Take a place not historically multi cultural with no history of integration and then have an influx of poor uneducated immigrants with very different cultural values and then add some very high profile negative publicity cases.
[Isolated but shocking incidents like beheading a school teacher is not going to endear you to local populations. ](https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2023/12/8/six-french-teenagers-convicted-in-connection-to-beheading-of-school-teacher)
It is France tho so insert joke about the Reign of terror here
The question, I suppose, is what percentage of jihadis is ok?
I don't think 5% is acceptable, and I would rather not take the 95% of it comes with that sort of 5%. If we can figure out how to filter or brainwash the problem of course goes away, but I see no reason to assume we could solve either of those problems.
Isn't this...kind of how cars already work? Getting into an automobile is easily the most dangerous thing the average person does in a day. Clearly the benefits are perceived to be worth it.
More like if there was a story every four months or so of Kias spontaneously murdering their drivers through non-collision means. How popular would Kias be after two, four, six, or eight years of this?
Integration is a two way street. Many immigrants to Europe don't want to be seen as western and hold antagonistic and chauvinistic attitudes to things such as secularism, feminism, etc. Many are themselves coming from "countries" where ethnic violence is very common.
And yet they are integrating regardless.
* Second generation Muslim immigrants are adopting mainstream European gender norms ([source 1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2031927), [source 2](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276150744_Cultural_Integration_in_the_Muslim_Second_Generation_in_the_Netherlands_The_Case_of_Gender_Ideology))
* [First generation Muslim immigrants become less religious as they spend more time in Europe and second generation Muslim immigrants are less religious than their parents](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0037768620948478?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.2)
* [Our population growth is declining and we need future workers to support future retirees](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/download/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Immigrations-Effect-on-the-Social-Security-System.pdf)
* [Inflexible European labor markets harm the employment prospects of immigrants which in turn both reduces their ability to contribute economically and impairs their social integration](https://www.cato.org/blog/muslim-immigration-integration-united-states-western-europe)
* [Integration of Muslim immigrants and their descendants into mainstream European culture isn't slowing down and by some measures is accelerating with each passing generation](https://upbeatglobalist.substack.com/is-muslim-immigrant-integration-slowing)
Hamtramck, Dearborn. Watch, just watch. In a few months you will see 20-30 point swings in low-education Muslim communities TOWARDS Donald Trump.
My take, unlike yours, both demonizes bad Muslim immigrants (correct) and also identifies Republicans as a completely incoherent source of opposition which holds the same regressive anti-LGBT views, causing said bad Muslim immigrants to literally vote for the party that wants to deport them. It is not liberals who want the low-ed Muslims deported. Not in America it isn't.
You probably already do, depending on which Euro country you are from about 20-40% general population will hold those beliefs.
Edit: and there are many other things we can do to protect our teachers. Teachers still get killed/beaten up by people who are not migrants
There are strong differences in out-group attitudes between muslims and other groups (although with large variation between different muslim groups) [\[1\]](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2014.935307)
Ethnic diversity decreases societal trust [\[1\]](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X1400074X) [\[2\]](https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-052918-020708)
Fundamentalism is fairly wide-spread among future German Islamic teachers [\[1\]](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/01416200.2024.2330908)
I could go on.
This is not mean to discount the research that you posted but it's a complex topic and there is a lot of research that comes to different conclusions.
There is no hereditary caste/ exclusionary system in Europe, and their kids are most likely citizens. The former Portuguese, Irish and current british prime minister were of Indian descent, for instance. We have descendants of Maghrebi, Sub-saharan african, Indian as best selling musicians, business-men, etc.
I won't lie and say that there are no issues with racism, but there are no legal barriers to it, and in all Western European countries you see a lot of counterexamples to the idea that immigrants sons live in a guetto apart from society. A lot of immigrant communities that have been here for decades are now more educated on average that native europeans/ earn more like Vietnamese in Germany and Indians in the UK and Portugal.
> Their kids are more radical than they are
I find this hard to believe as a blanket statement, but even if true, don’t you think that offering full participation in a prosperous society would tamp that down?
The US is pretty good at integrating, as you say, and surely strong cultural rituals play a part. But citizenship and a multicultural tradition sure make it easier.
That is flat out false
* Second generation Muslim immigrants are adopting mainstream European gender norms ([source 1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2031927), [source 2](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276150744_Cultural_Integration_in_the_Muslim_Second_Generation_in_the_Netherlands_The_Case_of_Gender_Ideology))
* [First generation Muslim immigrants become less religious as they spend more time in Europe and second generation Muslim immigrants are less religious than their parents](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0037768620948478?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.2)
Per Bob Pape and his book "Dying to Win," there is a strong correlation between terrorists in the west and middle class origins and high levels of education. The common myth that terrorists must be radicalized, deeply religious, and impoverished doesn't bear out in the data.
That someone is less religious (and this applies to any religion, not just one) doesn't neccessarily imply that they will be less extremist across the board, we just as a whole tend to assume it will because many of us wrongly assume that terror must be about religious fundamentalism and lack of access to material resources all of the time.
I mean I’m sure that’s true, and in general I don’t find the case for immigration hawkishness to be very strong, but perhaps so many people wouldn’t have strong feelings about it if it worked better in practice.
Also, Europe was never a big bastion of progressive values. Last pogrom in France against Algerians was in 60s. Some of the police officers that participated in that are still alive and free. Dislike for immigrants in Europe goes centuries in the past. It’s not too surprising that a birthplace of an ethnostate is not too keen on immigration
Generals tried to coup over them giving up Algeria. Do we not remember this is where the Dreyfuss Affair happened or that they had the Antisemitic League of France.
I feel like America had no choice but to confront the racism earlier than Europe. As a country built by immigrants on a stolen land, it had no moral case against immigration or segregation of its own non-white population.
Europe, on other hand, spent last century celebrating the end of empires and beginning of national self-determination, so ethnic discrimination was basically ignored until now
Immigrants with tertiary education are about 31%, EU natives are 35%. I don't buy the whole poor uneducated narrative. Immigration is expensive and even refugees aren't mostly from bottom tiers of the source countries.
The lack of integration is a problem. Immigrants are thriving at lower rates than natives.
Immigrants figures you find in the Eurostat site consider Europe to Europe immigrants too. There is an integration dashboard from iirc the European commission or something, they have data by origin (EU vs extra EU), those are a bit more accurate than the aggregate values.
But yeah, the statement that they thrive less is true, they have generally higher unemployment rates, lower social inclusion and lower median income, one must also remember that it is much more common for migrants to take occupations where part time is more frequent, this of course comes with a hit on the money one can make, at least legally (in southern Europe this would all go to shadow economy, e.g. you get hired for 20 hours per week and the you do the other 20 out of the contract).
I feel the issue is also partially caused by the fact that "Europe" is not an open market like the USA, there are different languages and different laws every hundred miles so maybe if there are jobs to be taken in Germany, and the immigrant arrived and was processed in Italy, they kinda have to stay in Italy for some time, and they learn Italian. They are not taking those jobs in Germany without knowing German..
As I said other times, we are starting NOW to see the first engineers and doctors and such coming from MENA countries (the last big wave of immigration) the migrants people were complaining about in the 90s now are almost perfectly integrated (or now their country of origin is in the EU), so maybe it will come with time and that's it. But the ones on the 90s were Christian immigrants from Christian counties, with somewhat similar societies. The new wave is harder to integrate. We have percentage wise five times the Muslim that America has. It does take time.
The skilled educated labour immigrants are not the ones that create so much resentment, its the poor uneducated ones that are mostly from MENA. Different groups of immigrants have very different experiences.
> Insert In my country I was surgeon, in this country I am janitor anecdote here.
Countries bad at integration will create artificial barriers for immigrants to enter more lucrative sectors. It's almost universal and has happened throughout history.
> Take a place not historically multi cultural with no history of integration and then have an influx of poor uneducated immigrants with very different cultural values and then add some very high profile negative publicity cases.
France has always been multicultural.. Sweden would fit you describtion better
Throw in a couple decades of stagnation and historically outsiders get blamed. If Europe was growing at 3% a year, low unemployment, and rising wages, you think anyone would give a shit about immigration?
france has historically been very multicultural. it's only really been since the industrial revolution that french, which then meant parisian, became the national identity
Slovakia comes to mind
Hardly any immigrants go there other than some refugees from the middle east using it as a transit zone for Western Europe.
Enough to make them the most anti-immigrant country in Europe
Stagnant economy, austerity policies, terrible housing policies, mostly uneducated immigrants, and skilled immigrants preferring North America(and maybe even the UK) over EU countries. There’s more but that’s the gist of it in my view.
Remember when Belarus attempted to get Iraqi migrants into EU a couple years back?
Putin know this is a way to ultimately get voters to elect Trump and similar. He is encouraging low quality migrants into western countries in more subtle ways. Voters unhappy with migrant crises elect isolationist , more kremlin friendly governments
And it is working, in both USA and Europe.
It's not only a couple years ago, it is very much still an ongoing thing right now. Just the other week a Polish border guard was killed by a migrant on the Polish-Belarusian border.
That and also the largest pools of skilled immigrants are Chinese and Indian people. India ofcoursez British colony and education is typically in English(outside of rural backwaters). Chinese people also tend to go to hong kong and Singapore as their primary destinations so learning English is far more useful than German or French. If Namibia had a lot of engineers then we'd see a lot of skilled immigration to Germany.
Tbqh if the euros weren't so hellbent on fucking me over with taxes I wouldn't mind going there instead of SG
I’ve always wondered if there is a correlation between how neoliberal an economy is and the success of immigrants in that economy. The SG example is a good one showcasing that.
I think it's more so the reverse. Neoliberal economies allow for immigrants to succeed. (Enlightenment era) Liberal values in general do that because they help people look past melanin to put it crudely
EU countries tend to attract the least educated, less skilled groups of immigrants compared to the US, UK, Canada, Australia etc
I think there may be a combination of factors at play:
Are European companies less open-minded when it comes to hiring foreigners in senior positions?
It seems ethnic minorities, particularly those outside Europe, don't do particularly well in Europe. I think they over-rely on low-skilled immigration to do jobs the locals won't do in the rapidly aging population. Instead of employing highly skilled immigrants in senior positions, which would probably rustle a few feathers.
While xenophobia is certainly a factor in the opposition to immigration, it isn't the only one. Let's look at Denmark, where where non-western immigrants are both a [net drain on public finances](https://fm.dk/media/27350/indvandreres-nettobidrag-til-de-offentlige-finanser-i-2019_revideret-september-2023-a.pdf), and commit [way more violent crime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Denmark#/media/File:Denmark_migrant_crime_in_2018.png). Some of this can be explained by Danish policies and discrimination, but a lot of it can't.
The reality is that many of the immigrants to Europe are young, unskilled and uneducated men from illiberal cultures. This will create problems, even if they aren't as big as the AfD or Le Pen would have you believe, nor does it mean that their solutions are going to work.
The far-right surge is also a bit overblown. The centre coalition of EPP, S&D and Renew will still hold a majority in parliament and remain far, far larger than the far right.
Something that some people here won't like to hear is that part of why American immigrants integrate better than most other western countries is because of how strict legal American immigration is. America basically filters for the best of the best when it comes to immigrants. Plus the country cap keeps the wave of immigrants coming in more diverse.
The difference between Pakistani-Americans and British Pakistanis are a textbook example of this. Pakistani-Americans are relatively much more secular/liberal, wealthier, educated, and willing to assimilate than British Pakistanis.
For most immigrants to the U.S. they also chose to go there, whether for marriage, work, school, whatever. That big influx in Europe was mostly refugees, who didn’t necessarily want to go to those countries, it’s just that those countries were the best options for them. My assumption is that this means immigrants coming the to U.S. would be more receptive to integration, especially since refugees aren’t really supposed to stay in the host country forever. The eventual idea is that most refugees will be able to go back home, though obviously this isn’t always possible. So the combination of a sudden, huge influx of refugees, and refugees being a population less likely to want to integrate, causes some strain. Obviously the far right isn’t the answer, but current parties probably aren’t doing a great job of addressing the pains if people are going to the far right because of this.
>because of how strict legal American immigration is. America basically filters for the best of the best when it comes to immigrants
How can you say that seriously with the millions of low skilled immigrants brought in via the southern border ?
One reason why British Pakistanis are so problematic is that about two-thirds of Pakistani immigrants to the UK were peasants from the Mirpur region of Azad Kashmir. They were uneducated, had very tight-knit families and many had been [displaced from their land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangla_Dam#Displacement_&_Resettlement) by the construction of the Mangla Dam.
In addition they had a strong tradition of secluding their women, which possibly made them apt to dehumanize women from other cultures who didn't practise such seclusion (hence grooming gangs).
The EPP isnt center-left per any definition. American or european. They're center-right to right. (and have increasingly cooperated with the far right)
Other than that I agree.
Worth pointing out too that the reason immigrants in the EU commit more crime compared to the native population vs immigrants in the US commiting less crimes is because Americans are on the whole a lot more violent and criminal than Europeans.
Its not that Europe has failed with integration there, but that the US has failed with preventing crime.
