Is immigration a problem in Europe? (fit in, neighborhood, live in)

[nativeDallasite]

Originally Posted by ian6479

We do have large numbers of immigrants in the UK but I wouldn't call it a problem. The problems are within the misconceptions potrayed by our pathetic media, and the racist ideologies naturally inherent in much of Britain.

I'm sure that spaniards are complaining about British immigrants invading upon their shores!! Most people never seem to have an issue about "white western" immigration

My wife is American, and there's many people at her workplace bitchin about immigrants, but when she reminds people that she is also an immigrant to the UK, it is always "oh well thats different"...

That is EXACTLY how they did me. I reminded them that I was an immigrant too and they said I was different. I challenged them to quantify how different I was, and they actually did come out and say it was because I was white, university-educated, and "liberal for an American".

[mrkennethporter]

Originally Posted by mrkennethporter

you are completely correct. but we are such a small country and trying to digest such a huge number of new comers all at the one time is hard.

I cant even get my son into our local school because all the places have been taken by new members of out community.

I'm afraid that despite out past it is only human nature to dislike the man who take the bread of you table.

excuse my spelling, was in a rush.

[clongirl]

Didn't even see/notice any mispellings- wait did I just spell mispell wrong?! I suppose after the whole "housing bubble" in Ireland deflates and construction work dries up or slows down, then more and more immigrants working in this field will be packing up and moving back home. Of course now all the manufacturing jobs are beginning to be outsourced to Poland and other lower paying places. So who knows what will come of all of this in the future! Sadly, the schools ARE suffering from such an influx of new people, but I do blame the government for not keeping up with that aspect. They allow the immigration to happen yet refuse to plan accordingly for the impact. I know from personal experience that it's taken 12+ years for my kids to see a new classroom structure added onto their primary school to accomodate the ever increasing population of new kids. I guess that's a whole other topic though!

[RuralSeeker]

When will people start admitting that all these problems boil down to one thing: there are TOO MANY PEOPLE in the world! We need to stop overpopulating the earth right now! Immigration, crowding, traffic, shortages, and pollution are huge problems the world over! Our earth cannot handle the billions and billions of people that are only going to reproduce billions and billions more!

[jhassler]

Its funny to hear these remarks from Europeans... I guess all of these gripes are legitimate, because well... they are coming from Europeans..Higher moral plane and all.

If an American were to make the same comments about immigration, it would be used as "proof" that we are, indeed, racist, small-minded, simpletons.

Not really something to get angry over, I just find the double standard comical.

[jamesh]

If an American were to make the same comments about immigration, it would be used as "proof" that we are, indeed, racist, small-minded, simpletons.

Don't we? Did you miss all the talk about building a bloody fence on the border of Mexico and the US? All the talk about schools teaching Spanish? Allowing Mexican trucks to ship goods across the border?

Not saying we're simpletons by any means, but it seems a bit wrong to say that Americans aren't kicking up a fuss about immigration.

There is definitely Islamophobia and tension between Muslim communities and native Europeans in every European country that has a Muslim population of any size.

I'm afraid you don't have to travel very far outside of Dallas to find Islamophobia either. At least judging by the number of mosques that have been either vandalized or shot at in the Lone Star State. I remember a story about opposition to mosque building in Katy, Texas (about 4 hours south of Dallas) that included having pig races on the muslim holy day (friday). Classic stuff.

[jhassler]

Originally Posted by jamesh

Don't we? Did you miss all the talk about building a bloody fence on the border of Mexico and the US? All the talk about schools teaching Spanish? Allowing Mexican trucks to ship goods across the border?

Not saying we're simpletons by any means, but it seems a bit wrong to say that Americans aren't kicking up a fuss about immigration.

We do, indeed. I was in no way stating that Americans don't have the exact same emotions...The biggest dichotomy, however, is that Americans' primary gripe is with illegal immigration. That is a whole other oyster...one that probably has about 1,000,000 threads already..so no need to stir that pot here.

I think, on the whole, Americans have a positive attitude toward the people that come here legally, most of whom become incredibly successful in just a few short generations after coming here with next to nothing (my family included).

...Tangent aside, my point is that human beings all have these same feelings, and although we're the big, obnoxious, 800 lb. (363.64 kg) Gorilla in the world today, it doesn't mean we have a monopoly on fear of what is different from ourselves, or any small bit of ethnocentricity.

[jamesh]

Thanks jhassler for the clarification. I see your point and I think it's a good one.

I read the results of a survey a few months ago somewhere (CNN.com? The Economist? Can't quite remember...) that mentioned that the Muslim immigrant population that felt most welcome and integrated in its host country was the US Muslim population. If I find that survey again, I will post the link.

[sparximus]

Originally Posted by RuralSeeker

When will people start admitting that all these problems boil down to one thing: there are TOO MANY PEOPLE in the world! We need to stop overpopulating the earth right now! Immigration, crowding, traffic, shortages, and pollution are huge problems the world over! Our earth cannot handle the billions and billions of people that are only going to reproduce billions and billions more!

Well, last time I checked, the majority of the world population growth was happening anywhere BUT North America / Europe:

World Population Profile: 1998 -- Highlights

From the above link:
Ninety-six percent of world population increase now occurs in the developing regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America, and this percentage will rise over the course of the next quarter century.

So you're not going to get far arguing for controlling population growth on a forum with an US/Euro centric focus. On that note, we may have less than 20% of the world population in NA/EU, but we sure as hell consume a lions share of it's resources. It's all going to come to a head when the developing world starts to increase their consumption and all of a sudden somebody is going to be forced to cut back.

