Opposition to immigration

Opposition to immigration exists in most nation-states with immigration, and has become a significant political issue in many countries. Immigration in the modern sense refers to movement of people from one nation-state to another, where they are not citizens. It is important to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration in considering opposition to immigration. Illegal immigration is immigration in contravention of a nation's immigration laws, and is a particular problem in many Western nations and Australia.

The principal concerns expressed by those opposed to immigration are: economic costs (job competition and education and social services burdens); negative environmental impact from accelerated population growth; increased crime rate (immigrants tend to have higher crime rate than domestic population - see immigration and crime) and, in some cases, the distortion of the national identity. In addition, when the immigration is illegal, opposition is focused on the economic and environmental costs and the violation of the receiving nation's law. In cases such as the United States, where illegal immigration since the 1986th amnesty has resulted in an estimated 10-20 million illegal immigrants, the issue of failure of the rule of law itself is implicated.

In countries where the majority of the population is of immigrant descent, such as the United States, opposition to immigration sometimes takes the form of nativism targeted primarily at 'first-generation' immigrants.

Major anti-immigration arguments

Further information: Criticism of multiculturalism

The national identity of a nation-state is reflected in claims regarding ethnicity: the immigrants fail to assimilate into the original population, and replace its culture with their own. This argument is based on maintaining the rule of the original ethnic group.

National unity arguments emphasise language use and isolation: the immigrants "isolate themselves in their own communities and refuse to learn the local language".

Economic arguments concentrate on competition for employment, and the burdens that many immigrants impose on social welfare systems and public schools. Illegal immigrants are often poor and uneducated, and frequently work in jobs for which income is not reported, thereby returning little to the receiving nation's economy through taxes. Another argument against immigration is that it deprives the countries of origin of badly-needed skilled workers--the "brain drain".

Arguments from immigrant criminality points out that crime rate tends to be higher among immigrant populations, thus high immigration would lead to increased crime. The Handbook of Crime Correlates (2009), a review of studies of correlates with crime, states that most studies on immigrants have found higher rates of crime compared to domestic population. For example, the incidence of felonies among immigrants in Oslo from Kosovo, Morocco, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Chile reached more than 2% in all these groups. In comparison, the incidence in the non-immigrant population was about 0.7%.

Environmental arguments include the increased consumption of scarce resources and overpopulation.

Australia

The impact of Europeans was profoundly disruptive to Aboriginal life and, though the extent of violence is debated, there was considerable conflict on the frontier. At the same time, some settlers were quite aware they were usurping the Aborigines place in Australia. In 1845, settler Charles Griffiths sought to justify this, writing; "The question comes to this; which has the better right – the savage, born in a country, which he runs over but can scarcely be said to occupy ... or the civilized man, who comes to introduce into this ... unproductive country, the industry which supports life." Many events illustrate violence and resistance as Aborigines sought to protect their lands from invasion and as settlers and pastoralists attempted to establish their presence. In May 1804, at Risdon Cove, Van Diemen's Land, perhaps 60 Aborigines were killed when they approached the town.

A sparsely-populated continental nation with a predominantly European population, Australia has long feared being overwhelmed by the heavily-populated Asian countries to its north. The standard policy after 1900 was "White Australia" which encouraged immigration from Britain, was suspicious of immigrants from Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and which was quite hostile to immigrants from Asia or the Pacific islands. After World War II, most Australians agreed that the country must "populate or perish". Immigration brought people from traditional sources such as the British Isles along with, for the first time, large numbers of Southern and Central Europeans. The abolition of the so-called 'White Australia policy' during the early 1970s led to a significant increase in immigration from Asian and other non-European countries.

In the 1996 election Pauline Hanson was elected to the federal seat of Oxley. In her controversial maiden speech to the House of Representatives, she expressed her concern that Australia "was in danger of being swamped by Asians". This message exposed a population deeply divided on the issue of immigration, especially from non-Western countries. Hanson went on to form the One Nation Party, which subsequently won nearly one quarter of the vote in Queensland state elections. The name "One Nation" was meant to signify national unity, in contrast to what Hanson claimed to see as an increasing division in Australian society caused by government policies favouring migrants (multiculturalism) and indigenous Australians.