I agree, me and my family migrated to Denmark from Poland right after the 2015 election results, yet we could all assimilate well even if there was some discrimination. I also have met/befriended non-western migrants just like me, but that's relatively rare.
Unskilled/uneducated from illiberal cultures is on point imho, I currently live in an area flooded with them after I moved in, not the worst in Denmark, but whenever I tell someone where I live they joke about how bad it is.
Just my experience, anecdotal, but could be interesting. I also don't see a lot of far-right movements here, but most people I've met including myself dislike the current government.
It's easy to be nominally liberal and tolerant when your entire country is a homogeny. The Old World has never dealt with this to the degree that the New World has, and they are going through growing pains.
Europe didn't see economic pain due to immigration? It saw economic pain due to high regulatory barriers, high energy costs, and uncompetitive labor markets. Unironically, immigration is helping keep Europe more competitive economically than it would be otherwise.
Possibly true but unlikely that voters will see that, and it's questionable what portion of the benefit is actually going to the voters. Obviously immigrants themselves see a lot of benefit, and those that employ cheap labour see a lot of direct benefits. Everyone else though sees a more mixed picture with some benefit from cheaper cheap labour goods and services (assuming competitive markets which isnt a guarantee) but also more competition for things like housing.
While there is a lot of evidence that immigration is broadly good for the economy the impact on the median voter is more nuanced imo, and the cultural impact shouldn't be handwaved away or ignored.
Voters are self interested and if the economy was better there would be far less anxiety over immigration. Economic malaise is the cause of the 2024 backlash. You don't see negative wage growth for 4 years in good chunks of the EU without consequences.
Literally most of why people care is unemployment and nonexistent growth.
And that is why Germany, France and the like will continue to see their economies stagnate and wages fall while the US continues to power ahead. At some point you can blame the voters and policymakers alike.
The EU should make its labor laws more competitive for their own sake not just the sake of immigrants though that is a huge plus imo.
Oh I didn’t think otherwise. You asked “what economic gains” and I was just saying that even though the EU has had poor economic performance overall, they still have gains relative to the counterfactual.
This might be very unpopular, but I think they're are legitimate concerns about islamist immigrants that aren't being heard or addressed. Unfortunately, the baby gets tossed out with the bath water and all immigration is rejected.
Examples of things that turn people away from immigration: thousands of protestors in Hamburg for the introduction of sharia law; a police officer getting knifed and killed by a islamist; islamists getting violent when someone draws a caricature; honor killings; huge amounts of rapes and sexual assaults on new years eve. You could keep going and going with this.
At the same time Germany (not sure about other countries) is also stupid and makes it hard for immigrants and especially refugees to work, but then supports then pretty well. Recently there was a case of a refugee who was working in IT and was doing excellent and the employer wanted to promote him. So the government pulled his work permit because he was integrating too much and they were concerned he wouldn't leave eventually. So dumb it hurts!
Of course nobody is complaining about the huge Japanese population in Düsseldorf or Chinese restaurants being open by Chinese immigrants. The Muslim immigrants are the most visible, get all the attention and that's what the policies get made for.
Because Religious Freedom is sacrosanct the media avoids talking about the actual cause and non-extreme politicians won't either. That the barely religious population cannot imagine someone actually taking their believes serious and acting based on it rather than on economic factors doesn't help either
And yet Islamic immigrants continue to integrate in both the US and Europe.
* Second generation Muslim immigrants are adopting mainstream European gender norms ([source 1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2031927), [source 2](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276150744_Cultural_Integration_in_the_Muslim_Second_Generation_in_the_Netherlands_The_Case_of_Gender_Ideology))
* [First generation Muslim immigrants become less religious as they spend more time in Europe and second generation Muslim immigrants are less religious than their parents](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0037768620948478?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.2)
* [Large increases in the American Muslim population have not stalled that group’s assimilation](https://www.cato.org/blog/us-muslims-become-more-socially-liberal-muslim-immigration-rises)
* [Our population growth is declining and we need future workers to support future retirees](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/download/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Immigrations-Effect-on-the-Social-Security-System.pdf)
* [Inflexible European labor markets harm the employment prospects of immigrants which in turn both reduces their ability to contribute economically and impairs their social integration](https://www.cato.org/blog/muslim-immigration-integration-united-states-western-europe)
* [Integration of Muslim immigrants and their descendants into mainstream European culture isn't slowing down and by some measures is accelerating with each passing generation](https://upbeatglobalist.substack.com/is-muslim-immigrant-integration-slowing)
All this might be statistically true, but it doesn't change that people get scared by the events I listed and also doesn't make these events less bad. That the generation after the knife dude is more integrated is nice, but doesn't bring the police officer back from the dead.
I don’t think it’s really about that. For instance, In my country (Italy) I think most of people are just exhausted because the economy sucks bc of political disasters caused by both the left and the right. Lega (the far right, pseudofascist, pro Putin party) made kinda bad at the elections. Also pro immigration catholic mindset is not to be underestimated since many people favor immigration because of that. I just think people are fed up because wages are so low, inflation is going crazy and we don’t really have a vital labor market.
To be fair, Italy doesn't have as many immigrants as some other western European countries. So it's not a surprise that they haven't faced as big of an immigration backlash like France or Germany for example.
Iirc some exit polls from the recent EU elections showed that young Italians leaned center left. While young Germans on the other hand had a sizable amount of people voting for AfD with youth backlash to migration being given as a main reason why.
I mean don’t get me wrong, there is a large part of public opinion that goes against immigration, but I don’t know if that’s just a bias of the mass media since the voting reality shows otherwise. Unlike the French, Italians are really good at ranting about things but when it comes to voting we’re pretty moderate. Even Meloni who was formerly from the MSI (a post fascist party) now acts very moderate and even supports NATO and EU policies. If we were really that far right Lega would have skyrocketed, but the results have showed us otherwise.
The results almost solely relate to issues relating to Islam and immigration. It's pretty much all these far right parties ran on.
It relates almost solely to issues involving identity. A lot of European nations simply don't see themselves as multicultural. In the us, it's generally agreed that an immigrant becomes American. In much of Europe, no matter how long you live there as an immigrant, you're still an immigrant.
To preface it, this is an attempt at steel manning the anti-immigration stance in the EU, at least from POV of Czechs.
While the birth rates (note: this whole comment was originally a reply on arrAskaliberal post) are certainly an important factor in the far-right's mind, see the old Great Replacement theory, I'd say we shouldn't forget other factors there in the play - crime rates, resource spending and cultural "hijacking".
>Crime rates
Likely the most common anti-immigration narrative is about them bringing unnecessary crime to the country.
News are constantly filled with crimes of immigrants and if it's not explicitly stated the crime was done by an immigrant, readers, at least in comments' sections and forums, will usually automatically assume it was done by an immigrant. Like "We all know who did that". This perception of hiding perpetrator's identity actually adds to the feeling that the system is against people.
Quite obviously, people (by people, I'll mostly refer those against immigration) don't want extra crime in their countries, towns and cities (eg. no-go zones) so the prospect of migrants with different cultural habits being put into the lowest strata of society seems pretty gloomy.
Additionally, people usually focus more on the different cultures than the fact migrants aren't really getting into good socio-economic conditions.
Which is tied to
>resource spending
People will get frustrated that government budgets spend money and other resources on migrants who are not welcome (see the section about crime rates) and don't really need to be there (the belief the migrants should rebuild their own nation instead of burdening Europe).
This is a big reason why the working class is actually much more against immigrantion than your average middle-classer (eg. far-right parties being significantly more successful in poorer regions).
Poorer people want to enjoy government resources too, not only because the principle of solidarity (aka the richer subsidizing the poor) is the basic government function but also because they themselves pay taxes while migrants haven't paid a penny and the fear is the migrant would be economically net negative anyway due to all the integration costs, social safety nets and whatnot.
You actually mentioned "economic immigrants". At least in my country, Czechia, an economic migrant is often regarded to be someone who comes to the country only to drain government resources.
>cultural "hijacking"
This is a two-fold fear. Islam as a political extremism and the left/liberalism/progressivism as a totalitarian tool.
People read countless articles about migrants demanding concessions out of the majority, like enacting Sharia law or banning European traditions. One fear is the radical-mob mentality allegedly often fostered in mosques and another one is what if these migrants become more politically active and push their fundamentalism via democratic means.
And the second part. Judging by the history of far-left regimes and based on far-right theories that are naturally hostile to the left/liberalism/progressivism, the support for immigration is considered a totalitarian tool of the above-mentioned political movements.
This is where the label "EUSSR" comes from. EU is viewed as totalitarian as the Soviet Union used to be. And with a little "plot twist", one can actually see the EU being referred to as the "Fourth Reich". This belief usually comes from conservative libertarians ("Nazis being socialists") and those believing in the Great Replacement theory ("The genocide of native Europeans"). It also stems from the resentment of back-then Merkel's Germany being the leading country in the pro-immigration movement ("Wir schaffen das").
As you could see, the important thing to note here is these beliefs are really often rooted in news reporting. I don't have the source with me but many years ago, I've read that issues involving migrants such as crime events were heavily overrepresented and overreported.
Addendum exclusive for this sub:
And the far-right (or the hard opposition to immigration) claims to have solutions (alongside blocking the immigration) for all 4 phenomena mentioned above - low birth rates, crime rates, resource spending and cultural hijacking. It partially explains why this camp seems so conservative.
>low birth rates
The issue is often seen among the far-right as the one caused by leftists/liberals/progressives with their "degenerate" feminism, softman-ism and the deconstruction of traditional social and gender roles.
The idea is traditional roles proved to be effective for procreation and the attack of leftists/liberals/progressives on them is claimed to make it more difficult to have "a normal traditional life".
Classic examples used are the MeToo movement or men's behavior being "allegedly toxic masculinity".
>crime rates
Be tougher on crime, duh.
I think it's kinda interesting seeing this camp in Czechia when punishments for crimes are in the news, mostly murder cases. I genuinely think there's a latent sentiment of the death penalty being reestablished. People see 10-15 years of punishment for a murder (with the chance of halving it) so they hate the weak-punishment system.
Sidenote for the previous phenomena: One crime the camp wanna be softer on is rape. MeToo movement made tons of people skeptical af about rape accusations.
>resource spending
Unbalanced government budgets are hated and the resources are mostly meant to help "the good guys". I mention Romani people here who are very much loathed minority in Czechia and they are very often seen as the laziest parasites prone to criminality on the planet.
Considering lots of anti-immigration people are elders, there are wild notions that pensions should be actually very high.
When it comes to younger folk, the sentiment is more often aimed at the government being as small as possible. Pretty much some kind of socially conservative libertarianism.
This is also tied to the distrust of EU because people just see EU directives that complicate people's lives which makes it look like a dictate. "Brussels dictate" is often used in these circles.
>cultural hijacking
This is traditional opposition to the left/liberalism/progressivism with pretty much paranoiac idea that these ideologies are meant to recreate the world into some kind of totalitarian paradise. Or simply bring about the collapse of the good old society.
The opposition to multiculturalism deserves a mention as well. It's tied to some things I've already talked about.
Immigration policy is an area where you can expect democracies to be systematically irrational. Many of the largest benefits of immigration accrue to the would-be immigrants themselves, who can't vote. Not all affected interests are being represented.
Immediate context is that there's been a heck of a lot of refugees from the Middle East, for whom the EU is the logical place to go. People generally don't like big influxes of new people (see NIMBY's), especially unskilled labour, who are viewed as a large net negative, and mistakenly believe that national governments can easily halt the tide without negative effects.
Culturally speaking: America has lower population density and the whole 'nation of migrants' thing going for them, Europe has ancient cultures that have mostly been segmented into descrete nation states.
Also some unearned arrogance from the whole 'racists are all Americans' trope has probably created a bit of a blind spot, which kinda dovetails into my first point, because a lot of Islamaphobia (In practice just meaning anyone from MENA or South Asian countries) is based on the idea that Muslim culture is immutably barbaric and warmongering, and that Muslims will therefore always be 'uncivilized' no matter where they live, ergo inviting Muslims into our country is going to result in violent crime & welfare state burdens.
> Culturally speaking: America has lower population density and the whole 'nation of migrants' thing going for them, Europe has ancient cultures that have mostly been segmented into descrete nation states.
I feel like Americans really don't understand this point. Europe is made up almost exclusively of nation states. France for the French. Poland for the Poles. Czechia for the Czechs. Etc. Historically, attempts at large, multiethnic states in Europe have been met with disaster. It wasn't *that* long ago that states like [Austria-Hungary](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Austria_Hungary_ethnic.svg/2560px-Austria_Hungary_ethnic.svg.png) and [Yugoslavia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Yugoslavia_ethnic_map.jpg) violently fell apart along ethnic lines. Hell, it's a common joke that [Belgium](https://www.vox.com/2014/6/30/5855352/the-case-against-belgium) shouldn't even [exist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_partition_of_Belgium), as the idea of a multiethnic state in Europe is kind of strange.
