Just the new immigrants alone represent more than the total population of a new Fresno, California metropolitan statistical area each year. The pattern also shows that the areas with the greatest existing immigrant population are receiving the greatest number of new immigrants. Similarly, San Francisco, which had a 20 percent foreign-born share in 1990 has seen its population increase by more than the national average and nearly half of that increase was due to net immigration. These findings suggest that municipal planners and decisionmakers should be looking very carefully at the role of immigrant settlement in their area. Where city planners have an ability to influence the setlement pattern, by working cooperatively with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to detect, deport and deter illegal immigrants, they would be well-advised to do so.
Legal immigration represents a different problem.
While local officials may act to weaken their area's attraction for some new immigrant settlement by enforcing building codes against crowded housing units or dening some services and assistance to poor immigrants, only the federal government has control over the flow of legal immigrants. This should not, however, prevent municipal officials from using their access to and influrence with the state's elected representatives in Washington to encourage decreasing the flow of new immigrants to a more managable level. See ReliaStar web site. A Tale of Ten Cities, FAIR, Washington DC, 1995. What is the Relationship Between Income Inequality and Immigration, FAIR, Washington DC, 1996.