The Four Pillars of NumbersUSA

Pillar I:

U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform (the “Jordan Commission”)

This bi-partisan commission is the first of our four pillars. Congress mandated the commission in the 1990 Immigration Act to study the economic impacts of increased immigration levels. President Clinton named civil-rights icon Barbara Jordan chair, which gave the commission instant credibility and integrity. Jordan was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.

In the last act of a rich career of public service, Jordan led the commission through the most thorough examination of the impact of U.S. immigration policies of any federal commission to date. They studied the issue for six years. They recommended a “credible, coherent immigrant and immigration policy” and a “credible, efficient naturalization process.” The commission recommended setting immigration at a level of 550,000 per year. They divided the numbers as follows:

• 400,000: Nuclear family immigration
• 100,000: Skill-based immigration
• 50,000: Refugee resettlement

The Jordan Commission also called for stepped up enforcement against illegal immigration. They recommended mandatory workplace verification via an electronic system to eliminate most unauthorized employment.

The Commission invited Roy Beck to speak with them. He he was writing his book for W.W. Norton & Co. at the time. Aside from that brief episode, Beck played no role in the commission’s work. When the commission issued its final recommendations, however, they aligned with his own recommendations in The Case Against Immigration – The Moral, Economic, Social, and Environmental Reasons for Reducing U.S. Immigration Back to Traditional Levels.

In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The legislation included many of the Jordan Commission’s recommendations to strengthen immigration enforcement. Most significantly, the bill called for the creation of the Basic Pilot Program, which would later become the E-Verify system. President Clinton endorsed the commission’s recommendations, including those that would have reduced annual immigration. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the untimely death of Chairperson Jordan, legislators stripped the commission’s suggested reforms for legal immigration from the bill.

Beck founded NumbersUSA later that same year and the organization has advocated for Jordan’s vision of a credible immigration policy ever since.

Pillar II:

President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD)

A high quality of life and healthy environment for future generations was the concern of President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD). The PCSD’s immigration recommendations were a small but important part of their overall findings. The council and its task forces were careful to acknowledge the sensitivities of immigration policy, while maintaining a clear recommendation that overall levels should be reduced.

The PCSD’s Task Force on Population and Consumption included representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club. Armed with Census Bureau projections that immigration policies were set to add more than 100 million to the U.S. population over the next century, the Task Force concluded that the country’s environmental goals could not be met without reducing immigration to a level that would allow for a stabilizing U.S. population.

Neither NumbersUSA (which did not exist in 1993 when the PCSD began its work) nor its sole founder, Roy Beck, participated in the PCSD. But as with the Jordan Commission, the immigration recommendations of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development align with those in Beck’s 1996 book. The PCSD concluded:

• “The size of our population and the scale of our consumption are essential determinants
  of whether or not the United States will be able to achieve sustainability.”
• “…tremendous progress has been made in reducing pollution and enhancing efficiency.
  Nonetheless, with the world’s largest economy, the United States consumes enormous
  amounts of resources and still generates more wastes of all kinds. In addition, steady
  population growth has been a major force driving up the use of many resources.”
• “Recommendation: Develop immigration and foreign policies that reduce illegal
  immigration, while researching the links between demographic change and sustainable
  development.”

“This is a sensitive issue,” they wrote, “but reducing immigration levels is a necessary part of
population stabilization and the drive toward sustainability.”

The PCSD’s immigration recommendations are consistent with those of every blue-ribbon commission of the past 50 years. The immigration recommendations serve as a second of four pillars upon which NumbersUSA is built. (NumbersUSA is a single-issue organization that takes no position on the PCSD’s work and recommendations that are not related to immigration policy.)

Pillar III:

The Case Against Immigration — The Moral, Economic, Social, and Environmental Reasons for Reducing U.S. Immigration Back to Traditional Levels

The third of four pillars that serve as the foundation for all of NumbersUSA’s work is Roy Beck’s 1996 book. Published in the same year the Jordan Commission issued its recommendations, The Case Against Immigration combines on-the-ground reporting with deep academic research to document how:

• Today’s immigration levels, as they did during the Great Wave, make America a land of greater inequality
• Whole industries have reorganized to exploit cheap immigrant labor
• High immigration has advanced “on the backs of Black Americans”
• Immigration-driven population growth exacerbates land and resource loss
• A sensible immigration policy would honor America’s best traditions

Reviews for The Case Against Immigration

Pillar IV:

The “Charts & Gumballs” Videos

While traveling the country to promote his 1996 book, Beck developed a presentation using charts and tubes to illustrate the numerical impact of post-1970 immigration policy. He also used gumballs to demonstrate how mass immigration can never be a safety net for the rest of the world. The math just doesn’t add up.

Those demonstrations were eventually recorded on video and, later, in digital formats that have been viewed 200 million times around the world. Together, they represent the fourth of four pillars establishing NumbersUSA. They are the final of four cornerstones that make up the foundation of everything NumbersUSA is and does.

The “charts” and the “gumballs” videos established the inclusive approach to sensible immigration policy that NumbersUSA empowers voters to achieve.

“Please remember,” Beck tells the audience, “the problem is not immigrants, the problem is immigration policy and the officials who set that policy. If you are an immigrant . . . you have the same stake in America’s future as I do.”

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