Immigration
For an upcoming show (hopefully the next one, but 9/11 remembrance events may take over) I’d like to gather perspectives and explore immigration policies and attitudes among the countries of the world.
Immigration is one of those issues almost everyone’s got an opinion on - and I want to know yours. Please use our comments form or post a comment to this post and tell me your thoughts on immigration. Do you think your country’s government is too soft or hard on immigrants? Should immigrants assimilate to local cultures? How should your country handle illegal immigrants?
I’d love to hear your take on these questions or related issues, so share your ideas.
September 9th, 2006 at 1:39 am
First of all, it seems to me that the United States, compared to the nations of Europe, has much less serious of a problem. From what I have been able to tell, the massive wave of immigration into Europe of cheap laborers, often in the form of persons from Islamic cultures, has led to a culture war. Compare this to the United States, where legal immigration has, for the most part been a success. During the controversy over the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet, American Muslims did not cause riots, but made their objections known peacefully. To some extent, this can be attributed to the small number of American Muslims. However, I believe that a more important factor is the fact that the vast majority of Muslims who have legally immigrated into the United States have been very well integrated into American society.
The main problem in the United States, of course, is illegal immigration and the problems it can cause. Although this has been depicted by some as a sort of “invasion,” I don’t think it can be compared to the serious cultural clash in Europe. The influx of immigrants into the United States from Latin America has has an effect on the American culture, to be sure, but this need not be seen as a problem. Certainly, there is nothing within the Latin American culture to compare with Islamic fundamentalism, which is the real problem which Europe faces today.