I frequently attend press briefing by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) here in DC at the National Press Club, along with other journalists who often find its well-researched materials useful in understanding the complex issues involved in immigration reform.

Thursday, December 16, 2010 would have been no exception. I was supposed to go to the press conference announcing  a report on The Illusionary Allure of Immigration Grand Bargains. But when I entered the Van Ness Red Line Station of the DC Metro, I found that, while the infrequently non functioning escalators were working perfectly, the main tracks during rush hour had been reduced to one track on which alternating uptown and downtown rains were running. The crowds were packed. After waiting some time for a downtown train, I simply gave up and went home.

Maybe our elites calling for more "shovel-ready" projects should stop digging deeper deficits in the Middle East. If we weren't so intent on keeping our military budget at high levels ($23 trillion spent since the onset of the Vietnam War) we could end Metro glitches go for general infrastructure development. Where are we on building high speed trains, cutting highway congestion, pushing new energy initiatives, etc?

The CIS report is well discussed in the materials released online the day of the briefing and deserve your review. [Summary | PDF]

However, nothing currently said by most combatants on both sides of this contentious issue ever seem to strike at the heart of real solutions, since all too often mention is not made, as Roy Beck does so eloquently with his gumballs, of the mechanical inevitability of the disastrous growth of population in the USA.

The bottom line: we need an immigration moratorium now—at least until the US unemployment rate is cut in half. Bringing in over one million on work visas annually, as we do now, must exacerbate the unemployment that our elected elites keep bleating is the most urgent issue.

When the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) was founded in January 1979, world population was 4.4 billion, US population was 225 million.

Now the US Census Bureau estimates current world population to be 6,888,000,000, topping out by 2050 at between 8 to 10 billion. And US population has jumped to 311 million and is growing by 2.6 million per year—according to Robert Schlesinger, blogging   at U.S.  News and World Report.

Bottom line, folks: we just don't need these new bodies here.

Why aren't we screaming about these facts instead of trying to pass new amnesties such as the Dream Act, cleverly named by the Open Border PR manipulators. Immigration reform patriots should immediately have dubbed it "the SCREAM Act"—after the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's famous picture, about which he said "I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature" Well, America is screaming too.

Why are we even discussing idiocies like Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR), another amnesty and certainly not the last, just like the 1986 travesty?

Keep going, and we could easily double our present population without even a debate. The utter greed and irresponsibility of the Open Border growth crowd, personified by the big money and big corporate spokesthings like the US Chamber of Commerce, do not represent American interests. They represent corporate special interests—just as the Roman Catholic Church's hots for increased membership because its historic Irish base is declining and its Latino replacement is producing children far faster than the average US family, leads certain charitable foundations to pour millions into LULAC and La Raza.

Tom Friedman's brilliant NY Times November 30, 2010 column "From WikiChina" really says it all! It begins

"While secrets from WikiLeaks were splashed all over the American newspapers, I couldn't help but wonder: What if China had a WikiLeaker and we could see what its embassy in Washington was reporting about America? I suspect the cable would read like this:

Washington Embassy, People's Republic of China, to Ministry of Foreign Affairs Beijing, TOP SECRET/Subject: America today.

Things are going well here for China. America remains a deeply politically polarized country, which is certainly helpful for our goal of overtaking the U.S. as the world's most powerful economy and nation. But we're particularly optimistic because the Americans are polarized over all the wrong things."

My earlier hope for President Obama has been shattered completely. But obvious actions like stopping our permanent war and real spending cuts do not seem on the agenda of the new Republican House majority either.

My failure to get to that December 16, 2010 press briefing was another urgent reminder to me that an immigration moratorium must be our main priority now.

Anybody awake out there?

Donald A. Collins [email him], is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.