TransCity

Although both in European countries and in America there is an ongoing discussion on immigration, there’s a big difference between the debates.

‘The difference in the way Europeans and Americans look at immigration’, argues Kathleen Newland of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., ‘springs from the fact that America protects its welfare system from immigrants but leaves its labour markets open, while the EU protects its labour markets and leaves its welfare system open’.

Immigrants to Europe are welcomed with welfare benefits, but cannot get jobs. America makes it easy even for illegal immigrants to get jobs, but stops even legal immigrants claiming means-tested welfare benefits.

The result is that in America political debate centres on illegal immigration, where as in Europe, even legal immigrants are often seen as spongeing on others through welfare receipts.

In Europe, says Danny Sriskandarajah of Britain’s Institute for Public Research, it’s harder to talk about immigration as an economic issue.

Europe’s black economy is large: that makes it much harder for immigrants to integrate through normal (legal) employment channels. And none of the other usual engines of integration work well in Europe, like churches, the military and school. Secular Europeans barely comprehend devout Muslims. With some exceptions, the armed forces are not an avenue of advancement.

Over the next quarter-century, European countries will face huge pressure to import more immigrant workers to mitigate demographic decline. They will not be able to take them unless there is public support for immigration. Gregory Maniatis, a migration adviser to several European governments, says therefore Europe needs the equivalent of America’s civil-rights movement for its own immigrants.

Source: The Economist