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by dullnboring

Muslim immigrants to Europeans countries are generally very different from Muslim immigrants to the U.S. Firstly, many of them initially came from poor and rural backgrounds in their home countries, recruited by Europeans to become "guest workers" to help rebuild their countries after the war. They were thought of as guests and it was assumed that they would return home. They didn't. Instead, they had children, raised families and brought over more family members who had children. Unlike the U.S. and Canada, Europe did not have a history of encouraged immigration and placed a heavy emphasis on nationality. As such, these foreign "guests" were generally confined to the underclass, with little effort given towards integrating them, placing them oftentimes in shoddy housing, grouping them together, and having them confined to certain areas of employment. This was a short-term solution that somewhat "worked" for the first group of immigrants, but not their children. Their children found themselves in the classic "first generation" dilemma of immigrants' children around the world of being torn between two countries, never feeling at home really in either. However, the sense of isolation between their home countries in Europe was greater than those first generation immigrants in the U.S., largely because Europe basically didn't want them there and tried to ignore them. In some countries, they were ineligible for citizenship. In countries with stubbornly high unemployment rates already, minorities faced an even harder time finding employment from the established, oftentimes racist and xenophobic, society of their home countries. It created a vacuum of poverty, unemployment, segregation and a sense of alienation which made many neighborhoods ripe feeding grounds for militant imams. Angry young people with nothing to do and seeing little future ahead, finally were seeing an outlet for their anger in religious fundamentalism. It gave them a sense of belonging, something to do with their time, and fed into the bitterness they had at society as a whole and rewarded the violent rejection of it's values. It is the same manner in which U.S. street gangs take hold in inner cities, but the difference lies in the oftentimes loftier and more sinister goals whereas U.S. gangs tend to focus on drug money and neighborhood issues, as opposed to taking on a society or culture as a whole and regarding it as the enemy. It's only been in recent years where many European countries have started confronting the problems they have faced with integrating new immigrants, and realizing their errs of the past. The situation is similar for other non-Muslim immigrants in Europe, but just due to proximity, Muslims from various nationalities generally form the bulk of immigrants in most European countries.

This sort of thing doesn't happen all that much in the U.S. In regards to Muslims in particular, the overwhelming majority of Muslims who come to the U.S. are college-educated and tend to be from more wealthy and urban backgrounds. They are generally fluent in English and sponsored by employers. Muslim-Americans have a high average income, are overrepresented in many high-skilled and well-paying fields, and generally live integrated in American suburbs, working and living alongside mostly non-Muslims (oftentimes including large numbers of Jews, so there's less of that rift as well). While the children of immigrants in America face the same culture clashes as many children of immigrants elsewhere, it's a bridge that the majority of them are to able to navigate successfully compared to those in other countries. The U.S. is generally a country that is accepting of newcomers. It has long been a country of immigrants, absorbing wave after wave of culture after culture, being accomodating but by the same token holding steady to it's core beliefs and encouraging assimilation. As such, there isn't so much this sense that a Turk or a Pakistani or a Moroccan can never truly be an American, as there is in many European countries. There aren't quite as many identity crises. Due to the integrated, well-off, and educated nature of the Muslim community in the U.S., Islamic extremism doesn't really root itself well into the community here. There is less anger to tap into. Most of the Muslims in the U.S. live well are too well-educated to be swayed by it and tend to believe in a more moderate-to-liberal version of Islam.

The majority of Muslims in Europe reject Islamic fundamentalism as well, but there is indeed a proportionally higher acceptance of extremist beliefs amongst European Muslims than their American counterparts. Of course, home-grown terrorism can happen anywhere. All it takes is a few crazies, as is evident of the Lackawanna Six here in the U.S. They should never be made as an example of such a large group as a whole, but there is something to be said for investigating whether a country's policies and social climate is one in which makes it more acceptable for such dangerous views to foment.

This somewhat parallels the experience in the USA regarding Black Americans. Africans were brought over to the USA(not by choice) as slaves. They were never really wanted in the USA and when slavery was made illegal in the USA, animosity towards blacks was rising. By this time, blacks were generations removed from Africa and considered themselves Americans. Unfortunately, few other people considered them American enough to participate in mainstream American society(or even to be included). This kind of treatment would continue towards the 1960's. What happened? People were speaking out against such treatment. Dr. King started his own movement to gain civil rights, such as the right to vote, the right to live like an American, to be included. His method was nonviolent disobedience. His method worked to achieve civil rights because the problem mainly involved changing the laws and laws denying civil rights to blacks existed mainly in the south. In the northern cities, laws weren't the main problem. Problems such as discrimination in housing, jobs, and other facets of life prevailed. It wasn't the "law", but practice. When the Voting Rights Act of 1964 was signed, everyone was given the right to vote. There was new sweeping legislation prohibiting making laws requiring discrimination. The fact is though, changing the laws didn't always solve everything. Issues such as police brutality were rampant. Because of this there was alot of extremism, in the form fo the Black Panthers. The philosophy wasn't nonviolent disobedience, but "by any means necessary". What did this mean? Riots were occurring in many American cities. The Black Panthers, who originally formed to protect themselves from the police. There philosophy was taken to heart when alot of people felt as if there was no hope. While there is no "first generation" dilemma with African-Americans, there was that feeling of "I am from this country and yet I am excluded from living like a normal citizen so why should I try to obey the law and believe in my country?" Is committing a crime right? No. Is rioting right? No. Am I surprised it happened? No.

It sounds kind of weird to make the comparison, but I do see some parallels. With France from what I am reading, doesn't have a set of laws, but more just practices.