Immigration and integration problems - How to deal with them?

[Treize]

Since alot of the topics in the PM and the PA are about muslim immigrants and most of those threads result in flamewars I was thinking to have one big general discussion about this subject in order to save more space on page 1 for other subjects.

Now I want to make clear that this thread will be about non-muslim immigrants aswell.

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What is your opinion about immigration and integration?

Possible points of discussion are:
-Crime.
-Welfare abuse.
-Non-secular behaviour.
-ectera...

[Phalanx300]

An complete stop of immigration, or possibly only allowing high-educated western immigrants in small numbers. Hard stance against current immigrants here, with crimes being severly punished and possibly ejection out of the country.

Basicly I'm for the PVV of Geert Wilders view without the heavy focus on Islam.

[Treize]

So how about educated immigrants from non-western countries?
In small numbers.

[Phalanx300]

Yeah thats an hard one, I think it might be for the best if we would stick with immigrants from an western culture.

[Caliph]

Why offer a path to citizenship at all? There isn't much wrong with a guest worker deal if you're clear about it from the start. Instead of 'keeping' these immigrants, it would've worked best if the immigrants earned their money at their host nations and maybe some education and then return to their home countries and contribute both monetarily & transfer back their new skills and know-how. The path to citizinship destroyed what little loyalty people used to have for their home countries.

[Treize]

Isn't that a good thing?

In order to properly integrate people should not stick with their own culture and all that.
Segregation is a very very bad thing.

Secondly, we don't have alot of guest workers these days. Except from Eastern-Europe. And they are allowed to come here because of Schengen.

[Caliph]

Isn't that a good thing?

In order to properly integrate people should not stick with their own culture and all that.
Segregation is a very very bad thing.

First generation immigrants would never flip cultures whether you encourage integration or not. You find that happens with 2nd and in some cases 3rd generation immigrants.

Why should they stick around? They came there to find work initially. What is wrong with finding better work than you would in your home country and then going back home when you retire with a fortune you would have never attained if you stuck around in your home country - back where the rest of your extended family lives and the rest of your countrymen. Then your children who studied in the host country can come back to their parent's home country with first hand experience of a different, often superior on some levels culture, and they can be quite advantaged there (learned a new language, more experience on how different people live).

Secondly, we don't have alot of guest workers these days. Except from Eastern-Europe. And they are allowed to come here because of Schengen.

That's why its in western european countries interest to get eastern european countries to be great countries to live in, otherwise these guys won't go back, especially when legally nothing bounds them to.

[Treize]

...

You do understand that the third genertion has no bond with its grandparents land, right? Besides, why go to a country with crap living conditions when you live in nice western country?

[Caliph]

You do understand that the third genertion has no bond with its grandparents land, right?

I wasn't referring to current descendents of immigrants be it 2nd, 3rd or even 4th generation. I am talking about 'new applicants'. And I am certainly not calling for mass deportations of non-ethnic natives.

Besides, why go to a country with crap living conditions when you live in nice western country?

Because
a) That's where you're from.
b) Not going back to your home country is essentially 'quitting' on it.

You mostly see it from the point of you of the host country and how immigration affects it. I urge you to look at it from outlook of the home country of the immigrant to get a bigger, more conclusive picture. If the attitude in the immigrant's home country is 'leave as soon as you get the chance and don't look back'; then what hope does this country have of 'not being a crap country' anymore?

[Rolling Thunder]

I have a question.

Why do so many people have such a problem with immigration? Yes, immigrants commit more crime. Because they're generally poor. Poor people commit crimes. Rich people commit less crimes. Rather than the absurdly impractical suggestion of "NO MOAR IMMGRENTZ WRUNIN OUR COUNTRIEZ", it would probably be best to remove the factors which encourage immigrants to be poor, and those which encourage poor people to commit crime (Desperation, a feeling of worthlessness, blah, blah, blah.)

[Caliph]

I have a question.

Why do so many people have such a problem with immigration? Yes, immigrants commit more crime. Because they're generally poor. Poor people commit crimes. Rich people commit less crimes. Rather than the absurdly impractical suggestion of "NO MOAR IMMGRENTZ WRUNIN OUR COUNTRIEZ", it would probably be best to remove the factors which encourage immigrants to be poor, and those which encourage poor people to commit crime (Desperation, a feeling of worthlessness, blah, blah, blah.)

I personally don't hate immigrants, as that seems border-line racist to me. However, making immigration simple encourages people to desert their home countries for life, which is disloyal to your original country - why don't you go back when you retire and pass all you've learned so that others don't have to leave home like you had to?

[Dr. Croccer]

Stricter immigration policy to make sure that we only get a small amount of educated immigrants. Integration policy based with assimilation within the community as ultimate goal, not exclusion or multiculturalism.

[Razor]

Stricter immigration policy to make sure that we only get a small amount of educated immigrants. Integration policy based with assimilation within the community as ultimate goal, not exclusion or multiculturalism.

Am I understanding this correctly coming from you? I agree btw

[Dr. Croccer]

Am I understanding this correctly coming from you? I agree btw

I think I'm quite unique in the sense that I don't want Turks here to become ''Dutch Turks'' or ''Turkish Streetterrorists'', but Dutchmen.

One of the functions of a nation is to protect its people from having their standard of living destroyed by an influx of scabs who are willing to be paid in bowls of white rice. An economy(or, rather, greedy political machines and corporate moguls) will always demand lower wages for workers. Paying your workers is a cost and therefore bad for business. Trying to justify destroying the wages of American workers with mass immigration is no different than arguing that early capitalists were right to pay factory workers with pennies per day in the gilded age, or that slavery is okay as long as the economy demands it. And as for blaming the workers themselves for being unable to compete with near-slave labor... How do you sleep at night?

