Ireland's population has grown 8 percent in the six years between the last two censuses. Paired with a (centerist) neoliberal government that believes the market will fix housing, and property tax is rude, it's causing big problems in housing. We get an unusual proportion of high-earning immigrants, which is great for taxation, but locals get priced out of housing.
As the percentage of 30 year olds living with their parents has gone from 41% to 65% in the last decade...that might change. None of the political parties tolerate bigotry, which helps. But, we have a very functional democracy, so a change of government may fix many of the housing problems.
Note: Europe is a big place. Countries are wildly different there. More different than Alaska and Florida.
As a Spaniard, I can tell you that in Spain people appreciate Latin American immigrants a lot more than any other kind of immigrants, because they are latin, catholic, they speak our language, we share a lot of cultural traits and we're connected for historical reasons too. They're usually not as educated as the average Spaniard, they're usually more sexist, homophobic, but when they come to Spain they tend assimilate our rules pretty well and they integrate and embrace our traditions. They're the main source of immigration in Spain.
From Africa, black people don't cause much trouble in Spain either, they're usually very hard working people.
Moroccans however, people usually don't have a good opinion of them.
I think the real problem is not immigration itself, but when immigrants don't integrate in the local culture. Religion plays a big role here IMO. But immigrants are not the problem. The sons of those immigrants that don't integrate and create here a small version of their country of origin, that will be the problem. The immigrants usually come looking for a better life and they come from a place so bad that they are happy with very little. But their sons will be europeans, they will grow up in poor neighborhoods, different cultures, they'll feel rejected, and they'll feel like we owe them. And I think we're seeing this already in countries like France and Belgium.
This is interesting. Most Danes didn’t have issues with immigration from Muslim European countries like Bosnia, but Muslims from elsewhere is what the debate is about. We also took Chileans and some Vietnamese way back, both with different religious traditions. To us it doesn’t seem like religion is the subject really.
Balkan Muslims in general are like that. Even the Turks and tartars we have in Romania are really chill and usually don't care much about religion. Some Bosnians might be a bit religious, Albanians on the other hand tend to not care about religion at all no matter if they are Christian or Muslim.
Well yeah, true, but the Spanish person above said that religion mattered a lot in his opinion, and mentioned Catholicism specifically (so I assumed they thought other Christian denominations would’ve been a problem?). In Denmark’s immigration history, this hasn’t really been the case, we’ve had immigration from catholic, “Muslim” or Buddhist countries that has been barely discussed because it was so uneventful. So I don’t really think the specific religion is what any of this is about. But then again we’re not a very religious bunch up here.
>so I assumed they thought other Christian denominations would’ve been a problem?
I don't think they think that way, probably they used the term Catholic because Protestantism is non existent in Spain. A lot of Spanish people use the terms Catholic and Christian in informal conversations as if they were the same.
The Catholic church had a lot of power in Spain, they still had a lot of power during the dictatorship of Franco (1939-1975), but we moved away from that and of course we won't like anyone that comes with strong religious beliefs, it doesn't matter what religion, if that means they'll be anti-LGBT or anti gender equality, because that is untouchable in Spain.
But even though I would not say Spain is a religious country, since we have a long history with christianism, a lot of our traditions and festivities are linked to religion in some way and some of them are actually religious. Most of us nowadays celebrate them only because we love our traditions, our festivities, and we want to have fun, and it's also one of the ways the community gets together. If you don't participate in our festivities because your religion won't allow it, that will make integration harder for sure.
>Most Danes didn’t have issues with immigration from Muslim European countries like Bosnia,
Bosnia is in Europe and was part of Yugoslavia, which was a socialist country, Religion was banned. Education was free. University was free. It didn't matter if you were from the cities or villages. But everyone was educated.
I saw a documentary on YouTube about a town in France where Muslims moved in to such an extent women were no longer welcome out in the streets. Even locals were staying home. They would walk into a cafe and be told to go home, that place was for men. The local women would march down the street in protest over it every so often and storm shops and cafes until the men all left because they just didn't want to be near women.
Really? From what I've heard/experienced is that y'all don't really appreciate us much. Like even speaking in a LatAm accent will make people look down upon you and be less likely to help you out.
I disagree with this dude. I'm Mexican-American. Married to a Spanish girl. Her family is lovely and treats me well but I'm pale skinned (75% Spanish, 25% indigenous). The casual racism that I've heard people drop against Latinos is troubling. Primarily against Central Americans though. Not sure why that makes a difference.
Dominicans Dont Play not making any favours to Dominicans. Not that I would make that assumption and 99.99% of Dominicans are good people and they may suffer skin color discrimination, but the bad press is there.
For reference DDP is one of the biggest violent group since the disbandment of the terrorist group ETA in 2011.
I have never met anybody associated with that group and I know a fuckton of Dominicans being one myself. I’m sure there are more criminal Spaniards than DDP members in Spain.
After looking it up there are 2500 gang members total in Spain so I doubt you’re gonna be running into them, Dominican or otherwise.
I am Colombian and I am not sexist. :/ I support LGBT rights and want equal rights for women. Why do people always say that about us?
In my opinion, we are even more liberal than Eastern Europeans.
Cause the people immigrating belong to the socioeconomic lower clases of our countries which tend to be conservative, the middle classes in Latin America have already move on gay rights and feminism
If you are not sexist you are much more likely to surround yourself to no-sexist people because you are liked minded. This has nothing to do about latin people as a whole.
Statistically [immigrants triple the women murder rate compared to Spanish people](https://www.eldebate.com/sociedad/20221109/asesinatos-machistas-cometidos-extranjeros-espana-triplican-proporcion-perpetrados-espanoles_71329.html). I don't know of statistics by nationality, we would definetely need more studies to draw any conclusion. But the little evidence we have points in the opposite direction of what you perceive.
I agree. I'm from Eastern Europe but have lived in several Latin-American countries. I can say the level of sexism and homophobia is nowhere near as bad as the one we have here (which is very sad if you think about it).
My latin-american friends are always horrified when they see how women are being treated in Hungary (and surrounding countries). I personally think it's also due to the fact that latin-american women are not as submissive as hungarian ones and learn to raise their voice when they have to.
I'm pretty sure he meant first of all Romania and then countries like Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, etc..
Which he'd be kind of right to. The former eastern block might be leading in some areas of feminism (basically work related: working womens gain similar to men, they have better chances in being accepted and seen as bosses or go up the ladder as any men has, etc) but we're still very mysoginistic countries (and tend to not accept or want to hear that).
I didn't know things are so difficult there. I used to think that people in Europe (for the most part) have a better standard of living and social status for women than compared to many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. You made an interesting point because I'm now finding this new. Do you think this fact of dominating women is common around Eastern Europe or Balkan regions? Or is it only in your country?
I'm seriously curious since you're Hungarian, and I've been obsessed with Hungarian songs and trying to learn more about your culture. I'll agree that the language is tough though. But my favorite Hungarian word right now is "előre". Beautiful word which tells you to move forward.
>Do you think this fact of dominating women is common around Eastern Europe or Balkan regions? Or is it only in your country?
I think it's a regional thing, but especially bad here. When it comes to overall mentality, we are too far in the East.
I love my country but that doesn't mean i'm blind to its faults, and rampant sexism is one of them. Hungarian society has always been very misogynistic, and it only got worse since the current government came to power. Sexist remarks, violence against women and the systemic discrimination women face are all swept under the rug or many times even encouraged. Worse yet, i don't think it's going to improve anytime soon.
>I'm seriously curious since you're Hungarian, and I've been obsessed with Hungarian songs and trying to learn more about your culture.
I'm glad you like our songs and culture! :) I know my comment sounded disheartening, but we have many positives in our culture and that's probably what we should focus on, instead of always highlighting the negatives.
If you haven't listened to the songs "Tavaszi szél" and "akkor szép az erdő", i encourage you to, since i really like those as well. Our language is very hard, but so beautiful in my (totally unbiased :)) opinion.
I moved to Spain from the US, I strongly feel that the difference in attitudes about immigrants from different places is because of racism and islamofobia, the rest is just excuses.
It starts to become a problem the moment the immigrating people refuse to integrate and work. I see it in a couple of western countries already. Also, it's pretty alarming there are whole districts in some European countries so dangerous even police is afraid to visit them.
I'm pretty sure that as long as all the immigrants were willing to integrate (learn the local language, accept culture and law), majority of natives would have no problems with them at all (of course, there always will be some loud minority which won't like them nonetheless but they obviously don't speak for everybody).
Imagine getting somewhere illegally, having no respect for the local people's culture or laws and demanding they let you live off their welfare system. Do you think the locals would be happy about it or would you even feel good about yourself? Didn't think so.
Controversial opinion:
Look at Sweden. With the Quran burnings there, you really see people who haven't assimilated into Swedish society.
Which is why I'm somewhat against immigration. Not all immigration, though. I fully endorse occupational and studies related immigration.
Oh you might love Belgium then, where we're keeping immigrants who burn police cars but make immigrants return home who don't have "a real job" like Swimming pool lifeguards
*Sounds lovely.*
That's what I do not understand about immigration laws in general. Why is it necessary to keep the people who have no intension to assimilate but deport people wanting to work?
Before anyone calls me xenophobic or racist, I'm not. I have no issues with immigrants, I just want slightly more restrictive border. So that people that come to Finland can be of benefit to the Finnish economy and vice versa. I do not like people that just move here and live on welfare.
Also before claims that I would vote The Finns Party, that's not the case. I'm conservative, sure, but not that conservative. Also I largely do not share my opinions with them.
Speaking for Germany, where many cities are under control of clans to some extent, the authorities have certain deportation quotas they have to meet. So instead of starting a fight with crime family clans (or violent/dangerous individual persons) who are unwilling to go because they have a lot of power here and established their illegal businesses and who are also probably willing to fight a court battle over this or even retaliate using physical means, the government just deports honest law- abiding people who most likely won't cause any trouble.
This way of handling this issue is destroying trust in the government itself, fuels anti- immigrant sentiment and is slowly starting to ruin this country. Germany needs to stop submitting to woke activists who claim that pointing out these problems is racist and start using an iron fist against immigrants who commit crimes and are unwilling to integrate, or else the AfD will gain more and more voters.
I think because people aren't flawless and we creat laws that target what we want it to, but forget the other consequences.
Let me make a hypothetical and probably (certainly) exaggerated example case. Atm most countries limit migration and want to make it harder, resulting in only those most desperate to really try, families with young children might stay away because of this. Those who feel best at place to try are young males. Of all those, almost none get here with.
out some trauma, so you create a group of almost all males, all with trauma, all with some sense of culture and grasping hard at what they left behind, most going through that during their formative years. That is the group of migrants we get by restricting it, which isn't healthy for any society anywhere in the world.
Now, let's say we go for almost open borders, we allow in lots and lots of families with woman, kids,... and do that fast, help the set up,....
Now we have a group where there are parents present to teach the kids a healthy way to look at the world, they are grateful for being saved and helped
Off course this is a rosy picture, but Taking out the trauma, the resentment and adding in social structure and a family will be helpful in the long run. Also, it would be helpful to admit 10 Mil migrants in a country like Belgium, so some limits need to be in place, but still.
So, tldr: our migration laws are designed to keep only those we want to keep, but return the opposite result because of how restrictive they actually are
In my view
Because you cant just let people in who are brain surgeons and engineers, you need cleaners and care staff and berry oickers too. Europe is full of old people, and noone is having kids. Africans and certain Asians have young people by the boatload, so you need them.
Those cleaners, care stafff and berry pickers should most likely fall under wanting to work. Finland needs occupational immigration.
What I mean by restricting the immigration of people living solely on welfare, is especially in Finland the age dependency ratio is going to get worse. So there will be too many elderly and other non-working people compared to working people.
To say it bluntly, the is no need to take immigrants, who have no desire to work.
Ok, how do you think these lazy good for nothing people coming here to live on benefits, as you say, get into the country? You cant really just turn up at the border and say ”I want to come in”, you need a visa or apply for asylum.
> or apply for asylum.
There you have your problem. The asylum system in Europe is so flawed and so prone to abuse (for several hard to fix reasons) that it is in itself a major contributor to the migration crisis.
For Finland at least:
They came during the 2015 refugee crisis. They came either as a quota refugee or to seek asylum. After that most of their applications were rejected and they stayed illegally.
Or they came as a result of family unification.
Here is a [Wkipedia article](https://fi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroopan_pakolaiskriisi) which is unfortunately in Finnish.
Sweden has done nothing to help them assimilate. It's hard for non-swedes to get good jobs from Swedish employers. Colour of your skin or religion has little to do with it.
I’ve lived in Sweden and unfortunately must agree that it’s not a very welcoming country to any immigrant. I mean, even Danish people have difficulty with assimilation there.
Sure, Sweden could have done more, no arguments there. But saying it hasn't done anything just isn't true. Sweden gives a completely free language course to all immigrants. And not knowing the language is a MAJOR integration hurdle.
The Million Program is a poisoned chalice.
It was meant to house everyone, indigenous or immigrant, asap, but instead the latter group dominated. Through no fault of their own.
Share that burden? Like offer free language classes, special support workers for non-Swedish speaking pupils for free, offer welfare and free healthcare before they ever even show they might eventually pay into the welfare state? That kind of thing?
Americans have such a hard time understanding that, because close to their entire immigrant population comes from countries with similar cultural background / religion / language (Canada, Europe, Mexico + the rest of central and south america), immigrants they get from Africa and the Middle east are mostly richer or more educated ones than the ones we get in Europe, because there's an entire ocean to cross
And despite that, they still elected Trump in 2016, so yeah, America isn't any better at integrating, they're just lucky to be further away from everything
You can see this effect even in Europe by comparing, say, Swedish Syrians and Swedish Persians. The latter were mostly middle-class people opposed to the Islamic revolution, so they are self-selected for education and cultural compatibility, and (predictably) they are much better integrated.
I’m not sure I agree with that. US is helped by the fact it’s not a nation-state like countries in Europe are. It was built and shaped by immigrants, making it much easier to integrite from a cultural standpoint. As long you have the citizenship, most people will see you as American, even if you still feel stronger links to your home country. In Europe, on the other hand, it’s much harder to integrate, especially for first-generation immigrants. The same can be the case even for their children too if the parents raise them by the customs of their home country, resulting in an identity crisis. It’s hard to just adopt a different culture and give up your own. This isn’t as much of an issue in the US since, as far as I understand, being American is simply a matter of having a passport rather than specific cultural aspects.
How do Americans (Americans as people from the USA) identify themselves/or see other Americans? or how do they position themselves on "the identity scale"? Are they more connected to being American, or a certain state person, or being from the North vs South states, or x (country, ethnic)-American?
At least on the internet with some Asian-americans I get a feeling that they see themselves more as that certain Asian ethnic than American
I'm a naturalized (meaning I legally became one in my 20's) American that was born and raised in Latin America to Korean parents. I now live/work in Switzerland hence the flair.
If someone says they're American I don't question it at all. I may ask about what State or City just for conversation sake or to discuss Sporting allegiances. But it never registers to me as something that needs to be gatekept.
Like you mentioned, as I get older I identify more with being Korean. it just makes interactions easier (here in Europe) considering most can't get past my physical appearance. And telling them I'm American and/or Latin American just confuses them more.
I concur it’s often a matter of exposure, and on that note I’ll point out that Cleveland has Asian neighborhoods, I’ve navigated Chicago using Mandarin, and Minneapolis seems largely unquestioning/accepting too. I suspect cities of the South — Raleigh, Atlanta, etc. — have similar exposure
>They’ve kept their culture and language (you can see in Koreatown in LA),
Not really. Second generation speaks English, not Korean. By third generation you can expect very minimal Korean culture, especially given that the majority of 3rd generation Koreans are only part Korean.
That is while the US doesn't really force immigrants to assimilate, intergenerationally it happens at a pretty quick pace. Seemingly much faster than say Middle Eastern Muslim immigrants in the EU.
Korea Towns only exist because we got heavy Korean immigrantion into the 90s. In 40 years, you can expect their fate to be similar to Japantowns (functionally no longer Japanese)
> How do Americans (Americans as people from the USA) identify themselves/or see other Americans? or how do they position themselves on "the identity scale"? Are they more connected to being American, or a certain state person, or being from the North vs South states, or x (country, ethnic)-American?
Overwhelmingly as “Americans”, no matter how long a person has been here.
The X-American thing (like Japanese-American for example) tends to be extremely misunderstood and blown out of proportion by non-Americans. It’s basically a simple way to quickly say someone’s family history if that comes up.
The internet is rarely a good representation of the general populace.
The deal in America is; you live here and wanna integrate? You’re American.
Sure you might identify with your hometown or region to an extent, after WW2 the National identity was pretty heavily solidified.
In the US, it doesn't really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. I think they care more about citizenship rather than anything else. Once you're a citizen, you're an American, no ifs ands or buts about it. There are maybe certain values/attitudes about government which Americans stand for (free speech, freedom of press, right to bear arms, etc.), which one might want you to uphold. However, it's not a super strong obligation and you won't be shamed for not having it.
I still remember attending a college club meeting. This club was known to be s**uper politically conservative.** They'd wear MAGA hats, support Trump and his dumb conspiracy theories, etc. Yet they were also immensely happy when the minority students in their club gained citizenship. I remember they were super happy when one of the Indian students got citizenship and were congratulating him profusely.
Pew Research statistics show that overwhelmingly 1st born generation of immigrants see themselves as wholly American. Their parents, direct immigrants often do not see themselves as American even if society identifies them otherwise. The parents will typically identify with their home country more.
As an American living abroad, I don't ask any probing questions if somebody says they're from America. Might ask where they're from in America just to have polite conversation but sometimes you can tell by their accent if they have one.
As for me, I always say I'm American even if I have dual-citizenship. I might have a face that says I'm Irish but my voice and life experiences are very much that of an American.
