Comment by pixel_popping
7 hours ago
I'm not from the US, but isn't it like almost every country in the world? Reducing immigration when it's already too much does increase job availability for locals (which should always be priority imo). Immigration to a country is a privilege, not really a right, but again I don't really know about the US, I just know that like Emigrating to Japan permanently or like in Dubai getting citizenship is very difficult and it does sound normal to me, why should it be easy? You want ultra motivated potential citizens, not the ones that just want to come for a few years to improve their CV or just pile up savings and then bail, they don't bring anything to the country as they'll not spend in the long-term within the US and will not really assimilate as well.
I don't think this is "racist", even Europeans are in the same boat to apply as far as I know, those are mostly white, I don't think racist is the right term here. Isn't America already heavily mixed?
Newsflash: Many European countries are, in fact, racist.
The French are virulently racist against Arabs and Muslims. Most of Western Europe is racist against the Romani, as well as against most Eastern European ethnicities (yes, even though they would be considered "white" in the US). It hasn't historically come up quite as much as in the US because most European countries are more homogeneous than the US is, but with the increase in migration—and particularly in asylum-seeking emigration from war-torn areas—it has become much more salient in recent times.
Japan is also racist, varying from moderately to horrifically depending on what the target group is.
These forms of racism don't always look the same as racism does in the US: for instance, the Western European bias against Eastern Europeans, IME, largely shows up as a widespread belief that they're lazy, and the bias against Romani is that they're seen as dirty, smelly thieves.
90% of all anti-immigrant sentiment, anywhere, is rooted in racism of varying types. Plenty of studies have made very clear that immigrants contribute more to the community and the nation, and have lower rates of crime, than people born in the country.
It is true that when a wave of immigrants first arrives in a new country, they take up more government resources for a period of time, because they literally have not had a chance to find jobs. But once that happens, they are likely to be working at lower-status, lower-paying jobs that the locals mostly didn't want in the first place. And once they have jobs, they aren't just somehow "taking up jobs that locals could have": they also create demand in the local economy, which creates more jobs. Because "number of jobs" isn't a fixed quantity.
And finally, in case you have been hiding under a rock for the last decade of American politics, this anti-immigrant sentiment is explicitly aimed at nonwhite immigrants. To the point that ICE routinely targets people based on the color of their skin, wholly disregarding their victims' status (many are legal immigrants or even citizens), and Trump actively seeks out white South Africans who want to come to the US.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with the fact that 90% of anti-immigrant sentiment is racist, more of a protective culture thing which has nothing to do with race, actually color is different from race as well, I'm pretty sure people have no problem with Black americans that are completely assimilated, but they would have a problem with someone from Zambia that skipped a high part of its education and suddenly land in the US as an adult without the same set of values or education. That's not about color, that's about compatibility. Not recognizing that there is a drastic difference in behavior and education wouldn't be logical, some nations are seriously lagging behind, this is a fact, not an opinion or belief.
It's known that some EU nations such as France will have majority of Arab & Muslims in a few decades, this is a valid concern as we are talking about a potential replacement of culture, it has nothing to do with racism. Currently it's at 33% as per this source (Citizens coming from immigration): https://www.frontieresmedia.fr/societe/demographie-33-de-la-...
You wouldn't want to go in Japan and see that it's majority of Muslims, the same as you wouldn't want to fly to Qatar and see that it's a majority of French, it would feel out of the place and somehow disappointing as nations maintain their charm and alignment by actually having an identity, with the globalization of everything nowadays, we are streamlining the world as if we should all behave and believe the same things, at this stage, I don't think the world is ready to be entirely aligned on values. Some countries don't even recognize some fundamental rights that we take for granted, it's not about them being right or wrong, it's just not compatible.
I wouldn't want my daughter (of course she can, she is free to do as she pleases) to marry a Korean, or even a Japanese, or even someone who is Muslim, for reasons that it wouldn't align with our family values, all my friends are from different ethnicity/nationality (I live in SEA so I'm an immigrant, from EU, it took me 12 years to get a residency, and this is normal, I wouldn't want this process to be easier) and this isn't a racist take at all imo, just a recognition of difference of beliefs and even preferences. Actually in Asia we have no problem talking about color, ethnicity and especially difference in behavior depending on nationality and so-on. What I'm stating is exactly the same sentiment across Muslim nations, Indians, Koreans, Japanese..., they want to marry their "own" and give jobs to their own in absolute priority, the rest is secondary, it's not about racism (it can be for religious reasons only, which has nothing to do with racism, it's valid).
Regarding ICE, I'm just familiar about it when I sometimes check US news, but from what I understand it's just an agency that is made to arrest people that remain in the country illegally, to me entering a nation illegally or overstaying your welcome is definitely a crime, I don't really understand why people wants illegals to remain in the country, isn't that unfair for all the ones actually following the local laws & immigration regulations? I don't know, never it would cross my mind to just cross the border to Singapore or Thailand illegally, I would know for sure I'm committing a serious crime doing so. If ICE is arresting US citizens of course the agency needs to be prosecuted for it for sure, that's clearly wrong, but is this a decent percentage? Errors happen all the time in all fields of the law, it's not realistic to think we can enforce something at scale without some unfairness. Where I live, immigration deports all the time overstaying aliens and I really don't see anything wrong with it.
Again, this isn't from a US perspective so I don't really know the mindset of Americans, I however have many American friends that have similar opinions.
Edit: I just checked the statistics regarding ICE deportations [1] and it does seem that the number was higher during 2012 (Obama as per my search) era (record amount of deportations than recently, it doesn't seem to be a last decade issue but more like an always issue, but I just don't really understand what is the problem with deporting people that don't follow laws, that seems just rational.
Also, how do illegal aliens actually work? Doesn't it push employers to also break the law because they don't have a legal status?
[1] ICE Deportations by Fiscal Year (2000–2026): Fiscal Year Deportations Notes 2000 278,921 — 2001 189,026 — 2002 162,059 — 2003 168,767 — 2004 201,311 — 2005 256,066 — 2006 280,944 — 2007 319,258 — 2008 369,635 — 2009 389,834 — 2010 392,862 — 2011 396,906 Peak year 2012 409,849 Highest in the dataset 2013 368,644 — 2014 315,943 — 2015 235,413 — 2016 240,255 — 2017 226,119 — 2018 256,085 — 2019 267,258 — 2020 185,884 — 2021 142,750 Lowest in recent decades 2022 141,171 — 2023 243,735 — 2024 280,000–300,000 Range (final figures vary) 2025 300,000
> I'm pretty sure people have no problem with Black americans that are completely assimilated
This is incorrect in the US.
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