TRIM: Tri-State Immigration Moratorium, Inc.

Please note: TRIM has been inactive as an organization since the early 2000s. Email is still checked occasionally (although months can pass), but we no longer respond to requests for interviews or media appearances. The site will remain online for historical reasons, and because we feel that the arguments made here are still sound. If you wish to become involved in immigration reform, we strongly recommend joining FAIR and NumbersUSA, both of which have proven themselves to be highly effective advocates for sensible immigration policies that serve the interests of the American people. In addition, we recommend the Center for Immigration Studies as a resource for scholarly research. All three organizations deserve your support.


Contact: trim@trim.org


Welcome to our home page! TRIM is a volunteer-based, non-partisan, grass-roots immigration reform organization, incorporated since 1995, with members in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. TRIM supports the total elimination of all illegal immigration into the United States, and a reduction in legal immigration from the current level of nearly a million per year to between 100,000 and 300,000 annually.

Why Reduce Immigration?
What Does TRIM Want?
What Does TRIM Do?
What Can You Do?
Links
Home


Why Reduce Immigration?

There is nothing wrong with most immigrants. They are mostly ordinary, decent people who happen to have been born in other countries, and on the whole they are no better or worse than people born in America. The problem is not the people, but the numbers. Even good people can cause serious problems if too many are coming too fast!

Immigration has increased radically over the past few decades. Legal immigration has leapt from 300,000 a year in the mid 60's to over 1,000,000 a year in the 90's, and the increase in legal immigration has spurred a corresponding increase in illegal immigration. (Illegal immigrants tend to come from the same countries as legal immigrants, work at the same kind of jobs, and often live with or are employed by friends or relatives who are here legally). All serious polls show that most Americans have wanted less immigration, not more. But the American people have had little say in the matter! The issue has been controlled in Congress by pro-immigration special interests: big corporations and agricultural interests, who want a steady supply of cheap labor; ethnic politicians and activists, who see imported voters as a way of increasing their own power and influence; and even immigration lawyers, who simply want more clients.

The problems caused by too much immigration fall into several categories:

We need to reduce immigration because our current immigration policy is irrational. It benefits only the few, not the many, and it puts the future at risk. Mass immigration might make sense if America had a shortage of people. But we are already a nation of over a quarter of a billion people, and there is nothing we want to accomplish as a nation that requires a larger population. Immigration advocates often imply that immigrants are smarter, more energetic, more vital, or even more American than the native born. This is an insulting myth. There is nothing wrong with immigrants, but neither are they in any way superior to people born in America. (In particular it is absolutely reprehensible to allow our immigration policy to be influenced by the idea that poor people from other countries are superior to American poor!). Some say that high immigration is an American tradition. But we are not slaves to the past, and if a tradition starts to hurt us we have every right to change it. Finally, some argue that -- whatever the impact on Americans -- we have a moral obligation to help the world's poor by allowing them to come here. But even leaving aside the impropriety of a U.S. government policy that places the well being of foreigners above that of Americans, there is still the problem of numbers. The world's poor number not in millions, but in billions, and their number is growing by over 80 million a year. We could not begin to scratch the surface of world poverty even with ten times as much immigration! We may flatter ourselves that our immigration policy is "compassionate," but in truth it does little to relieve world poverty, while cruelly giving false hope to billions of people who will never be able to come here under any circumstances. There are much more effective ways for America to help the world's poor.

If we allow immigration to continue at current levels the result won't necessarily be disaster. As other countries have done, America can probably muddle through with a divided, multilingual, and growing population of half a billion, or even a billion people. But is this the future we want for our children and grandchildren? And if it is not, should the United States government be forcing this future upon us? In 1995 the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration -- established by Congress, and chaired by the late civil rights leader Barbara Jordan -- recommended a reduction in legal immigration, an end to "family reunification" and the "diversity lottery," and other changes in immigration policy that the commission considered to be in the best interests of the American people. The recommendations of the Jordan Commission were fiercely attacked and eventually defeated by an unusual coalition of left-wing ethnic lobbies and right-wing business lobbies, none of which had the best interests of the American people at heart. Unless the American people fight back our immigration policy will continue to be controlled by special interests, and our country will suffer for it.


What Does TRIM Want?

Many people think that immigration into America has always been high, and that the current situation is normal. But in fact immigration has been low as often as it has been high. Low immigration is as American as high immigration, and these periods of low immigration have given America time to rest and assimilate the newcomers. American immigration policy is determined by Congress, so that is where change must come from. TRIM wants Congress to:


What Does TRIM Do?


What Can You Do?


Links

There are many good immigration reform web sites. Listed below are some of the most important.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, is the most important national immigration reform organization. FAIR has been fighting hard for lower immigration since 1979. With over 250,000 members, FAIR is in many ways similar to other big-time Washington special interest lobbies, the difference being that they are on our side! FAIR staff members are quoted regularly in the national media, and have developed close ties with key members of Congress. Although TRIM is not formally affiliated with FAIR we have worked with them on a number of occasions, and they have provided enormous help and support to TRIM and other grass roots organizations. If you feel that you are able to join only one immigration reform organization then we strongly recommend that you become a member of FAIR.

NumbersUSA is maintained by Roy Beck, author of The Case Against Immigration. It provides educational resources and up-to-the-minute information on the latest immigration legislation before Congress. In addition you can use NumbersUSA to send faxes to Congress and influence legislation. This service is free! The faxes are written by the NumbersUSA people; all that is required of you is that you register at the site and check occasionally for new faxes. The faxes that you decide to send will be received with your name and address, and you may receive replies from Members of Congress or their staffs. Please register with NumbersUSA and start sending free faxes to Congress!

The Center for Immigration Studies is an excellent source of scholarly studies and information on immigration. They also maintain the very useful CISNEWS e-mail list.

Immigration Forum is maintained by Norman Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California at Davis, and features articles on a wide variety of immigration related topics. Dr. Matloff has been especially active fighting efforts by the high-tech industry to increase the number of "temporary" H-1B workers. Read his Congressional testimony on this issue.