TNAG-1066-FCO40-1316-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 224

E/CN.4/1503

Annex II page 41

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130. The United States

course the country of immigrants par excellence. In less than 200 years, its population has leapt from four million in 1790 to the 230 million it is today, not least because it was receiving in the interval massive influxes related to upheavals in Europe. At the turn of the century, when immigration, mostly from southern and eastern Europe, was occurring at the rate of 800 000 to one million per year, it was still under 80 million. Yet because it was considered that too many people were reaching US shores, brakes came to be applied and in the restrictionism and subsequent economic recession of the 1920s and 1930s, the level of immi- gration fell precipitously, even being at one point offset by emigration, and was largely confined to people from north west Europe. During World War II, however, the country urgently needed farm labourers and initiated in 1942 the Bracero program to permit temporary farm labourers, mainly from Mexico, to be recruited. Since the war, successive revisions in immigration law have led to a policy of generous, if regulated, levels - of admission - since 1978 with a country ceiling of 20 000 and global ceiling of 290 000 (refugee admissions being made over and above these figures).

131.

For a long time, however, Mexican citizens are believed to have been crossing the border clandestinely into the United States in increasing numbers. Concern about pressures on the US in this respect have been voiced on many occasions. The Chairman of the Committee on

the Committee on the Judiciary in the US House

of Representatives said in a lecture delivered on 12 November 1980 at Georgetown University, in which he made a plea for a carefully- planned rather than a "reactive" approach to immigration:

"The population of the world has increased by 75 per cent in the past thirty years, from 2.5 billion in

in 1950 to 4.4 billion in 1980. The most rapid population increase was in Latin America, which grew from 164 million to 368 million during the same period. It is from this area that we can expect the greatest press- ures to emigrate over the next decade.

"In particular, it is estimated that Mexico, which already has a high proportion of young, working-age males, will double its population by the year 2000. At the current time, 31 million of Mexico's population of 68 million is under 15 years of age and 50 per cent of its work force is either unemployed or underemployed. Population density is another problem,