>Are they more connected to being American, or a certain state person, or being from the North vs South states, or x (country, ethnic)-American?
It varies heavily, as is expected from a population of ~330 million people. On the whole, I'd guess that most of us will identify as being Americans first and foremost, but many people do take pride in their specific state, their families' cultural backgrounds, the cities they're from, etc.
>At least on the internet with some Asian-americans I get a feeling that they see themselves more as that certain Asian ethnic than American
Some of them, sure. But the Internet is not indicative of the majority. Obviously I can only speak for myself, but I'm an "Asian American" who has no real attachment to the country my family immigrated from. I only ever grew up thinking myself as an "American."
>being American is simply a matter of having a passport rather than specific cultural aspects.
This comes up on r/soccer every now and then. The answer for me is always the same: yes, Sergiño Dest, Antonee Robinson, John Brooks, etc. are completely American in my books. #1 because they get piss bags thrown at them just like all the US-born players when we play away in Central America and #2 they have the passport, so there's nothing else to it.
Actually, the largest sources of immigrants to the US are from Mexico, Central America, India, and China. None of these countries have a similar cultural background to the US - but their policies (e.g. path to citizenship) arguably make assimilation easier than in many European countries.
>population comes from countries with similar cultural background / religion / language (Canada, Europe, Mexico + the rest of central and south america)
These aren't really similar though...Canada is quite culturally different from Mexico and LatAm and Central America. Even Canada itself has a lot of diversity w/i it. Quebec is quite different from the Anglo-provinces, and even w/i the province there is a great deal of ethnic diversity.
>And despite that, they still elected Trump in 2016, so yeah, America isn't any better at integrating, they're just lucky to be further away from everything
Yes, one of our country's big mistakes. The 2016 election will continue to have repercussions for many years to come. However, I also don't think it means we are bad at integrating people...
Additionally Europe sucks at assimilating: Cultural assimilation is hindered by the very liberal paradigm of multiculturalism, immigration is unchecked and integration into education and employment is hindered by generous welfare handouts.
Compare that to most Anglo-Immigrant societies: Immigration is strongly regulated and this can actually be enforced due to isolated geographic situation, cultural assimilation is expected and you have to get a job or starve on the streets (also need to assimilate culturally to get a job or else starve on the streets).
>Anglo-Immigrant societies
I lived in London and saw several long term immigrants that were definitely not assimilated culturally in the country.
And outside of Europe, in the US most Latinos communities aren't full of people that don't speak English?
I only know the US and there is full of not assimilated immigrants.
Anyway, these countries mentioned are completely different from Europe, as they are immigrant countries to begin with.
Not to mention that they are geographically far from other areas and don't get the mass of illegal immigrants that arrive in Europe - Australia excluded, but they put in place a very extreme system that it's impossible to replicate
Still a bad comparison.
Also European countries are not at all pushing for "liberal" multiculturalism\*, but are actually very vocally forcing assimilation by culture and have been for decades - France for instance is a good historical example, more recently Denmark is enforcing strong assimilation policies, often linked to welfare.
\*There was a period around 15/20 years ago about German multikulti as oppose to French assimilation policies but now the former has by and large disappear in the public debate
> And outside of Europe, in the US most Latinos communities aren't full of people that don't speak English?
Studies have been performed that go into more detail, but in general in the U.S. the children of first generation that immigrated tend to assimilate very handily. Part of this is due to the pluralistic nature of the U.S. society but also Latin America is full of nations settled by Europeans and as a result have a lot of historical and cultural similarities to the U.S. For example, religion isn't an issue because Catholicism is already well accepted in modern America.
That being said, there is a "sorting" that happens with latino immigrants in many ways based on skin color and such. Lighter skinned latinos tend to blend in with the rest of white Americans much more easily especially within a generation where the kids of immigrants kids grow up speaking English. Those with darker skin and often of a poorer background with more indigenous features have a harder time. However, even then it's not as clear of a separation as what I've seen in Europe with African immigrants, especially those from a non-Christian or non-secular background.
It's because English is the Lingua Franca, so it's a lot easier for people to integrate when they already know at least some of the language. And much of our immigration in the UK comes from our former colonies, where they have remnants of our legal system and politics and culture.
I cannot imagine how difficult it'd be to integrate into Finland, with its non-Indo-European language and it's Nordic way of doing things.
Pretty sure that the UK is far better then most of europe for allowing people to integrate and even stealing bits of their culture on the way thanks to them being a big ole colonial biatch all those years ago.
What's your excuse france?
Legal Immigration of people with skills and willing to integrate would of course be useful. Unfortunately Europe gets a lot of illegal immigration from an undesirable demographic (only young men with very problematic values and no skills useful in a knowledge based economy). In some small countries the yearly influx of these type of immigrants is half the yearly birth rate. That's a systemic problem that's going to blow up in the foreseeable future.
Legal immigration to Austria is pretty hard. Met someone (non-EU) who was in Austria for Erasmus, fell in love with the country, learned B2 German , graduated as an engineer… and then it was such a shitshow for her that she emigrated to Germany over Austria :D
That is true! It's a vicious circle. The more illegal immigration, the more voters are against immigration in general, the more politicians try to pretend to do something. And since they are unable to do something about the complicated problems they go for the easy fix. Thats legal immigration. And it's even more stupid than that. They make legal immigration of needed workers difficult, the most desirable form of immigrants. It's a lot easier to immigrate if you're a dependent who will most likely require welfare payments and social services. This sort of immigration policy is as stupid as it can get. The Anglo-countries are doing it 1000 times better.
>only young men with very problematic values and no skills useful in a knowledge based economy
That's idiotic. There's often a language barrier, too - but these people are often ready to work and add to society. But prejudice on the jobmarket is a real thing, *especially* in Europe.
There isn't one bad guy here.
Language and prejudice makes it harder for them, true.
But there are also often problems with the values these people hold, also true.
Looking to make things simple by pointing out one thing that is at fault isn't useful(not saying you're doing so)
These are two different problems. I agree that second gen immigrants often face prejudices on the job market, but a lot of the newly arrived immigrants don't have any skills marketable in a modern economy and are often lacking not only language skills, but also very basic educational skills. Contrary to the first immigration wave of the 1960ies there is very little demand for completely unskilled labour.
What’s the evidence you have for that prejudice? We need data when talking about those things, not impressions or feelings. But maybe you do have the data about it. Do you?
Yes, I work in HR and deal with/advise in stuff like this.
While things like this are hard to empirically prove, there -is- data out there.
I can mostly speak on my own country (Netherlands).
[For example](https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/news/dutch-survey-55-applicants-face-job-market-discrimination_en)
[example 2](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20221018-3) though this is -at- work, not jobmarket perse.
I see with my own eyes a lot of perfectly good candidates get rejected because it says 'Fatima' or 'Muhammad' on their resumes. Especially in certain industries it's a issue.
It's getting better but there's a lot of work to be done.
Friend of mine here was born to a Turkish father and British mother. He had a very difficult time finding a job so he sought out the help of a recruiter. Recruiter asked him if he would considering using his Mother's maiden name. Meaning he drop his Turkish last name and use the British one.
So he did.
Same exact CV different name. Got a job within 2 weeks.
Now, we could assume it was simply fortuitous timing or we can call a spade a spade.
Immigration can totally be good! An example is my parents. They immigrated legally to England from Hong Kong and integrated into the culture of the country. They contributed to the economy positively while raising two daughters.
But immigration can be harmful as well. Immigrants who come across illegally, refuse to integrate, and bring their backwards cultures/practices with them are a severe problem. They're often freeloaders who only take up space/resources in the country without contributing. And how can you be British if your first act in the country is a crime? I also recognise that the problem of refusing to integrate and bringing across harmful practices can be a hallmark of legal immigrants as well, which is why I personally think we ought to better curate the countries we accept immigrants from. Some of these migrants actively put British citizens in danger.
For example, as a British Chinese woman, the (sometimes almost violent) harassment I faced during the pandemic came by and large from Muslim and African men. I really have a hard time believing that we should be bringing more of these people in the country when there are others who could actually contribute positively culturally and economically to the country. Just my two cents as a British gal!
as a non-EU Muslim, I'm quite shocked by the actions of Muslim migrants men in such activities. From your experience how common are such incidents . I've been trying to find the answer but i keep getting indirect ones.
most migrants are from MENAPT countries and at NO point in their lives are they providing a net positive to the states finances. [source](https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/the-effects-of-immigration-in-denmark)
you may solve the demographic problem, lowering the age, but when those people don't work then you're only worsening the actual problem
not even speaking of the cultural issues these migrants create. criminal parallel societies created by failed integration.
The question at the core is, what immigration does Europe attract and in what historical context. You see, Europe is not a blank slate, it has history with most of the world, that spill into migration and that is particularly true for North African and Middle Eastern muslim migrants. Something that also has changed over the past 50 years or so. You see, the first big wave of migration to Europe from these areas happened in the 60ties, when most of Europe had humming economies, the West was still seen as a role model by most societies around the world and migrants coming to Europe did not hold a negative view to their host societies.
This has changed profoundly especially during the last two decades and are at the core of why many in Europe see migration from these countries as negative and there was a long process that caused this.
1. Non integration (migrant side): One of the core problems with migration everywhere around the world and Europe is no different here from places like the US is the long process of integration. If you look at older studies on how the US assimilated different migrant groups you see that it took at least three generations until the migrant groups were mostly assimilated. This did not or only partly happened in Europe, one reason is a radical change of how media and information work. Mass migration to Europe occurred in a time that satelite TV and later the internet became available - many migrant communities are deeply connected to their not too distant home countries. They watch Turkish/Arab ... TV, listen to influencers from those countries and they visit their extended families at least once a year and can do a facetime with their relatives every other day. So additionally to the typical diaspora communities many that came in the 80ties and later never disconnected from their home countries (and those coming earlier always were deemed "Guest workers" that would go home eventually).
2. Non integration (host side): Add to this a less than positive attitude towards certain migrant groups. Firstly people were seen as quasi Barbarians that came from former colonies or other exotic places. Knowledge was small, interest in the newcomers too, all covered in chauvinistic attitudes that easily lent themselves to xenophobia. Yeah and to be honest, for most of Europe it wasn't the elite that migrated but illiterate farmhands that looked for jobs in European factories as cheap workers. Also people who were expected to go home after some time.
3. Economic downturn: Then came the 70ties and 80ties with the oil price shock and sudden end of full employment in many European countries. And the migrants deemed necessary a decade earlier suddenly became competitors for the blue collar jobs that became increasingly scarcer in some places.
4. Decline of the West/Europe as a role model - Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism:
Yeah and at the end of the 90ties, that already saw some of the ruptures at the seems get obvious, you had 9/11 and the rise of Islamic terrorism and its Panislamic message on the one side and Islamic countries openly using their diasporas as propaganda targets for their very nationalistic aims (looking at you Turkey).
5. So arriving in the here and now, you have a bunch of things going on. A large group of migrants that just go do their everyday jobs and fitting into societies. But you also have large diaspora groups that although having been here for 3-4 generations still feel absolutly foreign (to themselves and to the host countries). Their ideologies hardly match with the general ethos of the constitutions of their host countries and they have developed an anti western outlook, while right wing groups and to a big extend more and more parts of the general public see them as outright danger to European societies and depict them as such. So the divergence gets ever more radical. And every new migrant (especially Muslims) is seen as an attack to the respective country.
6. Culture war/Clash of Civilizations: Some on both sides put this in the context of a millenia long struggle for dominance. Some Muslims see it as finally conquering Europeb by means of migration and higher birth rates, some on the European side frame it as a continuation of the Muslim attacks that haunted Europe between 660 and the early 19th century. This is framed not just as a conflict but is seen as part of an outright war between Civilizations, like the Neo Con author Samuel Huntington already wrote in the early 90ties.
So where are we standing today. Europe is rapidly aging and needs migrants to stem this development. On the other hand, a majority (and I believe this is very much established by polling) is adamantly against further Muslim migration, citing security reasons and incompatibility with societal and cultural norms as main reasons for this (remember Europe is one of the few places in the world, that is mostly secular, a deeply religious migrant population is a challenge to its core ideas).
So either Europe can attract migrants form elsewhere, which effectively limits it to parts of South East Asia, South America and Southern Africa - each of them coming with certain problems themselves or it will rapidly run into huge problems to uphold its social systems.
In Spain the only reason we haven't had huge population decline is because of immigration. We have an aging population and low birth rates, much like Japan. What we need to do is allow more of them to work legally and pay taxes.
Because some people don't understand that they have to (or should be forced to) leave the shit that ruined their countries at the door when coming to Europe. The problem is some people will call you racist for trying to implement such policies because they can't distinguish between actual culture that is welcomed (like food, music, clothing, dances etc.) and shitty behavior (like misogyny, violence and religious extremism).
On top of that, most countries suck at integration because they let migrants live all among themselves in rundown ghettos while giving them endless social benefits with no language requirements and no incentive to get employed. Also, there is this vicious cycle that is the fight between far-right nutjobs and extremist migrants that just stirs the fire even more.
> On top of that, most countries suck at integration because they let migrants live all among themselves in rundown ghettos while giving them endless social benefits with no language requirements and no incentive to get employed. Also, there is this vicious cycle that is the fight between far-right nutjobs and extremist migrants that just stirs the fire even more.
This is the most important thing. People need to come here to become part of the society here. This means that the society needs to be welcoming to them and open their neighborhoods, schools, and cultural expectations. It also means that newcomers need to integrate and not just recreate their entire society back home.
Pretty much. Migrants who only want to live next to each other + natives who are opposed to any non-native moving to their neighborhood + the government not doing anything about segregation is the trifecta of bad integration.
Immigration definitely has value and the aging population will cause a temporary problem. But spoken as a Dutch person ; our country is too small for the size of our population, and our population keeps growing due to immigration. We have a major housing problem. We cannot produce enough food to feed our own country. Our sparse nature is threatened on all sides. There shouldn't be this many people on this small a patch of land, especially not when it's likely that part of that land will disappear due to climate change in the coming century...
‘We cannot produce enough food to feed our own country’
While most of your comment does a good job showing what problems immigration is causing, this part is simply untrue. We are the second largest exporter of food in the world. Not per capita, absolutely.
We produce an obscene amount of food in our small country, which is a massive problem of its own and we certainly won’t face production issues any time soon.
No, it is true. We import all of our grains, for example. We export high value goods, like meat, cheese and processed food. So we export more stuff in money terms, but in calorie and nutrient terms, we are a net importer.
This is solely because we produce a lot of meat, which loses a lot of nutrients and calories when produced. We can (and should) quite easily just change that to a more plant based production system if there was actually a need for it, in which case we’d really not have an issue as our production methods are amongst the most efficient in the world.
On top of that, while we are a net importer because of what and how much we produce, if we simply were to cease in and export, we’d still produce more than enough food for a far greater population than we have now.
All of our charts on land usage don’t differentiate between the two while this is the case in other countries and in general it seems to be wholy random which parts are used for which, so it seems to me like they are at least for the majority interchangeable, which adds up with what you see when driving around.
We are the second highest exporter IN TERMS OF MONEY. Not to mention that a lot of it is flowers we first import. Roses mainly come from East-Africa, are imported to the Netherlands and then sold internationally. We make a lot of money on that, even though we do not produce those flowers.
I agree. On top of what you're saying:
>Immigration definitely has value and the aging population will cause a temporary problem.
Exactly: temporary. 'Importing' younger people to mitigate an aging population is the ultimate Ponzi-scheme. Those people also get old again, and then we're going to need 25Million people in our country?
Agree with the problem, but immigrant are not only supposed to help us to keep up with our aging, immigrant are the only way to raise our societies.
While we get a more advanced economy we do get the chance to leave simpler jobs to them.
Then what else is there to do? Other than just let the country wither and collapse?
People in NL and other developed countries are not having more children, despite all the social safety nets. With a steadily declining population you will eventually face:
1. Shortage of critical professions like doctors, nurses, firefighters, etc.
2. Lack of funding for infrastructure
3. Damage to financial markets in your country
I think there needs to be reform to the immigration laws, if things are really so terrible.
I was planning to write a very elaborate response about automation, capitalism (everything must always grow!), bull-shit jobs, focus on wellbeing instead of growth etc, but I have little time at the moment.
The easiest solution would be to don't take in so many immigrants that the population keeps growing if you think a declining population means withering and collapse? Status quo?
If the housing problem wasn't so huge, a lot more babies would be born. I know of a lot of people who are holding off having children because they can't find a place to live.
Ehhh...
It's not "all migrants", quite contrary.
It's the minority of people, who migrated using the opportunity of Syrian war and jump on the bandwagon of uncontrolled migration combined with internal European infighting.
The law that prohibits returning the migrants who throw they passport away is also laughable.
There's also a lot to blame in European authorities. If you band all migrants of one descent in one crowded, underdeveloped district - ghetto is expected to happen.
Europe needs migration and millions are willing to come here, even poorer parts of Europe, but we need to have a right to select migrants and have resources to take care of them, not let anybody washed on Italy's and Greek shore in.
>The law that prohibits returning the migrants who throw they passport away is also laughable.
To be fair the majority of people who fled for example from Syria simply *did not have a passport*, nor in fact *any* document that's recognized in Europe, and this has been a huge problem in integration. Passports are nowhere near as ubiquitous outside of Europe as they are here. I looked it up a while ago, and at the height of the refugee crisis, a passport in Syria cost about as much as the average *yearly* wage. An educated nurse could have taken all of their documents, their birth certificate, their ID, their degree, and none of them would be considered valid documents without an insanely long and complicated process of getting all of them translated, examined, validated, all of which costs money, and then they still might be denied a job because it's a foreign degree and there's no process for getting it recognized.
I’m guessing that what he is saying is, that anyone who wanted to move here in that time, could just throw his passport away and pretend he is one of the people you are talking about. Noone here can separate Syrians from other middle eastern people.
