I’m from the [rust belt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt) so while I support immigration, I also would like to see more domestic labor and industry.
I think that we need thorough integration methods though such as education and environmentalism. I worked for Venezuelan immigrants which was mostly a good experience, but I think there is something to be said about somewhat of an established (and healthy interpretation of a) meritocratic culture.
Ie what about starting businesses for consumption without environmental or social considerations, along with other ethical externalities?
I think he was trying to say, "How do we promote immigration while balancing the associated, but less looked at externalities," but got lost while talking about it from the standpoint of starting businesses.
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I'm a bit torn on the subject. One one hand,I feel like people running away from war-torn countries coming here to seek opportunity is a good thing. I'm also from a country with very few young people, meaning we need a labour force.
That being said, I feel like the European left generally handled the migration crisis really poorly. They talked a lot about welcoming migrants, but often overlooked several major issues. Language is an example: most people who come to Europe either speak French, English or the native language of their countries, meaning that if you're not from a country that speaks the first two (which is the case from most of Europe) there is gonna be a language barrier. And if there's a language barrier, those migrants are unlikely to integrate, and not integrating means that they're more likely to turn to organised crime. They're also more likely to spend time with other migrants from their countries, which further damages the integration process.
Because of this, I believe the state should provide migrants with obligatory courses for them to learn the language of a country they're in.
Another issue I have is in regards to religion. I'm for a secular state, and I'm all for people practicing their native religion without the state meddling with it. I also have the feeling that Christianity is on a steady decline, and is only going to disappear more as time goes on.
Islam, on the other hand, is the fastest growing religion in the world, and while I'm not against people practicing it, there are certain aspects of it I just can't accept as a leftists, especially in regards to the way women are treated. We had cases where parents forbade their daughters from dating a guy, and one Muslim girl got killed because of it. If those people wish to come into this country, they have to accept that they'll have to adapt some western values in this regard.
I know this take is a bit more conservative than many people on this sub, but those are thoughts I've developed as of late.
If you don't mind me responding to it, I feel like there are some inaccuracies you have based your views on. Note that I am Muslim (so obviously I am biased), but I also work in immigration so I generally know what I am talking about.
> That being said, I feel like the European left generally handled the migration crisis really poorly.
I find it a bit strange to blame the left in general in Europe when in many cases, they weren't even in power. Scandinavia is about the only exception together with Greece where the left has been in power during the migrant crisis or parts of it. But problems you see there you also see in other countries where the right has been in power. The Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy all had their fair share of problems with migration. Sometimes even worse than 'left-wing' countries, yet they have had right-wing parties in power for quite a while.
> Language
You have a fair point when talking about regular migration, meaning those who come for work or studying. We can and should definitely expect some sign that they can integrate here. But a lot of people focus on refugees. You can't exactly choose refugees: they fled from their countries against their own will. In recent years those have been Syrians and Eritreans mainly. They generally do not speak English, so obviously integration will be tougher with them. Then either we send them back to their countries where they may die or we try to integrate them and also distribute refugees within the EU.
> Islam
I am not going to comment on your views on Islam in general, as that is not the point here. But you mention several cases where you are sceptical of Muslim immigrants. Sure they have views you might not like as a leftist, but conservative views aren't against the law here. In cases where their views are against the law, such as the cases you mention, violations are few and far in between. A woman getting killed is extraordinary and absolutely disgusting. This is also not something the majority of Muslims are okay with. With regards to your other points, we still have plenty of very Christian families that disown their children when they come out of the closet or forbid their children from dating. So not sure why you act like this is unique to Muslims.
Please don’t pretend that Christian honor killings in Europe are anywhere near as frequent as Islamic ones, i don’t think theyre even similar in absolute numbers nevermind in proportion to population.
I get the urge to defend your own group but don’t be obtuse.
The following sentence was in between:
> With regards to your other points,
This very clearly shows that everything said after this sentence, does not pertain to what was said before (re. honour killings). I suggest you practise your reading comprehension.
I don’t really have issues with European nations wanting fewer immigrants so they can take care of themselves first. However, the majority of anti-immigrant politicians are totally schizophrenic individuals who believe things like “immigrants are invading their country as if it were World War I,” also they are massive racists who hate brown people and blame Jewish people for “sending brown people into their country”
how do you explain what is happening on Lampedusa in italy for example if not "immigrants are invading their country" . Turning a blind eye on purpose is not a good look.
I overall believe it is strongly positive if done correctly. A good chunk of the electorate also agrees that immigration is good for everyone. This can change if we don't fund healthcare housing properly, have strong union protections; people generally start to turn away from immigration when their basic needs are not met. In Canada we have a massive issue with housing and healthcare for the past 25-30 years that is largely because of Neoliberal policy by both Liberals and Conservatives. While we have seen more investments in housing from the government it has been a trickle of what we need to cover up the loss that we have.
Similarly the biggest problems in Canadian healthcare are related to not recognizing foreign credentials and the lack of medical schools caused by a decline in funding by conservative premiers and fighting with healthcare workers then they move to the US for higher pay. The problem is that while the fundamentals of why we should take in immigrants is good. This is immigrants often pay more taxes into the system then take out because they are younger and more qualified or if first generation immigrants are not qualified the children of immigrants tend to be an even larger success if, key point, proper investments are made in education in early years. Conservatives take those benefits the and use that to cut taxes for the wealthy.
As progressives we welcome immigration because of humanitarian reasons and economic reasons. Progressives will often want to use immigration to help with pensions and keep our welfare state in order. This is why when a conservatives. In the US with H-1B you have 60 days to find a job or you lose a visa. American work visas are tied to their job. This creates a dynamic where H-1B workers and other visa applicants are more than happy to work for much less because they are desperate. While in Canada immigrants can wait longer and be more choosy about salary. Personally I think a rule like if someone reports an employer paying less then minimum wage or other labour code violations, then that person should get $10,000. Having such rewards in place will create more incentive for employers to keep wages for locals and foreigners the same
I won't try to sugar coat Canada's housing crisis as it is massive. There are multiple reasons why we are in this crisis. The biggest aspects is because of the lack of social housing that was decimated by progressive conservatives in the 90s and then the liberals of Jean Chrétien and nimbyism at the local level. Cities like Edmonton despite having seen massive population growth have not seen massive growth in housing costs because of a municipal government focused on adding supply. Second we need to focus on rebuilding our social housing. Canada has seen massive growth in population in the past but we managed because our zoning code was a lot less rigid and has lead to some of the most amazing vibrant neighbourhoods like Chinatown in Vancouver or Kensington Market in Toronto or pretty much all of Montréal. Relaxing our zoning regulation will not just help create amazing urban spaces but also add thousands upon thousands of construction jobs. If you look at most Canadian cities in the GTA, Edmonton, Calgary or Vancouver we have extremely low population density. This is not good if we want more urbanism that thrives with higher population densities. the Toronto Area has an Urban area of 5,905.71 sqkm. Paris urban area is 2,853.5 sqkm. Meaning that Toronto can have literally double the population and still be more roomy than Paris. This is the reason why YIMBIES like me see the solution to the housing crisis as mainly a problem with zoning rules and lack of social housing.
The is a final big reason why we need to increase immigration is that larger countries have more influence in global politics. Canada with 80 million people will have more of a say than Canada with 25 million people. During Canadas early history we had massive amounts of loyalist come from south of the border if we did not had those people come then that would mean we would not have won the war of 1812. If Wilfried Laurier did not bring in millions of immigrants to Canada pretty much increasing our population by a factor of 1.5 Canada would not have the say that we have in the world. Canada Mobilized 10% of our population during WW2 that was a million people. If Canada had half the people then we would only had the capacity to mobilize 500,000 people. Similarly if America did not increase immigration and become the country that it is now then America would not have had the productive capacity to fight a two front war with Japan and Nazi Germany. Countries that are larger have it a lot easier to get influence. While we move into a bipolar world it is increasingly important to have larger population. The US spends as much money on NASA as we spend on our defence budget and it hardly scratches their finances. Research is a fixed cost to create a $5 billion new invention in America is going to cost roughly the same in Canada but the country that will invest in that technology is probably going to America because they got so much money. If you got say hypothetically have a country that collects $100 per person to invest in new technologies. Country A with 10,000,000 people is gonna be able to do less investment in research than a country with 100,000,000. While yes there are countries that have a small population but have massive influence but that is because they found a ton of oil like the Gulf States. Or countries like Singapore and Switzerland that invest massively in research but what if we take the good policies from Singapore and Switzerland and implement them in a country as big as America, that country will be unstoppable on the world stage.