Some Australians reacted angrily to One Nation, as Hanson was subjected to water balloons filled with urine at public speeches, ridiculed in the media, and received so many death threats she filmed a "good-bye video" in the case of her assassination. She was imprisoned by the government on political corruption charges, which were dropped after her imprisonment, despite receiving no compensation.

Europe

See also: Immigration to Europe

Strong immigration is one of the central political issues in many European countries, and increasingly also at European Union level. The anti-immigration perspective is predominantly nationalist and cultural, rather than economic or environmentalist. European nationalists see multiculturalism as threatening the existence of their indigenous cultures. The issue is complicated by the fact that many immigrants in western Europe are poor, working class Muslims from Turkey, Pakistan and Northern Africa. Prominent European opponents of immigration include Jörg Haider, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and the assassinated Pim Fortuyn. In France, the National Front opposes immigration. In the UK the British National Party have made opposition to immigration one of their central policies. Major media, political parties, and a large share of the public see the possibility of anti-immigrant sentiment due to the 2005 civil unrest in France.

Opposition to high levels of legal immigration is associated with many right-wing groups in Europe. Expression of these views is often considered racist and sometimes even a criminal offense under anti-discrimination statutes, and there are frequent calls for stiffer sentences for xenophobia in many European countries and by the European Union.

Spain

A January 2004 survey by Spanish newspaper El País showed that the "majority" of Spaniards believe immigration was too high. Small Neo-fascist parties, such as Movimiento Social Español, openly campaign using nationalist or anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Portugal

Portugal was long a dictatorship, and had little immigration until a sudden influx in the 1970s, as ex-colonists returned. Today there are Lisbon-born Africans. Rural areas have just recently begun to see many new arrivals. The country has right-wing parties that support curbs in immigration quotas. Any resident of a Portuguese-speaking country is free to live and work in Portugal, and vice-versa. In recent years, the growth of the Portuguese far-right "National Renewal Party", known as PNR, has targeted the immigration and ethnic minorities issues.

Japan

Main articles: Racial issues in Japan and Human rights in Japan

The movement for Japanese cultural isolation, sakoku (鎖国), arose in Edo Period Japan, in response to the strong influence of Chinese culture. The study of (ancient) Japanese literature and culture was called kokugaku (国学 "country study").

As of now there has been a push to increase immigration due to the countries faltering economy.[1]

Mexico

In Mexico, during the first eight months of 2005, more than 120,000 people from Central America were deported to their countries of origin. This is a much higher number than the people deported in the same period in 2002, when only 1 person was deported in the entire year. Many women from countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (most of former USSR), Asia and Central and South America are offered jobs at table dance establishments in large cities throughout the country, causing the National Institute of Migration (INM) in Mexico to raid strip clubs and deport foreigners who work without the proper documentation.

Mexico has very strict laws pertaining to both illegal and legal immigrants. The Mexican constitution restricts non-citizens or foreign-born persons from participating in politics, holding office, acting as a member of the clergy, or serving on the crews of Mexican-flagged ships or airplanes. Certain legal rights are waived, such as the right to a deportation hearing or other legal motions. In cases of flagrante delicto, any person may make a citizen's arrest on the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities.

Many immigration restrictionists in the United States have accused the Mexican government of hypocrisy in its immigration policy, noting that while the Government of Mexico and Mexican Americans are demanding looser immigration laws in the United States and oppose the 2010 Arizona Immigration Bill, at the same time Mexico is keeping even tighter restrictions than the Arizona law on immigration into Mexico from Central America and other places.

United States

Main article: Nativism (politics)

In the United States, opposition to immigration has a long history, starting in the late 1790s, in reaction to an influx of political refugees from France and Ireland. After passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, opposition receded. Nativism first gained a name and affected politics in mid-19th century United States because of the large inflows of immigrants from cultures that were markedly different from the existing White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture. Nativists objected primarily to Roman Catholics, especially Irish Americans. Nativist movements included the American Party of the mid-19th Century (formed by members of the Know-Nothing movement), the Immigration Restriction League of the early 20th Century, and the anti-Asian movements in the west, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act and the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement" aimed at the Japanese. Immigration became a major issue again from the 1990s, with burgeoning illegal immigration, particularly in the Southwest The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provided an amnesty described as the amnesty to end amnesties was passed in 1986 but had no lasting impact on the flow of illegal immigrants.

