Opposition to immigration
Encyclopedia
Opposition to immigration is present in most nation-states with immigration, and has become a significant political issue in many countries. Immigration
in the modern sense refers to movement of people from one nation-state
to another, where they are not citizens
. It is important to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration in considering opposition to immigration. Illegal immigration is immigration in contravention of a nation's immigration laws, and is a particular problem in many Western nations and Australia.
The principal concerns expressed by those opposed to immigration are: economic costs (job competition and education and social services burdens); negative environmental
impact from accelerated population growth; and, in some cases, the distortion of the national identity
. In addition, when the immigration is illegal, opposition is focused on the economic and environmental costs and the violation of the receiving nation's law. In cases such as the United States, where illegal immigration since the 1986 amnesty has resulted in an estimated 10-20 million illegal immigrants, the issue of failure of the rule of law itself is implicated.
In countries where the majority of the population is of immigrant descent, such as the United States
, opposition to immigration sometimes takes the form of nativism
(targeted only at 'first-generation' immigrants).
is reflected in claims regarding ethnicity: the immigrants fail to assimilate into the original population, and replace its culture with their own. This argument is based on maintaining the rule of the original ethnic group.
National unity
arguments emphasise language use and isolation: the immigrants "isolate themselves in their own communities and refuse to learn the local language".
Economic arguments concentrate on competition for employment, and the burdens that many immigrants impose on social welfare systems and public schools. Illegal immigrants are often poor and uneducated, and frequently work in jobs for which income is not reported, thereby returning little to the receiving nation's economy through taxes. Another problem with immigration is that it deprives the countries of origin of badly-needed skilled workers--the "brain drain
".
Environmental arguments include the increased consumption of scarce resources and overpopulation
.
has long feared being overwhelmed by the heavily-populated Asian countries to its north. The standard policy after 1900 was "White Australia" which encouraged immigration from Britain, was suspicious of immigrants from Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and which was quite hostile to immigrants from Asia or the Pacific islands. After World War II, most Australians agreed that the country must "populate or perish". Immigration brought people from traditional sources such as the British Isles
along with, for the first time, large numbers of Southern and Central Europeans. The abolition of the so-called 'White Australia policy
' during the early 1970s led to a significant increase in immigration from Asian and other non-European countries.
In the 1996 election Pauline Hanson
was elected to the federal seat of Oxley
. In her controversial maiden speech to the House of Representatives, she expressed her concern that Australia "was in danger of being swamped by Asians". This message exposed a population deeply divided on the issue of immigration, especially from non-Western countries. Hanson went on to form the One Nation Party
, which subsequently won nearly one quarter of the vote in Queensland
state elections. The name "One Nation" was meant to signify national unity, in contrast to what Hanson claimed to see as an increasing division in Australian society caused by government policies favouring migrants (multiculturalism) and indigenous Australians.
Some Australians reacted angrily to One Nation, as Hanson was subjected to water balloons filled with urine at public speeches, ridiculed in the media, and received so many death threats she filmed a "good-bye video" in the case of her assassination. She was imprisoned by the government on political corruption charges, which were dropped after her imprisonment, despite receiving no compensation.
an countries, and increasingly also at European Union
level. The anti-immigration perspective is predominantly nationalist
and cultural, rather than economic or environmentalist. European nationalists see multiculturalism as threatening the existence of their indigenous
cultures. The issue is complicated by the fact that many immigrants in western Europe are poor, working class Muslim
s from Turkey
and Northern Africa. Prominent European opponents of immigration include Jörg Haider
, Jean-Marie Le Pen
, and the assassinated Pim Fortuyn
. In France
, the National Front opposes immigration. In the UK the British National Party
have made opposition to immigration one of their central policies. Major media, political parties, and a large share of the public see the possibility of anti-immigrant sentiment due to the 2005 civil unrest in France
.
Opposition to lhigh levels of legal immigration is associated with many right-wing
groups in Europe. Expression of these views is often considered racist and sometimes even a criminal offense under anti-discrimination
statutes, and there are frequent calls for stiffer sentences for xenophobia
in many European countries and by the European Union
.
parties, such as Movimiento Social Español, openly campaign using nationalist or anti-immigrant rhetoric.
(鎖国), arose in Edo Period
Japan, in response to the strong influence of Chinese culture. The study of (ancient) Japanese literature and culture was called kokugaku (国学 "country study").
Japan was an anomaly among states, as it went through post-war industrialization without any major use of immigrant labor (unlike countries such as France
and Germany
) instead depending more on labor from women and rural sections of the country. However, as Japan headed into the 1980s and the Bubble Economy
, there was a shortage of unskilled labor in the nation, and illegal immigrants from East Asia
and the subcontinent
began to trickle in.
These immigrants were a very visible part of Japanese society, performing the so-called 3K jobs
": kitanai (汚い dirty), kiken (危険 dangerous) and kitsui (きつい hard, tough); jobs that natives with higher skill sets wouldn't take. Despite their illegal status, they were generally tolerated by law enforcement and government, as they fulfilled a significant function in the Japanese economy
. Toward the end of the 1980s
, however, illegal immigration became a hot button issue, with many Japanese sharply divided about how to address the problem.