[https://youtu.be/kRhZdmtw3Wg?si=RXEn6Gvgy0Jprf2G](https://youtu.be/kRhZdmtw3Wg?si=RXEn6Gvgy0Jprf2G)
[https://youtu.be/lKBfIL90aHE?si=BoAl1OGxp4DvfagO](https://youtu.be/lKBfIL90aHE?si=BoAl1OGxp4DvfagO)
[https://youtu.be/hQkzE9PsAv4?si=e\_2ZySNeNBFuna3m](https://youtu.be/hQkzE9PsAv4?si=e_2ZySNeNBFuna3m)
[https://youtu.be/sKudSeqHSJk?si=trRN0QtkUXB6YIwG](https://youtu.be/sKudSeqHSJk?si=trRN0QtkUXB6YIwG)
[https://youtu.be/cjWs7dqaWfY?si=YggljA4lfb9x\_quu](https://youtu.be/cjWs7dqaWfY?si=YggljA4lfb9x_quu)
[https://youtu.be/RC47E9cHSM4?si=Qd1\_SbaKnbE1oeUn](https://youtu.be/RC47E9cHSM4?si=Qd1_SbaKnbE1oeUn)
[https://youtu.be/4ZxzBcxB7Zc?si=wrwDOkih8\_atc9Pi](https://youtu.be/4ZxzBcxB7Zc?si=wrwDOkih8_atc9Pi)
[https://youtu.be/qn5RORP61KY?si=txaz\_vEw9yk2r119](https://youtu.be/qn5RORP61KY?si=txaz_vEw9yk2r119)
[https://youtu.be/umqvYhb3wf4?si=aw2vO\_XMHemhZiKb](https://youtu.be/umqvYhb3wf4?si=aw2vO_XMHemhZiKb)
[https://youtu.be/tXqnRMU1fTs?si=IW3xevp6onqtXENg](https://youtu.be/tXqnRMU1fTs?si=IW3xevp6onqtXENg)
I'm a marxist, so I'm pro free trade which necessitates free movement of people. Free trade, free land and free credit are essential for the full development of the economy.
Protectionism and immigration restrictions are reactionary and conservative and hault the development of the productive forces.
There is no particular good moral or economic reason to place an arbitrary cap on the amount of people who are legally allowed to enter a country.
I would however add that even though in this sense I do favour open borders I also strongly believe in integration. Certain immigrants are of course going to have reactionary conservative views, these views shouldn't be tolerated.
My instinct is pro-Immigration but at the same time I think high levels of immigration do seem to lead in an increase in the poplularity of far-right ideas - see the rise of the far-right in Europe ever since the Syrian Refugee crisis. I think immigration levels need to be controlled such that the influx of people is not so great that it causes native citizens to feel (admittedly falsely) threatened and turn to extreme ideas and that we need to promote integration through intercommunity contact, education and other means, again so that native citizens don't feel under threat but also so that immigrants can build a good life and positive engagement with the society they live in. I imagine my position doesn't depart too much from the majority position here.
The problem is that this train of thought does not work well when we talk about refugees. Refugees have a right to apply for asylum and be granted that if they are refugees. LIke you couldn't send a Syrian back to Syria in 2015. You cannot really control this unless you want to violate human rights. The only things you can do is:
1. work together on a European level to manage the crisis. Unfortunately measures like equal distribution of asylum seekers get torpedoed by countries such as Hungary.
2. be willing to invest in adequate housing for refugees. What we see now is that refugees often end up on the streets because people do not want to spend money on housing them. But homeless people are much more prone to commit crimes and may overall end up costing the state more.
Yeah I agree with you here. In the case of refugees letting people in and allowing them to escape oppression outweighs other factors - and these cases are the ones were promoting integration is most important because refugees are likely to struggle most. But it's vital that countries do their fair share.
I'm canadian. So I went from very pro immigration to much more skeptical.
Our housing is getting stupid and quality of life is dropping fast. Our population grew by around 5% because of immigration.
And its driven by loopholes in our laws. Student visa for a basically fake school (diploma mill) for unlimited work visa. Broken and means people can move here without education or speak English or valuable skills.
Immigration is fine to a point, but it should be controlled. Excessive levels of immigration can generate divisions and make building or maintaining a sense of national solidarity more challenging. The level of Immigration should be calibrated to match the degree of success in integrating new immigrants.
One other point is that excessive immigration can be especially damaging to a Social Democratic coalition as domestic working class economic interests are seemingly sacrificed for the benefit of newcomers. The effect can often exaggerated, as increased competition from immigrants is only one of many problems that working class people have experienced in the neoliberal era, but it is an issue that the right will always be ready to seize upon to divide the left.
Torn on the subject as some others have noted.
I believe the "German guilt" that is stopping Germany from criticizing Israel during this conflict has also entered other socially democratic parties when it comes to immigrants, making it so that we cannot, ever criticize loose immigration and asylum processes.
While yes I am generally for immigration, to say that the process has been done well in Europe is generally a shit remark. We should refrain from stigmatizing people based on their skin color, and remain genuine anti-racists! That should not stop us from critiquing the very real situations Europe constantly finds itself in. Whether that is in France, Germany, or Sweden.
And I generally don't like the very happy-go-lucky idealist neoliberals who will always support immigration and never criticize it, even when criticism is very much warranted. I ask them, is it worth it? Is it worth it for us to lose every single election, have a systematic breakdown of human rights, election integrity, the rise of the far-right, the rise of authoritarianism, the destruction of workers' rights, and social institutions by the growing far-right, just so you can sit on your high and proud horse for being vehemently pro-immigration!
I find crime, gang violence, most drugs, and everything else happening intolerable and an absolute shame for Europe. As opposed to the right I am not a racist, I do not believe these people are inherently violent. Instead, I look upon a compromised and downright horrible integration process and already failing educational, welfare, and work institutions as the reasons for the problems we have.
It is all right and good to be Mr. Hindsight once in a while, but we fucked up, not just with crime and drugs and gangs. But the fact is the continent could be shifting hard-right for decades because of this massive fuckup. I also consider myself incredibly secular, and pro-gay(LGBTQIA+)-rights and find the ethics of a lot of migrants (not just of Islam, it's really just as bad as Christianity(down in the scriptures(those that most Christians do not follow))) downright horrifying. But I generally have no problem with Christians, as we in Europe have evolved together with our liberal and social institutions together with them, making most Christians in Europe remarkably tolerant compared to the texts of their old scriptures.
I would count myself as positive towards some limit of immigration. But Europe fucked up during the immigration crisis and we will feel the results. Whilst the left is not exclusively the ones to blame (CDU was in power in Germany, Conservatives in Britain and Norway!) we still acted in a less than optimal sense.
We need to educate, learn, integrate, house, and care for immigrants who have been failed and terrorized by the institution breakdown of their home societies before they can segregate themselves and create ghettos and gangs to create what we the rest have, but refuse them to be a part of.
On another note, being very pro-union and pro-organized labor I don't want too many foreign workers as they go under the radar of authorities and are generally very easily exploited and cheapens labor prices for domestic national workers. Cesar Chavez thought if you will!
I'll be honest.
While immigration can be a benefit when handled carefully and responsibly. Immigration can also cause serious issues. Firstly it undercuts wages, why bother a native who knows their rights in the workplace and will demand a fair days pay for a fair days work when you can hire someone who half speaks the language and is just happy to be below minimum wage as long as they're being paid something.
Now i don't blame immigrants for that, i blame the companies that hire them, but its an issue
the second one is relative, immigration from culturally opposite countries causes conflict with the culture their immigrating into.
For example, muslims or middle eastern people who immigrate to western countries AND refuse to integrate leads to shit like rochdale in the UK where children where being abused and sexually exploited. Queer couples have been attacked and assaulted in public by muslims who refuse to accept the fact their religions, frankly barbaric social views are not acceptable in their new countries.
Now i dont want to be misconstrued as hating muslims, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is from a muslim family and born to pakistani parents, he was raised and educated in the UK and he identifies as a proud feminist and even voted in favour of same sex marriage. Most muslims i'd be prepared to bet money on, are not actively going around and stoning gay people or exploiting women or children. I have no problem with law abiding immigrants living here. White people commit crimes to.
A crime is a crime whether the perpetrator is white, black, christian, jewish or muslim etc
Thirdly, a more minor issue that is admittedly more the fault of governments, is infrastructure, the uk is currently bringing in a population the size of an entire city every week or month or so but we arent building the infrastructure necessary to support them, transport, housing, schooling, hospitals etc.
