 
protect Americans from illegal aliens, and seek to legalize those 
illegal aliens who have broken into our homes. Left-wing media, 
Democrats, and even some Republicans brand as racist and small-minded 
the working-class Americans who object to massive immigration and label 
concerned politicians as paranoid isolationists.
  What drives the craving by America's wealthy elite for more foreign 
workers?
  Follow the money. Throughout history, from lords to merchant princes, 
elite have acquired great wealth by exploiting cheap slave or low-cost 
foreign labor.
  Even here, America's two great immigration waves depressed incomes of 
working citizens as large numbers of immigrants blew up the labor 
supply while also competing for and taking jobs from American citizens.
  On the plus side, back when America had seemingly unlimited natural 
resources and great spaces of open land, immigrants were self-
sufficient, were not a financial burden on other Americans, and grew 
America's wealth and gross domestic product.
  In Ecclesiastes in the Bible, a very wise man, Solomon, once said: 
``To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under 
the Heaven.''
  Times have changed. America's natural resources are limited. We must 
import metals and energy to sustain our economy. Great spaces of usable 
land are long gone. Further, technological advances in the intelligent 
machine age are dramatically changing labor markets. Rather than just 
more productive tools that must still have a human in the operational 
loop, intelligent machines produce value independently with minimal to 
no labor requirements. No longer is massive population growth essential 
to grow America's gross domestic product.
  America must recognize our challenges and opportunities. While over 5 
billion foreigners want to migrate to America, in part, because they 
earn only $10 a day in their own countries, America has enough citizens 
and technology to assure our common defense and economic advancement.
  Each foreigner imported consumes space and resources, neither of 
which is infinite. Hence, we must be more selective in our immigration 
policies to ensure incoming immigrants are both self-sufficient and 
able and willing to be properly absorbed into American society. If we 
aren't, America's population will explode and America will lose its 
special place in history.

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