The Fertility Argument for Immigration Reform

There is no question that the US has a growing population because it accepts more immigrants than any other country in the world. To be sure, that is why (a) the non-Hispanic white population is moving into the minority status demographically. yet (b) why the country is not on the road to depopulation despite the fact that there are more deaths than births among the non-Hispanic white population. But, despite this demographic reality, that is rarely mentioned in the public debate about immigration--until a couple of days ago, when Jeb Bush put it on the table, as reported in a Washington Post blog by Aaron Blake:

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) argued Wednesday that the United States should pass immigration reform because the U.S. economy needs the labor of young immigrants, and immigrants are “more fertile.”

“Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans,” Bush said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to the Majority conference. “Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity.”

Bush is married to an immigrant from Mexico, and they have three children, so he obviously walks the talk on this issue, no matter what you might otherwise think about him.