Roy Beck testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 3, 2009 regarding S.424, which would provide green cards to domestic partners.

Here in the U.S. our population problem is driven chiefly by immigration, both documented and undocumented. According to Jeremy Beck of Numbers USA, since 1990 immigration numbers have been higher than in any other period in U.S. history. Over the last two decades, immigration has averaged about 1 million people per year, or three times our historical average. U.S. population will more than double from 203 million in 1970 to 439 million in 2050 and immigration will cause 82 percent of all U.S. population growth between 2005 and 2050.

Pres. Clinton’s task force understood it. The Father of Earth Day understood it. You and I understand it. Why does Congress not understand that U.S. environmental sustainability is not possible unless we greatly reduce immigration numbers?

What does sustainability mean? That the way we live today will not prevent our grandchildren from enjoying the same things we enjoy. The Golden Rule is at the heart of it.

Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA, a conservative group, said the boom in South Carolina immigration is troubling for many reasons. She said it hurts the environment, adds to traffic congestion and strains the health-care system.

“Any natural resource issues will be made worse by population issues,” she said.

Immigration control advocates hailed the slowdown, saying it would ease pressure on schools, hospitals and other public services, and open up wider job opportunities for U.S. citizens. "Any decline in immigration is good for most Americans and especially good for Hispanic Americans and black Americans," said Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, an immigration control group. "There will be less competition for jobs and less pressure on natural resources and public infrastructure."

"Since the landmark raid, an economic squeeze has destroyed several businesses. Postville's population has shrunk by nearly half, to about 1,800 residents, and townsfolk say the resulting anxiety -- felt from the deli to the schoolyard -- has been relentless.

"It's like you're in an oven and there's no place to go and there's no timer to get you out," said former Mayor Robert Penrod, who, overwhelmed, resigned earlier this year....

Roy Beck, head of the Washington-based NumbersUSA group that advocates for reducing immigration, argued that Postville invited its problems by relying so heavily on a plant many suspected was violating labor and immigration laws.

"The situation should have never gotten to that point," he said. "If you don't enforce the laws steadily, then when you suddenly enforce them, there is more collateral damage....""

But he didn't return because he had realized the dream of many immigrants: earning enough money in the United States to start a new life at home. He gave up on California because he became convinced that booming Brazil offered much more opportunity than the crisis-ridden U.S.

And, like many others who have increasingly made the return journey, he found that reality far exceeded his expectations.

Following a pair of recent studies that exposed man-made and climate-caused deterioration at those two iconic American attractions, environmentalists are raising new concerns about the future health of all 58 U.S. national parks in a time marked by barren budgets, rising energy cravings and warming skies.

An estimated 300,000 illegal immigrants traversed Buenos Aires' 118,000 acres in 2007, leaving tons of trash, rusting abandoned cars, biologically hazardous waste and vehicle tracks that reduced parts of the landscape to a dusty wasteland.

That hurts just about every aspect of the refuge's mission, which was established in 1985 to try to preserve the endangered masked bobwhite quail, one of seven endangered species on the refuge.

Droughts make matters worse, but the real problem isn't shrinking water levels. It's population growth. Since California's last major drought ended in 1992, the state's population has surged by a staggering 7 million people. Some 100,000 people move to the Atlanta area every year. Over the next four decades, the country will add 120 million people, the equivalent of one person every 11 seconds.

More people will put a huge strain on our water resources, but another problem comes in something that sounds relatively benign: renewable energy, at least in some forms, such as biofuels. Refining one gallon of ethanol requires four gallons of water. This turns out to be a drop in the bucket compared with how much water it takes to grow enough corn to refine one gallon of ethanol: as much as 2,500 gallons.

Water shortages, which used to be limited to the dry western states, now plague just about the entire United States. Even regions that once seemed to have limitless supplies of water are facing predictions of shortages and imposing water restrictions on residents...

Depletion of water supplies is a problem of global proportions, driven in part by climate change. But a worldwide human population boom is also driving climate change. Here in the United States, the doubling of the U.S. population during the past five decades --driven largely by massive legal and illegal immigration and the children of legal immigrants -- is putting particular strains on the water supply. Why is no one discussing the relationship between these two phenomena?

When California's budget impasse is settled, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will have to deal with the state's other big crisis: fresh water.

Gov. Schwarzenegger and other top lawmakers have already drafted plans to attack a severe water shortage in the state, which has suffered a three-year drought.

As soon as the stalemate over how to bridge California's $26.3 billion budget gap is resolved, the governor and legislative leaders plan to introduce a package of water-related measures calling for more water conservation and an estimated $10 billion bond measure to finance more fresh water storage.

The D.C. area was among the most popular regions for legal immigrants in 2008, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The Washington region ranked fourth among metropolitan destinations for immigrants in fiscal 2008, and Virginia and Maryland were in the top 10 in state rankings, according to DHS’s annual flow report.

In a high-stakes battle that could affect California's share of federal funding and political representation, immigrant activists are vowing to combat efforts by a national Latino clergy group to persuade 1 million illegal immigrants to boycott the 2010 U.S. census.

The Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders, which says it represents 20,000 Latino churches in 34 states, recently announced that a quarter of its 4 million members were prepared to join the boycott as a way to intensify pressure for legalization and to protect themselves from government scrutiny.

"Deterred by immigration laws and the lackluster economy, the population growth of Hispanics and Asians in the United States has slowed unexpectedly, causing the government to push back estimates on when minorities will become the majority by as much as a decade.

Census data being released today also showed that fewer Hispanics are migrating to suburbs and newly emerging immigrant areas in the Southeast, including Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia. Instead, Hispanics are staying in traditional gateway locations such as California...."

"Since the landmark raid, an economic squeeze has destroyed several businesses. Postville's population has shrunk by nearly half, to about 1,800 residents, and townsfolk say the resulting anxiety -- felt from the deli to the schoolyard -- has been relentless.

"It's like you're in an oven and there's no place to go and there's no timer to get you out," said former Mayor Robert Penrod, who, overwhelmed, resigned earlier this year....

Roy Beck, head of the Washington-based NumbersUSA group that advocates for reducing immigration, argued that Postville invited its problems by relying so heavily on a plant many suspected was violating labor and immigration laws.

"The situation should have never gotten to that point," he said. "If you don't enforce the laws steadily, then when you suddenly enforce them, there is more collateral damage....""

Roy Beck testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 3, 2009 regarding S.424, which would provide green cards to domestic partners.