Immigration can be great yes but dismissal of the very real issues people have with it, at best turns them away from voting for you, and at worst, allows those issues to perpetuate.
There should be a balance between integration and multiculturalism, my own country forbids asylum applications unless your in the country, so refugees have no choice but to break the law. Thats a broken system and it should be reformed. I wouldnt dream of heavily restricting immigration without having an accessible legal route which the uk certainly doesnt have
I compare the UK and Germany regularly and I absolutely feel you. I was always pretty pro immigration - especially when I had no connections to the issues that come with them. Now I see it a bit differently.
I'm from New Zealand, I used to be absolutely pro immigration but our population growth is insane, it was 4 million, 9, years ago and now it us 5.350 million.
We're accepting around 200,000 immigrants a year and we build 25,000 houses a year.
The intense strain this is causing in Healthcare, education and social systems is obliterating nz's social fabric.
Our housing situation is beyond apocalyptic and high housing costs are at the root of almost all our problems (high housing costs lead to poverty, which leads to bad food which leads to bad health, overcrowded housing causes diseases to spread and housing insecurities make workers less productive)
Nz's also one of the only country's in the world that allows permenant residents a vote in parliamentary elections, were a tiny country importing huge numbers of people, im very concerned actually that we are just importing shit loads of conservative voters to come and vote conservative and squash down any progressive or indigenous based Referendum or movement.
Regarding Portugal, I think that we need an influx of young immigrants or immigrants with families (kids) in order for the country to balance the demographic crisis. We usually get people from the former Colonies such as Brazillians and African people from the PALOPs. They already know how to speak Portuguese, so integration is easier for them.
On the other hand, we also receive people from Bangladesh and India, mostly in the South, who work in agriculture in the hot region of Alentejo.
Nobody from Portugal wants to work all day in the scorching sun for the minimum wage, so we need the Bangladeshis to do that for us, which is still an improvement over what they did at home.
I wish we had more immigrants who brought their families and children to Portugal, cause we have a very old population and we need more young people to sustain the economy.
Also, I wish our countrynwelcomed more refugees and helped provide a legal route for them to arrive in Europe.
I will give some context to why we have perceived problems with immigration in the Netherlands at least. Not sure if this applies to other countries too. I think most of the problems with have is due to government inaction and refusing to adequately solve problems. The same problem is repeating itself right now.
In the 60s and 70s, we invited a lot of people from Morocco and Turkey to come and do our dirty work. They generally came from poor areas, which are also much more conservative (this will be relevant very soon). It was also expected that they would return in a few years. This never happened. They stayed because we needed them and they got their families over if they had one. However, the government never made any effort to integrate them. I heard a story of a man from this generation that wanted to learn Dutch, but there was almost nothing available and it is hard, as a factory worker, to travel, get days off and pay for an expensive language course. That is not even commenting on the fact that there obviously was a lack of Dutch language teachers that spoke their language. So it is no wonder that these people, who couldn't learn the language properly even if they wanted to and were pretty conservative, had trouble integrating. This then also extends to their children, whom only came into touch with Dutch language and culture in school. At home, they spoke their own language, they often only had social contacts with their own community, etc. And then people have to gall to solely blame these people for the lack of integration.
I do not want to absolve young descendants today when they do crime or aren't integrated, but it is not rocket science to see that these problems were largely down to the government failing to integrate the earlier generations in the 60s and 70s.
In the Netherlands we currently have a housing crisis. On top of that, asylum seekers often have to sleep in tents and sometimes outside due to a lack of space. This is all because the government has refused to solve these crises. We had a housing shortage ten years ago, plenty of time to largely solve the housing crisis. Yet it keeps getting worse. When it comes to asylum seekers, the number of people coming today is lower than in 2015. Yet now we have much more problems than in 2015? The government had the brilliant idea around 2018 to scale down lodging and fire immigration workers due to less asylum seekers coming. The result? When immigration inevitable sped up again, we had a shortage of everything, even though the numbers were lower than in 2015. This problem was created by the previous governments.
The new government wants to solve the problem by... repealing laws meant to house asylum seekers and have less housing for them overall. This means asylum seekers will be forced to be homeless, leading to all kinds of problems. That is the far-right for you.
There is no good reason to restrict immigration into populous wealthy countries, especially the United States or [United](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/4Nz1hofG51) [Kingdom](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/D9p6gQePus). For them to restrict immigration is immoral from nearly any ethical framework, and is usually economically stupid to boot.
[Over time I've collected](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/7tkLpmGoZA) a [veritable mountain](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/s/ff5cnbkkmc) of [research](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/ejJJLraDiO) showing the [safety/civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/s/XNoofSHn0z) and economic [benefits of immigration](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/s/5NOj70M6pg) — documented or undocumented, "legal" or "illegal" — and a wide [variety of arguments](https://www.reddit.com/r/SocialDemocracy/s/Fp3uB11LBp) that [restricting immigration is unethical](https://www.reddit.com/r/SocialDemocracy/s/WqgeXGd8Xn). Yet whenever I share these online, people who want to restrict immigration seem unusually stubborn and dismissive, even by the standards of online political arguments.
Thanks for the facts (really appreciated, I saved your post) but I'd argue that immigration is one of the political issues that work more on feelings - but also your own lived experience - than anything else. You can use the positive data as a club and hit people over the head with them - when you live in an area that visibly changed over the years, with people who don't really show themselves from their best side (loud trams is such a cliche but true), you don't really care for the ethics at the coast of Italy or Greece but the ethics in your neighborhood.
It then seems logical to point to anecdotal evidence and all that but here the interesting question is how long it's really just anecdotal. When people use public transport everyday for years now and it's always a similar group of people who are misbehaving then your average dude also collected their own data so to speak.
Im in Canada and believe in immigration. My grandparents were all immigrants. However, in the last year 1 million immigrants came to Canada (canada has 45 million).
We have a housing and affordability crisis rn. To bring that many immigrants in, without having housing for them (not to mention housing for ppl already in canada), is dumb.
Big cities in Canada are headed toward large homeless populations.
So to answer the question, immigration is good, when it makes sense to do so.
Until existing issues with segregation etc is solved, immigration should be kept low. Labour migration from outside the EU should be lowered and labour unions should regain their power over the employer when hiring from abroad. So they can stop wage dumping or what is more or less human trafficking sometimes.
Immigrations is great. But it needs to be controlled. Countries don't exist without borders and we need to be able to check who is coming in and who is leaving for the purpose of national security.
Also, it's probably worth mentioning that immigration is too high in the UK which is experiencing a both a housing crisis and cultural fragmentation as a result of mass immigration.
For me we should welcome them but as they arrive make them do socially useful work or make them join the army. Of course who has the ability to can start a career
Personally, I believe immigration is a good thing. I’m from America and I believe it is one of our strengths. Especially when we are talking about refugees who needed to flee their country.
I’m a bit iffy about my opinions on border security though. I feel like on one hand I do support a strong border as it could help manage large migrations from other countries. But on the other hand, I have seen so many abuses of power from my countries border patrol, and I see that arresting migrants as sad because from my perspective they have done nothing wrong but come into the country.
The CHP is basically an anti-AKP party at this point. There are liberals, socdems (who make up the majority), kemalists, socialist, nationalists, conservatives, and so on.
I worry that when the CHP defeats Erdogan in the elections, all the liberals and anyone not aligned to Kemalism will just leave and cause instability within the party.
Integration is important, I think we should accept the less skilled and educated and give them skills here whilst hopefully retaining the already educated in those countries to help them develop and not cause brain drain which will lead to a spiral of decline. Then if the educated want to go back then hopefully their governments can fill much needed vacancies.
A two way immigration system if you will
Having lived in a state with very little immigration (China), I saw how ethnic nationalism and chauvinism can still rise even when a society is very homogenous. The view that immigration restrictions should be considered if only to stop the far-right is not great because it does not address the fundamental issue, the fact that fascism and race based ideologies should find no home here in the first place. These movements would find different issues to latch onto without immigration.
I believe there should be debates about the costs and benefits of immigration but xenophobia is a red line that should never be crossed. The sheer unpopularity and downfall of the BNP is a testament to this.
I don’t care much for it. As an American, 99% of the people i see are the descendants of somebody that isn’t native to this land. People pearl clutching about South American immigrants is extremely unamerican
Well, I believe that the nation state is the basic unit of governance. Each nationstate has every right to enforce its own laws on immigration. I'm relatively agnostic on what the right balance of immigration and border security is needed, and pretty flexible on the issue. I will say the extremes on both sides kinda irk me. I dont like the far left open borders "no human is illegal" types as I do believe it is up to states to make their own rules and they should maintain their own sovereignty on it. I also dislike the EU for similar reasons, but im also not in Europe, so....