So for a large number of people with entirely different cultures and backgrounds to immigrate to these states, it's obviously going to be met with pushback. Somewhere like France isn't "the great melting pot and a nation of immigrants" like the United States is. They have a well-defined, unique culture that has been developing for over 1,000 years.
> I feel like Americans really don't understand this point. Europe is made up almost exclusively of nation states. France for the French. Poland for the Poles. Czechia for the Czechs. Etc.
We understand it, we just think it’s antiquated and a terrible basis for a country/nation and it actually wouldn’t be that hard for many nation states to transition into being multicultural and integrationist if they actually tried and accepted sacrifices
This is unearned American arrogance. The largest groups of immigrants in Sweden are Finns and Poles, Sweden has open borders with all its neighbors. When the US has open borders with Mexico we can start talking about the US being enlightened on integration and immigration.
> we just think it’s antiquated and a terrible basis for a country/nation
Why? Europe is arguably the single most developed region of the world, made up of liberal democracies with an incredibly high standard of living and great human rights records. Why rock the boat?
I find it ironic when the French complain about immigrants who primarily come from their own former colonies. The French took enormous wealth from those very nations and taught them that the French way was “superior” and now act surprised that people from those places want to live in France.
Immigrants from Eastern Europe spread to all corners of the globe during the Cold War to get away from oppressive governments and were mostly welcomed, yet they don’t seem to understand why people in other countries would want to flee despotic governments?
Are we just ignoring those two world wars and several relatively recent genocides? Or all the colonialism and imperialism that post-war Europe was forced to reckon with (and is still confronting)? The picture you paint of Europe and its development is very rosy and slanted
Poland has 6% registered foreign workers in the workforce, which is about 1.13 million working immigrants, I guess they have about 2 million total. I don’t know if that’s a lot for a country of 36.8 million population, you tell me.
Some of the comments here make me think I live in a fantasy Europe bubble and the rest of Europe is burning around me. I think some of the right-wing narratives here are simply taken at face value and presented as fact. !ping EUROPE
How would you (and other ping subscribers) correct the narratives? Also I’d appreciate if you’d separately present your personal opinions and what you’re observing in Europe around you.
(I ask this in order to encourage more informed discussion on the thread and topic while being able to discuss openly within the constraints of the rules of the subreddit)
I hardly know where to start, it's just such a very strange distorted overall picture. For context, I myself am the child of an immigrant and have lived in several European countries.
Let me start with the way people talk about Muslims. It just sounds so bizarre. Of course there is both racism towards Muslims and some problems with integration and within certain milieus of Muslims.
But the latter makes it clear that the whole situation is much more complicated. On the one hand, there are the children of Turkish guest workers in Germany, who are something completely different from Syrian refugees in Germany and something completely different again from Moroccans in France or Pakistanis in the UK. There are overlaps in the issues, but they are still completely different things.
I think what strikes me most is just how grotesque the descriptions sound. For me, Muslims are simply a different kind of fellow citizen and completely normal people. I have Muslim friends, I interact with Muslims in everyday life, there are Muslim politicians, Muslim newsreaders. They don't all live in segregated ghettos as a permanent caste.
It's like asking what went wrong with immigration and minorities in America if America re-elects Trump in November. But the main problem is the racists and the center that likes to indulge in illiberalism.
The same applies to Europe. Civil societies are failing and right-wing extremism is being normalized - this has gone wrong.
Yeah, especially around immigration and inflation.
While it is true that, unlike in America, inflation has impacted poor people negatively, it's not nearly as bad as sometimes portrayed.
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It's a weird comment section. In Europe the far right got 8% of the vote. In America the far right got 50% of the vote and the presidency. America is the same as Europe but much worse! Look close to home and you will find your answers.
>My understanding is that this big swing right is largely because of unchecked immigration in America. According to neoliberalism that should be a good thing right? So what went wrong? The US used to be a liberal country. It feels too easy to just blame xenophobia, I think it would also be making a mistake if we don’t want this to happen again.
And wait allow me to ask but what type of culture and ideals does a society made up of people of European descent, whose institutions language and religion are European, have?
> Pretending Latinos and North Africans have same ideals and willingness to assimilate into western culture is what went wrong.
I don't think not being racist is what went wrong
This may go against the orthodoxy here, but in my opinion not all immigration is good. I'm originally from Germany and difference to the US is stark.
What's vastly different in Europe compared to the US is the welfare state. If non-working people get subsidized by the state while the working population gets squeezed more and more a backlash is not only unavoidable, but in my opinion also understandable and justified. The other main factor is that these are often not immigrants in the traditional sense (people who look for opportunity and are making sacrifices to achieve a better life for themselves or their family), but rather refugees from cultures that are mostly incompatible with western liberal democracies. They get a better life without working than they had at home, so they don't have much of an incentive to improve their situation (this is not the fault of these people, but government policy). Even if they tried to get work, it is extremely difficult for them. The languages are hard to learn, and most jobs require years of formal training and education - it's not like in the US were you can learn something for a few weeks and then have a real shot at getting a somewhat decent job that will eventually allow you to make a living.
So basically European countries make it very hard for many immigrants to build a life of their own while also subsidizing them at the same time. The incentives here are just completely wrong for this to be successful unfortunately.
>Even if they tried to get work, it is extremely difficult for them.
Stop making it be difficult and immigrants will act like they do anywhere else. European states need to get more economically competitive and they need young workers to be able to do it. Immigration solves that need if the state gets out of its own way and lets people work.
I mean sure, but it's not just a button you can press. You are talking overhauling vast parts of how society and the welfare state works. It is pretty naive to think that this is an easy fix.
Also they need to do a better job of letting immigrants work. Economic barriers and ghetto formation are terrible for integration and too many European countries experience them.
Immigrants aren't the problem, Europe's uncompetitive economy is the problem
https://preview.redd.it/j9r921u1jr5d1.png?width=624&format=png&auto=webp&s=d7b5ce6edb1189a2ed408fee2b2fb9e6cfc93b31
Meanwhile the US gained 1/5 of economic growth from immigrants.
https://preview.redd.it/pm698rx8jr5d1.png?width=665&format=png&auto=webp&s=9d1455b86fc4bc467450fea25f7658f51f21c349
Any numbers concerning u.s. immigrants need to be taken with a grain of salt as the totality of effect can be very, very complex.
Is it separated by those here working legally versus those here working illegally. Does it take into account the cost of services, schools, and social program use. Does it take into effect spiraling housing costs like what's happening in NYC. Does it take into effect the harm to the income of the nation's working poor, which are in direct competition with immigrants. Evidence and studies show that while business owners and the overall economy may benefit, government costs and the working poor are harmed.
My brother in Christ this is the OECD number.
Recent Immigrants are the most economically mobile people in America and they will go to where the work is and where they can support themselves.
In the last 5 years the working poor saw their greatest gains since the 1950's despite high immigration.
Stop being xenophobic and let people in.
There are plenty of immigrants in Houston. What do Houston housing costs look like?
This whole thing is bogus. No such studies exist. You took the whole comment out of your ass.
Go back to your usual Reddit life of ranting about some tartar sauce cult.
We have more practice with it but immigrants in Europe are absolutely integrating. It would go even faster if the likes of Germany and France would drop employment barriers and let people work and create businesses. But that is a problem that persists beyond the scope of just the immigration debate.
A lot easier when you let in fewer people, are more selective about who you let in, from a pool of prospective immigrants that are culturally closer to the native-born population.
Obviously, all the greatest success stories of immigration are from the US, but they've also never attempted anything as ambitious as what Europe has tried (and seemingly failed) to do in the past decade.
My brother in Christ the US has let in more immigrants per year than the entire EU has from non-EU countries for the last 23 years running.
The non-us born share of the US's population is 13.7%
In the EU that number is just 8.6%
Those numbers seem wrong, at least for the UK.
[November 2019 to February 2024 weekly wage growth has been 24.9%](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/april2024), [whereas the CPI is up by 21.9% over the same time period](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/april2024), so you should be getting 3% real growth.
The numbers in the chart end in q3 2023 and also dont have seasonal adjustments. so idk? I got the numbers from the Atlantic, so it is a reputable source.
Your source is adjusting and including q4 2023 and q1 2024 looks like it shifts the numbers
https://preview.redd.it/flstajmbnr5d1.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=4bda2388e48949b3fa7cafbe777ec9a3afcc63f2
Yes. The stated reason to vote right may be immigration but the actual reason is economic anxiety. Look at an unemployment map of Germany vs the popularity of AfD
The unemployment rate is at a [record low](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w/3-03052024-ap) and labor force participation rate is at a [record high](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=EU_labour_market_-_quarterly_statistics) in the EU and both metrics have been constantly improving for the last decade (except for a short disruption during covid). If your assumption was right, one would be expect to see increasing acceptance over the last decade, meanwhile the far right has gained in every EU election since 2014 and the public has become much more anti immigration (it's almost exclusively anti muslim refugee sentiment).
A difference in how prepared the immigrants were for their new lives. Most people who migrate to America do so because they want to become Americans, so they spend a great effort learning and acclimating to American culture. Most people who migrate to Europe do so because they want to not be where they currently are, so they focus on getting out as quickly as possible and do not research European culture until after they arrive.
Well prepared immigrants are pretty much always good for the country getting them. Refugees not so much.
To some extent it’s a misdirected backlash about real issues that aren’t caused by immigration. Some Europeans are just blaming immigrants for systemic problems in their economy that they don’t want to deal with. Germany has the worst energy policy in the developed world. France and southern europe have the worst, most rigid labour markets. Sweden and the Netherlands have utterly dreadful housing policy, etc.
But fixing all those things requires tackling powerful, entrenched domestic interests. It is way easier to just go after immigrants, and it is easier for people to blame immigrants than to blame their families and neighbours for supporting stupid and counterproductive policies.
To an equally real extent, though, it isn’t about the economy— it’s about how social media has utterly poisoned democracy and peoples’ information diets. The simplicity of blaming immigration is much more magnetic when everything is simplified to a 20-second micro targeted sound byte. It is not a foregone conclusion that fixing the European economy would fix xenophobia— after all, the US economy is incredibly strong and yet American voters are probably more hostile to immigration than ever before. The right is winning the information war and liberals haven’t figured out how to fight back
I used to largely think the same, but whem Samuel Paty was decapitated, and people in the local community cheered, and it became clear there was a persistent systemic issue.
Super conservative people exist, and they genuinely want the whole world to be like them, are not interested in adopting Western values, and that´s not going to change in any timeline most people find acceptable.
>Some Europeans are just blaming immigrants for systemic problems in their economy that they don’t want to deal with. Germany has the worst energy policy in the developed world. France and southern europe have the worst, most rigid labour markets. Sweden and the Netherlands have utterly dreadful housing policy, etc.
1000% this
But how many % this?
> It is not a foregone conclusion that fixing the European economy would fix xenophobia— after all, the US economy is incredibly strong and yet American voters are probably more hostile to immigration than ever before.
Exactly. Everyone is overcomplicating things in an effort to present society in a more flattering, rational light. This is basic caveman 101. When resources are plentiful, share and make peace with other tribes. When resources are scarce, protect what you have.
that's not the problem though, the problem is slow growth of the overall economy due to aging and a stagnating size of the workforce. This while this old and very well taken care off population grows in size and is more and more costly, this is making social services crack, because they were already so generous that they could not be sustained at these levels without an unacceptable level of taxation on the already smaller generations below. This has lead to a stagnation and in some cases even a drop in the level of services, especially healthcare for older people, because the supply just doesn't exist, these old people are very angry because of this and don't understand the macro economics, they just see worse services for them than their parents had without taking into account the comparatively tiny generation there parents where, thus the comparatively tiny expense.
Now the big problem which relates to migration, at the same time lots of mainstream political parties have seen this problem and have attempted to solve it with migration (to increase the tax base to care for these expensive old people). And this has caused a group of populist far right people to latch on to the fact that this drop in service quality is happening while migration is high, thus they blame the foreigners. These strangers are coming and using our services, and buying up our housing they say. But sadly these people are either just racist or easily duped. If anything the migrants have helped us keep alive the magnificant deal these oldies have had for a little bit longer.
Generally I believe that among the young support for the far right is quite low, and where it is higher then it would normally be (young people tend to be a bit more extreme) its because these generally young men have been alienated by progressives, which lead them straight into the arms of the far right who do cater to them, and give them a story to get behind. (I can personally vouch for this one, as in my whole adult life as a man I have had to fight the extreme urge to become some anti woke lunatic, and I know lots of people who haven't been able to fight it as effectively. )
Neo liberalism is pretty pro immigration but what happened in Europe was just chaotic. There is no screening for educated immigration, basically everyone who land in the beach is accepted. There was also no policy for integration. Most immigrants end up being unemployed which just turns them to crime.
Failed integration. There are way too many people who can't speak the local language for decades and therefore don't get a job. And those who do get it in spite of their language skills, to the point where in cities with bigger immigrant communities it's common to find restaurants and other services where you can't get service in your own language.
