About 1.6 million immigrants settle in US every year

Washington, Aug 31 (UNI) About 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the United States and 350,000 people leave the country every year,resulting in a net immigration of 1.25 million.

If immigration continues at current levels, the United States' population will increase from 301 million today to 468 million in 2060 -- a 167 million (or 56 per cent) increase, says a new report.

Future immigrants and their descendants will account for 105 million (or 63 per cent) of the increase.

The report, "100 Million More: Projecting the Impact of Immigration on the US Population, 2007 to 2060," was prepared by Steven Camarota,director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, an independent research institute.

Net immigration into the United States has been increasing for five decades.If that trend continues, the report predicts the increase caused by immigration will be higher than the projected 105 million.

The report shows that even immigration has a very large impact on the size of the nation's population, it has only a small effect in slowing the aging of American society.

Some proponents of immigration have argued large numbers of immigrants are necessary to forestall the aging of society and a consequent imbalance between workers and retirees.

The report says, most of the projected population increase will come from legal immigration. Illegal immigration will add 37.9 million to the US population by 2060, given current trends, and legal immigration will add 67.4 million.

The study is thoroughly depressing and devastating to Roy Beck, the executive director of Numbers USA, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy organisation that opposes current federal immigration policies.

Beck is the author of The Case Against Immigration. That extra 100 million makes a tremendous difference in the quality of life, he said.

Beck sees mass immigration as a direct result of US policy and calls it a federally coercive congestion program.

UNI