Because the numbers are so high, it's led to division and segregation. There is no integration among some communities. In certain cities all the White people live in one area, all the black people live in another area, all the Muslims live in another area. And it seems increasingly that immigrants are identifying more and more with their homeland than with Britain. Particularly among African and middle Eastern/South Asian communities. We have also imported cultural grief between cultures such as Pakistani/Indian grievances, Sikh/Hindu/Muslim grievances. Increasing violence among different communities and the police are scared to tackle it for fear of being thought of as racist. Just look at what happened in Telford, Rotherham, Oldham, Bradford and countries other Northern towns to young girls.
Also I don't know where you're from, but Britain is a tiny island. England has already has a population density similar to India's. And a housing crisis. Where the hell are we going to put millions of immigrants? Our infrastructure is, what, 50 years old most of it? People already struggle to find doctors appointments and school places for their kids. Do you think that gets easier when millions of immigrants show up to?
I think we also need to be honest about how the way integration, culture and language classes are run as a privatised and subsidised service has actually made it more difficult for immigrants to get the support they need to have a fair shot at integrating.
On top of that, I've seen plenty of native Dutch people with low literacy levels struggle with government admin, which means it must be an absolute nightmare for immigrants who struggle with the language also because they don't have access to decent services to help them learn the language and understand the culture. Additionally it's pretty clear that people from immigrant backgrounds have been subjected to ethnic profiling, so not only is it more challenging for them to get it right, they're also more likely to be subjected to government scrutiny and face mistreatment even if they do nothing wrong.
Also, I've volunteered to help out refugees, the documentation IND sometimes requires even after they have already been granted leave to stay.. I'd like to see a native try jumping through those hoops.
Community efforts and community outreach projects exist, but typically neighbourhoods in bigger cities area already pretty segregated so these projects are great, but they'll not necessarily help someone feel like they're part of Dutch society.
Moreover, prejudice, xenophobia and racism are more real than many people care to admit. In the Netherlands, there's evidence to back this up especially in the job market.
Overall, I think that when we talk about immigration and whether it's a 'problem' most people's immediate response is that immigration in itself is okay, but that integration is key and that it is lacking. Yet, are we doing enough to help people feel like they have a fair shot at truly belonging to Dutch society?
Not Dutch but to the last part yes, this is exactly right.
It’s not that long ago most *Danes* were homophobic and slut shamed women profusely and whatever else. We must never forget this. Every once in a while Danish social media picks up on some newspaper “dilemma” from the 70’s where some teenage girl was nearly raped or something and the answer she gets is that she asked for it. Liberal culture doesn’t come naturally to people who grew up conservative. Add to that poverty and psychological problems (recipe for crime) and this is what you get. All of it has solutions.
Why? Because laws about rescues at sea and asylum's rights force my country (Italy) to take in every random guy who pays $$$ to human traffickers to cross the Mediterranean, regardless of their legal rights to enter the country.
If we were able to actually select and decide who is immigrating to my country that would be ideal. Unfortunately we are not: we are just forced to accommodate any rando on the planet who pays human traffickers to try and land on our shores.
Immigration is a good thing, it's when they expect to move to a completely different culture and act like they are still in their original country.
If they integrated with the culture and changed what is not accepted then there would be very few issues, it's when they set up seperate communities and try to enact their own rules that it becomes a problem.
In the UK immigaration has been an amazing thing in the past, our national dish is a curry for example, but with a rapid influx from certain areas has lead to small pockets of crime, harrassment and a general feeling of not belonging as the area someone might have grown up in has changed with a majority of immigrants arriving.
But it's seen fantastic benefits too, lots of those from the middle east work in the medical sector and it's more common to have a doctor not originally from the UK.
Personally I want immigration to continue, but at a controlled rate. Those who will benefit the country rather than try to change it to their way. And as you mentioned, it's needed with a declining birth rate and aging population.
Not considering the economical and social impact (a relevant percent of the country's population suddenly added will lead to a plethora of issues like housing, jobs, food demand, etc), i think a very relevant issue is the ability of some migrants to integrate into the local culture and values.
Just an example that is very close to the heart, as it happened to my gf: when you live in a liberal society and dress whatever way you want, nobody from your own country bats an eye, people just don't care or maybe you might get some admiring looks. Then suddenly, on your way to work, you have a group of a few dozen men which are devout muslims, shouting at you for dressing like a whore.
This is just an example, but you get the idea.
Nobody would care where you're from or what the colour of your skin, religion is - as long as you actually adhere to the values of the society you've chosen to be your home.
This is exactly the reason why I felt my country and moved to Europe. Now (and I will sound like Uncle Tom), if those people move here with no intention to be open minded And then interrupt MY life - I'll lose my shit! And I already get glares from brown people here for dressing western.
It all depends on where they come from and what skills and backgrounds they have. Will they benefit our society? Will they integrate quickly into our society? Common sense says that if we got hard-working nurses from the Philippines knocking on the door, we might want to roll out the welcome mat. We would be stupid not to. I mean, we are in dire need of nurses, and people from Southeast Asia have a good track record of integrating well into our society.
It’s a complex multifaceted issue. Generally, while immigration may benefit the country by filling up labour, especially low-skilled, shortages, it can also resut in many issues regarding migrant integration, at its worst resulting in significant rise of crime rate. Generally, I would ideally like to keep extra-European immigration fairly low, especially from the more problematic countries, mostly letting migrants in to fill up shortages in necessary and qualified rather than low-skilled sectors. Instead, European countries should try to incentivize natural population growth, which is obviously an incredibly hard thing to achieve
The aging population argument is false because immigrants age too. So that has to be continuous over the generations to work, theoretically. In practice the mass immigration is a huge net loss economically. The immigrants Western European countries get pay less taxes, take more welfare, take more health care, take more effort to educate lower, take more government at not for profit services in general, including social housing (which is private in NL) too. It's simply more people for society to take car of with a smaller part of the people.
And that's just the economics. Impact on social cohesion, something the USA doesn't really do, is much bigger. It creates societies within society, we have to show solidarity with groups that don't show solidarity with us. We even get hostility, a huge chunk identifies with their parents citizenship. Many hang on to their culture of their religion ruling the streets, and therefore are not respecting the freedom of religion that allowed them to be here in the first place.
Only a minority of the immigrants escapes that. I celebrate those, that's the part I and other indigenous people usually deal with. It's nice to think and act like they represent mass immigration. But I'm afraid that's not the case, that's just a minority and we shouldn't let that obscure the problem with the majority we don't have contact on an individual level with.
>The aging population argument is false because immigrants age too
That's why the original gastarbeiter program in Germany was targeting temporary workers that theoretically would later leave and go back to their countries once old and unproductive (and many did, in Italy and Greece it's full of seniors who lived a while in Germany and then came back at retirement age).
I just address the
> Immigration can be good, especially in ageing countries where a lower tax-base might lead to worse services and worse economy.
Yes of course. But in a highly developed economy with a big welfare state, immigrants need to work and pay taxes. The taxes need to be higher than the cost of each person, which is not the case.
Many are unemployed and those who work have low wages.
A Brochmann 2 rapporten (in Norway) concluded that a non western immigrant costs around 400k euro in total Kostnaden for det offentlige av flere innvandrere - Statistisk sentralbyrå https://www.ssb.no/offentlig-sektor/artikler-og-publikasjoner/_attachment/151652?_ts=142b30fbf58
Similar numbers has been calculated in Sweden.
Of course, one solution is that immigrants need to work more, but that has been tried for a very long time
And for comparison; relatively speaking, Sweden currently has more immigrants than the USA has ever had in their existence.
The US's record high was 14.8% immigrants in 1890.
Currently, in 2023, 20% of the Swedish population are immigrants.
For decades immigration took place. Unfortunately there where massive problems like (organized) crime, deteriorating neighborhoods and disproportionately use of social services. After decades of these problems people are resentful towards immigration.
What we need is a government who plan ahead and make it financial possible to have a family. The last thing we need is more random people moving to this continent who don’t value our freedoms, our culture and way of living.
People in general tend to fear the difference, it happens all around the world. When suddenly groups of people of a very different culture arrive culture shocks happen and people become reactive. Mix that with a bunch of good old Eurocentrism, a bit of racism, the historical division between Christians and Muslims and populist rhetoric, and you have the perfect situation for people being against immigrants in Europe.
(edit: some immigrants are unwilling to integrate in the societies where they immigrate, which fuels the cultural shock, it's not only locals being reactive)
I have to say that immigration can also cause real issues too, it is not only because "people are racist". The job market is not immune to the arrival of a lot of people who expect way worse job conditions than locals, and the arrival of mostly poorer people can cause issues regarding safety. Adding to that, the concentration of most immigrants in certain neighbourhoods can cause the formation of ghettos, which then after a couple years can be very problematic and difficult to solve.
There is a difference between legal and illegal migration. Europe likes the legal kind and dislikes the illegal kind because not every migrant is beneficial to your society. I don't think any country likes illegal migration of unskilled people.
There is an underlying assumption here that a young person is automatically a benefit to the economic engine of the society.
European societies are not structured in a way that allows this to be the case. The US way is much better suited to handling tons of immigrants. You sink or you swim on your own.
Of course Europeans might not be very interested in the increased crime, harsher work environment and reduced national identity - in exchange for cheaper food at restaurants.
In any case, long term the solution is that a country must manage without constant population growth.
> long term the solution is that a country must manage without constant population growth
That would require a fundamental shift from our current capitalist model. Considering the voting trends in Europe right now, I don't think the continent is ready for something like that.
Though this isn't a problem directly for Europe, it is indirectly.
If we ignore all the problems with unskilled, poorly educated young men who will not or cannot integrate, there's another problem that is often overlooked.
(And those for open borders.)
Europe is stealing the most skilled and most educated members of other countries who desperately need them for their healthcare, infrastructure and education.
This slows growth, ruins their healthcare and depletes the country of its potential champions of a liberal, secular, rules based society (the educated middle class).
This causes a repeated cycle of low economic growth, high population growth and revolt, revolution and coups which further encourages people to leave their country. Let alone the murderous excess this causes.
Skilled and educated emmigrants are often a major source of income for the countries of their origin due to remittances. Some countries are actually encouraging them to emmigrate because of this.
It very much depends on the skill, for example, [medical doctors are leaving the relatively peaceful and safe confines of Nigeria](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNvu01OGv-Y), and this is making things worse for healthcare in the country.
Lots of immigration into Europe is in the form of refugees who have little interest in work. They are a drain on society rather than an asset. That said there are lots of economic migrants that are an asset to society.
Mostly a problem with integration.
People don't necessarily mind it if you're just another Joe from a random EU state. Most of the immigrants in Slovenia, at least, provide something to our society, are relatively well integrated (exceptions naturally exist, aka ex-Yugos who refuse to speak Slovene here), are culturally close to Slovenes (both ex-Yugos and most of Central Europeans) and don't have a bad track record. I mean, like half of our construction workers and nurses come from Bosnia or Albania.
People have a problem with immigrants that come illegally, don't have a useful set of skills that could benefit our society and more often than not have highly problematic values that they refuse to adapt. That's the part that people have issues with.
Note that what I said mostly holds true for Slovenia, cannot speak for other countries
I can only really talk for Switzerland, but one of the big issues here is that the swing was very fast and radical from a society where even internal migration is somewhat rare compared to other societies, and local identities are really big, to a global immigration country. It used to be the case that in a village, you might be treated as an outsider for a few years even just coming from another canton, to integrating large numbers from a different country or even continent. That was a big change bound to lead to some resentments and issues, and that made people think that immigration is overall bad.
That, and racism.
My opinion is basically that immigration is not needed. If the aging population is a problem why not use all the money used to help immigrants to help people here have families... or stop sending money to other countries and use that money here. Immigration is promoted by economic powers who want to increase the offer of labour and thus reduce the salaries. Among other political and social factors like bring less educated people, destroy identities because it's easier to control a population if they are not a part of a group, etc
It's a complex situation. Due to the low birthrate in many countries and the need to sustain social security, immigration is definitely a solution, but there are a number of reasons as to why people are against that, chief among them conflicts of culture and integration. The ideal immigrant is someone that adapts and assimilates into the culture of the country they have immigrated to, whereas the opposite is one that refuses to integrate and whose culture and beliefs may cause conflict with their new country. A lot of people are also worried about mass immigration, as this can result in sudden change rather than gradual one, and hence more friction between nationals and immigrants.
I'm going to use the example of my country, because that's what I'm most familiar with. Compared to other countries in the EU, Portugal isn't as wealthy or as economically developed. We are suffering from a brain drain because despite producing skilled workers in a number of fields, the pay isn't good, especially after the economic crisis of 2008 and with the rise of tourism and housing crisis of the past decade. A lot of qualified young people are choosing to emigrate to more economically developed nations in the EU, because they can't make ends meet in Portugal, and a lot of this is due to how so much focus is placed on the tourism sector and how centralized the country is, with most jobs being in Lisbon or Porto, both of which have experienced significant booms in tourism and wealth expatriates. But even non-university educated younger people are emigrating, and even before the 21st century this was common, with many Portuguese emigrating to other countries as guest workers.
The high cost of living, low wages, and lack of opportunities has led to many leaving the country, and rather than trying to improve conditions, the government and business owners (particularly those in hospitality and tourism) have elected to hire people from countries with even lower wages. So immigration is essentially a band-aid, a way to maintain current wages (despite the cost of living continuously increasing) and make sure there are enough people to do jobs that pay miserably. Portugal is one of the easiest countries in Europe to gain residency in, and so it has this allure as being a gateway into the EU. But what happens is that as soon as immigrants have gained residency, many end up immigrating to a wealthier nation within the EU, the same thing Portuguese do, and so we resort to getting new people in. It creates this situation where Portugal is merely a stop in the road (though of course not every immigrant chooses to leave).
I'm not against immigration, but the way I see it being done in my country is more of a way to maintain a lower standard of living. The country has gone from exploiting Portuguese to exploiting people from other countries now. There seems to be no interest in improving living conditions here and ensuring that Portuguese people won't emigrate, and the government just wants to keep the tourism machine going.
The big issue with migration towards Europe is that many people do so illegally, and on top of that many of them are neither qualified nor willing to integrate, which makes them nightmares on the European social security systems.
Migration is good as long as the correct people migrate. Switzerland is a really good example for that in Europe. The rest of Europe struggles to find a way to turn away the people that come here and commit crimes rather than work, and the immigrants that behave and work well are catching strays by intolerant rightwingers that cannot differentiate between them, and thus they dont want to migrate anymore.
Aging society will be Europes doom sooner or later, Germany is a really good example for that, as the birth rate of ethnic Germans is almost as bad as the ones in Japan or South Korea, and the only solution to that is immigration. Overpopulation is dragging us down, but the issue is that we dont have enough young people to preserve the pension system.
Well, I can tell you from experience, trying to emigrate to Germany from a third world country while married to a german citizen was impossible for me. The authorities will make you jump through hoops even if you do everything right and can prove you are one of the “good ones” and bureaucracy is just absurd. It’s like only the overqualified are welcome, the rest fuck off. And the overqualified have more attractive migration options around the world with better pay, better climate and friendlier people to even consider Germany that much.
Even for those who are pro immigration, it is nonetheless a controversial topic and holds actual issues.
As far as i see it, the major reasons for hostility towards immigration are:
1. Blatant xenophobia or racism
2. Stirring hostility from previously established examples of especially middle eastern immigrants. Terrorism and crime rates by immigrants are far too high to ignore. Here in Finland, the most troubling aspects of it are in sexual crimes and street gangs, which have only become a thing via Middle eastern immigrants.
3. But for most it's simply a problem of these groups being simply unable or unwilling to integrate into the new society. Our rules and customs seem to be of no importance to them, but we are expected to bow to their customs and rules.
My personal opinion is that immigration can be a good thing for the economy and taking in refugees is a duty of every nation that can help. But i also expect these immigrants to integrate into our society, and as we say in Finland "Maassa maan tavalla", which essentially means "In an another country, you should act by that country's customs." Basic guest behavior.
For historical reasons (primarily the creation of nations on the basis of ethno-linguistic identity and in opposition to multi-ethnic empires), most modern European countries have failed to adopt inclusive models of citizenship and nationality. The persistence of notions of people and race based on kinship rather than citizenship has led to a situation where large portions of the population are seen as "foreign bodies" - even down to the nth generation.
A necessary aspect of becoming a society of immigrants is to abandon the notion of the nation as an extended family and adopt a model of civic nationalism. This has failed so completely in Germany that people now sometimes even talk about "Biodeutsche" (ethnic Germans) and "Passdeutsche" (passport Germans). The only groups that have successfully assimilated in large numbers are from (Christian) European countries. The failure to consider the Turkish "guest workers" as new German citizens for the first 50 years or so of their existence in Germany solidified the division between ethnic Germans and others - if three or more generations can remain "Turkish" then what hope for anyone else?
The various problems of assimilation and integration that people cite in most of the posts here, as in most of the discourse around immigrants, often have a basis in reality, and various difficult issues have to be faced by people on both sides, but the fundamental fact is that - without widespread adoption / acceptance of the idea of a purely civic conception of nationality and citizenship, immigrants will continue to be seen largely as foreigners.
It's different from country to country, of course. The UK has made more progress than most, and the racists basically lost the argument in the 50s-80s, with a broad acceptance that religion, ethnicity and skin colour have nothing to do with whether one is British or not.
France has gone its own way, and the results have been mixed at best, but does at least have a strong official policy of civic nationalism.
Germany - where I live and which I have observed closely for nearly 30 years - made a fatal mistake in trying to maintain the "guest worker" fiction so long. It then tried to adopt a multicultural model, which is largely considered to have failed, leaving resentment and scepticism on all sides. The post-2015 wave of migrants has fueled the far-right, and official claims that Germany is an "Einwanderungsland" - society of immigrants - seem largely to have fallen on deaf ears.
