Hi Eric,

Thanks for your response! A couple thoughts on this point:

1. Comparing sources of population growth, about 4 million people are born in the US each year, while about 500,000 immigrants come here legally each year, and 60-70,000 refugees are admitted as well. That suggests the contribution of immigrants to population growth is about 12.5% that of natural birth, and for refugees specifically, it’s about 1.5% of that effect size. The article focuses specifically on refugees, so theoretically if one wanted to increase our refugee ceiling by 100,000 and decrease our admittance rate for other legal immigrants by 100,000 to keep it neutral, there’s nothing in my argument opposing it. I’ll go on the record as saying I think that’s a bad idea for a variety of reasons, but it’s an option I’d still say would be preferable to just denying refugees.
2. Overpopulation in the US is probably not something to worry about. Our birth rate per capita, as in most developed nations, has been dropping steadily for decades. In fact, even the drop of an average of 2 births per 1000 people we’ve experienced in 5 years is the equivalent of 600,000 less people being born every year — ten times the effect that all refugee admittance has on the population. If we want to further manage our population growth, I’d put the impetus on sex education and funding contraceptive resources, which prevents new people from forming, rather than on denying entry to people who already exist and a drop in the proverbial overpopulation bucket.