Pete Buttigieg proposes giving legal immigrants fast-track visas to boost populations in American small towns

Former South Bend Mayor and 2020 Democratic frontrunner, Pete Buttigieg, has been touting his new visa program, which aims to see legal immigrants flooding small American towns to grow the region's population. The former mayor said the initiative will give a boost to big businesses, corporate investors and housing investors.

Buttigieg, during a campaign stop in Merrimack, New Hampshire, shared his plan called "Community Renewal Visas," which aims to put skilled legal immigrants in rural communities and small towns in the United States to drive population growth in these areas.

"I’m proposing what we call 'Community Renewal Visas' that when a community that is very much in need of growing its population, recognizes that, and makes a choice to welcome more than its share of new Americans," the White House aspirant said. "We create a fast-track, if they apply for an allotment of visas, that goes to those who are willing to be in those areas that maybe are hurting for population but have great potential."

The former mayor's agenda of population growth in small towns is very similar to a plan called "Heartland Visa" formulated by the Economic Innovation Group, an organization led by investors who seek to flood small towns in the country with more legal immigration to boost the population. 

Investors and pro-migration lobbies, for years, have looked to boost the country's population through legal immigration in an attempt to increase the need for additional housing of new consumers, including residents in need of jobs and housing.

The U.S. population is reportedly expected to grow to at least 400 million residents by 2060 considering the current legal immigration levels in the country, which is nearly 1.2 million admissions per year. An increase in the number of the population would mean more vehicles on the road, additional housing and commercial development, more urban sprawl, and a higher living density.

Buttigieg also spoke against the country caps set on legal immigration, saying: "And so a couple of steps I think would help make [the legal immigration system] better: One is these country caps that exist that create a longer and longer clock on family reunification and other ways to make sure folks can get through that process," Buttigieg said.

“It’s based on numbers that were settled in the law in 1980s. It makes no sense. And it has no relationship to our economic reality. So when we have work-based visas, those pathways to come to the country, it should be something that can be revisited and revised every two years in an administrative process instead of literally taking an act of Congress to go clear up."