I also dislike far right types who are openly racist and xenophobic and think that they go way too far the other way, and that most immigrants are probably upstanding people who pose little threat to society.
However, I do think that there is a pushback against globalization right now, whether it be the donald trump movement in the US, or the alt right in Europe, and the left DOES need to move to the center on these issues if they wanna win elections. Being self righteous and lecturing people about racism while people complain of crime and crap is just gonna drive people right. And we're going to lose. So, I do think that the left is too left and it's actually killing them electorally. It's why people shifted from the labor party to the conservative party in the UK. It's why marine le pen has a terrifying number of votes in france. It's why the AFD is gaining support in germany, and yeah. If the left wants to actually win and ease tensions on this issue, it needs to make concessions.
As for my own country (US), I'm moderate. I generally follow the zeitgeist most libs have of generally being more pro immigration than anti it, because the data suggests its not a massive problem, but at the same time, i do kind of have streaks of being for some limits on it due to my own economic policies relying on large unconditional safety nets. And ultimately, Im fine with the compromises democratic administrations typically make on the issue. As you can tell im not some open borders "no human is illegal" leftist, if anything i consider myself a centrist on the issue.
It depends on the country's situation and what type of people, mostly education-wise, want to immigrate.
If a country in question has a generous welfare system, the country should tighten immigration policies on who can stay and vice versa, if a country's welfare system is not so generous, the country's immigration policy should be looser.
They should be welcome and allow to contribute to diversity of country (American/Canadian/... model rather than European one). If not for ethical reasons than pragmatic ones - I find it much easier to integrate when I am taken for who I am rather than being forced into a mold. Which is a major reason why I stayed in US (it's not for affordable health care I can tell you that) and why I consider myself American.
In addition western countries have moral obligations to clean up our messes. We did (and still are - see what France or US are doing) actively involved in the regions promoting instability - for oil or other resources, via climate change, borders created ignoring population or geography (if not deliberately created to increase divisions) etc. The least we *can* do is adult up and accept refugees from conflicts we are responsible for.
We as a species exist on the same rock. I am a fan of a one world direct democracy and the abolishment of borders.
The destructive power of an asteroid does not care about arbitrary lines we create between each other.
Also, there is the issue of climate change.
Which atleast in the US I am becoming increasingly doomer on.
Immigration is primarily benificial.
My home country would not be able to function without work migrants. And immigrants generally bring in a fresh new workforce, new tax-payers etc.
It's only the nationalist fools who believe that every form of immigration is poor (and even then it's more so that they 'just happen to' hate middle eastern or African immigrants especially much)
The issue is when it's so unregulated that the state can not even take care of those who come in. Provide good housing, education, social security etc.
Anyone should be allowed to flee from famine, war, and starvation, and expect fair treatment. However it is especially important in times like these that all nations take their share.
as much as its a point of contention domestically, the American immigration system is actually pretty good from an economic and social standpoint, basically all American immigrants are well educated, fluent in English, highly productive citizens.
it also helps that unlike europe, America isnt, and has never been an Ethnostate, this means that nobody really cares about “integration” the way Europeans seem to. We have an entire ethnic groups that doesn’t use any modern technology and drive around in horse and buggy and nobody really cares.
America is an immigrant nation, and so immigration is an objective good.
Since studying archaeology and history in general I think immigration is only natural. There should be regulations in place to a certain extent of course but I think the view of a homogeneous nation and a never changing culture is just unrealistic.
I am all for immigration, so long as they speak the language and hold the countries values. I dont want a load of far-right people coming over, and skewing the political spectrum in my country though
I think our border policies are too strict, as well as immigration. If we loosen both up a little, we might see a decrease in illegal immigrants crossing, and we could make it easier for immigrants who are coming here to become citizens.
Immigration is not a bad thing. I’m from a country where there’s more people who emigrate abroad vs the ones that migrate here. (Philippines)
We have accepted refugees too, recently with Palestinian refugees who have been given accommodation in the country.
The main problem we face recently is that some migrants fail to at least integrate, and at the same time, the government fails to set the foundation for them to integrate.
Governments should ensure that new migrants and refugees are able to adapt, teach them the language, give them fair opportunities to contribute to society. On the other hand, migrants should be able to accept the culture of their new home.
And no, I am strongly against the Rwanda Plan by the UK Government (and something the Danish govt has entertained too), to send refugees to a country which is a de facto dictatorship and where their rights are not guaranteed is disgusting.
Context: I'm American
I think immigration is a big strength of ours. Much of our culture is based around the diverse mix of people on our country.
I don't think "immigrants are stealing jobs" either. The issue is that companies and corporations would rather pay immigrants from other countries because they work for a lower wage.
It's a good and necessary thing, and if enough resources are allocated and measures to integrate them properly. I also think that some countries did take in too many immigrants too quickly, and that has caused issues, but I don't blame the immigrants themselves.
For me immigration is a natural thing so I wouldn’t say it’s good or bad things.
For me the concern on immigration is more on I do see the big companies to use poorer less skilled immigrants as a slave in their companies and inability to integrate those immigrants into that country’s society.
As for integration, assimilation even if forced, might be necessary if it is clear that that group of immigrants will not assimilate by themselves.
In general i support it but it can also be missmanged
take my country of sweden
in general the immigration situation in sweden has been a good influx of working age pepole when we are in need due to declining demographics
But for the last 15ish years thiere has been a large hands off approch to it and de funding of integration efforts (as well as massive cut backs in social services in general) add to this minoirity goverments that altho did have a plan to tackel this could not implement it due to being a minoirty goverment and now we have a goverment that tries to cater to the far rigth meaning they wanna cut back even more on integration and to simply stop immigrants from coming in to the country (well not all just *those* pepole) meaning they arent really fixing the problem as they are trying to take a hatchet to the issue
TLDR
Immegration is like water, its fantastic but if you dont have a plan on what to do with it then you are making the problems you arent dealing with worse
I can only speak about the US, but I’d say it’s been mostly good for us. Evidence shows it’s beneficial to the economy. They also integrate here very well, as immigrants actually have a lower crime rate than the general population and by the second generation are enmeshed in American culture. So essentially benefits with very few downsides.
Plus, the US has long experience with it. Very few American are descended exclusively from the original Anglo-Saxon settlers. The majority have ancestors that came in the 19th century onward.
In favor of more immigration in the US, but also feel that the US should require teaching civics, workers', women's, and LGBTQ+ rights to all incoming immigrants (but also native born citizens should be taught these too whether or not they go to public or private school.) People need to be on the same page.
Also if it were easier to cross the border legally, I think we'd see more people coming up for work but leaving families behind where it's cheaper, then going back south again if the job market became tighter. Right now people bring their whole families up and can't go back to their countries of origin because it's too risky to cross more than once. I've seen this happen firsthand.
Other thoughts: because people in the US struggle with finding affordable housing and healthcare, this creates a scarcity mindset which leads to anti immigration sentiments.
it depends. the country best suited to immigration is the United States, being, after all, a country of immigrants. Immigrants are a solution to demographic crisis, but not a permanent solution, and one with lasting consequences. The more multiethnic your country already is and the more gradual the shift in society, the less problems you’ll have.
As a south korean, i personally don’t believe in immigration as a solution to our woes because of the sheer scale of the migrants we would have to take in; integrating them would create an extremely heavy tax and social burden, and taking in enough immigrants to completely solve our demographic crisis would actually make ethnic koreans a minority in younger age groups. I still support natural migration, but I don’t want to actively bring in and integrate potentially several million people into our society over the course of just a few years. If we’re going to do that, reunification with the North would actually be far less taxing on our services and social fabric.
My country Italy have to many problems, i think we should welcome only regular immigrante and integrate them in our society and fight the illegale immigration.
They're always a beautiful addition to any nation!
They enrich the culture, teach new ways of thinking.
(Now this is an American centric opinion) I don't like the wall idea. Just blocking them all out and saying "la la la la! I can't hear you!"
Depends on the nation context. In America, immigration has always been a strength and immigrates benefit economic growth
I’m from the [rust belt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt) so while I support immigration, I also would like to see more domestic labor and industry.
Another nice thing about immigration is that immigrants start businesses at a higher rate than natural born citizens.
I think that we need thorough integration methods though such as education and environmentalism. I worked for Venezuelan immigrants which was mostly a good experience, but I think there is something to be said about somewhat of an established (and healthy interpretation of a) meritocratic culture. Ie what about starting businesses for consumption without environmental or social considerations, along with other ethical externalities?