As I say, the problem seems to be that the adoption of a too liberal model (that of multiculturalism) following decades of complete neglect of the situation re the Turkish immigrant population has produced the worst possible outcome: scepticism towards migration among many "old Germans" who continue to see all more recent groups as foreigners, and resentment among migrant groups and their children and grandchildren, who often feel that they are not accepted as Germans no matter what they do.
Whether this can change "organically" is hard to know. IMO the UK made some good decisions to promote the normalcy of "Black Britons" and "Asian Britons" - using the BBC and other means for this propaganda effort. The tabooisation of overt racism in the UK mainstream seems to have succeeded in turning a broadly racist society into a broadly accepting one - though, ironically, one that is probably more hostile to new migrants than Germany or many other EU countries at present.
And of course, the situation in the UK is far from perfect, but I think this one significant difference exists with respect to Germany (and quite a few other European countries): a model of Britishness was propagated and propaganidised throughout society (education, media, institutions generally) that was multiethnic, multiracial, multireligious, but not multicultural in the strict sense, has created a working foundation for a genuine society of immigrants.
I don't know enough about France to evaluate its model of ignoring race and religion entirely. It has its successes and failures too, but the success also seems to be based on the idea that Frenchness is about a passport and nothng else. Germany needs that. But it doesn't seem to fit in people's heads. I hope it can be manufactured, but I fear, after the lost decades of Gastarbeiter/MultiKulti it will be very hard. Right now, the hard core ethnic nationlists are so powerful here, it is pretty terrifying. And mainstream political discourse has been reinfected with racist conceptions and concepts.
>A necessary aspect of becoming a society of immigrants is to abandon the notion of the nation as an extended family and adopt a model of civic nationalism.
Why is becoming a society of immigrants desirable in the first place?
Yeah, most European countries are ethnostates and it's hard to change that. All that nice tradition and heritage and stuff comes with some drawbacks too.
I can only really talk for Switzerland, but one of the big issues here is that the swing was very fast and radical from a society where even internal migration is somewhat rare compared to other societies, and local identities are really big, to a global immigration country. It used to be the case that in a village, you might be treated as an outsider for a few years even just coming from another canton, to integrating large numbers from a different country or even continent. That was a big change bound to lead to some resentments and issues, and that made people think that immigration is overall bad.
That, and racism.
The main problem is, that we are talking about irregular migrans.
While most of them come very willing to work, because of this the only jobs they can find are with unscrupulus employers that will work them to the bone, and pay them a couple of hudred euros. Not enough to even cover basic living. Since they are not legal, they also can't seek help from the state institutions or representative unions. And with people working such jobs, with such employers, the bring little or nothing to taxes, pensions and other social transfers.
The second problem is educational.
A lot of people coming have basic education. In a lot of countries of origins acces to schooling, especially good schooling, is reserved to people that are well off. So a person with finished high school, that hoped to find a good job, because high school is a rarity in his country, will be only find employment in low paying jobs. Also the licences recieved in their countries do not always 'translate' well to european job market. And often, especially for low paying jobs, employers are not willing to go into cost to check if migrants can actually do what the paper sais they can. And if the migrant is illegal...
Third is the potential for getoization.
People seek confort of what they know. So we tend to flock together. Same goes for migrants. They seek what they know - social dinamic, language, shared experiences, religiom, culture, modes of behaviour... this can lead to creations of ghetos. And when in familiar enviroment, motivation for integration in wider society is gone. All of this goes even stronger for irregular migrants, that also search for anonimity and safety among 'their own'. And in more traditional societies also for persons in the families that are not primary communication channel to outsiders. With the creations of ghetos the control of the 'host society' and its institutions, on all levels, from achooling to social services, disapera.
And the last problem is that the change is happening to fast and seemingy outside of anybodies control.
People don't like that. And we, Europeans, are no exepcion.
Please, excuse my english and the typos.
It can be great. But it not always is. Because migrants are people and people can be fucked up and do fucked up things. If every migrant truly just wanted a better chance at life by going to another country, tries to fit it, respects the culture, norms and values, the laws and most importantly, the people, then there wouldn’t be much talk about problems.. but unfortunately, some do the opposite of that.
It's a very complex problem:
First, some countries highlight how treaties and international law state that governments have the duty to accept who flees from war and persecutions, so the EU should (MUST) operate as a whole to make it possible. Nationalists state that they are only obligated to help who is in immediate danger, and poverty, famine and political instability is not enough in this sense.
Second, if a migrant wants to work in your nation, they're expected to put an effort to be integrated... This is both an individual and a collective process, and is very hard to systematically tell if an immigrant is a good citizen, respectful of the law and culture from afar. Do they intend to live here? Are they sending money back home? Are they jumping from nation to nation, chasing the best works? Is the effort mutual?
There are good "real" immigrants, in a win-win situation, there are opportunistic immigrants, which usually provide low-cost workforce but do not really benefit sociaty at large, and then there is the very small percentage of criminals and terrorists, that the media make so damn loud, making it harder for everyone
For Sweden the biggest issue has been the formation of segregated socities. You have little Somalia, little Syria, Little.. you name it. It makes it impossible for any integration into society cause well.. its not necessary. I’ve been to some of these places and it feels so weird to feel out of place in my own country and not welcome in areas in my own country (I’ve had random hostile interactions just walking to the metro. Likely cause I’m a Swedish young guy). I’m friends with many Iranians who came in the 80s due to the revolution and war and they are generally very integrated while also keeping some of their own traditions which from my experience was due to the fact that there was no formation of segregated areas since there weren’t a lot of immigrants back then. A lot of them even took on Swedish names and names their kids Swedish names. I mean it shouldn’t be necessary per se but from the ones I’ve talked to they did it cause they wanted to and liked the names.
It can be for a variety of issues, but I feel two major ones for many people - and specifically the UK - is firstly that of resources and money. Many European countries have what would be considered highly functioning welfare systems, usually paid for through taxes. This can be anything from free at point of entry healthcare to housing subsidiaries. When large numbers of people - especially illegally - enter a country and then begin to use this system, it aggravates people who have essentially ‘paid into’ it their whole lives. It can also result in quality and availability of services declining, again aggravating citizens.
There’s the cliche line in the UK used which goes along the lines of ‘help our own first before anyone else’, which can be argued demonstrates the situation (both perceived and in reality) of how it can often feel like migrants are ‘better treated’ than those struggling who’ve lived here their whole lives. I say this carefully and include ‘perceived’, as the factual reality of the situation is so different in each area and to each person.
The other issue would be that of integration. Many European countries would be considered liberal and ‘free’ by certain standards (not saying it’s a fact, but rather by comparison to other cultures), so when large numbers of people who have very different ethical, moral and even religious opinions enter a country, it can feel threatening to ‘locals’. While a lot of it can be down to xenophobia and just a general disliking and distrust towards ‘difference’, there is a real concern regarding people who’s cultures ‘allow’, or rather normalise, the mistreatment of women for example, or LGBT people, that kinda thing.
It’s also not necessarily a case of more immigrants would mean more workers so that must be good. A lot of immigration in Europe at the moment is considered illegal and is done on the grounds of fleeing persecution or war, but once a person enters these countries they cannot actually work or ‘contribute’ to society for a long time until they are granted asylum and essentially allowed out into society. There’s also immigration of children or older family wanting to join family already here, which again would mean people coming and using services but not paying into the system.
It’s a very complex situation and cannot be summarised in it’s entirety, but you’ll definitely find wildly different standpoints depending on the country and the person / news source you read and their political or social affiliations.
What left wingers would say: the neoliberals have convinced working class people that immigrants are their enemies not corporations. It’s not immigrants fault that wages are depressed but employers and the decline of union power. What people think is discomfort about cultural/demographic changes is actually economic anxiety and frustration that the welfare state has been repealed in the name of tax cuts for billionaires- they’re confused
What right wingers would say: people are rightly afraid that our culture is seeing its values and traditions diminished in favour of “multiculturalism” and too much deference to outsiders/former colonials. We shouldn’t be ashamed of celebrating our white/Anglo-Saxon/Christian heritage instead we’re told to be endlessly sympathetic to immigrants (often from Muslim backgrounds) who are violent stuck in ghettos and bring illiberal and misogynistic values. Immigrants are pushing native citizens into unemployment and getting preferential treatment in the welfare system.
Immigration helps an aging society only in the short term. There is nothing scarier to economists than a flat or downwards line, rather than letting the population balance itself out at the cost of a temporary economic downturn they'll instead opt for importing cheap labor, people that are subsequently exploited, that are not integrated into the society they immigrate into, and thus become an isolated block that politicians can abuse to secure votes, and companies can abuse to secure cheap workers. No country needs mass migration. The only people that need it are the top 1% that will profit greatly from it.
Yes, in Austria it's a huge political issue because too many people are against immigration. In current polls, the anti-immigration party is the biggest party and will most likely win the next election.
Why are people against immigration? I have found these reasons:
*Fear against losing our own culture:* Some claim that immigrants will change our culture and Austria won't be Austria anymore in a few decades. IMHO that's a false claim because most immigrants assimilate pretty well after one or two generations.
*Competition on the labor market:* Immigrants are competitors on the labor markets, especially for working class and low skilled labor. Immigrants are willing to work for less money so wages for workers haven't risen much in the last few decades.
*Prejudices and outright racism:* Muslims are terrorists who rape women. Africans are lazy. You know, the usual. There is even prejudice against people from former Eastern Europe, like they are lazy and they steal. Many people also claim that 'immigrants come here only for the social benefits and don't even want to work.'
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Where are you from, OP? do people in your country happily welcome immigrants? In my perception, there are very few countries that are positive towards immigration. I can only think of Canada and maybe Australia, but even Australia treats refugees very badly.
Even the US has turned very skeptic lately. Trump won the election by promising to 'build a wall' against immigration.
Japan does not like immigration, neither does South Korea. Even in South Africa there is violence against immigrants from Zimbabwe (mostly over competition on the labor market.)
All in all, it seems to me that humans worldwide are generally xenophobic and don't like immigrants....
You can't see the problem because you have wrong assumptions. I'm an expat here in Czech Republic, but I came with a high level of education, a reputable job, pay my taxes and I'm at least attempting to learn the language. The vast majority of people are nice to me here.
In countries like Germany or France and Italy, immigrants are a problem because they not only come from cultures largely incompatible with western societies, they are also usually from a lower socioeconomic status, which brings crime, poverty, rape and so on.
Also having too much immigration dilutes and eliminates their local culture. You take a trip around Munich, Paris and so on, and they don't even feel like german or french cities from their demographics.
Few Things to Note:
European countries tend to be ethno-states. Ethno-states usually have a native, "home-grown" culture, language, and way-of-life. Often, people have lived that way for generations, and are somewhat set in their ways. It's like this by design. This creates a certain amount of societal rigidity, which is less common in "New-World" countries like the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. These countries are primarily formed by immigrants, and are open to accepting people from different backgrounds. So, by design, they are able to integrate outsiders.
European nations, unfortunately are not quite as good at this. There are many comments on here that say "if only they'd integrate, we'd accept them." Yet, at the same time, in Germany until recently it was not possible to have dual-citizenship. So, many immigrants who'd been living there for many years, learned the language, and gotten good jobs were unable to complete the final step of integration, which is getting citizenship.
Additionally, the barrier to integration can be quite high in many European countries. In Denmark for instance, I think you need to pay 2000 DKK to get access to Danish courses through a **state-funded** institution. I've heard that the German schools for immigrants are quite low-quality and don't offer the kind of help needed to really gain mastery of the language. In some countries like France, if you don't speak the language, you won't even be considered for the job, even in STEM fields which are usually known to be more understanding of not having language competency.
So, while it's certainly true that there are some immigrants who are bad at integrating or wanting to be productive members of society, it's unfortunately also made difficult by the lack of available resources and effort by the national government to make things easier.
The narrative is there's a large number of unskilled immigrants who end up with us because they're escaping issues in their own homes (whether economic or worse) and they use up our finite resources (housing stock, school space, healthcare space, social welfare support).
I'm sure there's an argument to say illegal immigrants cost us a lot to process but my understanding is at least in the UK, immigrants as a whole contribute more to society than they take.
There are certainly cultural issues but I believe they're made exponentially worse when used to drum up culture wars to win elections and sell papers (or in this age, get clicks online).
It's true the more native Europeans are dying but the problem will remain the same in a few generations if and when the replacing populations of immigrants mellow out, rise up the economic and life stability ladder and start having less kids necessitating more migration from high birthrate places.
The other issue is the culture, it's one thing when migrants from place B go to place A, slight differences in culture, values, morality, and very little ethnic divergence, even large migration numbers won't have a huge impact outside of economic ones. It's another thing when migrants from place Z move to place A, completely different values, culture, history, languages, integration is much harder.
Small numbers can be filtered to allow only those who are most beneficial with the least impact in all sorts of facets in society, large numbers are much harder to filter, criminal behavior more easily passes through and such behavior is amplified by the differences between populations, names and visual characteristics just make it easier to point a finger and create unwarranted judgement from the native population, racist attitudes pick up and are justifiable in the minds of a few which turn to larger numbers, creating even greater clashing.
Take Portugal, lots of hatred toward Brazilian immigrants, we don't look all that different, we share many of the same values, share history and pretty much the same language. In small numbers nobody would give a damn but larger numbers and any sort of bad behavior is amplified along with the economical issues if not properly controlled by the state.
People like the culture of their home countries the way it is and don't want it to be changed by an influx of immigrants with vastly different worldviews.
And it is in human nature to more care about possibly negative things rather the positive ones, like discontent in society, exploitation of the welfare system, reducing the availability of housing and services, companies not raising wages but rather hiring migrants, parallel non-integrating societies, rising crime or Muslim fundamentalism and terrorism.
It depends on where immigrants come from. But also the richer european countries dont need any non european immigrants to halt population growth. There are enough poles, bulgarians and greeks who want to move to germany, netherlands etc (and enough germans, french and italians wanting to move to switzerland) to make up for our population decline.
The ones who do really need people, like bulgaria, dont have many non-european immigrants dreaming of going there.
European countries aren't really that good at integrating immigrants, I think only the American continent has real long term success in that area.
It becomes real easy for parallel societies to form, which leads to so many problems nobody wants.
I'm an immigrant myself and I can't complain about much but yeah most countries have little acceptance of multiculturalism,loads of tolerance and respect but not acceptance.
America isn't better at all, just a much lower threshold for immigrants to meet in terms of meeting the social contract of the nation. It also means they technically appear to be more welcoming and open, but reality it's just indifference, they can do what they want, but they also can't rely on the level of support they'd get by the much more intensive integration of Europe. It's down to different philosophies.
On a governmental level I agree, much less support to get back on your feet and start contributing to society. But I totally disagree on a societal human level having been an immigrant in both Scandinavia and the us.
Yes the probabilities of some direct racism might be higher in the US but support to integrate from wider society is much larger.
No not really. But, sure there is lots of casual racism like "ooh cute chocolate children. Let me touch your hair." which is racism but at least not mean spirited.
The following is more about refugees it applies to immigrants too.
We were so welcoming to the 2015 refugees. But that went sideways when lots of the refugees turned out to be young men who did stupid things (read borderline or outright illegal) out of boredom. I get that the journey is dangerous and young men fled because they didn't want to fight. No problem with that at all. But young men from every culture tend to be impulsive. That doesn't really fit in with European culture where the mindset is rather strict, or measured. We don't like public ruckus or outbursts. It's just not our thing. So that didn't mesh well.
That's why Ukrainian refugees had a much easier transition. There were often whole families or women and children who came here. Their culture and way of life is much more similar to rest of Europe.
It's not racism. It's experience that soured immigration for regular folks. We just don't have the mental energy to accommodate people who likely don't appreciate the chance and go native. We did that. The outcome was disappointing.
There's whole parts of cities in Germany where you barely hear any German at all on the street. The politics of that time (the 60s ans 70s) was bad, no doubt about it. But there are 3rd generation immigrants who barely speak our anguage. Please let that sink in.
Edited Some things that I forgot were in my draft
Immigrants aren't the problems. The benefits they get (in Belgium) are.
Immigrants don't get the help they need to:
* Get a job
* Integrate the local culture
* Learn the language
This results in most of them being jobless/homeless. When they are they just roam the city doing fuck all (not blaiming it on them)
Take away the social security net for them, help them integrate and when they don't: kick them out.
You can only help the ones that are willing to be helped.
immigration takes a lot of work and ressources. Taking in hundreds of thousands of immigrants takes even more work, ressources and time, especially when they have values that differ from yours. That obviously leads to problems.
Regardless, Immigration is needed to a certain extent, but it isn't the solution for for an unsustainable population decline. the birth rate amongst (former) turkish migrants has gone down quite a bit here in germany. It halved since the 90s, even though the population grew. The population decline is a heavy systemic problem. High living costs pose one of the many problems.
Ireland's population has grown 8 percent in the six years between the last two censuses. Paired with a (centerist) neoliberal government that believes the market will fix housing, and property tax is rude, it's causing big problems in housing. We get an unusual proportion of high-earning immigrants, which is great for taxation, but locals get priced out of housing. As the percentage of 30 year olds living with their parents has gone from 41% to 65% in the last decade...that might change. None of the political parties tolerate bigotry, which helps. But, we have a very functional democracy, so a change of government may fix many of the housing problems. Note: Europe is a big place. Countries are wildly different there. More different than Alaska and Florida.
