How to Work on Environmental And Population Issues Without Scapegoating Immigrants

City Group Chair

This spring, the Sierra Club membership will face an important ballot question on population policy and immigration, concurrent with the election of new members to the board of directors. Members will vote on one of two positions.

One position argues for a "comprehensive US population policy." It made it to the ballot through the petitioning efforts of a small faction of Club activists. Supported by Dave Foreman and various right-wing foundations and organizations, like the Weeden Foundation and the National Grassroots Alliance, a group of "immigration control advocates" in Northern California, this faction argues that a reduction in US population growth is only possible through a "reduction in net immigration." This position targets immigrants as the cause of our domestic environmental problems.

The other ballot position argues that if Sierra Club members and environmental activists really want to do something about the population problem then a truly comprehensive policy is needed. Such a policy would address not only US immigration, but migration and the factors that drive it-the lack of economic security, human rights and access to adequate health care and nutrition. This measure was placed on the ballot by the board of directors and has drawn widespread support of Club leaders, as well as many other environmental organizations, activists, scholars and government representatives.

There are many reasons why the Sierra Club should take no position on immigration. First and foremost, immigration is only remotely an environmental issue. No doubt, wild rivers are filled to the brim with toxic and solid waste. But do we blame immigrants or the American chemical companies that amass numerous violation of the Clean Water Act for that? No doubt, wildlands have been spoiled by the never-ending press of suburban sprawl. But do we blame immigrants or American consumer culture? Environmental issues in the US are inextricably bound to irresponsible patterns of consumption and poor resource management. Blaming immigrants will not solve our environmental problems.

There's no doubt that Americans are making a mess. The US, with only five percent of the world's population, consumes 32 percent of the world's petroleum and plastics and produces 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. Our 265 million residents produce more solid waste than the one and a half billion people in China and India.

It is specious to consider our per capita excess as an argument to close the borders, rather it strongly suggests that we need to change our super-consuming economy. It is patently absurd that here in the US we consume and destroy our resources like no society on Earth and then actually use that as a rationalization against immigration.

Immigration is not the cause of sprawl. Immigration is not the cause of corporate pollution. Immigration is not the cause of phosphorous loading on Eastern Shore farms. Slowing immigration addresses none of these threats.

The Sierra Club's interest in population issues has been, until this moment, properly deliberate. The issues of global population growth and the environment are indeed serious and worthy of attention. The club is absolutely justifiable in its strong support for full funding of global family planning programs, for example. But wading into the issue of US immigration-drawing the line at the US border-is perhaps the ultimate act of NIMBYism. Environmentalists are fond of saying that pollution knows no borders, so it is ironic that some environmentalists would argue for greater control over those artificial political boundaries. Indeed, it smacks of elitism, domination, jingoism and paternalism. But worst of all, a particularly unfeeling strain of racism lurks just under the surface.

In the essay "Pulling up the Ladder: the Anti-Immigrant Backlash" author Doug Brugge writes, "It is the issue of jobs and the environment that provide the right's anti-immigrant campaign its strongest entree into mainstream attitudes." Brugge offers the Sierra Club's coming ballot question as evidence. Indeed, a quick check of the Internet home page of David Duke shows that in the middle of a horrifyingly racist plank comes the statement, "I will fight to limit overpopulation and protect our environment by stopping illegal immigration and almost all legal immigration into America."

The reality is that immigration into the US in the 1990s is only slightly more in absolute numbers (nine million or so) than between 1900 and 1910 (8.8 million). On a percentage basis, immigration into the US is much smaller now-barely one third of what it was back then. Furthermore, the current proportion of foreign-born US residents is only eight percent, high by recent standards but lower than every decade between 1850 and 1950. The main difference? Today's immigrants aren't uniformly European and white.

The problem with the immigration issue in a "population and environment" discussion is that, despite the claims of objectivity, neutrality and the use of slippery-slope terms like "carrying capacity" and "quality of life," population control always comes down to two questions: which populations and control by whom?

The ballot initiative that Sierra Club members will face this spring if passed would oblige many to reconsider their membership. Many Sierrans have already written to renounce their membership over the misaligned position. More will follow if the Sierra Club falls into the anti-immigrant malaise.

What can you do? If you're a Sierra Club member and you want to keep the organization strong and effective, resist the immigration ballot trap by voting for a Sierra Club policy that reaffirms a commitment to addressing the causes of global population problems. This policy argues that the key to working on population is protection of the rights of all families to reproductive health care; the empowerment of women; and addressing the real causes of international migration by encouraging environmental sustainability, economic security and human rights in all nations and communities. Sierra Club members would be wise to debunk the anti-immigration proposal as nothing less than a mean-spirited attempt at scapegoating and discrimination that doesn't give strength to the environmental movement or put the Earth first.