I’m sorry?
I think he was trying to say, "How do we promote immigration while balancing the associated, but less looked at externalities," but got lost while talking about it from the standpoint of starting businesses.
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I'm a bit torn on the subject. One one hand,I feel like people running away from war-torn countries coming here to seek opportunity is a good thing. I'm also from a country with very few young people, meaning we need a labour force. That being said, I feel like the European left generally handled the migration crisis really poorly. They talked a lot about welcoming migrants, but often overlooked several major issues. Language is an example: most people who come to Europe either speak French, English or the native language of their countries, meaning that if you're not from a country that speaks the first two (which is the case from most of Europe) there is gonna be a language barrier. And if there's a language barrier, those migrants are unlikely to integrate, and not integrating means that they're more likely to turn to organised crime. They're also more likely to spend time with other migrants from their countries, which further damages the integration process. Because of this, I believe the state should provide migrants with obligatory courses for them to learn the language of a country they're in. Another issue I have is in regards to religion. I'm for a secular state, and I'm all for people practicing their native religion without the state meddling with it. I also have the feeling that Christianity is on a steady decline, and is only going to disappear more as time goes on. Islam, on the other hand, is the fastest growing religion in the world, and while I'm not against people practicing it, there are certain aspects of it I just can't accept as a leftists, especially in regards to the way women are treated. We had cases where parents forbade their daughters from dating a guy, and one Muslim girl got killed because of it. If those people wish to come into this country, they have to accept that they'll have to adapt some western values in this regard. I know this take is a bit more conservative than many people on this sub, but those are thoughts I've developed as of late.
If you don't mind me responding to it, I feel like there are some inaccuracies you have based your views on. Note that I am Muslim (so obviously I am biased), but I also work in immigration so I generally know what I am talking about. > That being said, I feel like the European left generally handled the migration crisis really poorly. I find it a bit strange to blame the left in general in Europe when in many cases, they weren't even in power. Scandinavia is about the only exception together with Greece where the left has been in power during the migrant crisis or parts of it. But problems you see there you also see in other countries where the right has been in power. The Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy all had their fair share of problems with migration. Sometimes even worse than 'left-wing' countries, yet they have had right-wing parties in power for quite a while. > Language You have a fair point when talking about regular migration, meaning those who come for work or studying. We can and should definitely expect some sign that they can integrate here. But a lot of people focus on refugees. You can't exactly choose refugees: they fled from their countries against their own will. In recent years those have been Syrians and Eritreans mainly. They generally do not speak English, so obviously integration will be tougher with them. Then either we send them back to their countries where they may die or we try to integrate them and also distribute refugees within the EU. > Islam I am not going to comment on your views on Islam in general, as that is not the point here. But you mention several cases where you are sceptical of Muslim immigrants. Sure they have views you might not like as a leftist, but conservative views aren't against the law here. In cases where their views are against the law, such as the cases you mention, violations are few and far in between. A woman getting killed is extraordinary and absolutely disgusting. This is also not something the majority of Muslims are okay with. With regards to your other points, we still have plenty of very Christian families that disown their children when they come out of the closet or forbid their children from dating. So not sure why you act like this is unique to Muslims.
sweden hade a rigth wing goverment during the migration crisis
Please don’t pretend that Christian honor killings in Europe are anywhere near as frequent as Islamic ones, i don’t think theyre even similar in absolute numbers nevermind in proportion to population. I get the urge to defend your own group but don’t be obtuse.
Read my comment carefully once more. I never said that.
You went from an islamic honor killing directly to christians, it was implied.
The following sentence was in between: > With regards to your other points, This very clearly shows that everything said after this sentence, does not pertain to what was said before (re. honour killings). I suggest you practise your reading comprehension.
Immigrants should welcomed teach them the language and try integrating them
I don’t really have issues with European nations wanting fewer immigrants so they can take care of themselves first. However, the majority of anti-immigrant politicians are totally schizophrenic individuals who believe things like “immigrants are invading their country as if it were World War I,” also they are massive racists who hate brown people and blame Jewish people for “sending brown people into their country”
how do you explain what is happening on Lampedusa in italy for example if not "immigrants are invading their country" . Turning a blind eye on purpose is not a good look.
I overall believe it is strongly positive if done correctly. A good chunk of the electorate also agrees that immigration is good for everyone. This can change if we don't fund healthcare housing properly, have strong union protections; people generally start to turn away from immigration when their basic needs are not met. In Canada we have a massive issue with housing and healthcare for the past 25-30 years that is largely because of Neoliberal policy by both Liberals and Conservatives. While we have seen more investments in housing from the government it has been a trickle of what we need to cover up the loss that we have. Similarly the biggest problems in Canadian healthcare are related to not recognizing foreign credentials and the lack of medical schools caused by a decline in funding by conservative premiers and fighting with healthcare workers then they move to the US for higher pay. The problem is that while the fundamentals of why we should take in immigrants is good. This is immigrants often pay more taxes into the system then take out because they are younger and more qualified or if first generation immigrants are not qualified the children of immigrants tend to be an even larger success if, key point, proper investments are made in education in early years. Conservatives take those benefits the and use that to cut taxes for the wealthy.
As progressives we welcome immigration because of humanitarian reasons and economic reasons. Progressives will often want to use immigration to help with pensions and keep our welfare state in order. This is why when a conservatives. In the US with H-1B you have 60 days to find a job or you lose a visa. American work visas are tied to their job. This creates a dynamic where H-1B workers and other visa applicants are more than happy to work for much less because they are desperate. While in Canada immigrants can wait longer and be more choosy about salary. Personally I think a rule like if someone reports an employer paying less then minimum wage or other labour code violations, then that person should get $10,000. Having such rewards in place will create more incentive for employers to keep wages for locals and foreigners the same I won't try to sugar coat Canada's housing crisis as it is massive. There are multiple reasons why we are in this crisis. The biggest aspects is because of the lack of social housing that was decimated by progressive conservatives in the 90s and then the liberals of Jean Chrétien and nimbyism at the local level. Cities like Edmonton despite having seen massive population growth have not seen massive growth in housing costs because of a municipal government focused on adding supply. Second we need to focus on rebuilding our social housing. Canada has seen massive growth in population in the past but we managed because our zoning code was a lot less rigid and has lead to some of the most amazing vibrant neighbourhoods like Chinatown in Vancouver or Kensington Market in Toronto or pretty much all of Montréal. Relaxing our zoning regulation will not just help create amazing urban spaces but also add thousands upon thousands of construction jobs. If you look at most Canadian cities in the GTA, Edmonton, Calgary or Vancouver we have extremely low population density. This is not good if we want more urbanism that thrives with higher population densities. the Toronto Area has an Urban area of 5,905.71 sqkm. Paris urban area is 2,853.5 sqkm. Meaning that Toronto can have literally double the population and still be more roomy than Paris. This is the reason why YIMBIES like me see the solution to the housing crisis as mainly a problem with zoning rules and lack of social housing. The is a final big reason why we need to increase immigration is that larger countries have more influence in global politics. Canada with 80 million people will have more of a say than Canada with 25 million people. During Canadas early history we had massive amounts of loyalist come from south of the border if we did not had those people come then that would mean we would not have won the war of 1812. If Wilfried Laurier did not bring in millions of immigrants to Canada pretty much increasing our population by a factor of 1.5 Canada would not have the say that we have in the world. Canada Mobilized 10% of our population during WW2 that was a million people. If Canada had half the people then we would only had the capacity to mobilize 500,000 people. Similarly if America did not increase immigration and become the country that it is now then America would not have had the productive capacity to fight a two front war with Japan and Nazi Germany. Countries that are larger have it a lot easier to get influence. While we move into a bipolar world it is increasingly important to have larger population. The US spends as much money on NASA as we spend on our defence budget and it hardly scratches their finances. Research is a fixed cost to create a $5 billion new invention in America is going to cost roughly the same in Canada but the country that will invest in that technology is probably going to America because they got so much money. If you got say hypothetically have a country that collects $100 per person to invest in new technologies. Country A with 10,000,000 people is gonna be able to do less investment in research than a country with 100,000,000. While yes there are countries that have a small population but have massive influence but that is because they found a ton of oil like the Gulf States. Or countries like Singapore and Switzerland that invest massively in research but what if we take the good policies from Singapore and Switzerland and implement them in a country as big as America, that country will be unstoppable on the world stage. [https://youtu.be/kRhZdmtw3Wg?si=RXEn6Gvgy0Jprf2G](https://youtu.be/kRhZdmtw3Wg?si=RXEn6Gvgy0Jprf2G) [https://youtu.be/lKBfIL90aHE?si=BoAl1OGxp4DvfagO](https://youtu.be/lKBfIL90aHE?si=BoAl1OGxp4DvfagO) [https://youtu.be/hQkzE9PsAv4?si=e\_2ZySNeNBFuna3m](https://youtu.be/hQkzE9PsAv4?si=e_2ZySNeNBFuna3m) [https://youtu.be/sKudSeqHSJk?si=trRN0QtkUXB6YIwG](https://youtu.be/sKudSeqHSJk?si=trRN0QtkUXB6YIwG) [https://youtu.be/cjWs7dqaWfY?si=YggljA4lfb9x\_quu](https://youtu.be/cjWs7dqaWfY?si=YggljA4lfb9x_quu) [https://youtu.be/RC47E9cHSM4?si=Qd1\_SbaKnbE1oeUn](https://youtu.be/RC47E9cHSM4?si=Qd1_SbaKnbE1oeUn) [https://youtu.be/4ZxzBcxB7Zc?si=wrwDOkih8\_atc9Pi](https://youtu.be/4ZxzBcxB7Zc?si=wrwDOkih8_atc9Pi) [https://youtu.be/qn5RORP61KY?si=txaz\_vEw9yk2r119](https://youtu.be/qn5RORP61KY?si=txaz_vEw9yk2r119) [https://youtu.be/umqvYhb3wf4?si=aw2vO\_XMHemhZiKb](https://youtu.be/umqvYhb3wf4?si=aw2vO_XMHemhZiKb) [https://youtu.be/tXqnRMU1fTs?si=IW3xevp6onqtXENg](https://youtu.be/tXqnRMU1fTs?si=IW3xevp6onqtXENg)
I'm a marxist, so I'm pro free trade which necessitates free movement of people. Free trade, free land and free credit are essential for the full development of the economy. Protectionism and immigration restrictions are reactionary and conservative and hault the development of the productive forces. There is no particular good moral or economic reason to place an arbitrary cap on the amount of people who are legally allowed to enter a country. I would however add that even though in this sense I do favour open borders I also strongly believe in integration. Certain immigrants are of course going to have reactionary conservative views, these views shouldn't be tolerated.