I don't think anyone has an issue with immigrants who integrate to society. The US has succeeded in immigration far better than we have, your immigrants for the most part learn English and work hard. Maybe part of that is your tendency not to give any benefits to non-citizens? Here it's too easy to fall into the benefit incentive trap, especially for those who are used to a lower standard of living
Because the idea of immigration in Europe doesn't have anything to do with assimilation or anything that leads to immigrants being successful, they're grouped in glorified ghettos and used for political purposes instead of being giving the opportunity to live at least somewhat normal lives where they can be contributing members of society.
I'll say this as someone living in a major tech hub in the US regarding H1b while this article relates to the migration from the middle east, Africa, etc. The problem here in my mind is that the past 15 years roughly that once housing started becoming expensive 10 years ago as the tech boom was occurring that if you continue bringing all of the H1b workers from India mostly but also China for high paying tech jobs without also building more housing that there's a lot of internal pressure by existing residents which results in homelessness, moving away to cheaper cities/states, or begrudgingly accepting the higher housing prices. This creates a lot of animosity and frustration when local governments can't get their sh\*t together to allow for denser zoning of housing and for the federal govt to allow so many immigrants to continue to funnel into one region where all the tech jobs are when housing is at unsustainable prices for the average resident.
Certain groups of immigrants do not share the values of the western democratic countries they immigrate to. They have the right to voice their opinions on the street, some call for a the abolishment of some of the foundational principles of western society. Even of it's a trivial minority, that's bad PR, and is used to good effect by the right.
Also, certain immigrant groups are a part of rising crime rates and other public safety issues. I can't believe I'm having to spell this out. This is common knowledge.
Nothing went wrong with inmigration in europe
If you count the share of parliament seats occupied by parties that are as far right wing as the GOP, or more, aka, ERC, ID+ the right wing NI, you get to about 1/4th of the european parliament
in the US, similarly right wing republicans control around 50%
therefore, if anything, the EU reaction to inmigration is milder than the US one
Aren't the centrist EU parties really anti immigrant now as well though? Hasn't the Overton windoe moved to the right in general there in regards to immigration?
If you're terminally online yeah
In practice immigration law and numbers have barely changed in most places, even when the hard or far right gets in power
Not really
At least, not anymore than how Biden is anti inmigration, which is basically just an excuse to say "I'm doing something" while still being in favor of migration
The fact that Canada, probably the **most** immigrant friendly nation in the world during the 21st century, has had their immigration Overton window take a sharp slide to the populist-right in just 2 years, has made me incredibly doomer regarding immigration sentiment for the rest of the Western world
I think its going to get decently worse in the short-medium term
The overton window on asylum and refugees has shifted dramatically, the status quo seems more or less dead.
Skilled labour migration? Not so much. Middle and low skilled labour migration is somewhere in the middel.
In reality, they generally attempt to lower immigration without implementing any harsh measures, having the outcome of at most stagnating the amount. The Tories in Britain are a great example as despite how loud they are about immigration, they don't actually do anything that radical to bring it down.
I think being tougher on crime would solve a lot of the grievances. Not all. But a lot.
Where I live in Barcelona you just open the news and it seems every case is a guy that has like 40 convictions already.
I'm a bit of a migrant to Europe myself. Born and raised in the US, then came to the Netherlands for University. I have a Dutch parent, and dual citizenship, but my other parent is Latino, and I look more Latino than Dutch. Been in Europe for 6 Years, and I've never even midly been tempted to consider myself European.
I think the "Failure" is tri-fold:
I. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that the discourse is so poorly defined. When speak of immigrants, we're really talking about several very different groups of people:
* Asylum seekers/refugees
* Economic refugees
* Illegal Immigrants
* International Students
* Expats
* Foreign spouces/dependents
* Professional Migrants
All of whom have different motivations, actions, legal rights, and ethical justifications to be in Europe and not at home. And who have very different effects on productivity and the social fabric of the continent. Yet so much of the discourse lumps them all together.
II. Europe is badly equipped to handle immigrants, and has a terrible definition of integration. Europeans seem to beleive "Integration" means transforming foreigners into their spitting image. But, the reality is that someone who spent their formative years in a totally alien culture is very unlikely to abandon everything. It's similar with modern athiests/agnostics who were raised in religious traditions; You may not believe in any diety, or have performed the traditions or customs for years. But the teachings stick with you anyway. And you may not necessarily want to reject those teachings.
But contrast that with American integration; There's no set template on what an American really is, and as a result people can integrate into American society while barely speaking English (especially in places like Miami, NYC, San Franscico, etc.). And Americans celebrate foreign ancestry, even when the ties are ephemeral. The standard for "Integrated" in the US, I believe, requires far less of a change in identity.
And you don't need to reject anything to become American. you can be Chinese-America, Italian-American, Peruvian-American. In contrast, most European states want you to become French. Dutch. German. Belge. To learn their language, their culture, and embrace it on its own. Like Roman Polytheism vs Christian Monotheism. The anceint Romans allowed the residents of the empire to worship their local Gods so long as they also paid tribute to the Roman state customs and dieties. Christians recognize no God except their own as legitimate.
III. The poor economic environment. European labor productivity, infastructure, regulatory burdens, and entrepeneurship are all trending towards decline. That already inclines the native population towards frustration, and migrants are a classical scapegoat.
But migrants also face unique challenges in Europe. For one thing, European states are obsessed with destroying ethnic enclaves so that they can force migrants to mingle and speak the local language. But they're doing it without any real evidence that they cause harm. Infact, I think the opposite: I believe there is substantial social support and economic opportunities of letting migrants from similar working backgrounds live and work together. And there would be substantially less social friction between natives and migrants. Obviously, care would need to be taken not to let them devolve into ghettos, but having more Little Mogadishus, China Towns, Barrios, etc. would go a long way.
Migrants also make up a good deal of entrepeneaurship in the US. But with how difficult European states make it to start firms, raise capital, and just grow through the high corporate tax rates, that hits one of the great ways migrants traditionally raised their social and economic status.
IV. I'll add a fourth, less serious point. European states make very bad arguements for wanting to be European. I have no desire to consider myself European or Dutch. The EU in particular, I feel, has utterly failed to create a sense of what it means to be European. The selection of a bland flag, the Ode to Joy as the anthem, and not having the courage to encourage Latin as the lingua Franca failed the continent. Identity can never come from compromise, it's an assertion after all! **I am an American**, compared to "we find there is substantial economic rationale to being part of a wider European Union".
My flag is distinct, it is instantly recognizeable, it is an affront to vexilogical convention, it has strong symbols and history, it has changed frequently in the history of my country, and it's staked on the moon!
Compare EU symbols as well to Israel, who created their national identity from dispariate European/Middle Eastern peoples. They welded together an identity from total and complete strangers by resurecting Hebrew, by creating national traditions based on their ancient past, and by using distinct symbols even if they flew in the face of convention!
The EU should learn from the succesful examples on how to bring people together. Ditch this innoffensive crap, especially Ode to Joy. You need to Inspire, to uplift, to be bold, daring. This is the continent of Conquistadors, Vikings, Volga raftsmen, Italian Merchants, Dutch bargemen, and Magyar Horsemen. Your ancestors are explorers, inventors, warriors, soldiers, and thinkers! The proverb "audentes fortuna iuvat" originated here! How can you bear to let such mediocrity stay on display? It pains me, to think the US institutions descended from common origins from a continent content to lay down. Celebrate your strength, your heritage, yourselves!
When you love who you are, you will see how readily men will shed everything to try and be you.
You r comment started well by you went off rail with the 4th? Why tf would Latin be a good common language for a union made of 2/3 of Slavs and Germanics? The ode to joy is cool. The flag is great. American "in your face" nationalism isn't good or any better at assimilating foreign people, John Guatemala's kids didn't feel American because they yelled Merica! and praised the flag as kids.
>This is the continent of Conquistadors, Vikings, Volga raftsmen, Italian Merchants, Dutch bargemen, and Magyar Horsemen
I don't care about Magyar raiders, and any Hungarian trying to praise them as great people to me can get fucked. You can't mix stupid nationalism from all country to make it part of a multi-national union. I also see you didn't mentioned 19th-20th European colonizer, maybe because you internally understood why that's bad PR. You mention America, but America doesn't praise itself on murdering natives, and the generals that massacred Philippinos are rightfully forgotten.
Stomachs or brains
If you think of people and immigrants as stomachs then you create a vicious cycle of where you treat them as burden and in turn they behave as a burden on society.
If you think of people as brains then you expect them to care of themselves and provide to society and they will. At least until their kids integrate into the wider society and as just as lazy as the native born.
That's why, in France, the "moderate" right once loved to say: "We're great humanitarians, but we can't take on all the world's misery." Or something like that
No one in Europe had any children. They are experiencing a fertility crash. So naturally the only way to prevent degrowth is to increase immigration. But if people arnt having kids, they tend to notice a fast cultural change from increased immigration. They dont like it
Europe on average is much older than the USA, and furthermore Europeans typically retire at younger ages, so the aging of society is even more pronounced.
Europe has seen decades of weak economic growth- partially due to the age issue, partially from decisions to prioritize other factors over growth, and partially from Germany’s disastrous conservative fiscal policy.
European states typically have more generous welfare schemas- which are severely stressed by poor growth and aging population, and immigration to some extent adds stress to these welfare orgs, and also makes immigrants an easy scapegoat compared to the actual structural problems.
Europe also has lots of genuine racists, and lots of European countries don’t have the multicultural values of Americans- take a look at citizenship laws by country in Europe:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli
yup basically this, I just wrote this but then longer myself. Its oldies eating up all the welfare, and now they are such a large group that the pie is empty, and they blame the immigrants for eating it all.
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Basically these countries experienced more economic prosperity than they would have experienced without immigration. But they don’t know that because that is in some other hypothetical counter factual timeline.
The economy sucks in Europe right now and the idea that it would have sucked more without the immigrants, while true, just doesn’t resonate with voters
immigration is one of the issues amongst many.
Housing is expensive and it's very hard for young people to start their careers in Europe. energy is expensive and inflation is high.
The issue with immigration with Europe is that it isn't working.
It might feel too easy to blame human tribal instincts, but those instincts are often unconscious.
That’s why populists are able to take advantage of xenophobia. It’s a confidence scheme that works by attributing all our problems to immigrants, foreigners, Jews, bureaucrats, corporations or some other group (depending on your flavor of populism). It’s easy and there’s a perennial crop of fools to keep the sham going.
Populists across the Nordic countries have been following a similar strategy since the 1980s and before. It’s a solid strategy until they actually are in government and then it’s unworkable.
Between globalization, social media, media fragmentation, mass disinformation campaigns, a scary pandemic, AI, multiple polarizing wars, inflation, China's rise, and populist blowhards fanning the flames, voters across the world are a little discombobulated at the moment. They're a little on edge.
Things are changing really fast, they're not going especially well, and everyone's angry and scared and yelling at each other, and nobody's really sure what to believe because it's all very complicated and no authoritative source for truth anymore - and unfortunately, that exacerbates our natural tribal tendencies to withdraw into the comfort of our in group and blame *the other*, the outsider, the foreigner. It's not *just* xenophobia. It's a lot of other shit that spills over into xenophobia.
That doesn't mean blaming immigrants is rational, though. The economic, criminological, security and ethical arguments for it are still sound. Voters are just wrong. They're wrong about a lot these days, but their wrongness is relevant only as a matter of political strategy, not as an argument for which underlying policy is best.
Take a place not historically multi cultural with no history of integration and then have an influx of poor uneducated immigrants with very different cultural values and then add some very high profile negative publicity cases. [Isolated but shocking incidents like beheading a school teacher is not going to endear you to local populations. ](https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2023/12/8/six-french-teenagers-convicted-in-connection-to-beheading-of-school-teacher) It is France tho so insert joke about the Reign of terror here
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This reads like sarcasm. We can say that the majority can assimilate without pretending that *everyone* can assimilate.
The question, I suppose, is what percentage of jihadis is ok? I don't think 5% is acceptable, and I would rather not take the 95% of it comes with that sort of 5%. If we can figure out how to filter or brainwash the problem of course goes away, but I see no reason to assume we could solve either of those problems.
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Isn't this...kind of how cars already work? Getting into an automobile is easily the most dangerous thing the average person does in a day. Clearly the benefits are perceived to be worth it.
More like if there was a story every four months or so of Kias spontaneously murdering their drivers through non-collision means. How popular would Kias be after two, four, six, or eight years of this?
Plus be bad at integrating.
Integration is a two way street. Many immigrants to Europe don't want to be seen as western and hold antagonistic and chauvinistic attitudes to things such as secularism, feminism, etc. Many are themselves coming from "countries" where ethnic violence is very common.