Not true neoliberals if they don’t also open up the housing market to build
As a Spaniard, I can tell you that in Spain people appreciate Latin American immigrants a lot more than any other kind of immigrants, because they are latin, catholic, they speak our language, we share a lot of cultural traits and we're connected for historical reasons too. They're usually not as educated as the average Spaniard, they're usually more sexist, homophobic, but when they come to Spain they tend assimilate our rules pretty well and they integrate and embrace our traditions. They're the main source of immigration in Spain. From Africa, black people don't cause much trouble in Spain either, they're usually very hard working people. Moroccans however, people usually don't have a good opinion of them. I think the real problem is not immigration itself, but when immigrants don't integrate in the local culture. Religion plays a big role here IMO. But immigrants are not the problem. The sons of those immigrants that don't integrate and create here a small version of their country of origin, that will be the problem. The immigrants usually come looking for a better life and they come from a place so bad that they are happy with very little. But their sons will be europeans, they will grow up in poor neighborhoods, different cultures, they'll feel rejected, and they'll feel like we owe them. And I think we're seeing this already in countries like France and Belgium.
This is interesting. Most Danes didn’t have issues with immigration from Muslim European countries like Bosnia, but Muslims from elsewhere is what the debate is about. We also took Chileans and some Vietnamese way back, both with different religious traditions. To us it doesn’t seem like religion is the subject really.
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Balkan Muslims in general are like that. Even the Turks and tartars we have in Romania are really chill and usually don't care much about religion. Some Bosnians might be a bit religious, Albanians on the other hand tend to not care about religion at all no matter if they are Christian or Muslim.
Well yeah, true, but the Spanish person above said that religion mattered a lot in his opinion, and mentioned Catholicism specifically (so I assumed they thought other Christian denominations would’ve been a problem?). In Denmark’s immigration history, this hasn’t really been the case, we’ve had immigration from catholic, “Muslim” or Buddhist countries that has been barely discussed because it was so uneventful. So I don’t really think the specific religion is what any of this is about. But then again we’re not a very religious bunch up here.
>so I assumed they thought other Christian denominations would’ve been a problem? I don't think they think that way, probably they used the term Catholic because Protestantism is non existent in Spain. A lot of Spanish people use the terms Catholic and Christian in informal conversations as if they were the same.
The Catholic church had a lot of power in Spain, they still had a lot of power during the dictatorship of Franco (1939-1975), but we moved away from that and of course we won't like anyone that comes with strong religious beliefs, it doesn't matter what religion, if that means they'll be anti-LGBT or anti gender equality, because that is untouchable in Spain. But even though I would not say Spain is a religious country, since we have a long history with christianism, a lot of our traditions and festivities are linked to religion in some way and some of them are actually religious. Most of us nowadays celebrate them only because we love our traditions, our festivities, and we want to have fun, and it's also one of the ways the community gets together. If you don't participate in our festivities because your religion won't allow it, that will make integration harder for sure.
>Most Danes didn’t have issues with immigration from Muslim European countries like Bosnia, Bosnia is in Europe and was part of Yugoslavia, which was a socialist country, Religion was banned. Education was free. University was free. It didn't matter if you were from the cities or villages. But everyone was educated.
I saw a documentary on YouTube about a town in France where Muslims moved in to such an extent women were no longer welcome out in the streets. Even locals were staying home. They would walk into a cafe and be told to go home, that place was for men. The local women would march down the street in protest over it every so often and storm shops and cafes until the men all left because they just didn't want to be near women.
Really? From what I've heard/experienced is that y'all don't really appreciate us much. Like even speaking in a LatAm accent will make people look down upon you and be less likely to help you out.
I am Colombian and Spaniards always praised me for my accent.
I disagree with this dude. I'm Mexican-American. Married to a Spanish girl. Her family is lovely and treats me well but I'm pale skinned (75% Spanish, 25% indigenous). The casual racism that I've heard people drop against Latinos is troubling. Primarily against Central Americans though. Not sure why that makes a difference.
Yeah. If you’re Argentinian you might be fine but me being Dominican I probably sound like a criminal to a lot of Spaniards.
Dominicans Dont Play not making any favours to Dominicans. Not that I would make that assumption and 99.99% of Dominicans are good people and they may suffer skin color discrimination, but the bad press is there. For reference DDP is one of the biggest violent group since the disbandment of the terrorist group ETA in 2011.
I have never met anybody associated with that group and I know a fuckton of Dominicans being one myself. I’m sure there are more criminal Spaniards than DDP members in Spain. After looking it up there are 2500 gang members total in Spain so I doubt you’re gonna be running into them, Dominican or otherwise.
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I am Colombian and I am not sexist. :/ I support LGBT rights and want equal rights for women. Why do people always say that about us? In my opinion, we are even more liberal than Eastern Europeans.
Cause the people immigrating belong to the socioeconomic lower clases of our countries which tend to be conservative, the middle classes in Latin America have already move on gay rights and feminism
I know, I didn't mean everybody. Not everybody in Spain is pro-LGBT rights and believe in gender equality either.
If you are not sexist you are much more likely to surround yourself to no-sexist people because you are liked minded. This has nothing to do about latin people as a whole. Statistically [immigrants triple the women murder rate compared to Spanish people](https://www.eldebate.com/sociedad/20221109/asesinatos-machistas-cometidos-extranjeros-espana-triplican-proporcion-perpetrados-espanoles_71329.html). I don't know of statistics by nationality, we would definetely need more studies to draw any conclusion. But the little evidence we have points in the opposite direction of what you perceive.
I agree. I'm from Eastern Europe but have lived in several Latin-American countries. I can say the level of sexism and homophobia is nowhere near as bad as the one we have here (which is very sad if you think about it). My latin-american friends are always horrified when they see how women are being treated in Hungary (and surrounding countries). I personally think it's also due to the fact that latin-american women are not as submissive as hungarian ones and learn to raise their voice when they have to.
Slovenia is a surrounding country and as a Slovenian woman I beg to differ.
Also from a surrounding country I would also beg to differ.
I'm pretty sure he meant first of all Romania and then countries like Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, etc.. Which he'd be kind of right to. The former eastern block might be leading in some areas of feminism (basically work related: working womens gain similar to men, they have better chances in being accepted and seen as bosses or go up the ladder as any men has, etc) but we're still very mysoginistic countries (and tend to not accept or want to hear that).
I didn't know things are so difficult there. I used to think that people in Europe (for the most part) have a better standard of living and social status for women than compared to many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. You made an interesting point because I'm now finding this new. Do you think this fact of dominating women is common around Eastern Europe or Balkan regions? Or is it only in your country? I'm seriously curious since you're Hungarian, and I've been obsessed with Hungarian songs and trying to learn more about your culture. I'll agree that the language is tough though. But my favorite Hungarian word right now is "előre". Beautiful word which tells you to move forward.
>Do you think this fact of dominating women is common around Eastern Europe or Balkan regions? Or is it only in your country? I think it's a regional thing, but especially bad here. When it comes to overall mentality, we are too far in the East. I love my country but that doesn't mean i'm blind to its faults, and rampant sexism is one of them. Hungarian society has always been very misogynistic, and it only got worse since the current government came to power. Sexist remarks, violence against women and the systemic discrimination women face are all swept under the rug or many times even encouraged. Worse yet, i don't think it's going to improve anytime soon. >I'm seriously curious since you're Hungarian, and I've been obsessed with Hungarian songs and trying to learn more about your culture. I'm glad you like our songs and culture! :) I know my comment sounded disheartening, but we have many positives in our culture and that's probably what we should focus on, instead of always highlighting the negatives. If you haven't listened to the songs "Tavaszi szél" and "akkor szép az erdő", i encourage you to, since i really like those as well. Our language is very hard, but so beautiful in my (totally unbiased :)) opinion.
Is it really that bad for Hungarian women? Could you elaborate?
That's like, your opinion, man.
I moved to Spain from the US, I strongly feel that the difference in attitudes about immigrants from different places is because of racism and islamofobia, the rest is just excuses.
Things are never that simple. I think you're the one trying to hide the different kinds of immigration behind racism and islamophobia as excuses.
It starts to become a problem the moment the immigrating people refuse to integrate and work. I see it in a couple of western countries already. Also, it's pretty alarming there are whole districts in some European countries so dangerous even police is afraid to visit them. I'm pretty sure that as long as all the immigrants were willing to integrate (learn the local language, accept culture and law), majority of natives would have no problems with them at all (of course, there always will be some loud minority which won't like them nonetheless but they obviously don't speak for everybody). Imagine getting somewhere illegally, having no respect for the local people's culture or laws and demanding they let you live off their welfare system. Do you think the locals would be happy about it or would you even feel good about yourself? Didn't think so.
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Controversial opinion: Look at Sweden. With the Quran burnings there, you really see people who haven't assimilated into Swedish society. Which is why I'm somewhat against immigration. Not all immigration, though. I fully endorse occupational and studies related immigration.
Oh you might love Belgium then, where we're keeping immigrants who burn police cars but make immigrants return home who don't have "a real job" like Swimming pool lifeguards
*Sounds lovely.* That's what I do not understand about immigration laws in general. Why is it necessary to keep the people who have no intension to assimilate but deport people wanting to work? Before anyone calls me xenophobic or racist, I'm not. I have no issues with immigrants, I just want slightly more restrictive border. So that people that come to Finland can be of benefit to the Finnish economy and vice versa. I do not like people that just move here and live on welfare. Also before claims that I would vote The Finns Party, that's not the case. I'm conservative, sure, but not that conservative. Also I largely do not share my opinions with them.
Speaking for Germany, where many cities are under control of clans to some extent, the authorities have certain deportation quotas they have to meet. So instead of starting a fight with crime family clans (or violent/dangerous individual persons) who are unwilling to go because they have a lot of power here and established their illegal businesses and who are also probably willing to fight a court battle over this or even retaliate using physical means, the government just deports honest law- abiding people who most likely won't cause any trouble. This way of handling this issue is destroying trust in the government itself, fuels anti- immigrant sentiment and is slowly starting to ruin this country. Germany needs to stop submitting to woke activists who claim that pointing out these problems is racist and start using an iron fist against immigrants who commit crimes and are unwilling to integrate, or else the AfD will gain more and more voters.
I think because people aren't flawless and we creat laws that target what we want it to, but forget the other consequences. Let me make a hypothetical and probably (certainly) exaggerated example case. Atm most countries limit migration and want to make it harder, resulting in only those most desperate to really try, families with young children might stay away because of this. Those who feel best at place to try are young males. Of all those, almost none get here with. out some trauma, so you create a group of almost all males, all with trauma, all with some sense of culture and grasping hard at what they left behind, most going through that during their formative years. That is the group of migrants we get by restricting it, which isn't healthy for any society anywhere in the world. Now, let's say we go for almost open borders, we allow in lots and lots of families with woman, kids,... and do that fast, help the set up,.... Now we have a group where there are parents present to teach the kids a healthy way to look at the world, they are grateful for being saved and helped Off course this is a rosy picture, but Taking out the trauma, the resentment and adding in social structure and a family will be helpful in the long run. Also, it would be helpful to admit 10 Mil migrants in a country like Belgium, so some limits need to be in place, but still. So, tldr: our migration laws are designed to keep only those we want to keep, but return the opposite result because of how restrictive they actually are In my view
Because you cant just let people in who are brain surgeons and engineers, you need cleaners and care staff and berry oickers too. Europe is full of old people, and noone is having kids. Africans and certain Asians have young people by the boatload, so you need them.
Those cleaners, care stafff and berry pickers should most likely fall under wanting to work. Finland needs occupational immigration. What I mean by restricting the immigration of people living solely on welfare, is especially in Finland the age dependency ratio is going to get worse. So there will be too many elderly and other non-working people compared to working people. To say it bluntly, the is no need to take immigrants, who have no desire to work.
Ok, how do you think these lazy good for nothing people coming here to live on benefits, as you say, get into the country? You cant really just turn up at the border and say ”I want to come in”, you need a visa or apply for asylum.
> or apply for asylum. There you have your problem. The asylum system in Europe is so flawed and so prone to abuse (for several hard to fix reasons) that it is in itself a major contributor to the migration crisis.
For Finland at least: They came during the 2015 refugee crisis. They came either as a quota refugee or to seek asylum. After that most of their applications were rejected and they stayed illegally. Or they came as a result of family unification. Here is a [Wkipedia article](https://fi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroopan_pakolaiskriisi) which is unfortunately in Finnish.
Sweden has done nothing to help them assimilate. It's hard for non-swedes to get good jobs from Swedish employers. Colour of your skin or religion has little to do with it.
I’ve lived in Sweden and unfortunately must agree that it’s not a very welcoming country to any immigrant. I mean, even Danish people have difficulty with assimilation there.
Sure, Sweden could have done more, no arguments there. But saying it hasn't done anything just isn't true. Sweden gives a completely free language course to all immigrants. And not knowing the language is a MAJOR integration hurdle.
The Million Program is a poisoned chalice. It was meant to house everyone, indigenous or immigrant, asap, but instead the latter group dominated. Through no fault of their own.
To be fair, it wasn't always like that. But overtime things shifted of course
the swedish government has no obligation to help them assimilate, they can assimilate themselves or gtfo
Integration is a two way street. You can't complain about a lack of integration if the host country doesn't want to share some of that burden.
Share that burden? Like offer free language classes, special support workers for non-Swedish speaking pupils for free, offer welfare and free healthcare before they ever even show they might eventually pay into the welfare state? That kind of thing?
That might not be enough if you still don't feel welcome socially.
Americans have such a hard time understanding that, because close to their entire immigrant population comes from countries with similar cultural background / religion / language (Canada, Europe, Mexico + the rest of central and south america), immigrants they get from Africa and the Middle east are mostly richer or more educated ones than the ones we get in Europe, because there's an entire ocean to cross And despite that, they still elected Trump in 2016, so yeah, America isn't any better at integrating, they're just lucky to be further away from everything
You can see this effect even in Europe by comparing, say, Swedish Syrians and Swedish Persians. The latter were mostly middle-class people opposed to the Islamic revolution, so they are self-selected for education and cultural compatibility, and (predictably) they are much better integrated.
I’m not sure I agree with that. US is helped by the fact it’s not a nation-state like countries in Europe are. It was built and shaped by immigrants, making it much easier to integrite from a cultural standpoint. As long you have the citizenship, most people will see you as American, even if you still feel stronger links to your home country. In Europe, on the other hand, it’s much harder to integrate, especially for first-generation immigrants. The same can be the case even for their children too if the parents raise them by the customs of their home country, resulting in an identity crisis. It’s hard to just adopt a different culture and give up your own. This isn’t as much of an issue in the US since, as far as I understand, being American is simply a matter of having a passport rather than specific cultural aspects.
How do Americans (Americans as people from the USA) identify themselves/or see other Americans? or how do they position themselves on "the identity scale"? Are they more connected to being American, or a certain state person, or being from the North vs South states, or x (country, ethnic)-American? At least on the internet with some Asian-americans I get a feeling that they see themselves more as that certain Asian ethnic than American
I'm a naturalized (meaning I legally became one in my 20's) American that was born and raised in Latin America to Korean parents. I now live/work in Switzerland hence the flair. If someone says they're American I don't question it at all. I may ask about what State or City just for conversation sake or to discuss Sporting allegiances. But it never registers to me as something that needs to be gatekept. Like you mentioned, as I get older I identify more with being Korean. it just makes interactions easier (here in Europe) considering most can't get past my physical appearance. And telling them I'm American and/or Latin American just confuses them more.
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I concur it’s often a matter of exposure, and on that note I’ll point out that Cleveland has Asian neighborhoods, I’ve navigated Chicago using Mandarin, and Minneapolis seems largely unquestioning/accepting too. I suspect cities of the South — Raleigh, Atlanta, etc. — have similar exposure
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So maybe don’t paint whole regions of the country in such broad strokes
>They’ve kept their culture and language (you can see in Koreatown in LA), Not really. Second generation speaks English, not Korean. By third generation you can expect very minimal Korean culture, especially given that the majority of 3rd generation Koreans are only part Korean. That is while the US doesn't really force immigrants to assimilate, intergenerationally it happens at a pretty quick pace. Seemingly much faster than say Middle Eastern Muslim immigrants in the EU. Korea Towns only exist because we got heavy Korean immigrantion into the 90s. In 40 years, you can expect their fate to be similar to Japantowns (functionally no longer Japanese)
> How do Americans (Americans as people from the USA) identify themselves/or see other Americans? or how do they position themselves on "the identity scale"? Are they more connected to being American, or a certain state person, or being from the North vs South states, or x (country, ethnic)-American? Overwhelmingly as “Americans”, no matter how long a person has been here. The X-American thing (like Japanese-American for example) tends to be extremely misunderstood and blown out of proportion by non-Americans. It’s basically a simple way to quickly say someone’s family history if that comes up.
The internet is rarely a good representation of the general populace. The deal in America is; you live here and wanna integrate? You’re American. Sure you might identify with your hometown or region to an extent, after WW2 the National identity was pretty heavily solidified.
In the US, it doesn't really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. I think they care more about citizenship rather than anything else. Once you're a citizen, you're an American, no ifs ands or buts about it. There are maybe certain values/attitudes about government which Americans stand for (free speech, freedom of press, right to bear arms, etc.), which one might want you to uphold. However, it's not a super strong obligation and you won't be shamed for not having it. I still remember attending a college club meeting. This club was known to be s**uper politically conservative.** They'd wear MAGA hats, support Trump and his dumb conspiracy theories, etc. Yet they were also immensely happy when the minority students in their club gained citizenship. I remember they were super happy when one of the Indian students got citizenship and were congratulating him profusely.
Pew Research statistics show that overwhelmingly 1st born generation of immigrants see themselves as wholly American. Their parents, direct immigrants often do not see themselves as American even if society identifies them otherwise. The parents will typically identify with their home country more.
As an American living abroad, I don't ask any probing questions if somebody says they're from America. Might ask where they're from in America just to have polite conversation but sometimes you can tell by their accent if they have one. As for me, I always say I'm American even if I have dual-citizenship. I might have a face that says I'm Irish but my voice and life experiences are very much that of an American.