Those in favor of cutting off all immigration fell into the sakoku
(鎖国) camp, and those in favor of a less restrictive policy were on the side of kaikoku (開国 "open country"). Those in favor of sakoku
argued that immigration (illegal or otherwise) would be detrimental to Japanese racial homogeneity
and also dilute culture as well as promote crime
. Kaikoku, on the other hand, wasn't necessarily in favor of immigration, but rather proponents acknowledged that illegal immigrants had arrived and were a viable part of the economy that must be addressed at the risk of eroding human rights
further (conditions in factories were poor, and as illegal immigrants were on the periphery of society, they had no protection from the law).
Ultimately, Japan passed the Immigration Control Act in 1990 which opened a side-door to ethnic Japanese (up to the third generation) living in other countries, allowing them to immigrate to Japan for the unspecified purpose of performing unskilled labor; Japan still does not issue visas to anyone but skilled workers. By adding this provision—they must be ethnic Japanese—the government had addressed the sakoku arguments by preserving racial homogeneity (despite the glaring cultural and linguistic differences), but also compromised with those in favor of kaikoku by allowing a legal loophole providing for immigrant unskilled labor. This caused a large influx of Japanese Brazilians, termed Dekasegi
.
As of now there has been a push to increase immigration due to the countries faltering economy.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704526504575634151044954866.html
were deported to their countries of origin. This is a much higher number than the people deported in the same period in 2002, when only 1 person was deported in the entire year. Many women from Eastern Europe
, Asia
, United States
and Central and South America
are offered jobs at table dance
establishments in large cities throughout the country, causing the National Institute of Migration
(INM) in Mexico to raid strip clubs and deport foreigners who work without the proper documentation.
Mexico
has very strict laws pertaining to both illegal and legal immigrants. The Mexican constitution restricts non-citizens or foreign-born persons from participating in politics, holding office, acting as a member of the clergy, or serving on the crews of Mexican-flagged ships or airplanes. Certain legal rights are waived, such as the right to a deportation hearing or other legal motions. In cases of flagrante delicto, any person may make a citizen's arrest on the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities.
Many immigration restrictionists in the United States have accused the Mexican government of hypocrisy
in its immigration policy, noting that while the Government of Mexico and Mexican Americans are demanding looser immigration laws in the United States and oppose the 2010 Arizona Immigration Bill, at the same time Mexico is keeping even tighter restrictions than the Arizona law on immigration into Mexico from Central America and other places.
, opposition to illegal immigration has a long history, starting in the late 1790s, in reaction to an influx of political refugees from France and Ireland. After passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts
in 1798, opposition receded. Nativism first gained a name and affected politics in mid-19th century United States because of the large inflows of immigrants from cultures that were markedly different from the existing White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
culture. Nativists objected primarily to Roman Catholics, especially Irish American
s. Nativist movements included the American Party of the mid-19th Century (formed by members of the Know-Nothing movement), the Immigration Restriction League of the early 20th Century, and the anti-Asian movements in the west, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act and the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement" aimed at the Japanese. Immigration became a major issue again from the 1990s, with burgeoning illegal immigration, particularly in the Southwest. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provided an amnesty described as the amnesty to end amnesties was passed in 1986, but had no lasting impact on the flow of illegal immigrants.
(AFL), a coalition of labor unions formed in the 1880s, vigorously opposed unrestricted immigration from Europe for moral, cultural, and racial reasons. The issue unified the workers who feared that an influx of new workers would flood the labor market and lower wages. Nativism was not a factor because upwards of half the union members were themselves immigrants or the sons of immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Britain. However, nativism was a factor when the AFL even more strenuously opposed all immigration from Asia because it represented (to its Euro-American members) an alien culture that could not be assimilated into American society. The AFL intensified its opposition after 1906 and was instrumental in passing immigration restriction bills from the 1890s to the 1920s, such as the 1921 Emergency Quota Act
and the Immigration Act of 1924
, and seeing that they were strictly enforced.
Mink (1986) concludes that the link between the AFL and the Democratic Party rested in part on immigration issues, noting the large corporations, which supported the Republicans, wanted more immigration to augment their labor force.
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
in the modern sense refers to movement of people from one nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
to another, where they are not citizens
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
. It is important to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration in considering opposition to immigration. Illegal immigration is immigration in contravention of a nation's immigration laws, and is a particular problem in many Western nations and Australia.
The principal concerns expressed by those opposed to immigration are: economic costs (job competition and education and social services burdens); negative environmental
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
impact from accelerated population growth; and, in some cases, the distortion of the national identity
National identity
National identity is the person's identity and sense of belonging to one state or to one nation, a feeling one shares with a group of people, regardless of one's citizenship status....
. In addition, when the immigration is illegal, opposition is focused on the economic and environmental costs and the violation of the receiving nation's law. In cases such as the United States, where illegal immigration since the 1986 amnesty has resulted in an estimated 10-20 million illegal immigrants, the issue of failure of the rule of law itself is implicated.
