Close the Borders! Immigrants Emit Greenhouse Gases!
Greenhouse gases have apparently become the boogeyman for any and all issues. For example, the folks at the anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies have just issued a report that warns that immigrants emit more greenhouse gases than if they had stayed at home mired in poverty.
Among the Center's startling findings is:
…immigrants in the United States produce an estimated four times more CO2 in the United States as they would have in their countries of origin.
U.S. immigrants produce an estimated 637 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually - equal to Great Britain and Sweden combined.
The estimated 637 tons of CO2 U.S. immigrants produce annually is 482 million tons more than they would have produced had they remained in their home countries.
If the 482 million ton increase in global CO2 emissions caused by immigration to the United States were a separate country, it would rank 10th in the world in emissions…
Legal immigrants have a much larger impact because they have higher incomes and resulting emissions, and they are more numerous than illegal immigrants.
These figures are likely to be true. But is keeping people poor by depriving us of their labor and skills really the best way to address man-made global warming?