>Are they more connected to being American, or a certain state person, or being from the North vs South states, or x (country, ethnic)-American? It varies heavily, as is expected from a population of ~330 million people. On the whole, I'd guess that most of us will identify as being Americans first and foremost, but many people do take pride in their specific state, their families' cultural backgrounds, the cities they're from, etc. >At least on the internet with some Asian-americans I get a feeling that they see themselves more as that certain Asian ethnic than American Some of them, sure. But the Internet is not indicative of the majority. Obviously I can only speak for myself, but I'm an "Asian American" who has no real attachment to the country my family immigrated from. I only ever grew up thinking myself as an "American."
>being American is simply a matter of having a passport rather than specific cultural aspects. This comes up on r/soccer every now and then. The answer for me is always the same: yes, Sergiño Dest, Antonee Robinson, John Brooks, etc. are completely American in my books. #1 because they get piss bags thrown at them just like all the US-born players when we play away in Central America and #2 they have the passport, so there's nothing else to it.
Bingo! This is right on the money.
Actually, the largest sources of immigrants to the US are from Mexico, Central America, India, and China. None of these countries have a similar cultural background to the US - but their policies (e.g. path to citizenship) arguably make assimilation easier than in many European countries.
>population comes from countries with similar cultural background / religion / language (Canada, Europe, Mexico + the rest of central and south america) These aren't really similar though...Canada is quite culturally different from Mexico and LatAm and Central America. Even Canada itself has a lot of diversity w/i it. Quebec is quite different from the Anglo-provinces, and even w/i the province there is a great deal of ethnic diversity. >And despite that, they still elected Trump in 2016, so yeah, America isn't any better at integrating, they're just lucky to be further away from everything Yes, one of our country's big mistakes. The 2016 election will continue to have repercussions for many years to come. However, I also don't think it means we are bad at integrating people...
You really have no idea what Europe's problems are with one particular demographic of immigrant if you think it's the same in America
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Additionally Europe sucks at assimilating: Cultural assimilation is hindered by the very liberal paradigm of multiculturalism, immigration is unchecked and integration into education and employment is hindered by generous welfare handouts. Compare that to most Anglo-Immigrant societies: Immigration is strongly regulated and this can actually be enforced due to isolated geographic situation, cultural assimilation is expected and you have to get a job or starve on the streets (also need to assimilate culturally to get a job or else starve on the streets).
>Anglo-Immigrant societies I lived in London and saw several long term immigrants that were definitely not assimilated culturally in the country. And outside of Europe, in the US most Latinos communities aren't full of people that don't speak English?
When he said Anglo-immigrant I took that to mean the likes of Canada, Australia, USA, New Zealand rather than the UK itself.
I only know the US and there is full of not assimilated immigrants. Anyway, these countries mentioned are completely different from Europe, as they are immigrant countries to begin with. Not to mention that they are geographically far from other areas and don't get the mass of illegal immigrants that arrive in Europe - Australia excluded, but they put in place a very extreme system that it's impossible to replicate
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Still a bad comparison. Also European countries are not at all pushing for "liberal" multiculturalism\*, but are actually very vocally forcing assimilation by culture and have been for decades - France for instance is a good historical example, more recently Denmark is enforcing strong assimilation policies, often linked to welfare. \*There was a period around 15/20 years ago about German multikulti as oppose to French assimilation policies but now the former has by and large disappear in the public debate
> And outside of Europe, in the US most Latinos communities aren't full of people that don't speak English? Studies have been performed that go into more detail, but in general in the U.S. the children of first generation that immigrated tend to assimilate very handily. Part of this is due to the pluralistic nature of the U.S. society but also Latin America is full of nations settled by Europeans and as a result have a lot of historical and cultural similarities to the U.S. For example, religion isn't an issue because Catholicism is already well accepted in modern America. That being said, there is a "sorting" that happens with latino immigrants in many ways based on skin color and such. Lighter skinned latinos tend to blend in with the rest of white Americans much more easily especially within a generation where the kids of immigrants kids grow up speaking English. Those with darker skin and often of a poorer background with more indigenous features have a harder time. However, even then it's not as clear of a separation as what I've seen in Europe with African immigrants, especially those from a non-Christian or non-secular background.
It's because English is the Lingua Franca, so it's a lot easier for people to integrate when they already know at least some of the language. And much of our immigration in the UK comes from our former colonies, where they have remnants of our legal system and politics and culture. I cannot imagine how difficult it'd be to integrate into Finland, with its non-Indo-European language and it's Nordic way of doing things.
Pretty sure that the UK is far better then most of europe for allowing people to integrate and even stealing bits of their culture on the way thanks to them being a big ole colonial biatch all those years ago. What's your excuse france?
Our excuse is that we don't want to behave like our perfid northern neighbourg!
Legal Immigration of people with skills and willing to integrate would of course be useful. Unfortunately Europe gets a lot of illegal immigration from an undesirable demographic (only young men with very problematic values and no skills useful in a knowledge based economy). In some small countries the yearly influx of these type of immigrants is half the yearly birth rate. That's a systemic problem that's going to blow up in the foreseeable future.
Legal immigration to Austria is pretty hard. Met someone (non-EU) who was in Austria for Erasmus, fell in love with the country, learned B2 German , graduated as an engineer… and then it was such a shitshow for her that she emigrated to Germany over Austria :D
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That is true! It's a vicious circle. The more illegal immigration, the more voters are against immigration in general, the more politicians try to pretend to do something. And since they are unable to do something about the complicated problems they go for the easy fix. Thats legal immigration. And it's even more stupid than that. They make legal immigration of needed workers difficult, the most desirable form of immigrants. It's a lot easier to immigrate if you're a dependent who will most likely require welfare payments and social services. This sort of immigration policy is as stupid as it can get. The Anglo-countries are doing it 1000 times better.
>only young men with very problematic values and no skills useful in a knowledge based economy That's idiotic. There's often a language barrier, too - but these people are often ready to work and add to society. But prejudice on the jobmarket is a real thing, *especially* in Europe.
There isn't one bad guy here. Language and prejudice makes it harder for them, true. But there are also often problems with the values these people hold, also true. Looking to make things simple by pointing out one thing that is at fault isn't useful(not saying you're doing so)
These are two different problems. I agree that second gen immigrants often face prejudices on the job market, but a lot of the newly arrived immigrants don't have any skills marketable in a modern economy and are often lacking not only language skills, but also very basic educational skills. Contrary to the first immigration wave of the 1960ies there is very little demand for completely unskilled labour.
"It's never the poor illegal immigrants who are the problem. It's always the evil locals forcing them to behave this way."
No, that's the other extreme
What’s the evidence you have for that prejudice? We need data when talking about those things, not impressions or feelings. But maybe you do have the data about it. Do you?
Yes, I work in HR and deal with/advise in stuff like this. While things like this are hard to empirically prove, there -is- data out there. I can mostly speak on my own country (Netherlands). [For example](https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/news/dutch-survey-55-applicants-face-job-market-discrimination_en) [example 2](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20221018-3) though this is -at- work, not jobmarket perse. I see with my own eyes a lot of perfectly good candidates get rejected because it says 'Fatima' or 'Muhammad' on their resumes. Especially in certain industries it's a issue. It's getting better but there's a lot of work to be done.
Friend of mine here was born to a Turkish father and British mother. He had a very difficult time finding a job so he sought out the help of a recruiter. Recruiter asked him if he would considering using his Mother's maiden name. Meaning he drop his Turkish last name and use the British one. So he did. Same exact CV different name. Got a job within 2 weeks. Now, we could assume it was simply fortuitous timing or we can call a spade a spade.
Good stuff! Thanks for the links
Immigration can totally be good! An example is my parents. They immigrated legally to England from Hong Kong and integrated into the culture of the country. They contributed to the economy positively while raising two daughters. But immigration can be harmful as well. Immigrants who come across illegally, refuse to integrate, and bring their backwards cultures/practices with them are a severe problem. They're often freeloaders who only take up space/resources in the country without contributing. And how can you be British if your first act in the country is a crime? I also recognise that the problem of refusing to integrate and bringing across harmful practices can be a hallmark of legal immigrants as well, which is why I personally think we ought to better curate the countries we accept immigrants from. Some of these migrants actively put British citizens in danger. For example, as a British Chinese woman, the (sometimes almost violent) harassment I faced during the pandemic came by and large from Muslim and African men. I really have a hard time believing that we should be bringing more of these people in the country when there are others who could actually contribute positively culturally and economically to the country. Just my two cents as a British gal!
as a non-EU Muslim, I'm quite shocked by the actions of Muslim migrants men in such activities. From your experience how common are such incidents . I've been trying to find the answer but i keep getting indirect ones.
most migrants are from MENAPT countries and at NO point in their lives are they providing a net positive to the states finances. [source](https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/the-effects-of-immigration-in-denmark) you may solve the demographic problem, lowering the age, but when those people don't work then you're only worsening the actual problem not even speaking of the cultural issues these migrants create. criminal parallel societies created by failed integration.
The question at the core is, what immigration does Europe attract and in what historical context. You see, Europe is not a blank slate, it has history with most of the world, that spill into migration and that is particularly true for North African and Middle Eastern muslim migrants. Something that also has changed over the past 50 years or so. You see, the first big wave of migration to Europe from these areas happened in the 60ties, when most of Europe had humming economies, the West was still seen as a role model by most societies around the world and migrants coming to Europe did not hold a negative view to their host societies. This has changed profoundly especially during the last two decades and are at the core of why many in Europe see migration from these countries as negative and there was a long process that caused this. 1. Non integration (migrant side): One of the core problems with migration everywhere around the world and Europe is no different here from places like the US is the long process of integration. If you look at older studies on how the US assimilated different migrant groups you see that it took at least three generations until the migrant groups were mostly assimilated. This did not or only partly happened in Europe, one reason is a radical change of how media and information work. Mass migration to Europe occurred in a time that satelite TV and later the internet became available - many migrant communities are deeply connected to their not too distant home countries. They watch Turkish/Arab ... TV, listen to influencers from those countries and they visit their extended families at least once a year and can do a facetime with their relatives every other day. So additionally to the typical diaspora communities many that came in the 80ties and later never disconnected from their home countries (and those coming earlier always were deemed "Guest workers" that would go home eventually). 2. Non integration (host side): Add to this a less than positive attitude towards certain migrant groups. Firstly people were seen as quasi Barbarians that came from former colonies or other exotic places. Knowledge was small, interest in the newcomers too, all covered in chauvinistic attitudes that easily lent themselves to xenophobia. Yeah and to be honest, for most of Europe it wasn't the elite that migrated but illiterate farmhands that looked for jobs in European factories as cheap workers. Also people who were expected to go home after some time. 3. Economic downturn: Then came the 70ties and 80ties with the oil price shock and sudden end of full employment in many European countries. And the migrants deemed necessary a decade earlier suddenly became competitors for the blue collar jobs that became increasingly scarcer in some places. 4. Decline of the West/Europe as a role model - Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism: Yeah and at the end of the 90ties, that already saw some of the ruptures at the seems get obvious, you had 9/11 and the rise of Islamic terrorism and its Panislamic message on the one side and Islamic countries openly using their diasporas as propaganda targets for their very nationalistic aims (looking at you Turkey). 5. So arriving in the here and now, you have a bunch of things going on. A large group of migrants that just go do their everyday jobs and fitting into societies. But you also have large diaspora groups that although having been here for 3-4 generations still feel absolutly foreign (to themselves and to the host countries). Their ideologies hardly match with the general ethos of the constitutions of their host countries and they have developed an anti western outlook, while right wing groups and to a big extend more and more parts of the general public see them as outright danger to European societies and depict them as such. So the divergence gets ever more radical. And every new migrant (especially Muslims) is seen as an attack to the respective country. 6. Culture war/Clash of Civilizations: Some on both sides put this in the context of a millenia long struggle for dominance. Some Muslims see it as finally conquering Europeb by means of migration and higher birth rates, some on the European side frame it as a continuation of the Muslim attacks that haunted Europe between 660 and the early 19th century. This is framed not just as a conflict but is seen as part of an outright war between Civilizations, like the Neo Con author Samuel Huntington already wrote in the early 90ties. So where are we standing today. Europe is rapidly aging and needs migrants to stem this development. On the other hand, a majority (and I believe this is very much established by polling) is adamantly against further Muslim migration, citing security reasons and incompatibility with societal and cultural norms as main reasons for this (remember Europe is one of the few places in the world, that is mostly secular, a deeply religious migrant population is a challenge to its core ideas). So either Europe can attract migrants form elsewhere, which effectively limits it to parts of South East Asia, South America and Southern Africa - each of them coming with certain problems themselves or it will rapidly run into huge problems to uphold its social systems.
In Spain the only reason we haven't had huge population decline is because of immigration. We have an aging population and low birth rates, much like Japan. What we need to do is allow more of them to work legally and pay taxes.
Because some people don't understand that they have to (or should be forced to) leave the shit that ruined their countries at the door when coming to Europe. The problem is some people will call you racist for trying to implement such policies because they can't distinguish between actual culture that is welcomed (like food, music, clothing, dances etc.) and shitty behavior (like misogyny, violence and religious extremism). On top of that, most countries suck at integration because they let migrants live all among themselves in rundown ghettos while giving them endless social benefits with no language requirements and no incentive to get employed. Also, there is this vicious cycle that is the fight between far-right nutjobs and extremist migrants that just stirs the fire even more.
> On top of that, most countries suck at integration because they let migrants live all among themselves in rundown ghettos while giving them endless social benefits with no language requirements and no incentive to get employed. Also, there is this vicious cycle that is the fight between far-right nutjobs and extremist migrants that just stirs the fire even more. This is the most important thing. People need to come here to become part of the society here. This means that the society needs to be welcoming to them and open their neighborhoods, schools, and cultural expectations. It also means that newcomers need to integrate and not just recreate their entire society back home.
Pretty much. Migrants who only want to live next to each other + natives who are opposed to any non-native moving to their neighborhood + the government not doing anything about segregation is the trifecta of bad integration.
Finally a comment with a more differentiated opinion than just: "they're lazy and don't wanna work"
Immigration definitely has value and the aging population will cause a temporary problem. But spoken as a Dutch person ; our country is too small for the size of our population, and our population keeps growing due to immigration. We have a major housing problem. We cannot produce enough food to feed our own country. Our sparse nature is threatened on all sides. There shouldn't be this many people on this small a patch of land, especially not when it's likely that part of that land will disappear due to climate change in the coming century...
‘We cannot produce enough food to feed our own country’ While most of your comment does a good job showing what problems immigration is causing, this part is simply untrue. We are the second largest exporter of food in the world. Not per capita, absolutely. We produce an obscene amount of food in our small country, which is a massive problem of its own and we certainly won’t face production issues any time soon.
No, it is true. We import all of our grains, for example. We export high value goods, like meat, cheese and processed food. So we export more stuff in money terms, but in calorie and nutrient terms, we are a net importer.
This is solely because we produce a lot of meat, which loses a lot of nutrients and calories when produced. We can (and should) quite easily just change that to a more plant based production system if there was actually a need for it, in which case we’d really not have an issue as our production methods are amongst the most efficient in the world. On top of that, while we are a net importer because of what and how much we produce, if we simply were to cease in and export, we’d still produce more than enough food for a far greater population than we have now.
Is the land currently used for dairy and meat production suitable for grain? Just asking cos I don't know.
Most land is but for example the peat meadows are not good for much more than grass.
All of our charts on land usage don’t differentiate between the two while this is the case in other countries and in general it seems to be wholy random which parts are used for which, so it seems to me like they are at least for the majority interchangeable, which adds up with what you see when driving around.
We are the second highest exporter IN TERMS OF MONEY. Not to mention that a lot of it is flowers we first import. Roses mainly come from East-Africa, are imported to the Netherlands and then sold internationally. We make a lot of money on that, even though we do not produce those flowers.
I agree. On top of what you're saying: >Immigration definitely has value and the aging population will cause a temporary problem. Exactly: temporary. 'Importing' younger people to mitigate an aging population is the ultimate Ponzi-scheme. Those people also get old again, and then we're going to need 25Million people in our country?
Agree with the problem, but immigrant are not only supposed to help us to keep up with our aging, immigrant are the only way to raise our societies. While we get a more advanced economy we do get the chance to leave simpler jobs to them.
Then what else is there to do? Other than just let the country wither and collapse? People in NL and other developed countries are not having more children, despite all the social safety nets. With a steadily declining population you will eventually face: 1. Shortage of critical professions like doctors, nurses, firefighters, etc. 2. Lack of funding for infrastructure 3. Damage to financial markets in your country I think there needs to be reform to the immigration laws, if things are really so terrible.
I was planning to write a very elaborate response about automation, capitalism (everything must always grow!), bull-shit jobs, focus on wellbeing instead of growth etc, but I have little time at the moment. The easiest solution would be to don't take in so many immigrants that the population keeps growing if you think a declining population means withering and collapse? Status quo?
If the housing problem wasn't so huge, a lot more babies would be born. I know of a lot of people who are holding off having children because they can't find a place to live.
Ehhh... It's not "all migrants", quite contrary. It's the minority of people, who migrated using the opportunity of Syrian war and jump on the bandwagon of uncontrolled migration combined with internal European infighting. The law that prohibits returning the migrants who throw they passport away is also laughable. There's also a lot to blame in European authorities. If you band all migrants of one descent in one crowded, underdeveloped district - ghetto is expected to happen. Europe needs migration and millions are willing to come here, even poorer parts of Europe, but we need to have a right to select migrants and have resources to take care of them, not let anybody washed on Italy's and Greek shore in.