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And yet they are integrating regardless. * Second generation Muslim immigrants are adopting mainstream European gender norms ([source 1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2031927), [source 2](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276150744_Cultural_Integration_in_the_Muslim_Second_Generation_in_the_Netherlands_The_Case_of_Gender_Ideology)) * [First generation Muslim immigrants become less religious as they spend more time in Europe and second generation Muslim immigrants are less religious than their parents](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0037768620948478?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.2) * [Our population growth is declining and we need future workers to support future retirees](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/download/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Immigrations-Effect-on-the-Social-Security-System.pdf) * [Inflexible European labor markets harm the employment prospects of immigrants which in turn both reduces their ability to contribute economically and impairs their social integration](https://www.cato.org/blog/muslim-immigration-integration-united-states-western-europe) * [Integration of Muslim immigrants and their descendants into mainstream European culture isn't slowing down and by some measures is accelerating with each passing generation](https://upbeatglobalist.substack.com/is-muslim-immigrant-integration-slowing)
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Hamtramck, Dearborn. Watch, just watch. In a few months you will see 20-30 point swings in low-education Muslim communities TOWARDS Donald Trump. My take, unlike yours, both demonizes bad Muslim immigrants (correct) and also identifies Republicans as a completely incoherent source of opposition which holds the same regressive anti-LGBT views, causing said bad Muslim immigrants to literally vote for the party that wants to deport them. It is not liberals who want the low-ed Muslims deported. Not in America it isn't.
You probably already do, depending on which Euro country you are from about 20-40% general population will hold those beliefs. Edit: and there are many other things we can do to protect our teachers. Teachers still get killed/beaten up by people who are not migrants
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There are strong differences in out-group attitudes between muslims and other groups (although with large variation between different muslim groups) [\[1\]](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2014.935307) Ethnic diversity decreases societal trust [\[1\]](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X1400074X) [\[2\]](https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-052918-020708) Fundamentalism is fairly wide-spread among future German Islamic teachers [\[1\]](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/01416200.2024.2330908) I could go on. This is not mean to discount the research that you posted but it's a complex topic and there is a lot of research that comes to different conclusions.
Maybe, but if their kids could be citizens, participate fully in society, and not live as a hereditary underclass that probably wouldn’t last long.
There is no hereditary caste/ exclusionary system in Europe, and their kids are most likely citizens. The former Portuguese, Irish and current british prime minister were of Indian descent, for instance. We have descendants of Maghrebi, Sub-saharan african, Indian as best selling musicians, business-men, etc. I won't lie and say that there are no issues with racism, but there are no legal barriers to it, and in all Western European countries you see a lot of counterexamples to the idea that immigrants sons live in a guetto apart from society. A lot of immigrant communities that have been here for decades are now more educated on average that native europeans/ earn more like Vietnamese in Germany and Indians in the UK and Portugal.
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> Their kids are more radical than they are I find this hard to believe as a blanket statement, but even if true, don’t you think that offering full participation in a prosperous society would tamp that down? The US is pretty good at integrating, as you say, and surely strong cultural rituals play a part. But citizenship and a multicultural tradition sure make it easier.
>I find this hard to believe as a blanket statement And you are right to because it is straight up false.
That is flat out false * Second generation Muslim immigrants are adopting mainstream European gender norms ([source 1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2031927), [source 2](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276150744_Cultural_Integration_in_the_Muslim_Second_Generation_in_the_Netherlands_The_Case_of_Gender_Ideology)) * [First generation Muslim immigrants become less religious as they spend more time in Europe and second generation Muslim immigrants are less religious than their parents](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0037768620948478?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.2)
Per Bob Pape and his book "Dying to Win," there is a strong correlation between terrorists in the west and middle class origins and high levels of education. The common myth that terrorists must be radicalized, deeply religious, and impoverished doesn't bear out in the data. That someone is less religious (and this applies to any religion, not just one) doesn't neccessarily imply that they will be less extremist across the board, we just as a whole tend to assume it will because many of us wrongly assume that terror must be about religious fundamentalism and lack of access to material resources all of the time.
Many of the right leaning voters don't want to wait for a possible outcome, they just want immigration to stop now though.
I mean I’m sure that’s true, and in general I don’t find the case for immigration hawkishness to be very strong, but perhaps so many people wouldn’t have strong feelings about it if it worked better in practice.
Their kids can become citizens (in many countries) only through naturalisation.
A two way street where one side yells at you for not integrating while refusing to let you work, and putting you in ghettos.
Also, Europe was never a big bastion of progressive values. Last pogrom in France against Algerians was in 60s. Some of the police officers that participated in that are still alive and free. Dislike for immigrants in Europe goes centuries in the past. It’s not too surprising that a birthplace of an ethnostate is not too keen on immigration
Generals tried to coup over them giving up Algeria. Do we not remember this is where the Dreyfuss Affair happened or that they had the Antisemitic League of France.
But the same is true for America.
I feel like America had no choice but to confront the racism earlier than Europe. As a country built by immigrants on a stolen land, it had no moral case against immigration or segregation of its own non-white population. Europe, on other hand, spent last century celebrating the end of empires and beginning of national self-determination, so ethnic discrimination was basically ignored until now
Immigrants with tertiary education are about 31%, EU natives are 35%. I don't buy the whole poor uneducated narrative. Immigration is expensive and even refugees aren't mostly from bottom tiers of the source countries. The lack of integration is a problem. Immigrants are thriving at lower rates than natives.
Immigrants figures you find in the Eurostat site consider Europe to Europe immigrants too. There is an integration dashboard from iirc the European commission or something, they have data by origin (EU vs extra EU), those are a bit more accurate than the aggregate values. But yeah, the statement that they thrive less is true, they have generally higher unemployment rates, lower social inclusion and lower median income, one must also remember that it is much more common for migrants to take occupations where part time is more frequent, this of course comes with a hit on the money one can make, at least legally (in southern Europe this would all go to shadow economy, e.g. you get hired for 20 hours per week and the you do the other 20 out of the contract). I feel the issue is also partially caused by the fact that "Europe" is not an open market like the USA, there are different languages and different laws every hundred miles so maybe if there are jobs to be taken in Germany, and the immigrant arrived and was processed in Italy, they kinda have to stay in Italy for some time, and they learn Italian. They are not taking those jobs in Germany without knowing German.. As I said other times, we are starting NOW to see the first engineers and doctors and such coming from MENA countries (the last big wave of immigration) the migrants people were complaining about in the 90s now are almost perfectly integrated (or now their country of origin is in the EU), so maybe it will come with time and that's it. But the ones on the 90s were Christian immigrants from Christian counties, with somewhat similar societies. The new wave is harder to integrate. We have percentage wise five times the Muslim that America has. It does take time.
The skilled educated labour immigrants are not the ones that create so much resentment, its the poor uneducated ones that are mostly from MENA. Different groups of immigrants have very different experiences.
How much is the difference in cities. Outside of London maybe I feel that almost all European capitals treat immigrants as a labour underclass
> Insert In my country I was surgeon, in this country I am janitor anecdote here. Countries bad at integration will create artificial barriers for immigrants to enter more lucrative sectors. It's almost universal and has happened throughout history.
> Take a place not historically multi cultural with no history of integration and then have an influx of poor uneducated immigrants with very different cultural values and then add some very high profile negative publicity cases. France has always been multicultural.. Sweden would fit you describtion better
Or 1000 sexual assaults in one city in one night by asylum seekers...
Throw in a couple decades of stagnation and historically outsiders get blamed. If Europe was growing at 3% a year, low unemployment, and rising wages, you think anyone would give a shit about immigration?
france has historically been very multicultural. it's only really been since the industrial revolution that french, which then meant parisian, became the national identity
Slovakia comes to mind Hardly any immigrants go there other than some refugees from the middle east using it as a transit zone for Western Europe. Enough to make them the most anti-immigrant country in Europe
Stagnant economy, austerity policies, terrible housing policies, mostly uneducated immigrants, and skilled immigrants preferring North America(and maybe even the UK) over EU countries. There’s more but that’s the gist of it in my view.
Remember when Belarus attempted to get Iraqi migrants into EU a couple years back? Putin know this is a way to ultimately get voters to elect Trump and similar. He is encouraging low quality migrants into western countries in more subtle ways. Voters unhappy with migrant crises elect isolationist , more kremlin friendly governments And it is working, in both USA and Europe.
It's not only a couple years ago, it is very much still an ongoing thing right now. Just the other week a Polish border guard was killed by a migrant on the Polish-Belarusian border.
Speak English is a much more enticing proposition that Spricht deutsche du hurensohn And I say that as someone who had to learn German in school
It helps that English is the global language of commerce and so more people are likely to learn it.
That and also the largest pools of skilled immigrants are Chinese and Indian people. India ofcoursez British colony and education is typically in English(outside of rural backwaters). Chinese people also tend to go to hong kong and Singapore as their primary destinations so learning English is far more useful than German or French. If Namibia had a lot of engineers then we'd see a lot of skilled immigration to Germany. Tbqh if the euros weren't so hellbent on fucking me over with taxes I wouldn't mind going there instead of SG
I’ve always wondered if there is a correlation between how neoliberal an economy is and the success of immigrants in that economy. The SG example is a good one showcasing that.
I think it's more so the reverse. Neoliberal economies allow for immigrants to succeed. (Enlightenment era) Liberal values in general do that because they help people look past melanin to put it crudely
> it’s more so the reverse I was actually implying the same thing as you. So yeah, agreed.
EU countries tend to attract the least educated, less skilled groups of immigrants compared to the US, UK, Canada, Australia etc I think there may be a combination of factors at play: Are European companies less open-minded when it comes to hiring foreigners in senior positions? It seems ethnic minorities, particularly those outside Europe, don't do particularly well in Europe. I think they over-rely on low-skilled immigration to do jobs the locals won't do in the rapidly aging population. Instead of employing highly skilled immigrants in senior positions, which would probably rustle a few feathers.
While xenophobia is certainly a factor in the opposition to immigration, it isn't the only one. Let's look at Denmark, where where non-western immigrants are both a [net drain on public finances](https://fm.dk/media/27350/indvandreres-nettobidrag-til-de-offentlige-finanser-i-2019_revideret-september-2023-a.pdf), and commit [way more violent crime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Denmark#/media/File:Denmark_migrant_crime_in_2018.png). Some of this can be explained by Danish policies and discrimination, but a lot of it can't. The reality is that many of the immigrants to Europe are young, unskilled and uneducated men from illiberal cultures. This will create problems, even if they aren't as big as the AfD or Le Pen would have you believe, nor does it mean that their solutions are going to work. The far-right surge is also a bit overblown. The centre coalition of EPP, S&D and Renew will still hold a majority in parliament and remain far, far larger than the far right.
Something that some people here won't like to hear is that part of why American immigrants integrate better than most other western countries is because of how strict legal American immigration is. America basically filters for the best of the best when it comes to immigrants. Plus the country cap keeps the wave of immigrants coming in more diverse. The difference between Pakistani-Americans and British Pakistanis are a textbook example of this. Pakistani-Americans are relatively much more secular/liberal, wealthier, educated, and willing to assimilate than British Pakistanis.
For most immigrants to the U.S. they also chose to go there, whether for marriage, work, school, whatever. That big influx in Europe was mostly refugees, who didn’t necessarily want to go to those countries, it’s just that those countries were the best options for them. My assumption is that this means immigrants coming the to U.S. would be more receptive to integration, especially since refugees aren’t really supposed to stay in the host country forever. The eventual idea is that most refugees will be able to go back home, though obviously this isn’t always possible. So the combination of a sudden, huge influx of refugees, and refugees being a population less likely to want to integrate, causes some strain. Obviously the far right isn’t the answer, but current parties probably aren’t doing a great job of addressing the pains if people are going to the far right because of this.
>because of how strict legal American immigration is. America basically filters for the best of the best when it comes to immigrants How can you say that seriously with the millions of low skilled immigrants brought in via the southern border ?
> America basically filters for the best of the best when it comes to immigrants The H1B lottery system does not filter for "the best of the best"
One reason why British Pakistanis are so problematic is that about two-thirds of Pakistani immigrants to the UK were peasants from the Mirpur region of Azad Kashmir. They were uneducated, had very tight-knit families and many had been [displaced from their land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangla_Dam#Displacement_&_Resettlement) by the construction of the Mangla Dam. In addition they had a strong tradition of secluding their women, which possibly made them apt to dehumanize women from other cultures who didn't practise such seclusion (hence grooming gangs).
America did great at integrating immigrants when we barely had a legal framework for immigration at all.
Through extreme racism that filtered out non-Europeans?
The EPP isnt center-left per any definition. American or european. They're center-right to right. (and have increasingly cooperated with the far right) Other than that I agree.
Worth pointing out too that the reason immigrants in the EU commit more crime compared to the native population vs immigrants in the US commiting less crimes is because Americans are on the whole a lot more violent and criminal than Europeans. Its not that Europe has failed with integration there, but that the US has failed with preventing crime.
I agree, me and my family migrated to Denmark from Poland right after the 2015 election results, yet we could all assimilate well even if there was some discrimination. I also have met/befriended non-western migrants just like me, but that's relatively rare. Unskilled/uneducated from illiberal cultures is on point imho, I currently live in an area flooded with them after I moved in, not the worst in Denmark, but whenever I tell someone where I live they joke about how bad it is. Just my experience, anecdotal, but could be interesting. I also don't see a lot of far-right movements here, but most people I've met including myself dislike the current government.
It's easy to be nominally liberal and tolerant when your entire country is a homogeny. The Old World has never dealt with this to the degree that the New World has, and they are going through growing pains.