I agree with this, but to be fair, if there wasn't a large amount of cheap immigrants here, those companies would simply re-establish their factories in the Third World, destroying the income of many Westerners regardless.

[Razor]

I think I'm quite unique in the sense that I don't want Turks here to become ''Dutch Turks'' or ''Turkish Streetterrorists'', but Dutchmen.

I agree with this, but to be fair, if there wasn't a large amount of cheap immigrants here, those companies would simply re-establish their factories in the Third World, destroying the income of many Westerners regardless.

And that's a mentality I strongly oppose in the first place. I hate the fact that these companies are just there to make profit and if they can make more profit elsewhere they can just leave, leaving people unemployed. Thing is that ordinary people would have a hard time competing against immigrants (even more when they're illegal). And how long would it take before immigrants start asking for more wages? Immigrants are only a short term solution, bringing large responsibilities in the long term to the state if they settle permanently.

Western countries need immigrants.. There population are aging and aging fast and need immigrants to fill the ranks or else the country can go in a crisis. In Western Europe 20% of the people are 65+, that number will just continue to rise. Westerners don't want to work in factories, don't want to do labor or the lower service jobs. Immigrants are the backbone to the industrialist countries, western world needs immigrants more than Immigrants need them..

America is a country of immigrants. People are just coming for a better life. People need to remember that immigrants came on the ships by the thousands and illegally just like the Mexicans who people seem to hate. America is a country of immigrants, we have no culture, no pride, no identity, we are a boiling pot of all cultures.

No we don't. The way I see it, if more people get off their asses and get a job (yes IMO even educated people should work in factories or be a cleaner if they can't get a job and want to receive subsidies from the state) and employers take more people in and not dismiss them simply because they're too old (meaning you're 40), have 1 nipple and 4 toes on their left feet. Our level of production has to increase which can be achieved without large amounts of immigrants. Again it's a matter of mentality.

America is totally different from Europe. Compared to the U.S. Europe is a socialist bulwark so to speak. In the U.S. you have to do everything by yourself basically without the state taking care of you whereas in Europe the state provides for a lot of things. With immigrants coming to the U.S. they have to take care of themselves, in Europe many immigrants profit from our welfare system provided by the state, paid by the people, and simultaneously they offer 'unfair' concurrency when it come to cheap labor.

[Dr. Croccer]

And that's a mentality I strongly oppose in the first place. I hate the fact that these companies are just there to make profit and if they can make more profit elsewhere they can just leave, leaving people unemployed. Thing is that ordinary people would have a hard time competing against immigrants (even more when they're illegal). And how long would it take before immigrants start asking for more wages? Immigrants are only a short term solution, bringing large responsibilities in the long term to the state if they settle permanently.

The basic fact is that companies don't care about ''solutions''. There are no solutions in a market, there are only ways for profit. If it's profitable to have shiploads of immigrants work in country A, they'll do it. If it stops being profitable, they'll simply leave with no regard for the mess they created. It's a grasshopper mentality.

The biggest advocaters for the guest workers in the 60s and 70s were the Liberals, and the biggest opposers of economic migrants now are... Liberals. Guess why?

@Dr. Croccer

Could you elaborate your version of assimilation?

I think the assimilation policy should concentrate on three points:

-Cultural integration
-Social mobility increase
-Size and concentration of communities

All these three aspects are the most important to assimilation. A minority will not assimilate if it is culturally isolated, or feels to be so, think of the Jews throughout Europe before the late 19th century. I think I have already elaborated alot on that subject before.

Similairly, a minority will not fully assimilate within the community if it composes a socially and economically isolated class, and will ergo be marginalized, it will still be isolated and unassimilated, regardless of it's cultural assimilation. Think of the blacks in the US. They have the same culture as other Americans, but many black communities (''ghettos'') still are very isolated and have developed their own subculture. Many of these are the result of blacks after emancipation still being largely unable to advance socially and causing many communities to stagnate, or even descend into crime and impoverishment. Most ghettos are filled with violence, crime, gangs and radical groups, and often with a dislike for other races and groups, and are ergo not contributing at all to society. Cultural assimilation ergo shouldn't be the only goal, economic and social assimilation should be as well.

Thirdly, the size and concentration of the communities matter greatly as well. If there is a large ''Little Anything'' in a major city, an immigrant will have little desire to assimilate, as he can just live in his own cultural bubble. The solution could be to break up ethnic bubbles in cities, and cause a more even distribution between natives and immigrants. Mixing with natives is extremely important for assimilation. You can't expect a minority to assimilate if many of it's members live with minimal contact with the natives. Consistent mixing and contact with the natives will result in natural assimilation over the generations, if the other two goals are met as well. If you have two groups of people living together who fear or hate eachother, then it's unsurprising that friction occurs. Nor is it surprising that that happens when one of the groups is impoverished and criminalized, and the other, in relation, considerably richer and more succesful.

[Basil II the B.S]

Stricter immigration policy to make sure that we only get a small amount of educated immigrants. Integration policy based with assimilation within the community as ultimate goal, not exclusion or multiculturalism.

this.

[Treize]

Well 3 gen immigrants don't really 'quit' when they have never been there except for the occasional holiday. And secondly, what is bad about 'quitting'.

[Caliph]

Well 3 gen immigrants don't really 'quit' when they have never been there except for the occasional holiday.

Again, not talking about them..

And secondly, what is bad about 'quitting'.

Nothing, but if most dutch people quit on their country and started immigrating, then your country won't be a 'nice western country'. Just a crap country in western europe. Having a 'nice modern' country at its core entails education & hardwork, quitting is neither of those to your country.

[Treize]

Well a relativly large diapora lives in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. And appearantly they refuse to integrate.

Integrate or stay here I'd say.