Labor unions

The American Federation of Labor (AFL), a coalition of labor unions formed in the 1880s, vigorously opposed unrestricted immigration from Europe for moral, cultural, and racial reasons. The issue unified the workers who feared that an influx of new workers would flood the labor market and lower wages. Nativism was not a factor because upwards of half the union members were themselves immigrants or the sons of immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Britain. However, nativism was a factor when the AFL even more strenuously opposed all immigration from Asia because it represented (to its Euro-American members) an alien culture that could not be assimilated into American society. The AFL intensified its opposition after 1906 and was instrumental in passing immigration restriction bills from the 1890s to the 1920s, such as the 1921 Emergency Quota Act and the Immigration Act of 1924, and seeing that they were strictly enforced.

Mink (1986) concludes that the link between the AFL and the Democratic Party rested in part on immigration issues, noting the large corporations, which supported the Republicans, wanted more immigration to augment their labor force.

See also

• Benefit tourism
• Brain drain
• Economic impact of immigration to Canada
• Emigration
• Illegal immigration
• Immigration policy
• Immigration reduction
• Immigration reform
• International Organization for Migration
• Immigration and crime
• Multiculturalism
• Nationalism
• Nativism
• Overpopulation
• People smuggling
• Political asylum
• Right of foreigners to vote
• Refugee
• Rivers of Blood speech
• Xenophobia
• First world privilege

References

• Alexseev, Mikhail A. Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe, and the United States (Cambridge University Press, 2005). 294 pp.
• Jensen, Richard. "Comparative Nativism: The United States, Canada And Australia, 1880s-1910s," Canadian Issues / Thèmes Canadiens, Spring 2009, pp 45–55

United States

• Allerfeldt, Kristofer. Race, Radicalism, Religion, and Restriction: Immigration in the Pacific Northwest, 1890-1924. Praeger, 2003. 235 pp.
• Anbinder, Tyler. "Nativism and prejudice against immigrants," in A companion to American immigration, ed. by Reed Ueda (2006) pp 177–201 excerpt
• Barkan, Elliott R. "Return of the Nativists? California Public Opinion and Immigration in the 1980s and 1990s." Social Science History 2003 27(2): 229-283. Issn: 0145-5532 Fulltext: in Project MUSE,
• Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955), the standard scholarly history
• Hueston, Robert Francis. The Catholic Press and Nativism, 1840-1860 (1976)
• Schrag Peter. Not Fit For Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America (University of California Press; 2010) 256 pages;

Canada

• Mclean, Lorna. "'To Become Part of Us': Ethnicity, Race, Literacy and the Canadian Immigration Act of 1919". Canadian Ethnic Studies 2004 36(2): 1-28. ISSN 0008-3496
• Palmer, Howard. Patterns of Prejudice: A History of Nativism in Alberta (1992)
• Robin, Martion. Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada, 1920-1940 (University of Toronto Press, 1992);
• Ward, W. Peter. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia (1978)

Other countries

• Betz, Hans-Georg. "Against the 'Green Totalitarianism': Anti-Islamic Nativism in Contemporary Radical Right- Wing Populism in Western Europe," in Christina Schori Liang, ed. Europe for the Europeans (2007)
• Finzsch, Norbert, and Dietmar Schirmer, eds. Identity and Intolerance: Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia in Germany and the United States (2002)
• Lucassen, Leo. The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe since 1850. University of Illinois Press, 2005. 280 pp; ISBN 0-252-07294-4. Examines Irish immigrants in Britain, Polish immigrants in Germany, Italian immigrants in France (before 1940), and (since 1950), Caribbeans in Britain, Turks in Germany, and Algerians in France
• Liang, Christina Schori, ed. Europe for the Europeans (2007)