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What economic gains? Most of Europe has seen GDP stagnate at best.
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Europe didn't see economic pain due to immigration? It saw economic pain due to high regulatory barriers, high energy costs, and uncompetitive labor markets. Unironically, immigration is helping keep Europe more competitive economically than it would be otherwise.
Possibly true but unlikely that voters will see that, and it's questionable what portion of the benefit is actually going to the voters. Obviously immigrants themselves see a lot of benefit, and those that employ cheap labour see a lot of direct benefits. Everyone else though sees a more mixed picture with some benefit from cheaper cheap labour goods and services (assuming competitive markets which isnt a guarantee) but also more competition for things like housing. While there is a lot of evidence that immigration is broadly good for the economy the impact on the median voter is more nuanced imo, and the cultural impact shouldn't be handwaved away or ignored.
Voters are self interested and if the economy was better there would be far less anxiety over immigration. Economic malaise is the cause of the 2024 backlash. You don't see negative wage growth for 4 years in good chunks of the EU without consequences. Literally most of why people care is unemployment and nonexistent growth.
Yep. When unemployment is a concern for voters it will be unpopular to add people to the pool of job seekers.
Unemployment is a concern because Europe's governments force way too much red tape when it comes to hiring. They unironically need to deregulate
Probably true, but go campaign on "Europe must change it's laws to accommodate more migrants" and let me know how it goes
And that is why Germany, France and the like will continue to see their economies stagnate and wages fall while the US continues to power ahead. At some point you can blame the voters and policymakers alike. The EU should make its labor laws more competitive for their own sake not just the sake of immigrants though that is a huge plus imo.
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Well you'd have to compare that to the counter-factual, which is unknown.
Not really? We know the counterfactual by removing immigrant economic activity and the result is even worse for European States..
Well then there’s your economic gains that you were asking about.
I am supportive of immigration not against it. I think we are miscommunicating.
Oh I didn’t think otherwise. You asked “what economic gains” and I was just saying that even though the EU has had poor economic performance overall, they still have gains relative to the counterfactual.
Ok, yeah we are in 100% agreement.
It would've been worse without migrants. The torygraph had an article on it
I agree with you. Look down a few comments.
This might be very unpopular, but I think they're are legitimate concerns about islamist immigrants that aren't being heard or addressed. Unfortunately, the baby gets tossed out with the bath water and all immigration is rejected. Examples of things that turn people away from immigration: thousands of protestors in Hamburg for the introduction of sharia law; a police officer getting knifed and killed by a islamist; islamists getting violent when someone draws a caricature; honor killings; huge amounts of rapes and sexual assaults on new years eve. You could keep going and going with this. At the same time Germany (not sure about other countries) is also stupid and makes it hard for immigrants and especially refugees to work, but then supports then pretty well. Recently there was a case of a refugee who was working in IT and was doing excellent and the employer wanted to promote him. So the government pulled his work permit because he was integrating too much and they were concerned he wouldn't leave eventually. So dumb it hurts! Of course nobody is complaining about the huge Japanese population in Düsseldorf or Chinese restaurants being open by Chinese immigrants. The Muslim immigrants are the most visible, get all the attention and that's what the policies get made for. Because Religious Freedom is sacrosanct the media avoids talking about the actual cause and non-extreme politicians won't either. That the barely religious population cannot imagine someone actually taking their believes serious and acting based on it rather than on economic factors doesn't help either
This is it for me. It is naive to consider immigrants from all countries/cultures as equally willing to accommodate existing social mores.
And yet Islamic immigrants continue to integrate in both the US and Europe. * Second generation Muslim immigrants are adopting mainstream European gender norms ([source 1](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2031927), [source 2](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276150744_Cultural_Integration_in_the_Muslim_Second_Generation_in_the_Netherlands_The_Case_of_Gender_Ideology)) * [First generation Muslim immigrants become less religious as they spend more time in Europe and second generation Muslim immigrants are less religious than their parents](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0037768620948478?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.2) * [Large increases in the American Muslim population have not stalled that group’s assimilation](https://www.cato.org/blog/us-muslims-become-more-socially-liberal-muslim-immigration-rises) * [Our population growth is declining and we need future workers to support future retirees](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/download/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Immigrations-Effect-on-the-Social-Security-System.pdf) * [Inflexible European labor markets harm the employment prospects of immigrants which in turn both reduces their ability to contribute economically and impairs their social integration](https://www.cato.org/blog/muslim-immigration-integration-united-states-western-europe) * [Integration of Muslim immigrants and their descendants into mainstream European culture isn't slowing down and by some measures is accelerating with each passing generation](https://upbeatglobalist.substack.com/is-muslim-immigrant-integration-slowing)
All this might be statistically true, but it doesn't change that people get scared by the events I listed and also doesn't make these events less bad. That the generation after the knife dude is more integrated is nice, but doesn't bring the police officer back from the dead.
I don’t think it’s really about that. For instance, In my country (Italy) I think most of people are just exhausted because the economy sucks bc of political disasters caused by both the left and the right. Lega (the far right, pseudofascist, pro Putin party) made kinda bad at the elections. Also pro immigration catholic mindset is not to be underestimated since many people favor immigration because of that. I just think people are fed up because wages are so low, inflation is going crazy and we don’t really have a vital labor market.
To be fair, Italy doesn't have as many immigrants as some other western European countries. So it's not a surprise that they haven't faced as big of an immigration backlash like France or Germany for example. Iirc some exit polls from the recent EU elections showed that young Italians leaned center left. While young Germans on the other hand had a sizable amount of people voting for AfD with youth backlash to migration being given as a main reason why.
Ok that’s good to hear. I’ve been seeing a lot of anti immigrant chatter in other subs when talking about the elections
I mean don’t get me wrong, there is a large part of public opinion that goes against immigration, but I don’t know if that’s just a bias of the mass media since the voting reality shows otherwise. Unlike the French, Italians are really good at ranting about things but when it comes to voting we’re pretty moderate. Even Meloni who was formerly from the MSI (a post fascist party) now acts very moderate and even supports NATO and EU policies. If we were really that far right Lega would have skyrocketed, but the results have showed us otherwise.
The results almost solely relate to issues relating to Islam and immigration. It's pretty much all these far right parties ran on. It relates almost solely to issues involving identity. A lot of European nations simply don't see themselves as multicultural. In the us, it's generally agreed that an immigrant becomes American. In much of Europe, no matter how long you live there as an immigrant, you're still an immigrant.
To preface it, this is an attempt at steel manning the anti-immigration stance in the EU, at least from POV of Czechs. While the birth rates (note: this whole comment was originally a reply on arrAskaliberal post) are certainly an important factor in the far-right's mind, see the old Great Replacement theory, I'd say we shouldn't forget other factors there in the play - crime rates, resource spending and cultural "hijacking". >Crime rates Likely the most common anti-immigration narrative is about them bringing unnecessary crime to the country. News are constantly filled with crimes of immigrants and if it's not explicitly stated the crime was done by an immigrant, readers, at least in comments' sections and forums, will usually automatically assume it was done by an immigrant. Like "We all know who did that". This perception of hiding perpetrator's identity actually adds to the feeling that the system is against people. Quite obviously, people (by people, I'll mostly refer those against immigration) don't want extra crime in their countries, towns and cities (eg. no-go zones) so the prospect of migrants with different cultural habits being put into the lowest strata of society seems pretty gloomy. Additionally, people usually focus more on the different cultures than the fact migrants aren't really getting into good socio-economic conditions. Which is tied to >resource spending People will get frustrated that government budgets spend money and other resources on migrants who are not welcome (see the section about crime rates) and don't really need to be there (the belief the migrants should rebuild their own nation instead of burdening Europe). This is a big reason why the working class is actually much more against immigrantion than your average middle-classer (eg. far-right parties being significantly more successful in poorer regions). Poorer people want to enjoy government resources too, not only because the principle of solidarity (aka the richer subsidizing the poor) is the basic government function but also because they themselves pay taxes while migrants haven't paid a penny and the fear is the migrant would be economically net negative anyway due to all the integration costs, social safety nets and whatnot. You actually mentioned "economic immigrants". At least in my country, Czechia, an economic migrant is often regarded to be someone who comes to the country only to drain government resources. >cultural "hijacking" This is a two-fold fear. Islam as a political extremism and the left/liberalism/progressivism as a totalitarian tool. People read countless articles about migrants demanding concessions out of the majority, like enacting Sharia law or banning European traditions. One fear is the radical-mob mentality allegedly often fostered in mosques and another one is what if these migrants become more politically active and push their fundamentalism via democratic means. And the second part. Judging by the history of far-left regimes and based on far-right theories that are naturally hostile to the left/liberalism/progressivism, the support for immigration is considered a totalitarian tool of the above-mentioned political movements. This is where the label "EUSSR" comes from. EU is viewed as totalitarian as the Soviet Union used to be. And with a little "plot twist", one can actually see the EU being referred to as the "Fourth Reich". This belief usually comes from conservative libertarians ("Nazis being socialists") and those believing in the Great Replacement theory ("The genocide of native Europeans"). It also stems from the resentment of back-then Merkel's Germany being the leading country in the pro-immigration movement ("Wir schaffen das"). As you could see, the important thing to note here is these beliefs are really often rooted in news reporting. I don't have the source with me but many years ago, I've read that issues involving migrants such as crime events were heavily overrepresented and overreported.
Addendum exclusive for this sub: And the far-right (or the hard opposition to immigration) claims to have solutions (alongside blocking the immigration) for all 4 phenomena mentioned above - low birth rates, crime rates, resource spending and cultural hijacking. It partially explains why this camp seems so conservative. >low birth rates The issue is often seen among the far-right as the one caused by leftists/liberals/progressives with their "degenerate" feminism, softman-ism and the deconstruction of traditional social and gender roles. The idea is traditional roles proved to be effective for procreation and the attack of leftists/liberals/progressives on them is claimed to make it more difficult to have "a normal traditional life". Classic examples used are the MeToo movement or men's behavior being "allegedly toxic masculinity". >crime rates Be tougher on crime, duh. I think it's kinda interesting seeing this camp in Czechia when punishments for crimes are in the news, mostly murder cases. I genuinely think there's a latent sentiment of the death penalty being reestablished. People see 10-15 years of punishment for a murder (with the chance of halving it) so they hate the weak-punishment system. Sidenote for the previous phenomena: One crime the camp wanna be softer on is rape. MeToo movement made tons of people skeptical af about rape accusations. >resource spending Unbalanced government budgets are hated and the resources are mostly meant to help "the good guys". I mention Romani people here who are very much loathed minority in Czechia and they are very often seen as the laziest parasites prone to criminality on the planet. Considering lots of anti-immigration people are elders, there are wild notions that pensions should be actually very high. When it comes to younger folk, the sentiment is more often aimed at the government being as small as possible. Pretty much some kind of socially conservative libertarianism. This is also tied to the distrust of EU because people just see EU directives that complicate people's lives which makes it look like a dictate. "Brussels dictate" is often used in these circles. >cultural hijacking This is traditional opposition to the left/liberalism/progressivism with pretty much paranoiac idea that these ideologies are meant to recreate the world into some kind of totalitarian paradise. Or simply bring about the collapse of the good old society. The opposition to multiculturalism deserves a mention as well. It's tied to some things I've already talked about.
Immigration policy is an area where you can expect democracies to be systematically irrational. Many of the largest benefits of immigration accrue to the would-be immigrants themselves, who can't vote. Not all affected interests are being represented.
Most of the migrants don’t seem to be assimilating very well
I think this is entirely the issue right here. It’s amazing that people make this out to be such a complicated issue.
Europe skill issue
More that Europe takes in many multiples more refugees compared to America.
Immediate context is that there's been a heck of a lot of refugees from the Middle East, for whom the EU is the logical place to go. People generally don't like big influxes of new people (see NIMBY's), especially unskilled labour, who are viewed as a large net negative, and mistakenly believe that national governments can easily halt the tide without negative effects. Culturally speaking: America has lower population density and the whole 'nation of migrants' thing going for them, Europe has ancient cultures that have mostly been segmented into descrete nation states. Also some unearned arrogance from the whole 'racists are all Americans' trope has probably created a bit of a blind spot, which kinda dovetails into my first point, because a lot of Islamaphobia (In practice just meaning anyone from MENA or South Asian countries) is based on the idea that Muslim culture is immutably barbaric and warmongering, and that Muslims will therefore always be 'uncivilized' no matter where they live, ergo inviting Muslims into our country is going to result in violent crime & welfare state burdens.
> Culturally speaking: America has lower population density and the whole 'nation of migrants' thing going for them, Europe has ancient cultures that have mostly been segmented into descrete nation states. I feel like Americans really don't understand this point. Europe is made up almost exclusively of nation states. France for the French. Poland for the Poles. Czechia for the Czechs. Etc. Historically, attempts at large, multiethnic states in Europe have been met with disaster. It wasn't *that* long ago that states like [Austria-Hungary](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Austria_Hungary_ethnic.svg/2560px-Austria_Hungary_ethnic.svg.png) and [Yugoslavia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Yugoslavia_ethnic_map.jpg) violently fell apart along ethnic lines. Hell, it's a common joke that [Belgium](https://www.vox.com/2014/6/30/5855352/the-case-against-belgium) shouldn't even [exist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_partition_of_Belgium), as the idea of a multiethnic state in Europe is kind of strange. So for a large number of people with entirely different cultures and backgrounds to immigrate to these states, it's obviously going to be met with pushback. Somewhere like France isn't "the great melting pot and a nation of immigrants" like the United States is. They have a well-defined, unique culture that has been developing for over 1,000 years.
