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joe_mamba 5 hours ago

As someone who lived in the US briefly, I found Americans are just a lot more hospitable to foreigners, than Germans and most other Europeans in general.

Probably because there's no such thing as an US-American ethnicity, but there definitely is at least one or more unique and very distinct ethnicities and cultures for every European country, and simply getting the passport as a foreign adult, does not also buy you into those clubs, you just got a piece of paper, not the culture and belonging the locals with ancestry there have.

It's not something you can learn as an adult living in a big international city with lots of expats and international companies, it's something you get from growing up there surrounded by that culture and ethnic ingroup created by your ancestors.

The equivalent for americans would probably be those whose ancestors were there before the civil war but that's a smaller % of the population today vs the more recent immigrants compared to Europe. Sure, there's as much immigration to Europe as well, per-capita as in the US, but a lot of it is undesired and the native Europeans have various cultural and bureaucratic glass ceilings to keep working class immigrants in the least desirable jobs, while they kept the more desirable governmental, academic and managerial jobs.

Not knocking them for it, they're free to run their societies the way they see fit, but then they also shouldn't be surprised when, unlike in the US, the second or third generation migrants growing up in the ghettos who are full citizens now, decide to blow themselves up, shoot up a cafe or drive a truck through a crowd, because of how unaccepted and held down they feel by the native European society.

The issue I see seems to be on how US and EU treat integration of migrants. In the US you ge equal opportunities and freedom to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anyone, while in the EU you get endless strict rules and welfare which not only don't compensate the glass ceilings and isolation, it also pisses off the locals to see their high taxes going to foreigners who don't integrate. The other reason might be that migration to the US is more from Canada and latin america which is culturally similar to the US, while EU migration is mostly from africa and middle east which are very different culturally.

bellowsgulch 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The whole immigrants who don't integrate seems to be a constant issue in every developed country across the globe, with the exception of maybe Japan, who is xenophobic enough that you wouldn't want to try to become Japanese anyway.

Canada, England, France, and the US, to name a few, seem to have done it wrong considering how immigration is a constant complaint and weaponized topic in their politics, but likewise Japan has too, just on the other end of the spectrum.

I'm unsure who does it well.

hunterpayne 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Immigration isn't a binary decision for a state. Its a complex set of policy decisions. What is the state of the local economy? What skills do the new immigrants have? How much experience does the local population have with the incoming culture? What is the culture of the incoming migrants? All of these and many other things comes into play when evaluating or deciding upon immigration policies. For example, taking in Catholics from northern Mexico is nothing like taking in people from the tribals of Pakistan. Most European (quite naive) immigration policies from 10 years ago seemed so poorly thought out that they were doomed to fail. The swing the other way seems guaranteed based upon how bad those previous policies were.

PS The US does it well in general but there were periods of madness recently. The political discourse of many still shows extreme madness is still possible.

PPS The very wealthy are normally the main beneficiaries of immigration and undocumented immigration just creates an underclass with few to no legal protections.

BeetleB 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The whole immigrants who don't integrate seems to be a constant issue in every developed country across the globe

I can't speak for the other countries, but in the US it's almost entirely an agenda being pushed. When I hear people say this, it's not because of any experience they've had, but just a repetition of talking points. Virtually none of them had a negative story to tell. I've heard far, far worse stories in some European countries.

bellowsgulch 2 hours ago | parent [-]

There are notable issues in the Southwest in the United States where people don't speak any English at all, and speak only Spanish, suggesting they are legal citizens born of illegal immigrants, or are still illegal immigrants themselves.

BeetleB an hour ago | parent [-]

I don't doubt they speak only Spanish, but this is the part I contest:

> There are notable issues

What are the issues? Which (English speaking) Americans have been so negatively impacted because of this, and how?

I don't live in the Southwest, but we have them here as well. They speak little/no English. Yet both they and the people around them live just fine.

bellowsgulch 22 minutes ago | parent [-]

“I don’t experience what others experience so it’s not a problem.”

Are you still in your 20s?

BeetleB a few seconds ago | parent [-]

I think you don't follow.

I said:

"When I hear people say this, it's not because of any experience they've had, but just a repetition of talking points"

You pointed out a potential problem. So my followup is: "What negative experience have you had because of this?"

I'm not claiming integration problems don't exist (see my original comment). I'm claiming they are very minor, and blown way, way out of proportion. So much so that while I've known many who complain about the integration problem, I've yet to find a single person who's had direct negative experience related to this.

And, as an aside, give people in their 20s a bit more credit!

stickfigure 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Immigration is a hot topic in every society. You can hear people in Arizona kvetching about the Californians that move there.

eldaisfish 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

sad to see this downvoted because it is very much true. European society loves to pretend that they are these progressive, enlightened people. In reality, what they are is just better at hiding their racism and xenophobia.

Your last point is largely wrong. The primary difference between immigrants to the US and to Europe is in qualifications. The majority of US immigrants are skilled. The majority of immigrants to Europe are not skilled. It is then no surprise that immigrants to the US tend to integrate better than immigrants to Europe.

mr_toad an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> European society loves to

The idea that there is a single European society is laughable to anyone who has visited more than one European country.

joe_mamba 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>In reality, what they are is just better at hiding their racism and xenophobia.

It's not xenofobia, it's just a rigid caste system with little to no upward mobility for immigrants, setup for the economic benefit of the locals at the expense of most immigrants. Sweden and others for example has no inheritance taxes so locals inheriting property and assets get a massive leg up at advancing in society with little effort, over even the hardest working immigrants making the system feel unfair and rigged against you if you're a high earning immigrant paying high taxes. Something less of an issue for immigrants in the US.

Xenofobia implies discrimination based on skin color or ethnicity, but that's not the case here, as white european immigrants also fall under this trap because they don't have the citizenship, language, bureaucratic system knowledge, connections, inheritance to get the chill lives the locals do, and get stuck in less desirable jobs with little to no upward mobility even if they learn the language. I'm EU native living and working in another EU country and feel this regularly across all society along with the other immigrants I know here.

> The majority of US immigrants are skilled.

Maybe in SV tech companies, but most illegals to US are not skilled, but they're tolerated as long as they don't break any major laws because they do the tough and dirty jobs for low pay the natives don't want to do otherwise they risk deportation.

The difference is EU doesn't do deportations and instead showers illegals with welfare, meaning they're not forced to integrate and become self sufficient ASAP like in US, and it's easier to stay a perpetual victim in need of state assistance.

vanviegen an hour ago | parent [-]

> The difference is EU doesn't do deportations and instead showers illegals with welfare

I don't even know how to begin to respond to such nonsense.

senordevnyc 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

These numbers suggest there’s something to what they’re saying: https://www.statista.com/chart/30675/third-country-nationals...