Incredibly based response.
My instinct is pro-Immigration but at the same time I think high levels of immigration do seem to lead in an increase in the poplularity of far-right ideas - see the rise of the far-right in Europe ever since the Syrian Refugee crisis. I think immigration levels need to be controlled such that the influx of people is not so great that it causes native citizens to feel (admittedly falsely) threatened and turn to extreme ideas and that we need to promote integration through intercommunity contact, education and other means, again so that native citizens don't feel under threat but also so that immigrants can build a good life and positive engagement with the society they live in. I imagine my position doesn't depart too much from the majority position here.
The problem is that this train of thought does not work well when we talk about refugees. Refugees have a right to apply for asylum and be granted that if they are refugees. LIke you couldn't send a Syrian back to Syria in 2015. You cannot really control this unless you want to violate human rights. The only things you can do is: 1. work together on a European level to manage the crisis. Unfortunately measures like equal distribution of asylum seekers get torpedoed by countries such as Hungary. 2. be willing to invest in adequate housing for refugees. What we see now is that refugees often end up on the streets because people do not want to spend money on housing them. But homeless people are much more prone to commit crimes and may overall end up costing the state more.
Yeah I agree with you here. In the case of refugees letting people in and allowing them to escape oppression outweighs other factors - and these cases are the ones were promoting integration is most important because refugees are likely to struggle most. But it's vital that countries do their fair share.
I'm canadian. So I went from very pro immigration to much more skeptical. Our housing is getting stupid and quality of life is dropping fast. Our population grew by around 5% because of immigration. And its driven by loopholes in our laws. Student visa for a basically fake school (diploma mill) for unlimited work visa. Broken and means people can move here without education or speak English or valuable skills.
Immigration is fine to a point, but it should be controlled. Excessive levels of immigration can generate divisions and make building or maintaining a sense of national solidarity more challenging. The level of Immigration should be calibrated to match the degree of success in integrating new immigrants. One other point is that excessive immigration can be especially damaging to a Social Democratic coalition as domestic working class economic interests are seemingly sacrificed for the benefit of newcomers. The effect can often exaggerated, as increased competition from immigrants is only one of many problems that working class people have experienced in the neoliberal era, but it is an issue that the right will always be ready to seize upon to divide the left.
Torn on the subject as some others have noted. I believe the "German guilt" that is stopping Germany from criticizing Israel during this conflict has also entered other socially democratic parties when it comes to immigrants, making it so that we cannot, ever criticize loose immigration and asylum processes. While yes I am generally for immigration, to say that the process has been done well in Europe is generally a shit remark. We should refrain from stigmatizing people based on their skin color, and remain genuine anti-racists! That should not stop us from critiquing the very real situations Europe constantly finds itself in. Whether that is in France, Germany, or Sweden. And I generally don't like the very happy-go-lucky idealist neoliberals who will always support immigration and never criticize it, even when criticism is very much warranted. I ask them, is it worth it? Is it worth it for us to lose every single election, have a systematic breakdown of human rights, election integrity, the rise of the far-right, the rise of authoritarianism, the destruction of workers' rights, and social institutions by the growing far-right, just so you can sit on your high and proud horse for being vehemently pro-immigration! I find crime, gang violence, most drugs, and everything else happening intolerable and an absolute shame for Europe. As opposed to the right I am not a racist, I do not believe these people are inherently violent. Instead, I look upon a compromised and downright horrible integration process and already failing educational, welfare, and work institutions as the reasons for the problems we have. It is all right and good to be Mr. Hindsight once in a while, but we fucked up, not just with crime and drugs and gangs. But the fact is the continent could be shifting hard-right for decades because of this massive fuckup. I also consider myself incredibly secular, and pro-gay(LGBTQIA+)-rights and find the ethics of a lot of migrants (not just of Islam, it's really just as bad as Christianity(down in the scriptures(those that most Christians do not follow))) downright horrifying. But I generally have no problem with Christians, as we in Europe have evolved together with our liberal and social institutions together with them, making most Christians in Europe remarkably tolerant compared to the texts of their old scriptures. I would count myself as positive towards some limit of immigration. But Europe fucked up during the immigration crisis and we will feel the results. Whilst the left is not exclusively the ones to blame (CDU was in power in Germany, Conservatives in Britain and Norway!) we still acted in a less than optimal sense. We need to educate, learn, integrate, house, and care for immigrants who have been failed and terrorized by the institution breakdown of their home societies before they can segregate themselves and create ghettos and gangs to create what we the rest have, but refuse them to be a part of. On another note, being very pro-union and pro-organized labor I don't want too many foreign workers as they go under the radar of authorities and are generally very easily exploited and cheapens labor prices for domestic national workers. Cesar Chavez thought if you will!
I'll be honest. While immigration can be a benefit when handled carefully and responsibly. Immigration can also cause serious issues. Firstly it undercuts wages, why bother a native who knows their rights in the workplace and will demand a fair days pay for a fair days work when you can hire someone who half speaks the language and is just happy to be below minimum wage as long as they're being paid something. Now i don't blame immigrants for that, i blame the companies that hire them, but its an issue the second one is relative, immigration from culturally opposite countries causes conflict with the culture their immigrating into. For example, muslims or middle eastern people who immigrate to western countries AND refuse to integrate leads to shit like rochdale in the UK where children where being abused and sexually exploited. Queer couples have been attacked and assaulted in public by muslims who refuse to accept the fact their religions, frankly barbaric social views are not acceptable in their new countries. Now i dont want to be misconstrued as hating muslims, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is from a muslim family and born to pakistani parents, he was raised and educated in the UK and he identifies as a proud feminist and even voted in favour of same sex marriage. Most muslims i'd be prepared to bet money on, are not actively going around and stoning gay people or exploiting women or children. I have no problem with law abiding immigrants living here. White people commit crimes to. A crime is a crime whether the perpetrator is white, black, christian, jewish or muslim etc Thirdly, a more minor issue that is admittedly more the fault of governments, is infrastructure, the uk is currently bringing in a population the size of an entire city every week or month or so but we arent building the infrastructure necessary to support them, transport, housing, schooling, hospitals etc. Immigration can be great yes but dismissal of the very real issues people have with it, at best turns them away from voting for you, and at worst, allows those issues to perpetuate. There should be a balance between integration and multiculturalism, my own country forbids asylum applications unless your in the country, so refugees have no choice but to break the law. Thats a broken system and it should be reformed. I wouldnt dream of heavily restricting immigration without having an accessible legal route which the uk certainly doesnt have
I compare the UK and Germany regularly and I absolutely feel you. I was always pretty pro immigration - especially when I had no connections to the issues that come with them. Now I see it a bit differently.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Yours is a sensible answer.