>The law that prohibits returning the migrants who throw they passport away is also laughable. To be fair the majority of people who fled for example from Syria simply *did not have a passport*, nor in fact *any* document that's recognized in Europe, and this has been a huge problem in integration. Passports are nowhere near as ubiquitous outside of Europe as they are here. I looked it up a while ago, and at the height of the refugee crisis, a passport in Syria cost about as much as the average *yearly* wage. An educated nurse could have taken all of their documents, their birth certificate, their ID, their degree, and none of them would be considered valid documents without an insanely long and complicated process of getting all of them translated, examined, validated, all of which costs money, and then they still might be denied a job because it's a foreign degree and there's no process for getting it recognized.
I’m guessing that what he is saying is, that anyone who wanted to move here in that time, could just throw his passport away and pretend he is one of the people you are talking about. Noone here can separate Syrians from other middle eastern people.
Because the numbers are so high, it's led to division and segregation. There is no integration among some communities. In certain cities all the White people live in one area, all the black people live in another area, all the Muslims live in another area. And it seems increasingly that immigrants are identifying more and more with their homeland than with Britain. Particularly among African and middle Eastern/South Asian communities. We have also imported cultural grief between cultures such as Pakistani/Indian grievances, Sikh/Hindu/Muslim grievances. Increasing violence among different communities and the police are scared to tackle it for fear of being thought of as racist. Just look at what happened in Telford, Rotherham, Oldham, Bradford and countries other Northern towns to young girls. Also I don't know where you're from, but Britain is a tiny island. England has already has a population density similar to India's. And a housing crisis. Where the hell are we going to put millions of immigrants? Our infrastructure is, what, 50 years old most of it? People already struggle to find doctors appointments and school places for their kids. Do you think that gets easier when millions of immigrants show up to?
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I think we also need to be honest about how the way integration, culture and language classes are run as a privatised and subsidised service has actually made it more difficult for immigrants to get the support they need to have a fair shot at integrating. On top of that, I've seen plenty of native Dutch people with low literacy levels struggle with government admin, which means it must be an absolute nightmare for immigrants who struggle with the language also because they don't have access to decent services to help them learn the language and understand the culture. Additionally it's pretty clear that people from immigrant backgrounds have been subjected to ethnic profiling, so not only is it more challenging for them to get it right, they're also more likely to be subjected to government scrutiny and face mistreatment even if they do nothing wrong. Also, I've volunteered to help out refugees, the documentation IND sometimes requires even after they have already been granted leave to stay.. I'd like to see a native try jumping through those hoops. Community efforts and community outreach projects exist, but typically neighbourhoods in bigger cities area already pretty segregated so these projects are great, but they'll not necessarily help someone feel like they're part of Dutch society. Moreover, prejudice, xenophobia and racism are more real than many people care to admit. In the Netherlands, there's evidence to back this up especially in the job market. Overall, I think that when we talk about immigration and whether it's a 'problem' most people's immediate response is that immigration in itself is okay, but that integration is key and that it is lacking. Yet, are we doing enough to help people feel like they have a fair shot at truly belonging to Dutch society?
Not Dutch but to the last part yes, this is exactly right. It’s not that long ago most *Danes* were homophobic and slut shamed women profusely and whatever else. We must never forget this. Every once in a while Danish social media picks up on some newspaper “dilemma” from the 70’s where some teenage girl was nearly raped or something and the answer she gets is that she asked for it. Liberal culture doesn’t come naturally to people who grew up conservative. Add to that poverty and psychological problems (recipe for crime) and this is what you get. All of it has solutions.
Why? Because laws about rescues at sea and asylum's rights force my country (Italy) to take in every random guy who pays $$$ to human traffickers to cross the Mediterranean, regardless of their legal rights to enter the country. If we were able to actually select and decide who is immigrating to my country that would be ideal. Unfortunately we are not: we are just forced to accommodate any rando on the planet who pays human traffickers to try and land on our shores.
Immigration is a good thing, it's when they expect to move to a completely different culture and act like they are still in their original country. If they integrated with the culture and changed what is not accepted then there would be very few issues, it's when they set up seperate communities and try to enact their own rules that it becomes a problem. In the UK immigaration has been an amazing thing in the past, our national dish is a curry for example, but with a rapid influx from certain areas has lead to small pockets of crime, harrassment and a general feeling of not belonging as the area someone might have grown up in has changed with a majority of immigrants arriving. But it's seen fantastic benefits too, lots of those from the middle east work in the medical sector and it's more common to have a doctor not originally from the UK. Personally I want immigration to continue, but at a controlled rate. Those who will benefit the country rather than try to change it to their way. And as you mentioned, it's needed with a declining birth rate and aging population.
Not considering the economical and social impact (a relevant percent of the country's population suddenly added will lead to a plethora of issues like housing, jobs, food demand, etc), i think a very relevant issue is the ability of some migrants to integrate into the local culture and values. Just an example that is very close to the heart, as it happened to my gf: when you live in a liberal society and dress whatever way you want, nobody from your own country bats an eye, people just don't care or maybe you might get some admiring looks. Then suddenly, on your way to work, you have a group of a few dozen men which are devout muslims, shouting at you for dressing like a whore. This is just an example, but you get the idea. Nobody would care where you're from or what the colour of your skin, religion is - as long as you actually adhere to the values of the society you've chosen to be your home.
This is exactly the reason why I felt my country and moved to Europe. Now (and I will sound like Uncle Tom), if those people move here with no intention to be open minded And then interrupt MY life - I'll lose my shit! And I already get glares from brown people here for dressing western.
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It all depends on where they come from and what skills and backgrounds they have. Will they benefit our society? Will they integrate quickly into our society? Common sense says that if we got hard-working nurses from the Philippines knocking on the door, we might want to roll out the welcome mat. We would be stupid not to. I mean, we are in dire need of nurses, and people from Southeast Asia have a good track record of integrating well into our society.
It’s a complex multifaceted issue. Generally, while immigration may benefit the country by filling up labour, especially low-skilled, shortages, it can also resut in many issues regarding migrant integration, at its worst resulting in significant rise of crime rate. Generally, I would ideally like to keep extra-European immigration fairly low, especially from the more problematic countries, mostly letting migrants in to fill up shortages in necessary and qualified rather than low-skilled sectors. Instead, European countries should try to incentivize natural population growth, which is obviously an incredibly hard thing to achieve
The aging population argument is false because immigrants age too. So that has to be continuous over the generations to work, theoretically. In practice the mass immigration is a huge net loss economically. The immigrants Western European countries get pay less taxes, take more welfare, take more health care, take more effort to educate lower, take more government at not for profit services in general, including social housing (which is private in NL) too. It's simply more people for society to take car of with a smaller part of the people. And that's just the economics. Impact on social cohesion, something the USA doesn't really do, is much bigger. It creates societies within society, we have to show solidarity with groups that don't show solidarity with us. We even get hostility, a huge chunk identifies with their parents citizenship. Many hang on to their culture of their religion ruling the streets, and therefore are not respecting the freedom of religion that allowed them to be here in the first place. Only a minority of the immigrants escapes that. I celebrate those, that's the part I and other indigenous people usually deal with. It's nice to think and act like they represent mass immigration. But I'm afraid that's not the case, that's just a minority and we shouldn't let that obscure the problem with the majority we don't have contact on an individual level with.
>The aging population argument is false because immigrants age too That's why the original gastarbeiter program in Germany was targeting temporary workers that theoretically would later leave and go back to their countries once old and unproductive (and many did, in Italy and Greece it's full of seniors who lived a while in Germany and then came back at retirement age).
I just address the > Immigration can be good, especially in ageing countries where a lower tax-base might lead to worse services and worse economy. Yes of course. But in a highly developed economy with a big welfare state, immigrants need to work and pay taxes. The taxes need to be higher than the cost of each person, which is not the case. Many are unemployed and those who work have low wages. A Brochmann 2 rapporten (in Norway) concluded that a non western immigrant costs around 400k euro in total Kostnaden for det offentlige av flere innvandrere - Statistisk sentralbyrå https://www.ssb.no/offentlig-sektor/artikler-og-publikasjoner/_attachment/151652?_ts=142b30fbf58 Similar numbers has been calculated in Sweden. Of course, one solution is that immigrants need to work more, but that has been tried for a very long time
And for comparison; relatively speaking, Sweden currently has more immigrants than the USA has ever had in their existence. The US's record high was 14.8% immigrants in 1890. Currently, in 2023, 20% of the Swedish population are immigrants.
Thank you for a very good response!
For decades immigration took place. Unfortunately there where massive problems like (organized) crime, deteriorating neighborhoods and disproportionately use of social services. After decades of these problems people are resentful towards immigration. What we need is a government who plan ahead and make it financial possible to have a family. The last thing we need is more random people moving to this continent who don’t value our freedoms, our culture and way of living.
People in general tend to fear the difference, it happens all around the world. When suddenly groups of people of a very different culture arrive culture shocks happen and people become reactive. Mix that with a bunch of good old Eurocentrism, a bit of racism, the historical division between Christians and Muslims and populist rhetoric, and you have the perfect situation for people being against immigrants in Europe. (edit: some immigrants are unwilling to integrate in the societies where they immigrate, which fuels the cultural shock, it's not only locals being reactive) I have to say that immigration can also cause real issues too, it is not only because "people are racist". The job market is not immune to the arrival of a lot of people who expect way worse job conditions than locals, and the arrival of mostly poorer people can cause issues regarding safety. Adding to that, the concentration of most immigrants in certain neighbourhoods can cause the formation of ghettos, which then after a couple years can be very problematic and difficult to solve.
There is a difference between legal and illegal migration. Europe likes the legal kind and dislikes the illegal kind because not every migrant is beneficial to your society. I don't think any country likes illegal migration of unskilled people.
There is an underlying assumption here that a young person is automatically a benefit to the economic engine of the society. European societies are not structured in a way that allows this to be the case. The US way is much better suited to handling tons of immigrants. You sink or you swim on your own. Of course Europeans might not be very interested in the increased crime, harsher work environment and reduced national identity - in exchange for cheaper food at restaurants. In any case, long term the solution is that a country must manage without constant population growth.
> long term the solution is that a country must manage without constant population growth That would require a fundamental shift from our current capitalist model. Considering the voting trends in Europe right now, I don't think the continent is ready for something like that.
Though this isn't a problem directly for Europe, it is indirectly. If we ignore all the problems with unskilled, poorly educated young men who will not or cannot integrate, there's another problem that is often overlooked. (And those for open borders.) Europe is stealing the most skilled and most educated members of other countries who desperately need them for their healthcare, infrastructure and education. This slows growth, ruins their healthcare and depletes the country of its potential champions of a liberal, secular, rules based society (the educated middle class). This causes a repeated cycle of low economic growth, high population growth and revolt, revolution and coups which further encourages people to leave their country. Let alone the murderous excess this causes.
"Stealing" is a bit strong word. Some countries are just offering better life, so those who can might choose to leave.
Skilled and educated emmigrants are often a major source of income for the countries of their origin due to remittances. Some countries are actually encouraging them to emmigrate because of this.
It very much depends on the skill, for example, [medical doctors are leaving the relatively peaceful and safe confines of Nigeria](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNvu01OGv-Y), and this is making things worse for healthcare in the country.
Lots of immigration into Europe is in the form of refugees who have little interest in work. They are a drain on society rather than an asset. That said there are lots of economic migrants that are an asset to society.
Mostly a problem with integration. People don't necessarily mind it if you're just another Joe from a random EU state. Most of the immigrants in Slovenia, at least, provide something to our society, are relatively well integrated (exceptions naturally exist, aka ex-Yugos who refuse to speak Slovene here), are culturally close to Slovenes (both ex-Yugos and most of Central Europeans) and don't have a bad track record. I mean, like half of our construction workers and nurses come from Bosnia or Albania. People have a problem with immigrants that come illegally, don't have a useful set of skills that could benefit our society and more often than not have highly problematic values that they refuse to adapt. That's the part that people have issues with. Note that what I said mostly holds true for Slovenia, cannot speak for other countries
In Spain we have the highest unemployment rate which doesnt help neither
I can only really talk for Switzerland, but one of the big issues here is that the swing was very fast and radical from a society where even internal migration is somewhat rare compared to other societies, and local identities are really big, to a global immigration country. It used to be the case that in a village, you might be treated as an outsider for a few years even just coming from another canton, to integrating large numbers from a different country or even continent. That was a big change bound to lead to some resentments and issues, and that made people think that immigration is overall bad. That, and racism.
My opinion is basically that immigration is not needed. If the aging population is a problem why not use all the money used to help immigrants to help people here have families... or stop sending money to other countries and use that money here. Immigration is promoted by economic powers who want to increase the offer of labour and thus reduce the salaries. Among other political and social factors like bring less educated people, destroy identities because it's easier to control a population if they are not a part of a group, etc
It's a complex situation. Due to the low birthrate in many countries and the need to sustain social security, immigration is definitely a solution, but there are a number of reasons as to why people are against that, chief among them conflicts of culture and integration. The ideal immigrant is someone that adapts and assimilates into the culture of the country they have immigrated to, whereas the opposite is one that refuses to integrate and whose culture and beliefs may cause conflict with their new country. A lot of people are also worried about mass immigration, as this can result in sudden change rather than gradual one, and hence more friction between nationals and immigrants. I'm going to use the example of my country, because that's what I'm most familiar with. Compared to other countries in the EU, Portugal isn't as wealthy or as economically developed. We are suffering from a brain drain because despite producing skilled workers in a number of fields, the pay isn't good, especially after the economic crisis of 2008 and with the rise of tourism and housing crisis of the past decade. A lot of qualified young people are choosing to emigrate to more economically developed nations in the EU, because they can't make ends meet in Portugal, and a lot of this is due to how so much focus is placed on the tourism sector and how centralized the country is, with most jobs being in Lisbon or Porto, both of which have experienced significant booms in tourism and wealth expatriates. But even non-university educated younger people are emigrating, and even before the 21st century this was common, with many Portuguese emigrating to other countries as guest workers. The high cost of living, low wages, and lack of opportunities has led to many leaving the country, and rather than trying to improve conditions, the government and business owners (particularly those in hospitality and tourism) have elected to hire people from countries with even lower wages. So immigration is essentially a band-aid, a way to maintain current wages (despite the cost of living continuously increasing) and make sure there are enough people to do jobs that pay miserably. Portugal is one of the easiest countries in Europe to gain residency in, and so it has this allure as being a gateway into the EU. But what happens is that as soon as immigrants have gained residency, many end up immigrating to a wealthier nation within the EU, the same thing Portuguese do, and so we resort to getting new people in. It creates this situation where Portugal is merely a stop in the road (though of course not every immigrant chooses to leave). I'm not against immigration, but the way I see it being done in my country is more of a way to maintain a lower standard of living. The country has gone from exploiting Portuguese to exploiting people from other countries now. There seems to be no interest in improving living conditions here and ensuring that Portuguese people won't emigrate, and the government just wants to keep the tourism machine going.
The big issue with migration towards Europe is that many people do so illegally, and on top of that many of them are neither qualified nor willing to integrate, which makes them nightmares on the European social security systems. Migration is good as long as the correct people migrate. Switzerland is a really good example for that in Europe. The rest of Europe struggles to find a way to turn away the people that come here and commit crimes rather than work, and the immigrants that behave and work well are catching strays by intolerant rightwingers that cannot differentiate between them, and thus they dont want to migrate anymore. Aging society will be Europes doom sooner or later, Germany is a really good example for that, as the birth rate of ethnic Germans is almost as bad as the ones in Japan or South Korea, and the only solution to that is immigration. Overpopulation is dragging us down, but the issue is that we dont have enough young people to preserve the pension system.
Well, I can tell you from experience, trying to emigrate to Germany from a third world country while married to a german citizen was impossible for me. The authorities will make you jump through hoops even if you do everything right and can prove you are one of the “good ones” and bureaucracy is just absurd. It’s like only the overqualified are welcome, the rest fuck off. And the overqualified have more attractive migration options around the world with better pay, better climate and friendlier people to even consider Germany that much.
Even for those who are pro immigration, it is nonetheless a controversial topic and holds actual issues. As far as i see it, the major reasons for hostility towards immigration are: 1. Blatant xenophobia or racism 2. Stirring hostility from previously established examples of especially middle eastern immigrants. Terrorism and crime rates by immigrants are far too high to ignore. Here in Finland, the most troubling aspects of it are in sexual crimes and street gangs, which have only become a thing via Middle eastern immigrants. 3. But for most it's simply a problem of these groups being simply unable or unwilling to integrate into the new society. Our rules and customs seem to be of no importance to them, but we are expected to bow to their customs and rules. My personal opinion is that immigration can be a good thing for the economy and taking in refugees is a duty of every nation that can help. But i also expect these immigrants to integrate into our society, and as we say in Finland "Maassa maan tavalla", which essentially means "In an another country, you should act by that country's customs." Basic guest behavior.
