The Great Wall, an ancient Chinese Invention. Kind of like a fence only bigger. It kept undocumented workers from crossing the border.
Immigration. One of those nasty political hot-bed issues that will frequently be in the news because this is an election year.
Here’s a few comparisons between the U.S. and some other countries.
By simple numbers, America has more illegal immigrants than any other country in the world. Latest figures put illegal immigrants in our country at over 11 million, give or take. It’s a hard number to nail down precisely, because, you know, they are illegal. They’re not really “reporting in” so to speak.
Legally, America has the most immigrants as well, at about a million a year. Again, by simple numbers, that’s the most. By a percentage basis, we come in about 23. According to Forbes, if you count outflows, we come in around 12 in the world. Personally, I see no reason why, concerning a subject like this, a comparison to Luxembourg or Iceland would have any real relevance.
Yet, how does our barbaric practice of doing nothing compare to other countries?
Japan
The Japanese prefer a racially homogenous society. The foreign population accounts for only 1.7 percent of the total population of 1.7 million. Japan has very strict immigration laws.
Following the examples of Canada and the United Kingdom, Japan rolled out a new point-based system last spring to rate immigrants. Immigrants earn points based on their academic background and research or business experience, among other factors. Those who score higher—mainly professionals like professors, doctors, and corporate managers—will be given preferential treatment
Like Canada and Denmark, Japan has a declining population because of a low birthrate. Their current population is now 128 million, and analysts predict that by 2060 it will have shrunk by a third. (ref)
Japan also has what’s called a “Nikkei” law, which refers to Latin American immigrants of Japanese descent. Under this law, Japan will pay these individuals 3,000 to leave Japan and return to their home country. The catch? You have to promise never to come back to Japan to work. Tokyo’s government officials will pay immigrants to get out of their country — literally.
Denmark
Denmark is really fun.
Denmark doesn’t take to immigrants either. They don’t go with the multi-ethnic society. However, due to their falling birthrate, the now have a campaign to get those Danes breeding.
The firm behind the “Do it for Denmark!” campaign has established an “ovulation discount” to anyone who can prove they conceived a child during one of its packages. The prize? A three-year supply of diapers and a free child-friendly future vacation.
Check it out here. By the way, the video lets you know that if you’re elderly or gay, you can participate, but you aint gonna win. You know, because of biology and stuff. Nature hasn’t got the message about reproductive equality.
Australia
Australia has had some of its own immigration problems.
The country’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship states that the Migration Act of 1958 requires any noncitizen with a valid visa to or person who is unlawfully in Australia to be detained. People without a valid visa are considered unlawful. Migrant children have been detained in immigration detention centers for months or even years.
The Australian Government has responded to human rights complaints by removing children from detention centers and into community detention, or local housing. However, as of February 2013, there were still 1,062 children in the detention centers, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Amid all the controversy, reports in April indicated that preparations have been made to bring children back to the notorious Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, which closed down in 2002 due to riots and protests. It reopened in 2011 and currently holds only adult single men. A portion of the center could be declared an “alternate place of detention,” which the government does not define as a detention center.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had its own problems lately, with their immigration showing a huge increase in the last decade. This has led to some problems.
Adding to the problem, the U.K. Border Agency discovered last July that hundreds of thousands of migrants with expired visas may still be residing in the country, prompting the prime minister to call for tougher immigration reforms aimed at visa abusers. In late March, Immigration Minister Mark Harper announced that the government was considering a measure that will slap a £1,000 (U.S. $1,532) fee on migrants coming to the U.K. to work or study. The fee will serve as a security bond to be returned only when immigrants return home following the expiration of their visas.
France
You’ve probably not read much about this in American papers, but France is having a huge immigration problem. In January 2013, Interior Minister Manual Valls announced that a total of 1193 cars and trucks were torched across France on New Years eve. The previous Interior Minister had adopted a policy of not announcing the number of car burnings because doing so “had the effect of encouraging competition between rival gangs of Muslim youth, determined to see which could cause the most destruction. The French have been dealing with a problem of Muslim youth for quite some time now. I won’t go into great detail here, but if you’re interested, read this. It is chilling. It puts a whole new perspective on that “religion of peace” stuff that you’re always hearing about. I’m not making judgments, just an observation. They have a catastrophe brewing on their hands, and if you think tolerance is a solution, you’ve been living in a closet. Tolerance, perhaps, may have allowed the problem to blossom. Here’s an excerpt:
In a blog post on Le Figaro’s website, Rioufol reminds his readers of a statement made by CCIF spokesman Marwan Muhammad at a mosque in Orly in southern Paris in August 2011: “Who has the right to say that France in thirty or forty years will not be a Muslim country? Who has the right in this country to deprive us of it? Nobody has the right to deny us that hope, to deny us the right to hope in a true global Islamic society. Nobody has the right in this country to define for us what the French identity is.” (ref)
We’re not the only country the deals with immigration problems. It seems like we may be the only country that has a percentage of our population that thinks it’s ok to allow non-citizens to pour across the border.
I saw a commercial for a show the other day, I think it was called “Border Wars,” In one of the shots for the show, there’s a young many yelling “I don’t believe in borders.” I thought, that’s because you’re an idiot who’s probably never worked for anything, doesn’t know anything about the world, and certainly never sacrificed anything to protect a country. Yea, it would be great to live in a world without borders. It’s just not the one we live in.
This young man’s education didn’t take.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130630-immigration-reform-world-refugees-asylum-canada-japan-australia-sweden-denmark-united-kingdom-undocumented-immigrants/
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/do-it-denmark-travel-firms-ad-links-vacation-birth-rate-n65911
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/top-5-worst-countries-for-immigrants
http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2012/11/18/is-the-u-s-the-most-immigrant-friendly-country-in-the-world/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/immigrant-population-shows-signs-of-growth-estimates-show.html?_r=0
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/13/immigration-british-society-biggest-problem
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17280647
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/does-immigration-mean-france-is-over/
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4120/islamization-france
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/immigration-detention-and-human-rights#4
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