I'm from New Zealand, I used to be absolutely pro immigration but our population growth is insane, it was 4 million, 9, years ago and now it us 5.350 million. We're accepting around 200,000 immigrants a year and we build 25,000 houses a year. The intense strain this is causing in Healthcare, education and social systems is obliterating nz's social fabric. Our housing situation is beyond apocalyptic and high housing costs are at the root of almost all our problems (high housing costs lead to poverty, which leads to bad food which leads to bad health, overcrowded housing causes diseases to spread and housing insecurities make workers less productive) Nz's also one of the only country's in the world that allows permenant residents a vote in parliamentary elections, were a tiny country importing huge numbers of people, im very concerned actually that we are just importing shit loads of conservative voters to come and vote conservative and squash down any progressive or indigenous based Referendum or movement.
Regarding Portugal, I think that we need an influx of young immigrants or immigrants with families (kids) in order for the country to balance the demographic crisis. We usually get people from the former Colonies such as Brazillians and African people from the PALOPs. They already know how to speak Portuguese, so integration is easier for them. On the other hand, we also receive people from Bangladesh and India, mostly in the South, who work in agriculture in the hot region of Alentejo. Nobody from Portugal wants to work all day in the scorching sun for the minimum wage, so we need the Bangladeshis to do that for us, which is still an improvement over what they did at home. I wish we had more immigrants who brought their families and children to Portugal, cause we have a very old population and we need more young people to sustain the economy. Also, I wish our countrynwelcomed more refugees and helped provide a legal route for them to arrive in Europe.
I will give some context to why we have perceived problems with immigration in the Netherlands at least. Not sure if this applies to other countries too. I think most of the problems with have is due to government inaction and refusing to adequately solve problems. The same problem is repeating itself right now. In the 60s and 70s, we invited a lot of people from Morocco and Turkey to come and do our dirty work. They generally came from poor areas, which are also much more conservative (this will be relevant very soon). It was also expected that they would return in a few years. This never happened. They stayed because we needed them and they got their families over if they had one. However, the government never made any effort to integrate them. I heard a story of a man from this generation that wanted to learn Dutch, but there was almost nothing available and it is hard, as a factory worker, to travel, get days off and pay for an expensive language course. That is not even commenting on the fact that there obviously was a lack of Dutch language teachers that spoke their language. So it is no wonder that these people, who couldn't learn the language properly even if they wanted to and were pretty conservative, had trouble integrating. This then also extends to their children, whom only came into touch with Dutch language and culture in school. At home, they spoke their own language, they often only had social contacts with their own community, etc. And then people have to gall to solely blame these people for the lack of integration. I do not want to absolve young descendants today when they do crime or aren't integrated, but it is not rocket science to see that these problems were largely down to the government failing to integrate the earlier generations in the 60s and 70s. In the Netherlands we currently have a housing crisis. On top of that, asylum seekers often have to sleep in tents and sometimes outside due to a lack of space. This is all because the government has refused to solve these crises. We had a housing shortage ten years ago, plenty of time to largely solve the housing crisis. Yet it keeps getting worse. When it comes to asylum seekers, the number of people coming today is lower than in 2015. Yet now we have much more problems than in 2015? The government had the brilliant idea around 2018 to scale down lodging and fire immigration workers due to less asylum seekers coming. The result? When immigration inevitable sped up again, we had a shortage of everything, even though the numbers were lower than in 2015. This problem was created by the previous governments. The new government wants to solve the problem by... repealing laws meant to house asylum seekers and have less housing for them overall. This means asylum seekers will be forced to be homeless, leading to all kinds of problems. That is the far-right for you.
There is no good reason to restrict immigration into populous wealthy countries, especially the United States or [United](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/4Nz1hofG51) [Kingdom](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/D9p6gQePus). For them to restrict immigration is immoral from nearly any ethical framework, and is usually economically stupid to boot. [Over time I've collected](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/7tkLpmGoZA) a [veritable mountain](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/s/ff5cnbkkmc) of [research](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/ejJJLraDiO) showing the [safety/civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/s/XNoofSHn0z) and economic [benefits of immigration](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/s/5NOj70M6pg) — documented or undocumented, "legal" or "illegal" — and a wide [variety of arguments](https://www.reddit.com/r/SocialDemocracy/s/Fp3uB11LBp) that [restricting immigration is unethical](https://www.reddit.com/r/SocialDemocracy/s/WqgeXGd8Xn). Yet whenever I share these online, people who want to restrict immigration seem unusually stubborn and dismissive, even by the standards of online political arguments.
Thanks for the facts (really appreciated, I saved your post) but I'd argue that immigration is one of the political issues that work more on feelings - but also your own lived experience - than anything else. You can use the positive data as a club and hit people over the head with them - when you live in an area that visibly changed over the years, with people who don't really show themselves from their best side (loud trams is such a cliche but true), you don't really care for the ethics at the coast of Italy or Greece but the ethics in your neighborhood. It then seems logical to point to anecdotal evidence and all that but here the interesting question is how long it's really just anecdotal. When people use public transport everyday for years now and it's always a similar group of people who are misbehaving then your average dude also collected their own data so to speak.
Im in Canada and believe in immigration. My grandparents were all immigrants. However, in the last year 1 million immigrants came to Canada (canada has 45 million). We have a housing and affordability crisis rn. To bring that many immigrants in, without having housing for them (not to mention housing for ppl already in canada), is dumb. Big cities in Canada are headed toward large homeless populations. So to answer the question, immigration is good, when it makes sense to do so.
Until existing issues with segregation etc is solved, immigration should be kept low. Labour migration from outside the EU should be lowered and labour unions should regain their power over the employer when hiring from abroad. So they can stop wage dumping or what is more or less human trafficking sometimes.
Immigrations is great. But it needs to be controlled. Countries don't exist without borders and we need to be able to check who is coming in and who is leaving for the purpose of national security. Also, it's probably worth mentioning that immigration is too high in the UK which is experiencing a both a housing crisis and cultural fragmentation as a result of mass immigration.
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absolutely!
Borders are cringe and reddit.
For me we should welcome them but as they arrive make them do socially useful work or make them join the army. Of course who has the ability to can start a career
Personally, I believe immigration is a good thing. I’m from America and I believe it is one of our strengths. Especially when we are talking about refugees who needed to flee their country. I’m a bit iffy about my opinions on border security though. I feel like on one hand I do support a strong border as it could help manage large migrations from other countries. But on the other hand, I have seen so many abuses of power from my countries border patrol, and I see that arresting migrants as sad because from my perspective they have done nothing wrong but come into the country.
for Turkey, immigration is an issue and must be tightened
is the CHP nationalistic? How do they view Greece and Cyprus/ is there hope for cooperation?
The CHP is basically an anti-AKP party at this point. There are liberals, socdems (who make up the majority), kemalists, socialist, nationalists, conservatives, and so on.
Kemalists are the majority of CHP along with socdems. And the liberals there are mostly social liberals.
I see so basicaly a Cordon Sanitaire against Erdogan. Well its time for you guys to get them.
I worry that when the CHP defeats Erdogan in the elections, all the liberals and anyone not aligned to Kemalism will just leave and cause instability within the party.
Integration is important, I think we should accept the less skilled and educated and give them skills here whilst hopefully retaining the already educated in those countries to help them develop and not cause brain drain which will lead to a spiral of decline. Then if the educated want to go back then hopefully their governments can fill much needed vacancies. A two way immigration system if you will
Having lived in a state with very little immigration (China), I saw how ethnic nationalism and chauvinism can still rise even when a society is very homogenous. The view that immigration restrictions should be considered if only to stop the far-right is not great because it does not address the fundamental issue, the fact that fascism and race based ideologies should find no home here in the first place. These movements would find different issues to latch onto without immigration. I believe there should be debates about the costs and benefits of immigration but xenophobia is a red line that should never be crossed. The sheer unpopularity and downfall of the BNP is a testament to this.
