In a July 10 column in The Fort Collins Coloradoan, business columnist Glen Colton cited an estimate from a dubious Heritage Foundation study to claim that the immigration bill approved by the Senate “would add 66 million legal immigrants to the U.S. in just the next 20 years. By 2050, we could have more than 500 million people, on our way to one billion people by the year 2100!”

The Senate bill, passed May 25, included a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for the nation's approximately 12 million illegal immigrants. The 66 million figure that Colton cited without naming a source apparently originated in a study conducted by Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. As Media Matters for America has noted, Rector's study originally estimated that passage of the Senate bill would allow for 103 million new immigrants to come to the United States over the next 20 years. Rector later reduced that number to 66 million after the Senate passed an amendment by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) that reduced the number of legal immigrants who could enter the United States under the bill's guest worker program. However, Rector's figures appear to conflict with figures released by numerous other sources, which generally estimate the long-term impact to be substantially less.

According to a June 20 San Francisco Chronicle report, Rector's study was challenged by skeptics who “noted that [Rector's original estimate of] 100 million is the equivalent of almost the entire population of Mexico.” The Chronicle further reported that according to “demographers,” "[e]ven Rector's newer number of 66 million over 20 years, adjusted for the Senate's changes, seems wrong on its face" and that the 66 million estimate “would imply 3.3 million new immigrants a year, more than three times the 1 million now admitted annually, and far above historic norms.” According to the article, Carl Haub, senior demographer for the Population Reference Bureau said, “That just can't be.”

Shortly after Rector released his original study, and before passage of Bingaman's amendment that placed further restrictions in the Senate bill, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report looking at the effect of the Senate bill on immigration during the next 10 years and concluded that the Senate bill would increase immigration levels by “nearly 8 million residents by 2016.” In contrast, Rector estimated that the original bill would increase legal immigration by 49 million people over the next 10 years.

As the Chronicle reported, in early June, the “pro-immigration” National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) released an analysis that also produced a far lower estimate than Rector's 66 million. According to NFAP, “over 20 years the United States will admit approximately 28.48 million net new legal immigrants under Senate bill S. 2611” including many people who are “already ... in the United States.”

From Colton's July 10 Coloradoan column:

Which future do you want for our country -- one of endless growth, with a population approaching that of India, or a sustainable future, with a stable population?

Because I answer that question the same way most of my fellow Coloradoans would, I traveled across the Western United States during the month of June as part of “The 21st Century Paul Revere Ride.” The purpose of the ride is to warn U.S. citizens of the demographic dangers of sky-high immigration and tell them what they can do about it.

If current levels of immigration continue, the population of the U.S. will increase from 300 million people today to 445 million by 2050! As if that isn't enough, the Senate “Amnesty” bill 2611, supported by Colorado Senator Ken Salazar, would add 66 million legal immigrants to the U.S. in just the next 20 years. By 2050, we could have more than 500 million people, on our way to one billion people by the year 2100!