My fellow Americans, your livelihoods, your security, your social harmony. and, yes, the very lives of you and your family are on the line with the immigration issue.

A report just issued by the Population Reference Bureau, Managing Migration: The Global Challenge [PDF] shows how immigration has been raised to record levels—and may soon veer completely out of control.

Philip Martin, Ph.D. is a professor at UC California (Davis) and Editor of Migration News, a monthly summary of this issue. His collaborating co-author is Gottfried Zurcher, director general of International Center for Migration Policy Development in Vienna, Austria, an entity supported by 30 European governments to improve migration management.

Their report begins by saying:

"The number of international migrants is at an all-time high. There were 191 million migrants in 2005, which means that 3 percent of the world's people left their country of birth or citizenship for a year or more. The number of international migrants in industrialized countries more than doubled between 1985 and 2005, from almost 55 million to 120 million."

The report acknowledges that "most of the world's 6.6 billion people never cross a national border; most live and die near their place of birth. Those who cross national borders usually move to nearby countries, for example, from Mexico to the United States, or from Turkey to Germany."

But, as long time advocates of reform such as VDARE.com and FAIR have been pointing out, the numbers who do move are huge:

"The largest flow of migrants is from less developed to more developed countries. In 2005, 62 million migrants from developing countries moved to more developed countries...Large flows of people also move from one industrialized country to another, from Canada to the United States, for example, and much smaller flows move from more developed to less developed countries, such as people from Japan who work in or retire to Thailand."

Interesingly, "almost as many migrants (61 million) moved from one developing country to another, such as from Indonesia to Malaysia."

The report notes: "The United Nation's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that 'everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.' However, the right to emigrate does not give migrants a right to immigrate, and most migrants are not welcomed unconditionally into the countries to which they move."

This PRB study pulls no punches: it names open borders advocates, such as the Catholic Church, whose adherents are increasingly the undereducated of the developing world, and the World Bank with excess populations to serve and the impossible mantra of perpetual growth as good for both sending and receiving countries.

The other side is also noted. In the US, the PB report cites specifically FAIR, which "argues that unskilled newcomers hurt low-skilled US workers, have negative environmental effects, and threaten established US cultural values." FAIR wants annual immigration levels set by need analysis—not greed paralysis.

The PRB study notes:

"Since the growth of world population now occurs mainly in developing nations, the world's demographic shifts are soon to be major….Africa and Europe have roughly equal populations today, but by 2050, Africa is projected to have three times more residents. If Africa remains poorer than Europe, the two continents' diverging demographic trajectories may propel young people from overcrowded cities such as Cairo and Lagos to move to Berlin and Rome."

As the migration implodes into cities around the world and because of the income disparities between rich and poor nations, desperate migrants will accept what the authors call 3-D jobs (e.g. dirty, difficult, and dangerous) and today's creation of false documentation will seem petty in amounts.

Europeans feel increasing concern about the rising numbers of Muslims, as riots and other disturbances flare in France and elsewhere. Threats against journalists and cartoonists by Muslims have highlighted the results. Many in France and elsewhere see the 1975 Jean Raspail novel, The Camp of the Saints as coming true.

Population Reference Bureau has taken its traditional scholarly and temperate tone with this report, but even the PRB's report writers have let the urgency of the situation seep through their usually more stolid writing style.

Now is the time for action by the United States, as this writer has been advocating for years. However, our political leadership, particularly at the Federal level, has been adamantly against our own citizens and in thrall to greedy employers, ideological and ethnic advocacy groups

 Now that our country is heading into a serious recession, the immigrant flood (both legal and illegal) may temporarily abate. But the Democratic Congress will surely be pushing amnesty for the 20 million-plus illegal aliens here now—a move which will attract millions more over the next decades. And the new President will be ready to sign anything Congress sends to him/ her, since none of the three candidates has even seen an immigrant they don't want to import.

By 2050 the country will wake up to its overpopulation hangover in the direst terms. With at least 200 million more added to our present 310 million, the rule of law, the social security system and all the legal benefits of today's America will seem like a distant dream.

Donald A. Collins [email him], is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.