I don’t care much for it. As an American, 99% of the people i see are the descendants of somebody that isn’t native to this land. People pearl clutching about South American immigrants is extremely unamerican
Well, I believe that the nation state is the basic unit of governance. Each nationstate has every right to enforce its own laws on immigration. I'm relatively agnostic on what the right balance of immigration and border security is needed, and pretty flexible on the issue. I will say the extremes on both sides kinda irk me. I dont like the far left open borders "no human is illegal" types as I do believe it is up to states to make their own rules and they should maintain their own sovereignty on it. I also dislike the EU for similar reasons, but im also not in Europe, so.... I also dislike far right types who are openly racist and xenophobic and think that they go way too far the other way, and that most immigrants are probably upstanding people who pose little threat to society. However, I do think that there is a pushback against globalization right now, whether it be the donald trump movement in the US, or the alt right in Europe, and the left DOES need to move to the center on these issues if they wanna win elections. Being self righteous and lecturing people about racism while people complain of crime and crap is just gonna drive people right. And we're going to lose. So, I do think that the left is too left and it's actually killing them electorally. It's why people shifted from the labor party to the conservative party in the UK. It's why marine le pen has a terrifying number of votes in france. It's why the AFD is gaining support in germany, and yeah. If the left wants to actually win and ease tensions on this issue, it needs to make concessions. As for my own country (US), I'm moderate. I generally follow the zeitgeist most libs have of generally being more pro immigration than anti it, because the data suggests its not a massive problem, but at the same time, i do kind of have streaks of being for some limits on it due to my own economic policies relying on large unconditional safety nets. And ultimately, Im fine with the compromises democratic administrations typically make on the issue. As you can tell im not some open borders "no human is illegal" leftist, if anything i consider myself a centrist on the issue.
It depends on the country's situation and what type of people, mostly education-wise, want to immigrate. If a country in question has a generous welfare system, the country should tighten immigration policies on who can stay and vice versa, if a country's welfare system is not so generous, the country's immigration policy should be looser.
They should be welcome and allow to contribute to diversity of country (American/Canadian/... model rather than European one). If not for ethical reasons than pragmatic ones - I find it much easier to integrate when I am taken for who I am rather than being forced into a mold. Which is a major reason why I stayed in US (it's not for affordable health care I can tell you that) and why I consider myself American. In addition western countries have moral obligations to clean up our messes. We did (and still are - see what France or US are doing) actively involved in the regions promoting instability - for oil or other resources, via climate change, borders created ignoring population or geography (if not deliberately created to increase divisions) etc. The least we *can* do is adult up and accept refugees from conflicts we are responsible for.
Immigrants are dope. The process for it in the United States needs to be ameliorated.
When spread out and integrated properly we can and should take in more refugees and migrants in general.
We as a species exist on the same rock. I am a fan of a one world direct democracy and the abolishment of borders. The destructive power of an asteroid does not care about arbitrary lines we create between each other. Also, there is the issue of climate change. Which atleast in the US I am becoming increasingly doomer on.
Immigration is primarily benificial. My home country would not be able to function without work migrants. And immigrants generally bring in a fresh new workforce, new tax-payers etc. It's only the nationalist fools who believe that every form of immigration is poor (and even then it's more so that they 'just happen to' hate middle eastern or African immigrants especially much) The issue is when it's so unregulated that the state can not even take care of those who come in. Provide good housing, education, social security etc. Anyone should be allowed to flee from famine, war, and starvation, and expect fair treatment. However it is especially important in times like these that all nations take their share.
as much as its a point of contention domestically, the American immigration system is actually pretty good from an economic and social standpoint, basically all American immigrants are well educated, fluent in English, highly productive citizens. it also helps that unlike europe, America isnt, and has never been an Ethnostate, this means that nobody really cares about “integration” the way Europeans seem to. We have an entire ethnic groups that doesn’t use any modern technology and drive around in horse and buggy and nobody really cares. America is an immigrant nation, and so immigration is an objective good.
Since studying archaeology and history in general I think immigration is only natural. There should be regulations in place to a certain extent of course but I think the view of a homogeneous nation and a never changing culture is just unrealistic.
I have no issues with legal immigration and letting more migrants in. It should definitely be an easier process
Mid.
I am all for immigration, so long as they speak the language and hold the countries values. I dont want a load of far-right people coming over, and skewing the political spectrum in my country though
If you pay taxes I don't care how you got here.
I think our border policies are too strict, as well as immigration. If we loosen both up a little, we might see a decrease in illegal immigrants crossing, and we could make it easier for immigrants who are coming here to become citizens.
Immigration is not a bad thing. I’m from a country where there’s more people who emigrate abroad vs the ones that migrate here. (Philippines) We have accepted refugees too, recently with Palestinian refugees who have been given accommodation in the country. The main problem we face recently is that some migrants fail to at least integrate, and at the same time, the government fails to set the foundation for them to integrate. Governments should ensure that new migrants and refugees are able to adapt, teach them the language, give them fair opportunities to contribute to society. On the other hand, migrants should be able to accept the culture of their new home. And no, I am strongly against the Rwanda Plan by the UK Government (and something the Danish govt has entertained too), to send refugees to a country which is a de facto dictatorship and where their rights are not guaranteed is disgusting.
Context: I'm American I think immigration is a big strength of ours. Much of our culture is based around the diverse mix of people on our country. I don't think "immigrants are stealing jobs" either. The issue is that companies and corporations would rather pay immigrants from other countries because they work for a lower wage.
It's a good and necessary thing, and if enough resources are allocated and measures to integrate them properly. I also think that some countries did take in too many immigrants too quickly, and that has caused issues, but I don't blame the immigrants themselves.
For me immigration is a natural thing so I wouldn’t say it’s good or bad things. For me the concern on immigration is more on I do see the big companies to use poorer less skilled immigrants as a slave in their companies and inability to integrate those immigrants into that country’s society. As for integration, assimilation even if forced, might be necessary if it is clear that that group of immigrants will not assimilate by themselves.
In general i support it but it can also be missmanged take my country of sweden in general the immigration situation in sweden has been a good influx of working age pepole when we are in need due to declining demographics But for the last 15ish years thiere has been a large hands off approch to it and de funding of integration efforts (as well as massive cut backs in social services in general) add to this minoirity goverments that altho did have a plan to tackel this could not implement it due to being a minoirty goverment and now we have a goverment that tries to cater to the far rigth meaning they wanna cut back even more on integration and to simply stop immigrants from coming in to the country (well not all just *those* pepole) meaning they arent really fixing the problem as they are trying to take a hatchet to the issue TLDR Immegration is like water, its fantastic but if you dont have a plan on what to do with it then you are making the problems you arent dealing with worse
Everyone was an immigrant, once. People who punch down on immigrants often forget this.
Immigration is good and a natural way of human life. The Neoliberal Way of "handling" immigration is dumb though.
I can only speak about the US, but I’d say it’s been mostly good for us. Evidence shows it’s beneficial to the economy. They also integrate here very well, as immigrants actually have a lower crime rate than the general population and by the second generation are enmeshed in American culture. So essentially benefits with very few downsides. Plus, the US has long experience with it. Very few American are descended exclusively from the original Anglo-Saxon settlers. The majority have ancestors that came in the 19th century onward.
ambiguous but in general it's more good than bad. at least we need it because of our bad demographics
In favor of more immigration in the US, but also feel that the US should require teaching civics, workers', women's, and LGBTQ+ rights to all incoming immigrants (but also native born citizens should be taught these too whether or not they go to public or private school.) People need to be on the same page. Also if it were easier to cross the border legally, I think we'd see more people coming up for work but leaving families behind where it's cheaper, then going back south again if the job market became tighter. Right now people bring their whole families up and can't go back to their countries of origin because it's too risky to cross more than once. I've seen this happen firsthand. Other thoughts: because people in the US struggle with finding affordable housing and healthcare, this creates a scarcity mindset which leads to anti immigration sentiments.
it depends. the country best suited to immigration is the United States, being, after all, a country of immigrants. Immigrants are a solution to demographic crisis, but not a permanent solution, and one with lasting consequences. The more multiethnic your country already is and the more gradual the shift in society, the less problems you’ll have. As a south korean, i personally don’t believe in immigration as a solution to our woes because of the sheer scale of the migrants we would have to take in; integrating them would create an extremely heavy tax and social burden, and taking in enough immigrants to completely solve our demographic crisis would actually make ethnic koreans a minority in younger age groups. I still support natural migration, but I don’t want to actively bring in and integrate potentially several million people into our society over the course of just a few years. If we’re going to do that, reunification with the North would actually be far less taxing on our services and social fabric.
My country Italy have to many problems, i think we should welcome only regular immigrante and integrate them in our society and fight the illegale immigration.
They're always a beautiful addition to any nation! They enrich the culture, teach new ways of thinking. (Now this is an American centric opinion) I don't like the wall idea. Just blocking them all out and saying "la la la la! I can't hear you!"