Birth Control or Border Patrol?

There are few issues more politically charged than immigration policy, so it's hardly surprising that voices were raised and names were called when the Sierra Club debated the subject last spring. At issue was a ballot initiative proposed by an insurgent group within the club, Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization, that would have called for a "reduction in net immigration." In April, the initiative, "Alternative A," lost by a margin of 20 percent in what Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope called "a resounding defeat for a misguided policy." Pointing to the 1.5 million unplanned births that occur annually in the U.S., he saw the results as an endorsement of "birth control, not border patrols."

The roots of the controversy are deeply buried, but they came to the surface with a 1996 Sierra Club board of directors vote to "take no position on immigration levels," reversing an earlier stand that committed the club to "lend[ing] its voice to the congressional debate on legal immigration levels when appropriate." Dr. Alan Kuper, a 25-year Sierra Club member based in Ohio, says he organized the initiative to restore the club's "historic position in favor of limiting immigration."

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