Obama is a lonely western liberal on immigration

[pampango]

Implicit in his argument is that rich nations have to accept they will continue to be a magnet

In the past month, both Barack Obama, US president, and David Cameron, UK prime minister, have made big speeches on immigration. At the weekend Swiss voters rejected a proposal virtually to end the flow of incomers to their country. But anti-immigration parties have made strong gains in a variety of other European nations, including Sweden and Italy, in the past year.

Two weeks ago Mr Obama announced plans to shield millions of illegal immigrants from potential deportation. For all the bitter divisions his proposals stirred up, the likelihood is that they will ultimately help to push the American debate in a more liberal direction. In Europe, by contrast, the rise of populist anti-immigration parties, such as Britain’s UK Independence party and France’s National Front, is still driving the debate to the right.

Despite the differences in rhetoric, the immigration numbers across the rich world are strikingly similar. Estimates by the OECD of the foreign-born population in its member states in 2011 was 11-13 per cent for the US, the UK, Germany and France.

So far, so similar. But the US and European approaches are diverging. Mr Obama has taken on the anti-immigration lobby, casting them as un-American and inhumane. In Britain and the rest of Europe, however, many governments are still promising to “crack down” on immigration, in some form or another – even if political leaders such as Mr Cameron refrain from challenging the EU’s commitment to free movement of labour.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8a68fd80-7943-11e4-a57d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3KkcBIHT3

Interesting that immigration numbers are so similar across the "rich world" and that the response from the right is surprisingly similar in trying to limit and reverse it. On the left the response differs at least partially in response to the rise of right-wing populist anti-immigration political groups.

[el_bryanto]

1. I'm not an expert on European Immigration patterns so I may be wrong

But I think two distinguishing features are, firstly, that most European countries have higher taxes and a higher economic safety net and secondly that their policies have been considerably more liberal than those in the United States. So while they are going different directions, I'm not sure but what European policies are still more liberal than even the reforms that Obama is arguing for.

Bryant

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The policies are only more liberal for internal EU migration

which is allowed between all EU countries. Cameron is trying to alter the UK rules on the economic safety net to have as little of it as possible apply to EU migrants. The non-EU-but-still-rich countries, like Switzerland and Norway, may have fairly liberal policies for migration from the EU (one reason given for the rejection of the Swiss referendum was that it would hurt relations with the EU); I'm not sure how much they differentiate between EU and non-EU countries.

For migration from non-EU countries, most of the EU is fairly strict these days - more so than the USA, I think, with less official migration routes like green cards and study visas. Some countries do take a fair amount of refugees.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

2. This is true

Right now, a man leaving his home country to work in the U.K., can legally claim all child benefits for his kids back home. That money then leaves the U.K. economy. It's issues like these that are driving anti-immigration. You can only stretch the safety net so far, but lucky for them, their safety net doesn't have to compete with the U.S. military industrial complex.