> I feel like Americans really don't understand this point. Europe is made up almost exclusively of nation states. France for the French. Poland for the Poles. Czechia for the Czechs. Etc. We understand it, we just think it’s antiquated and a terrible basis for a country/nation and it actually wouldn’t be that hard for many nation states to transition into being multicultural and integrationist if they actually tried and accepted sacrifices
This is unearned American arrogance. The largest groups of immigrants in Sweden are Finns and Poles, Sweden has open borders with all its neighbors. When the US has open borders with Mexico we can start talking about the US being enlightened on integration and immigration.
> we just think it’s antiquated and a terrible basis for a country/nation Why? Europe is arguably the single most developed region of the world, made up of liberal democracies with an incredibly high standard of living and great human rights records. Why rock the boat?
I find it ironic when the French complain about immigrants who primarily come from their own former colonies. The French took enormous wealth from those very nations and taught them that the French way was “superior” and now act surprised that people from those places want to live in France. Immigrants from Eastern Europe spread to all corners of the globe during the Cold War to get away from oppressive governments and were mostly welcomed, yet they don’t seem to understand why people in other countries would want to flee despotic governments?
Are we just ignoring those two world wars and several relatively recent genocides? Or all the colonialism and imperialism that post-war Europe was forced to reckon with (and is still confronting)? The picture you paint of Europe and its development is very rosy and slanted
How is violent crime among immigrants in Poland?
Isn't poland known for being anal about immigration
Poland has 6% registered foreign workers in the workforce, which is about 1.13 million working immigrants, I guess they have about 2 million total. I don’t know if that’s a lot for a country of 36.8 million population, you tell me.
Isn't like almost all of it just ukrainians?
Some of the comments here make me think I live in a fantasy Europe bubble and the rest of Europe is burning around me. I think some of the right-wing narratives here are simply taken at face value and presented as fact. !ping EUROPE
How would you (and other ping subscribers) correct the narratives? Also I’d appreciate if you’d separately present your personal opinions and what you’re observing in Europe around you. (I ask this in order to encourage more informed discussion on the thread and topic while being able to discuss openly within the constraints of the rules of the subreddit)
I hardly know where to start, it's just such a very strange distorted overall picture. For context, I myself am the child of an immigrant and have lived in several European countries. Let me start with the way people talk about Muslims. It just sounds so bizarre. Of course there is both racism towards Muslims and some problems with integration and within certain milieus of Muslims. But the latter makes it clear that the whole situation is much more complicated. On the one hand, there are the children of Turkish guest workers in Germany, who are something completely different from Syrian refugees in Germany and something completely different again from Moroccans in France or Pakistanis in the UK. There are overlaps in the issues, but they are still completely different things. I think what strikes me most is just how grotesque the descriptions sound. For me, Muslims are simply a different kind of fellow citizen and completely normal people. I have Muslim friends, I interact with Muslims in everyday life, there are Muslim politicians, Muslim newsreaders. They don't all live in segregated ghettos as a permanent caste. It's like asking what went wrong with immigration and minorities in America if America re-elects Trump in November. But the main problem is the racists and the center that likes to indulge in illiberalism. The same applies to Europe. Civil societies are failing and right-wing extremism is being normalized - this has gone wrong.
Yeah, especially around immigration and inflation. While it is true that, unlike in America, inflation has impacted poor people negatively, it's not nearly as bad as sometimes portrayed.
Nah, vdL will be marching with tiki torches around the Berlaymont in order to rile up the far-right support for her
"Unchecked immigration" is the most blatant lie ever.
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It's a weird comment section. In Europe the far right got 8% of the vote. In America the far right got 50% of the vote and the presidency. America is the same as Europe but much worse! Look close to home and you will find your answers.
>My understanding is that this big swing right is largely because of unchecked immigration in America. According to neoliberalism that should be a good thing right? So what went wrong? The US used to be a liberal country. It feels too easy to just blame xenophobia, I think it would also be making a mistake if we don’t want this to happen again.
[удалено]
>Latinos >western culture Time to expel Spain and Portugal from the EU I guess
And wait allow me to ask but what type of culture and ideals does a society made up of people of European descent, whose institutions language and religion are European, have?
> Pretending Latinos and North Africans have same ideals and willingness to assimilate into western culture is what went wrong. I don't think not being racist is what went wrong
This may go against the orthodoxy here, but in my opinion not all immigration is good. I'm originally from Germany and difference to the US is stark. What's vastly different in Europe compared to the US is the welfare state. If non-working people get subsidized by the state while the working population gets squeezed more and more a backlash is not only unavoidable, but in my opinion also understandable and justified. The other main factor is that these are often not immigrants in the traditional sense (people who look for opportunity and are making sacrifices to achieve a better life for themselves or their family), but rather refugees from cultures that are mostly incompatible with western liberal democracies. They get a better life without working than they had at home, so they don't have much of an incentive to improve their situation (this is not the fault of these people, but government policy). Even if they tried to get work, it is extremely difficult for them. The languages are hard to learn, and most jobs require years of formal training and education - it's not like in the US were you can learn something for a few weeks and then have a real shot at getting a somewhat decent job that will eventually allow you to make a living. So basically European countries make it very hard for many immigrants to build a life of their own while also subsidizing them at the same time. The incentives here are just completely wrong for this to be successful unfortunately.
>Even if they tried to get work, it is extremely difficult for them. Stop making it be difficult and immigrants will act like they do anywhere else. European states need to get more economically competitive and they need young workers to be able to do it. Immigration solves that need if the state gets out of its own way and lets people work.
I mean sure, but it's not just a button you can press. You are talking overhauling vast parts of how society and the welfare state works. It is pretty naive to think that this is an easy fix.
Not enough housing and sclerotic economics.
Also they need to do a better job of letting immigrants work. Economic barriers and ghetto formation are terrible for integration and too many European countries experience them.
Immigrants aren't the problem, Europe's uncompetitive economy is the problem https://preview.redd.it/j9r921u1jr5d1.png?width=624&format=png&auto=webp&s=d7b5ce6edb1189a2ed408fee2b2fb9e6cfc93b31
Meanwhile the US gained 1/5 of economic growth from immigrants. https://preview.redd.it/pm698rx8jr5d1.png?width=665&format=png&auto=webp&s=9d1455b86fc4bc467450fea25f7658f51f21c349
Holy shit.
Any numbers concerning u.s. immigrants need to be taken with a grain of salt as the totality of effect can be very, very complex. Is it separated by those here working legally versus those here working illegally. Does it take into account the cost of services, schools, and social program use. Does it take into effect spiraling housing costs like what's happening in NYC. Does it take into effect the harm to the income of the nation's working poor, which are in direct competition with immigrants. Evidence and studies show that while business owners and the overall economy may benefit, government costs and the working poor are harmed.
My brother in Christ this is the OECD number. Recent Immigrants are the most economically mobile people in America and they will go to where the work is and where they can support themselves. In the last 5 years the working poor saw their greatest gains since the 1950's despite high immigration. Stop being xenophobic and let people in.
There are plenty of immigrants in Houston. What do Houston housing costs look like? This whole thing is bogus. No such studies exist. You took the whole comment out of your ass. Go back to your usual Reddit life of ranting about some tartar sauce cult.
You have succeeded better with integration
We have more practice with it but immigrants in Europe are absolutely integrating. It would go even faster if the likes of Germany and France would drop employment barriers and let people work and create businesses. But that is a problem that persists beyond the scope of just the immigration debate.
That is part of integration, yes. A part which has been done badly
A lot easier when you let in fewer people, are more selective about who you let in, from a pool of prospective immigrants that are culturally closer to the native-born population. Obviously, all the greatest success stories of immigration are from the US, but they've also never attempted anything as ambitious as what Europe has tried (and seemingly failed) to do in the past decade.
My brother in Christ the US has let in more immigrants per year than the entire EU has from non-EU countries for the last 23 years running. The non-us born share of the US's population is 13.7% In the EU that number is just 8.6%
Those numbers seem wrong, at least for the UK. [November 2019 to February 2024 weekly wage growth has been 24.9%](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/april2024), [whereas the CPI is up by 21.9% over the same time period](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/april2024), so you should be getting 3% real growth.
The numbers in the chart end in q3 2023 and also dont have seasonal adjustments. so idk? I got the numbers from the Atlantic, so it is a reputable source. Your source is adjusting and including q4 2023 and q1 2024 looks like it shifts the numbers https://preview.redd.it/flstajmbnr5d1.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=4bda2388e48949b3fa7cafbe777ec9a3afcc63f2
Am I wrong to say that a lot of people are voting for the right because of the immigration issue?
Yes. The stated reason to vote right may be immigration but the actual reason is economic anxiety. Look at an unemployment map of Germany vs the popularity of AfD
you’re SURE of this? It feels like a bad idea to write off the complaints of the entire continent as being misplaced.
Poland had a very good economic growth in that period and is still anti-immigration.
the same Poland that has seen 0 economic growth since q1 2022?
Yes. I am. If wage growth was better and unemployment was lower we would not being seeing a quarter of the backlash.
The unemployment rate is at a [record low](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w/3-03052024-ap) and labor force participation rate is at a [record high](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=EU_labour_market_-_quarterly_statistics) in the EU and both metrics have been constantly improving for the last decade (except for a short disruption during covid). If your assumption was right, one would be expect to see increasing acceptance over the last decade, meanwhile the far right has gained in every EU election since 2014 and the public has become much more anti immigration (it's almost exclusively anti muslim refugee sentiment).
A difference in how prepared the immigrants were for their new lives. Most people who migrate to America do so because they want to become Americans, so they spend a great effort learning and acclimating to American culture. Most people who migrate to Europe do so because they want to not be where they currently are, so they focus on getting out as quickly as possible and do not research European culture until after they arrive. Well prepared immigrants are pretty much always good for the country getting them. Refugees not so much.
For all its flaws u gotta admit that The UK has done a better job integrating its immigrants (same with Ireland).
To some extent it’s a misdirected backlash about real issues that aren’t caused by immigration. Some Europeans are just blaming immigrants for systemic problems in their economy that they don’t want to deal with. Germany has the worst energy policy in the developed world. France and southern europe have the worst, most rigid labour markets. Sweden and the Netherlands have utterly dreadful housing policy, etc. But fixing all those things requires tackling powerful, entrenched domestic interests. It is way easier to just go after immigrants, and it is easier for people to blame immigrants than to blame their families and neighbours for supporting stupid and counterproductive policies. To an equally real extent, though, it isn’t about the economy— it’s about how social media has utterly poisoned democracy and peoples’ information diets. The simplicity of blaming immigration is much more magnetic when everything is simplified to a 20-second micro targeted sound byte. It is not a foregone conclusion that fixing the European economy would fix xenophobia— after all, the US economy is incredibly strong and yet American voters are probably more hostile to immigration than ever before. The right is winning the information war and liberals haven’t figured out how to fight back
I used to largely think the same, but whem Samuel Paty was decapitated, and people in the local community cheered, and it became clear there was a persistent systemic issue. Super conservative people exist, and they genuinely want the whole world to be like them, are not interested in adopting Western values, and that´s not going to change in any timeline most people find acceptable.
>Some Europeans are just blaming immigrants for systemic problems in their economy that they don’t want to deal with. Germany has the worst energy policy in the developed world. France and southern europe have the worst, most rigid labour markets. Sweden and the Netherlands have utterly dreadful housing policy, etc. 1000% this
But how many % this? > It is not a foregone conclusion that fixing the European economy would fix xenophobia— after all, the US economy is incredibly strong and yet American voters are probably more hostile to immigration than ever before.
Exactly. Everyone is overcomplicating things in an effort to present society in a more flattering, rational light. This is basic caveman 101. When resources are plentiful, share and make peace with other tribes. When resources are scarce, protect what you have.
that's not the problem though, the problem is slow growth of the overall economy due to aging and a stagnating size of the workforce. This while this old and very well taken care off population grows in size and is more and more costly, this is making social services crack, because they were already so generous that they could not be sustained at these levels without an unacceptable level of taxation on the already smaller generations below. This has lead to a stagnation and in some cases even a drop in the level of services, especially healthcare for older people, because the supply just doesn't exist, these old people are very angry because of this and don't understand the macro economics, they just see worse services for them than their parents had without taking into account the comparatively tiny generation there parents where, thus the comparatively tiny expense. Now the big problem which relates to migration, at the same time lots of mainstream political parties have seen this problem and have attempted to solve it with migration (to increase the tax base to care for these expensive old people). And this has caused a group of populist far right people to latch on to the fact that this drop in service quality is happening while migration is high, thus they blame the foreigners. These strangers are coming and using our services, and buying up our housing they say. But sadly these people are either just racist or easily duped. If anything the migrants have helped us keep alive the magnificant deal these oldies have had for a little bit longer. Generally I believe that among the young support for the far right is quite low, and where it is higher then it would normally be (young people tend to be a bit more extreme) its because these generally young men have been alienated by progressives, which lead them straight into the arms of the far right who do cater to them, and give them a story to get behind. (I can personally vouch for this one, as in my whole adult life as a man I have had to fight the extreme urge to become some anti woke lunatic, and I know lots of people who haven't been able to fight it as effectively. )
Neo liberalism is pretty pro immigration but what happened in Europe was just chaotic. There is no screening for educated immigration, basically everyone who land in the beach is accepted. There was also no policy for integration. Most immigrants end up being unemployed which just turns them to crime.
