Editor

After reading Leon Bouvier's Fifty Million Californians?, and the condensation of it in the January 1992 Social Contract, I wondered in what section of the library this book will be placed in the year 2020 fiction or non-fiction?

This book is much more frightening than any works of Stephen King because Fifty Million Californians? has a real possibility of coming true. Therefore, those of us who are concerned about the overpopulation problem in California must become even more zealous in our goal of recruiting more activists to champion this cause.

All inputs into the population growth rate are of great concern. However, to change family traditions, religious beliefs and fertility rates in the world takes time, education and dedication - more time than I have. Therefore, the input that I am most concerned with is immigration. The immigration portion can be changed immediately with the enforcement of existing laws and a will on the part of our elected officials to do what the majority of the people in the state want done No illegal immigration, and a reasonable ceiling on legal immigration. The average citizen realizes that we cannot be the 911 or the escape valve for the world. Most people also realize that with close to 6 billion people in the world (and growing), it would be unrealistic to think there will not be economic want, natural disaster, or war some-where in the world. Our world will continue to create refugees. Can California be the resettlement zone?

It is not an important factor as to where immigration comes from. All people basically need the same things - jobs, education, health care, affordable housing, clean air, water, etc. All of the above are already in desperately short supply in 1991. Human beings cause problems for the resources, infrastructure, and environment of this state. Immigrants, like permanent residents, have neither a monopoly on, or immunity from, creating more problems. If the average illegal aliens are age 15, it is logical to assume they are en route to the job market, housing market, maternity wards and our clogged freeways. Does anyone consider this a benefit to California?

This is not a partisan issue. Both the Democratic and the Republican parties should bow their heads in shame because of their lack of concern for our borders. It is not only our sovereign right, but it is the will of the majority of the American people, as poll after poll has shown, to maintain them. The immigration question should be asked of everyone in or running for public office, and we should all vote accordingly.

We have not been able to get realistic thinking into the heads of our elected officials, but maybe now the timing is right. We may be able to get into their minds through their (i.e. our) billfolds. Money is a rare commodity in California's state government and the cost of operating this state must get a serious examination. Leon Bouvier, Governor Wilson and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have started a much-needed dialogue that will not go away. Budgets need to be justified and passed with all media and voters watching.

If immigration laws and policies are made and enforced with our nation's best interests at heart, and family planning is made available and affordable, we may be able to place Fifty Million Californians? in the fiction section. No one would be more pleased than Leon Bouvier to find that, because his book made us more aware of the danger, we may have proved his projections wrong.

Helen Graham

State Program Director

Federation for American Immigration Reform

Sacramento, CA