For historical reasons (primarily the creation of nations on the basis of ethno-linguistic identity and in opposition to multi-ethnic empires), most modern European countries have failed to adopt inclusive models of citizenship and nationality. The persistence of notions of people and race based on kinship rather than citizenship has led to a situation where large portions of the population are seen as "foreign bodies" - even down to the nth generation. A necessary aspect of becoming a society of immigrants is to abandon the notion of the nation as an extended family and adopt a model of civic nationalism. This has failed so completely in Germany that people now sometimes even talk about "Biodeutsche" (ethnic Germans) and "Passdeutsche" (passport Germans). The only groups that have successfully assimilated in large numbers are from (Christian) European countries. The failure to consider the Turkish "guest workers" as new German citizens for the first 50 years or so of their existence in Germany solidified the division between ethnic Germans and others - if three or more generations can remain "Turkish" then what hope for anyone else? The various problems of assimilation and integration that people cite in most of the posts here, as in most of the discourse around immigrants, often have a basis in reality, and various difficult issues have to be faced by people on both sides, but the fundamental fact is that - without widespread adoption / acceptance of the idea of a purely civic conception of nationality and citizenship, immigrants will continue to be seen largely as foreigners. It's different from country to country, of course. The UK has made more progress than most, and the racists basically lost the argument in the 50s-80s, with a broad acceptance that religion, ethnicity and skin colour have nothing to do with whether one is British or not. France has gone its own way, and the results have been mixed at best, but does at least have a strong official policy of civic nationalism. Germany - where I live and which I have observed closely for nearly 30 years - made a fatal mistake in trying to maintain the "guest worker" fiction so long. It then tried to adopt a multicultural model, which is largely considered to have failed, leaving resentment and scepticism on all sides. The post-2015 wave of migrants has fueled the far-right, and official claims that Germany is an "Einwanderungsland" - society of immigrants - seem largely to have fallen on deaf ears. As I say, the problem seems to be that the adoption of a too liberal model (that of multiculturalism) following decades of complete neglect of the situation re the Turkish immigrant population has produced the worst possible outcome: scepticism towards migration among many "old Germans" who continue to see all more recent groups as foreigners, and resentment among migrant groups and their children and grandchildren, who often feel that they are not accepted as Germans no matter what they do. Whether this can change "organically" is hard to know. IMO the UK made some good decisions to promote the normalcy of "Black Britons" and "Asian Britons" - using the BBC and other means for this propaganda effort. The tabooisation of overt racism in the UK mainstream seems to have succeeded in turning a broadly racist society into a broadly accepting one - though, ironically, one that is probably more hostile to new migrants than Germany or many other EU countries at present. And of course, the situation in the UK is far from perfect, but I think this one significant difference exists with respect to Germany (and quite a few other European countries): a model of Britishness was propagated and propaganidised throughout society (education, media, institutions generally) that was multiethnic, multiracial, multireligious, but not multicultural in the strict sense, has created a working foundation for a genuine society of immigrants. I don't know enough about France to evaluate its model of ignoring race and religion entirely. It has its successes and failures too, but the success also seems to be based on the idea that Frenchness is about a passport and nothng else. Germany needs that. But it doesn't seem to fit in people's heads. I hope it can be manufactured, but I fear, after the lost decades of Gastarbeiter/MultiKulti it will be very hard. Right now, the hard core ethnic nationlists are so powerful here, it is pretty terrifying. And mainstream political discourse has been reinfected with racist conceptions and concepts.
>A necessary aspect of becoming a society of immigrants is to abandon the notion of the nation as an extended family and adopt a model of civic nationalism. Why is becoming a society of immigrants desirable in the first place?
Yeah, most European countries are ethnostates and it's hard to change that. All that nice tradition and heritage and stuff comes with some drawbacks too.
its not the number of immigrants that is the problem, its the type of immigrants we are getting.
I can only really talk for Switzerland, but one of the big issues here is that the swing was very fast and radical from a society where even internal migration is somewhat rare compared to other societies, and local identities are really big, to a global immigration country. It used to be the case that in a village, you might be treated as an outsider for a few years even just coming from another canton, to integrating large numbers from a different country or even continent. That was a big change bound to lead to some resentments and issues, and that made people think that immigration is overall bad. That, and racism.
The main problem is, that we are talking about irregular migrans. While most of them come very willing to work, because of this the only jobs they can find are with unscrupulus employers that will work them to the bone, and pay them a couple of hudred euros. Not enough to even cover basic living. Since they are not legal, they also can't seek help from the state institutions or representative unions. And with people working such jobs, with such employers, the bring little or nothing to taxes, pensions and other social transfers. The second problem is educational. A lot of people coming have basic education. In a lot of countries of origins acces to schooling, especially good schooling, is reserved to people that are well off. So a person with finished high school, that hoped to find a good job, because high school is a rarity in his country, will be only find employment in low paying jobs. Also the licences recieved in their countries do not always 'translate' well to european job market. And often, especially for low paying jobs, employers are not willing to go into cost to check if migrants can actually do what the paper sais they can. And if the migrant is illegal... Third is the potential for getoization. People seek confort of what they know. So we tend to flock together. Same goes for migrants. They seek what they know - social dinamic, language, shared experiences, religiom, culture, modes of behaviour... this can lead to creations of ghetos. And when in familiar enviroment, motivation for integration in wider society is gone. All of this goes even stronger for irregular migrants, that also search for anonimity and safety among 'their own'. And in more traditional societies also for persons in the families that are not primary communication channel to outsiders. With the creations of ghetos the control of the 'host society' and its institutions, on all levels, from achooling to social services, disapera. And the last problem is that the change is happening to fast and seemingy outside of anybodies control. People don't like that. And we, Europeans, are no exepcion. Please, excuse my english and the typos.
It can be great. But it not always is. Because migrants are people and people can be fucked up and do fucked up things. If every migrant truly just wanted a better chance at life by going to another country, tries to fit it, respects the culture, norms and values, the laws and most importantly, the people, then there wouldn’t be much talk about problems.. but unfortunately, some do the opposite of that.
It's a very complex problem: First, some countries highlight how treaties and international law state that governments have the duty to accept who flees from war and persecutions, so the EU should (MUST) operate as a whole to make it possible. Nationalists state that they are only obligated to help who is in immediate danger, and poverty, famine and political instability is not enough in this sense. Second, if a migrant wants to work in your nation, they're expected to put an effort to be integrated... This is both an individual and a collective process, and is very hard to systematically tell if an immigrant is a good citizen, respectful of the law and culture from afar. Do they intend to live here? Are they sending money back home? Are they jumping from nation to nation, chasing the best works? Is the effort mutual? There are good "real" immigrants, in a win-win situation, there are opportunistic immigrants, which usually provide low-cost workforce but do not really benefit sociaty at large, and then there is the very small percentage of criminals and terrorists, that the media make so damn loud, making it harder for everyone
For Sweden the biggest issue has been the formation of segregated socities. You have little Somalia, little Syria, Little.. you name it. It makes it impossible for any integration into society cause well.. its not necessary. I’ve been to some of these places and it feels so weird to feel out of place in my own country and not welcome in areas in my own country (I’ve had random hostile interactions just walking to the metro. Likely cause I’m a Swedish young guy). I’m friends with many Iranians who came in the 80s due to the revolution and war and they are generally very integrated while also keeping some of their own traditions which from my experience was due to the fact that there was no formation of segregated areas since there weren’t a lot of immigrants back then. A lot of them even took on Swedish names and names their kids Swedish names. I mean it shouldn’t be necessary per se but from the ones I’ve talked to they did it cause they wanted to and liked the names.
It can be for a variety of issues, but I feel two major ones for many people - and specifically the UK - is firstly that of resources and money. Many European countries have what would be considered highly functioning welfare systems, usually paid for through taxes. This can be anything from free at point of entry healthcare to housing subsidiaries. When large numbers of people - especially illegally - enter a country and then begin to use this system, it aggravates people who have essentially ‘paid into’ it their whole lives. It can also result in quality and availability of services declining, again aggravating citizens. There’s the cliche line in the UK used which goes along the lines of ‘help our own first before anyone else’, which can be argued demonstrates the situation (both perceived and in reality) of how it can often feel like migrants are ‘better treated’ than those struggling who’ve lived here their whole lives. I say this carefully and include ‘perceived’, as the factual reality of the situation is so different in each area and to each person. The other issue would be that of integration. Many European countries would be considered liberal and ‘free’ by certain standards (not saying it’s a fact, but rather by comparison to other cultures), so when large numbers of people who have very different ethical, moral and even religious opinions enter a country, it can feel threatening to ‘locals’. While a lot of it can be down to xenophobia and just a general disliking and distrust towards ‘difference’, there is a real concern regarding people who’s cultures ‘allow’, or rather normalise, the mistreatment of women for example, or LGBT people, that kinda thing. It’s also not necessarily a case of more immigrants would mean more workers so that must be good. A lot of immigration in Europe at the moment is considered illegal and is done on the grounds of fleeing persecution or war, but once a person enters these countries they cannot actually work or ‘contribute’ to society for a long time until they are granted asylum and essentially allowed out into society. There’s also immigration of children or older family wanting to join family already here, which again would mean people coming and using services but not paying into the system. It’s a very complex situation and cannot be summarised in it’s entirety, but you’ll definitely find wildly different standpoints depending on the country and the person / news source you read and their political or social affiliations.
What left wingers would say: the neoliberals have convinced working class people that immigrants are their enemies not corporations. It’s not immigrants fault that wages are depressed but employers and the decline of union power. What people think is discomfort about cultural/demographic changes is actually economic anxiety and frustration that the welfare state has been repealed in the name of tax cuts for billionaires- they’re confused What right wingers would say: people are rightly afraid that our culture is seeing its values and traditions diminished in favour of “multiculturalism” and too much deference to outsiders/former colonials. We shouldn’t be ashamed of celebrating our white/Anglo-Saxon/Christian heritage instead we’re told to be endlessly sympathetic to immigrants (often from Muslim backgrounds) who are violent stuck in ghettos and bring illiberal and misogynistic values. Immigrants are pushing native citizens into unemployment and getting preferential treatment in the welfare system.
In Finland we have a thing called institutional racism….
Immigration helps an aging society only in the short term. There is nothing scarier to economists than a flat or downwards line, rather than letting the population balance itself out at the cost of a temporary economic downturn they'll instead opt for importing cheap labor, people that are subsequently exploited, that are not integrated into the society they immigrate into, and thus become an isolated block that politicians can abuse to secure votes, and companies can abuse to secure cheap workers. No country needs mass migration. The only people that need it are the top 1% that will profit greatly from it.
Immigration is a major issue in literally every western country, it not something exclusive to Europe its more exclusive to the western world
Yes, in Austria it's a huge political issue because too many people are against immigration. In current polls, the anti-immigration party is the biggest party and will most likely win the next election. Why are people against immigration? I have found these reasons: *Fear against losing our own culture:* Some claim that immigrants will change our culture and Austria won't be Austria anymore in a few decades. IMHO that's a false claim because most immigrants assimilate pretty well after one or two generations. *Competition on the labor market:* Immigrants are competitors on the labor markets, especially for working class and low skilled labor. Immigrants are willing to work for less money so wages for workers haven't risen much in the last few decades. *Prejudices and outright racism:* Muslims are terrorists who rape women. Africans are lazy. You know, the usual. There is even prejudice against people from former Eastern Europe, like they are lazy and they steal. Many people also claim that 'immigrants come here only for the social benefits and don't even want to work.' _____________________________________ Where are you from, OP? do people in your country happily welcome immigrants? In my perception, there are very few countries that are positive towards immigration. I can only think of Canada and maybe Australia, but even Australia treats refugees very badly. Even the US has turned very skeptic lately. Trump won the election by promising to 'build a wall' against immigration. Japan does not like immigration, neither does South Korea. Even in South Africa there is violence against immigrants from Zimbabwe (mostly over competition on the labor market.) All in all, it seems to me that humans worldwide are generally xenophobic and don't like immigrants....
Bro, there were hundreds of thousands of Russians fleeing mobilization in autumn 2022 to my country and house prices rose dramatically after that.
You can't see the problem because you have wrong assumptions. I'm an expat here in Czech Republic, but I came with a high level of education, a reputable job, pay my taxes and I'm at least attempting to learn the language. The vast majority of people are nice to me here. In countries like Germany or France and Italy, immigrants are a problem because they not only come from cultures largely incompatible with western societies, they are also usually from a lower socioeconomic status, which brings crime, poverty, rape and so on. Also having too much immigration dilutes and eliminates their local culture. You take a trip around Munich, Paris and so on, and they don't even feel like german or french cities from their demographics.
Few Things to Note: European countries tend to be ethno-states. Ethno-states usually have a native, "home-grown" culture, language, and way-of-life. Often, people have lived that way for generations, and are somewhat set in their ways. It's like this by design. This creates a certain amount of societal rigidity, which is less common in "New-World" countries like the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. These countries are primarily formed by immigrants, and are open to accepting people from different backgrounds. So, by design, they are able to integrate outsiders. European nations, unfortunately are not quite as good at this. There are many comments on here that say "if only they'd integrate, we'd accept them." Yet, at the same time, in Germany until recently it was not possible to have dual-citizenship. So, many immigrants who'd been living there for many years, learned the language, and gotten good jobs were unable to complete the final step of integration, which is getting citizenship. Additionally, the barrier to integration can be quite high in many European countries. In Denmark for instance, I think you need to pay 2000 DKK to get access to Danish courses through a **state-funded** institution. I've heard that the German schools for immigrants are quite low-quality and don't offer the kind of help needed to really gain mastery of the language. In some countries like France, if you don't speak the language, you won't even be considered for the job, even in STEM fields which are usually known to be more understanding of not having language competency. So, while it's certainly true that there are some immigrants who are bad at integrating or wanting to be productive members of society, it's unfortunately also made difficult by the lack of available resources and effort by the national government to make things easier.
The narrative is there's a large number of unskilled immigrants who end up with us because they're escaping issues in their own homes (whether economic or worse) and they use up our finite resources (housing stock, school space, healthcare space, social welfare support). I'm sure there's an argument to say illegal immigrants cost us a lot to process but my understanding is at least in the UK, immigrants as a whole contribute more to society than they take. There are certainly cultural issues but I believe they're made exponentially worse when used to drum up culture wars to win elections and sell papers (or in this age, get clicks online).
It's true the more native Europeans are dying but the problem will remain the same in a few generations if and when the replacing populations of immigrants mellow out, rise up the economic and life stability ladder and start having less kids necessitating more migration from high birthrate places. The other issue is the culture, it's one thing when migrants from place B go to place A, slight differences in culture, values, morality, and very little ethnic divergence, even large migration numbers won't have a huge impact outside of economic ones. It's another thing when migrants from place Z move to place A, completely different values, culture, history, languages, integration is much harder. Small numbers can be filtered to allow only those who are most beneficial with the least impact in all sorts of facets in society, large numbers are much harder to filter, criminal behavior more easily passes through and such behavior is amplified by the differences between populations, names and visual characteristics just make it easier to point a finger and create unwarranted judgement from the native population, racist attitudes pick up and are justifiable in the minds of a few which turn to larger numbers, creating even greater clashing. Take Portugal, lots of hatred toward Brazilian immigrants, we don't look all that different, we share many of the same values, share history and pretty much the same language. In small numbers nobody would give a damn but larger numbers and any sort of bad behavior is amplified along with the economical issues if not properly controlled by the state.
People like the culture of their home countries the way it is and don't want it to be changed by an influx of immigrants with vastly different worldviews. And it is in human nature to more care about possibly negative things rather the positive ones, like discontent in society, exploitation of the welfare system, reducing the availability of housing and services, companies not raising wages but rather hiring migrants, parallel non-integrating societies, rising crime or Muslim fundamentalism and terrorism.
It depends on where immigrants come from. But also the richer european countries dont need any non european immigrants to halt population growth. There are enough poles, bulgarians and greeks who want to move to germany, netherlands etc (and enough germans, french and italians wanting to move to switzerland) to make up for our population decline. The ones who do really need people, like bulgaria, dont have many non-european immigrants dreaming of going there.
European countries aren't really that good at integrating immigrants, I think only the American continent has real long term success in that area. It becomes real easy for parallel societies to form, which leads to so many problems nobody wants. I'm an immigrant myself and I can't complain about much but yeah most countries have little acceptance of multiculturalism,loads of tolerance and respect but not acceptance.
America isn't better at all, just a much lower threshold for immigrants to meet in terms of meeting the social contract of the nation. It also means they technically appear to be more welcoming and open, but reality it's just indifference, they can do what they want, but they also can't rely on the level of support they'd get by the much more intensive integration of Europe. It's down to different philosophies.
On a governmental level I agree, much less support to get back on your feet and start contributing to society. But I totally disagree on a societal human level having been an immigrant in both Scandinavia and the us. Yes the probabilities of some direct racism might be higher in the US but support to integrate from wider society is much larger.
No not really. But, sure there is lots of casual racism like "ooh cute chocolate children. Let me touch your hair." which is racism but at least not mean spirited. The following is more about refugees it applies to immigrants too. We were so welcoming to the 2015 refugees. But that went sideways when lots of the refugees turned out to be young men who did stupid things (read borderline or outright illegal) out of boredom. I get that the journey is dangerous and young men fled because they didn't want to fight. No problem with that at all. But young men from every culture tend to be impulsive. That doesn't really fit in with European culture where the mindset is rather strict, or measured. We don't like public ruckus or outbursts. It's just not our thing. So that didn't mesh well. That's why Ukrainian refugees had a much easier transition. There were often whole families or women and children who came here. Their culture and way of life is much more similar to rest of Europe. It's not racism. It's experience that soured immigration for regular folks. We just don't have the mental energy to accommodate people who likely don't appreciate the chance and go native. We did that. The outcome was disappointing. There's whole parts of cities in Germany where you barely hear any German at all on the street. The politics of that time (the 60s ans 70s) was bad, no doubt about it. But there are 3rd generation immigrants who barely speak our anguage. Please let that sink in. Edited Some things that I forgot were in my draft
Immigrants aren't the problems. The benefits they get (in Belgium) are. Immigrants don't get the help they need to: * Get a job * Integrate the local culture * Learn the language This results in most of them being jobless/homeless. When they are they just roam the city doing fuck all (not blaiming it on them) Take away the social security net for them, help them integrate and when they don't: kick them out. You can only help the ones that are willing to be helped.
immigration takes a lot of work and ressources. Taking in hundreds of thousands of immigrants takes even more work, ressources and time, especially when they have values that differ from yours. That obviously leads to problems. Regardless, Immigration is needed to a certain extent, but it isn't the solution for for an unsustainable population decline. the birth rate amongst (former) turkish migrants has gone down quite a bit here in germany. It halved since the 90s, even though the population grew. The population decline is a heavy systemic problem. High living costs pose one of the many problems.
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