Pressure Points (Updated)

The subject of this post is... immigration, and the pressure it places upon the existing population of the United States. Not legal as opposed to illegal immigration, but as a whole. Some background: In days gone by, all immigrants entered the United States through our borders with Canada and Mexico, and along out coastlines. Immigrant populations would start at the edges, and move inward. The most intense pressure areas remained, however, on the fringes of the country. Competition for housing, jobs, education and recreation created areas of pressure as these immigrants assimilated into the American society. Over time new pressure points would arise as new groups of immigrants arrived. These pressure points could usually be defined along ethnic, religious, and/or racial boundaries. (Immigration history here, here and here) With the advent of air travel, points of immigration spread throughout the country, lessening the concentration at the fringes. That is, with the exception of our Southern border. Our border with Mexico, and the ease with which it is crossed, coupled with the intense economic incentives for crossing it, has provided a large pressure point from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific coast. The immense immigrant population, although rapidly spreading throughout the country, is most in evidence in the border states. Somewhere between forty percent and fifty-four percent of the U.S. population growth can be attributed to immigration, not counting the estimated seven to twelve million illegals in the country. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, some states now are approaching or have exceeded having half of their population classified as minority. Which brings me to the reason for this post. Shay at Booker Rising has written: Does Illegal Immigration Pose A Threat To Black Americans? The Census Bureau recently reported that Texas is the latest state to join a growing trend in America, where the minority population exceeds that of the white population. BlackBritain.co.uk talks to liberal columnist Dr Earl Ofari Hutchinson and a few sociologists to analyze how illegal immigration - which fuels much of the trend - impacts blacks in America. Despite the liberal bias, the article does a decent job outlining the three main issues of conflict: (1) competition for jobs at the lower end of the scale, with blacks being pushed out of traditional entry points; (2) diminishing political power for blacks; and (3) overcrowding for public services and affordable housing. [...] Shay asks some interesting and pointed questions prompted by the linked article, questions that I can't answer. However, his posting brought a question to my mind. Does the level of immigration, particularly illegal, affect the black population of this country more adversly than it does other ethnic groups (including whites as an ethnic group)? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Update: Interesting. A. C. Kleinheider at Hard Right posts: This is unfortunate. Despite what you might think from watching the news and absorbing popular culture, blacks have become quite upwardly mobile and there exists a large and growing black middle class. That being said, there is still a good chunk at the lower end of the spectrum who are in direct competition with illegals for jobs. When jobs are lost and wages decline, quite often it is the black man who suffers. [...] Check out the links. As an aside here, I probably should have used the term racial groups rather than ethnic groups in my last sentence of the original post. From my perspective, though, I tend to think of group differences in the United States as differing more along ethnic lines than racial lines. Technorati : Canada, Ethnicity, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Mexico, Population Growth, Race, United States