Linda Thom in the wsj: “The U.S. Doesn’t Need Any More Immigrants”

By “W”

Linda Thom's letter in wsj

VDARE has reprinted Linda Thom’s letter to the editor, saying the US doesn’t need any more immigration. This was the lead letter published in the weekend wall street journal.

Linda Thom in the wsj: “The U.S. Doesn’t Need Any More Immigrants.”

VDARE.com contributor Linda Thom writes that letters to the editor like the one she wrote below disagreeing politely and factually with a wall street journal immigration enthusiast editorial, do get published if they’re well reasoned and well argued, because “Editors look for differing opinions.”

[N.S.: In addition to being brilliant and succinct, Linda Thom is not associated with VDARE. Years ago, she was an occasional contributor. I guarantee you that if yours truly were to criticize the journal in a letter, that its editors would not print it.]

This appeared in the WSJtoday:

Baby Bust is Nothing New; U.S. is Growing

Your editorial “America’s Growing Baby Bust” (May 6) notes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that U.S. births declined last year, and that the total fertility rate (TFR) also declined to a record low of 1,637.5 births per 1,000 women, which is lower than the population replacement level of 2,100.

According to the CDC: “The U.S. TFR has generally been below replacement since 1971.” In 1970 the U.S. population was 205 million and in 2020, the population was 331 million. The increase of millions resulted almost entirely because of immigrants and their descendants.

You further state that: “Existing entitlements will be harder to fund if the population grows more slowly.” Medicaid is one of those entitlements. According to the CDC, Medicaid funded 59% of Hispanic women’s deliveries in 2018 and 46% of those women were foreign born, mostly from Mexico and Central America.

The largest entitlement is a free public education. U.S. schools aren’t suffering from a student shortage. America isn’t suffering from a worker shortage. America isn’t suffering from a people shortage. The U.S. doesn’t need any more immigrants.

Linda Thom

WSJ, May 14, 2021

The source for the demographic data above is National Vital Statistics Reports Volume 68, Number 13: Births: Final Data for 2018,  November 27, 2019,, especially Table 19.