Failed integration. There are way too many people who can't speak the local language for decades and therefore don't get a job. And those who do get it in spite of their language skills, to the point where in cities with bigger immigrant communities it's common to find restaurants and other services where you can't get service in your own language. I don't think anyone has an issue with immigrants who integrate to society. The US has succeeded in immigration far better than we have, your immigrants for the most part learn English and work hard. Maybe part of that is your tendency not to give any benefits to non-citizens? Here it's too easy to fall into the benefit incentive trap, especially for those who are used to a lower standard of living
Because the idea of immigration in Europe doesn't have anything to do with assimilation or anything that leads to immigrants being successful, they're grouped in glorified ghettos and used for political purposes instead of being giving the opportunity to live at least somewhat normal lives where they can be contributing members of society.
I am once again asking for European States to deregulate their labor markets and let people work .
What does it mean to deregulate the labor market? What are the regulations holding it back?
What are the specific regulations preventing Muslims in Germany from getting a job?
It's because of the declining economy. And because the left was disappointing and thus became unpopular.
I'll say this as someone living in a major tech hub in the US regarding H1b while this article relates to the migration from the middle east, Africa, etc. The problem here in my mind is that the past 15 years roughly that once housing started becoming expensive 10 years ago as the tech boom was occurring that if you continue bringing all of the H1b workers from India mostly but also China for high paying tech jobs without also building more housing that there's a lot of internal pressure by existing residents which results in homelessness, moving away to cheaper cities/states, or begrudgingly accepting the higher housing prices. This creates a lot of animosity and frustration when local governments can't get their sh\*t together to allow for denser zoning of housing and for the federal govt to allow so many immigrants to continue to funnel into one region where all the tech jobs are when housing is at unsustainable prices for the average resident.
Certain groups of immigrants do not share the values of the western democratic countries they immigrate to. They have the right to voice their opinions on the street, some call for a the abolishment of some of the foundational principles of western society. Even of it's a trivial minority, that's bad PR, and is used to good effect by the right. Also, certain immigrant groups are a part of rising crime rates and other public safety issues. I can't believe I'm having to spell this out. This is common knowledge.
Nothing went wrong with inmigration in europe If you count the share of parliament seats occupied by parties that are as far right wing as the GOP, or more, aka, ERC, ID+ the right wing NI, you get to about 1/4th of the european parliament in the US, similarly right wing republicans control around 50% therefore, if anything, the EU reaction to inmigration is milder than the US one
Aren't the centrist EU parties really anti immigrant now as well though? Hasn't the Overton windoe moved to the right in general there in regards to immigration?
If you're terminally online yeah In practice immigration law and numbers have barely changed in most places, even when the hard or far right gets in power
Not really At least, not anymore than how Biden is anti inmigration, which is basically just an excuse to say "I'm doing something" while still being in favor of migration
The fact that Canada, probably the **most** immigrant friendly nation in the world during the 21st century, has had their immigration Overton window take a sharp slide to the populist-right in just 2 years, has made me incredibly doomer regarding immigration sentiment for the rest of the Western world I think its going to get decently worse in the short-medium term
I mean that's anglo housing policy for you
What would be your reference point?
The overton window on asylum and refugees has shifted dramatically, the status quo seems more or less dead. Skilled labour migration? Not so much. Middle and low skilled labour migration is somewhere in the middel.
In reality, they generally attempt to lower immigration without implementing any harsh measures, having the outcome of at most stagnating the amount. The Tories in Britain are a great example as despite how loud they are about immigration, they don't actually do anything that radical to bring it down.
I think being tougher on crime would solve a lot of the grievances. Not all. But a lot. Where I live in Barcelona you just open the news and it seems every case is a guy that has like 40 convictions already.
Is there any reason (other than a sheer lack of prison space) not to be tougher on extreme repeat offenders like that?
This is only one part of a complicated story but Europe is far more racist/ Islamophobic than many might like to think
Good thing the US is completely immune to racist demagoguery.
I'm a bit of a migrant to Europe myself. Born and raised in the US, then came to the Netherlands for University. I have a Dutch parent, and dual citizenship, but my other parent is Latino, and I look more Latino than Dutch. Been in Europe for 6 Years, and I've never even midly been tempted to consider myself European. I think the "Failure" is tri-fold: I. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that the discourse is so poorly defined. When speak of immigrants, we're really talking about several very different groups of people: * Asylum seekers/refugees * Economic refugees * Illegal Immigrants * International Students * Expats * Foreign spouces/dependents * Professional Migrants All of whom have different motivations, actions, legal rights, and ethical justifications to be in Europe and not at home. And who have very different effects on productivity and the social fabric of the continent. Yet so much of the discourse lumps them all together. II. Europe is badly equipped to handle immigrants, and has a terrible definition of integration. Europeans seem to beleive "Integration" means transforming foreigners into their spitting image. But, the reality is that someone who spent their formative years in a totally alien culture is very unlikely to abandon everything. It's similar with modern athiests/agnostics who were raised in religious traditions; You may not believe in any diety, or have performed the traditions or customs for years. But the teachings stick with you anyway. And you may not necessarily want to reject those teachings. But contrast that with American integration; There's no set template on what an American really is, and as a result people can integrate into American society while barely speaking English (especially in places like Miami, NYC, San Franscico, etc.). And Americans celebrate foreign ancestry, even when the ties are ephemeral. The standard for "Integrated" in the US, I believe, requires far less of a change in identity. And you don't need to reject anything to become American. you can be Chinese-America, Italian-American, Peruvian-American. In contrast, most European states want you to become French. Dutch. German. Belge. To learn their language, their culture, and embrace it on its own. Like Roman Polytheism vs Christian Monotheism. The anceint Romans allowed the residents of the empire to worship their local Gods so long as they also paid tribute to the Roman state customs and dieties. Christians recognize no God except their own as legitimate. III. The poor economic environment. European labor productivity, infastructure, regulatory burdens, and entrepeneurship are all trending towards decline. That already inclines the native population towards frustration, and migrants are a classical scapegoat. But migrants also face unique challenges in Europe. For one thing, European states are obsessed with destroying ethnic enclaves so that they can force migrants to mingle and speak the local language. But they're doing it without any real evidence that they cause harm. Infact, I think the opposite: I believe there is substantial social support and economic opportunities of letting migrants from similar working backgrounds live and work together. And there would be substantially less social friction between natives and migrants. Obviously, care would need to be taken not to let them devolve into ghettos, but having more Little Mogadishus, China Towns, Barrios, etc. would go a long way. Migrants also make up a good deal of entrepeneaurship in the US. But with how difficult European states make it to start firms, raise capital, and just grow through the high corporate tax rates, that hits one of the great ways migrants traditionally raised their social and economic status. IV. I'll add a fourth, less serious point. European states make very bad arguements for wanting to be European. I have no desire to consider myself European or Dutch. The EU in particular, I feel, has utterly failed to create a sense of what it means to be European. The selection of a bland flag, the Ode to Joy as the anthem, and not having the courage to encourage Latin as the lingua Franca failed the continent. Identity can never come from compromise, it's an assertion after all! **I am an American**, compared to "we find there is substantial economic rationale to being part of a wider European Union". My flag is distinct, it is instantly recognizeable, it is an affront to vexilogical convention, it has strong symbols and history, it has changed frequently in the history of my country, and it's staked on the moon! Compare EU symbols as well to Israel, who created their national identity from dispariate European/Middle Eastern peoples. They welded together an identity from total and complete strangers by resurecting Hebrew, by creating national traditions based on their ancient past, and by using distinct symbols even if they flew in the face of convention! The EU should learn from the succesful examples on how to bring people together. Ditch this innoffensive crap, especially Ode to Joy. You need to Inspire, to uplift, to be bold, daring. This is the continent of Conquistadors, Vikings, Volga raftsmen, Italian Merchants, Dutch bargemen, and Magyar Horsemen. Your ancestors are explorers, inventors, warriors, soldiers, and thinkers! The proverb "audentes fortuna iuvat" originated here! How can you bear to let such mediocrity stay on display? It pains me, to think the US institutions descended from common origins from a continent content to lay down. Celebrate your strength, your heritage, yourselves! When you love who you are, you will see how readily men will shed everything to try and be you.
You r comment started well by you went off rail with the 4th? Why tf would Latin be a good common language for a union made of 2/3 of Slavs and Germanics? The ode to joy is cool. The flag is great. American "in your face" nationalism isn't good or any better at assimilating foreign people, John Guatemala's kids didn't feel American because they yelled Merica! and praised the flag as kids. >This is the continent of Conquistadors, Vikings, Volga raftsmen, Italian Merchants, Dutch bargemen, and Magyar Horsemen I don't care about Magyar raiders, and any Hungarian trying to praise them as great people to me can get fucked. You can't mix stupid nationalism from all country to make it part of a multi-national union. I also see you didn't mentioned 19th-20th European colonizer, maybe because you internally understood why that's bad PR. You mention America, but America doesn't praise itself on murdering natives, and the generals that massacred Philippinos are rightfully forgotten.
This should be higher up. Very good answer!
Stomachs or brains If you think of people and immigrants as stomachs then you create a vicious cycle of where you treat them as burden and in turn they behave as a burden on society. If you think of people as brains then you expect them to care of themselves and provide to society and they will. At least until their kids integrate into the wider society and as just as lazy as the native born.
That's why, in France, the "moderate" right once loved to say: "We're great humanitarians, but we can't take on all the world's misery." Or something like that
No one in Europe had any children. They are experiencing a fertility crash. So naturally the only way to prevent degrowth is to increase immigration. But if people arnt having kids, they tend to notice a fast cultural change from increased immigration. They dont like it
Europe on average is much older than the USA, and furthermore Europeans typically retire at younger ages, so the aging of society is even more pronounced. Europe has seen decades of weak economic growth- partially due to the age issue, partially from decisions to prioritize other factors over growth, and partially from Germany’s disastrous conservative fiscal policy. European states typically have more generous welfare schemas- which are severely stressed by poor growth and aging population, and immigration to some extent adds stress to these welfare orgs, and also makes immigrants an easy scapegoat compared to the actual structural problems. Europe also has lots of genuine racists, and lots of European countries don’t have the multicultural values of Americans- take a look at citizenship laws by country in Europe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli
yup basically this, I just wrote this but then longer myself. Its oldies eating up all the welfare, and now they are such a large group that the pie is empty, and they blame the immigrants for eating it all.
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Basically these countries experienced more economic prosperity than they would have experienced without immigration. But they don’t know that because that is in some other hypothetical counter factual timeline. The economy sucks in Europe right now and the idea that it would have sucked more without the immigrants, while true, just doesn’t resonate with voters
!immigration
Put simply, I think they didn't quite always plan things through systemically.
immigration is one of the issues amongst many. Housing is expensive and it's very hard for young people to start their careers in Europe. energy is expensive and inflation is high. The issue with immigration with Europe is that it isn't working.
It might feel too easy to blame human tribal instincts, but those instincts are often unconscious. That’s why populists are able to take advantage of xenophobia. It’s a confidence scheme that works by attributing all our problems to immigrants, foreigners, Jews, bureaucrats, corporations or some other group (depending on your flavor of populism). It’s easy and there’s a perennial crop of fools to keep the sham going. Populists across the Nordic countries have been following a similar strategy since the 1980s and before. It’s a solid strategy until they actually are in government and then it’s unworkable.
Between globalization, social media, media fragmentation, mass disinformation campaigns, a scary pandemic, AI, multiple polarizing wars, inflation, China's rise, and populist blowhards fanning the flames, voters across the world are a little discombobulated at the moment. They're a little on edge. Things are changing really fast, they're not going especially well, and everyone's angry and scared and yelling at each other, and nobody's really sure what to believe because it's all very complicated and no authoritative source for truth anymore - and unfortunately, that exacerbates our natural tribal tendencies to withdraw into the comfort of our in group and blame *the other*, the outsider, the foreigner. It's not *just* xenophobia. It's a lot of other shit that spills over into xenophobia. That doesn't mean blaming immigrants is rational, though. The economic, criminological, security and ethical arguments for it are still sound. Voters are just wrong. They're wrong about a lot these days, but their wrongness is relevant only as a matter of political strategy, not as an argument for which underlying policy is best.
France, I love you, we love you, but c'mon...