immigration?

While continuing my conquests in the game Civilization IV I realized one very important factor to the success of a society that the game neglected to address, that being immigration and border control. Sure you can protect your civilizations territories from invaders, but the game fails to deal with the flow of immigrants that either helps or hurts a society, but almost always is there to play a role. In the positive direction immigration can help a society expand their population, conquer more lands, and contribute to either the skilled or labor aspect to the workforce. Or immigrants can drain a society of its resources, social services, and take away vital jobs and positions from native citizens. Another aspect to immigration that must be considered is the social conflict that can result from a society that is multiracial.
The United States of America is a perfect example of society that has drastically changed due to immigration. Originally immigrants played a vital role insuring America became populated and was able to expand as well as drive out any people who “did not belong” like the Native Indians, or Mexicans. Then they provided a valuable labor force that could help to settle vast lands, all positives helping to make America prosper and gain power. Then during period of conflict and war immigration slowed and different groups were not trusted, such as the Japanese during the Second World War. This being a downfall the more diverse a society gets the more ethnic nepotism there is and cultural division can cause stress and strain on the homogeneity of a society. Currently immigration into the United States is mainly from poor third world nations, cheap labor trying to enter our borders in hopes of a better life. Our nation is becoming more diverse and ethnic and class conflict is increasing. Jobs are also being lost and it is clear our nation is gaining nothing if not losing from these people entering our borders. The United States is just one country, one example of a civilization that has been greatly impacted by immigration and it’s hard to believe the game Civilization IV can treat it as a non- issue.
In my civilization that I have been working on the past week or so, I have been extremely conservative in my decision making. My borders are extremely secure to protect my citizens from outside invaders, and enemies. However my population growth was extremely slow, many of my men were soldiers and I had everyone working trying to improve my society. If however mass immigration were possible I could have created a far more technologically advanced society that was more powerful in less time. Immigration is so crucial for societies because it allows for rapid growth in the reproductive age classes, and many times this rapid growth is need in a society to insure stability. I wanted to expand my society and take over new lands as well as battle on multi-front to show my dominance, however this was not possible, I did not have the time or the patience for my society to grow. With any simulated civilization of mine, the downfall I always faced was time; I simply did not have the patience to wait for the appropriate time to make a move. Either my military tactics were too aggressive and soon or I put to many of my societies resources into dominating the world, and not slowly building up like any successful civilization. So even though my societies failed due to my impatience and aggression, if the game allowed for secure borders with immigration I might have had a better chance to develop my society into a world power.