With 281 million people, the United States is the third-most populous country in the world after India and China. And yet, its population is just a quarter that of India and accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s population and even a smaller fraction of the global population increase, according to data collected through the Census 2000 and reported in a brief titled ‘The United States in International Context.’

But on the other hand, population growth in the U.S. has been far greater than that of other industrial nations combined, largely due to a comparativelyimmigration policy.

But that may be changing. The terror attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11 last year brought policymakers and the public up short, questioning their owndoor policy at the borders.

But if this country has welcomed immigrants in the past, it is because so much of the economy depends on the skilled labor that comes in every year as well as the agricultural labor that daily crosses the U.S.-Mexican border.

This is especially crucial given that the U.S. is among four of the five countries that contributed most to the growth of the world’s elderly population between 1990 and 2000 due to relatively low mortality and large overall populations. The U.S., in fact, may have a quarter of India’s population, but it has more people of age 80 and over.

By 2025, the number of people age 65 and over throughout the world will nearly double. In the U.S., the elderly population is expected to jump nearly 80 percent, and working-age adults and children, 15 percent.

By 2025, the number of people age 65 and over throughout the world will nearly double, while the number of children will increase just 3 percent. In the U.S., the elderly population is expected to jump nearly 80 percent, and working-age adults and children, 15 percent.

As the Census 2000 data is collected and analyzed, these are factors which will define the ongoing debate on immigration, besides tenuous social security and associated labor force and health-care issues.

In mid-2001, there were an estimated 30 million immigrants in the U.S., of which some 8.5 million were said to be here illegally. Immigrants were said to make up 13 percent of the workforce, and close to 18 million do jobs that American-borns do not want to do.

At the same time, a study by USA Today published in February this year, reveals that over the last 20 years Asian Indians, Chinese and Pacific Islanders have shown the greatest entrepreneurial spirit, establishing some 600,000 businesses, much of this due to higher education levels and availability of financing.

According to the conservative Cato Institute, at the end of the day, immigrants contribute more to the coffers of the country than they take.

‘A Fiscal Portrait of the Newest Americans,’ by economist Stephen Moore, confirms a 1997 study by the National Research Council which calculated that immigrant households pay between $20,000 and $80,000 more in lifetime taxes than they collect in lifetime services — and perhaps more.