In countries where the majority of the population is of immigrant descent, such as the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, opposition to immigration sometimes takes the form of nativism
Nativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
(targeted only at 'first-generation' immigrants).
Major anti-immigration arguments
The national identity of a nation-stateNation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
is reflected in claims regarding ethnicity: the immigrants fail to assimilate into the original population, and replace its culture with their own. This argument is based on maintaining the rule of the original ethnic group.
National unity
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
arguments emphasise language use and isolation: the immigrants "isolate themselves in their own communities and refuse to learn the local language".
Economic arguments concentrate on competition for employment, and the burdens that many immigrants impose on social welfare systems and public schools. Illegal immigrants are often poor and uneducated, and frequently work in jobs for which income is not reported, thereby returning little to the receiving nation's economy through taxes. Another problem with immigration is that it deprives the countries of origin of badly-needed skilled workers--the "brain drain
Brain drain
Human capital flight, more commonly referred to as "brain drain", is the large-scale emigration of a large group of individuals with technical skills or knowledge. The reasons usually include two aspects which respectively come from countries and individuals...
".
Environmental arguments include the increased consumption of scarce resources and overpopulation
Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
.
Australia
A sparsely-populated continental nation with a predominantly European population, AustraliaHistory of Australia
The History of Australia refers to the history of the area and people of Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding Indigenous and colonial societies. Aboriginal Australians are believed to have first arrived on the Australian mainland by boat from the Indonesian archipelago between 40,000 to...
has long feared being overwhelmed by the heavily-populated Asian countries to its north. The standard policy after 1900 was "White Australia" which encouraged immigration from Britain, was suspicious of immigrants from Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and which was quite hostile to immigrants from Asia or the Pacific islands. After World War II, most Australians agreed that the country must "populate or perish". Immigration brought people from traditional sources such as the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...
along with, for the first time, large numbers of Southern and Central Europeans. The abolition of the so-called 'White Australia policy
White Australia policy
The White Australia policy comprises various historical policies that intentionally restricted "non-white" immigration to Australia. From origins at Federation in 1901, the polices were progressively dismantled between 1949-1973....
' during the early 1970s led to a significant increase in immigration from Asian and other non-European countries.
In the 1996 election Pauline Hanson
Pauline Hanson
Pauline Lee Hanson is an Australian politician and former leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a political party with a populist and anti-multiculturalism platform...
was elected to the federal seat of Oxley
Division of Oxley
The Division of Oxley is an Australian Electoral Division in Queensland. The current division is the second to bear the name, and was created in 1949. The division is named after the Australian explorer, John Oxley...
. In her controversial maiden speech to the House of Representatives, she expressed her concern that Australia "was in danger of being swamped by Asians". This message exposed a population deeply divided on the issue of immigration, especially from non-Western countries. Hanson went on to form the One Nation Party
One Nation Party
One Nation is a far-right and nationalist political party in Australia. It gained 22% of the vote translating to 11 of 89 seats in Queensland's unicameral legislative assembly at the 1998 state election and made major inroads into the vote of the existing parties...
, which subsequently won nearly one quarter of the vote in Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
state elections. The name "One Nation" was meant to signify national unity, in contrast to what Hanson claimed to see as an increasing division in Australian society caused by government policies favouring migrants (multiculturalism) and indigenous Australians.
Some Australians reacted angrily to One Nation, as Hanson was subjected to water balloons filled with urine at public speeches, ridiculed in the media, and received so many death threats she filmed a "good-bye video" in the case of her assassination. She was imprisoned by the government on political corruption charges, which were dropped after her imprisonment, despite receiving no compensation.
Europe
Strong immigration is one of the central political issues in many EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an countries, and increasingly also at European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
level. The anti-immigration perspective is predominantly nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and cultural, rather than economic or environmentalist. European nationalists see multiculturalism as threatening the existence of their indigenous
Indigenous
Indigenous means: belonging to a certain place.Indigenous may refer to:In Ecology and Geography*Indigenous resources, resources which exist within local geography, that are not imported...
cultures. The issue is complicated by the fact that many immigrants in western Europe are poor, working class Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s from Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and Northern Africa. Prominent European opponents of immigration include Jörg Haider
Jörg Haider
Jörg Haider was an Austrian politician. He was Governor of Carinthia on two occasions, the long-time leader of the Austrian Freedom Party and later Chairman of the Alliance for the Future of Austria , a breakaway party from the FPÖ.Haider was controversial within Austria and abroad for comments...
, Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...
, and the assassinated Pim Fortuyn
Pim Fortuyn
Wilhelmus Simon Petrus Fortuijn, known as Pim Fortuyn was a Dutch politician, civil servant, sociologist, author and professor who formed his own party, Pim Fortuyn List ....
. In France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the National Front opposes immigration. In the UK the British National Party
British National Party
The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...
have made opposition to immigration one of their central policies. Major media, political parties, and a large share of the public see the possibility of anti-immigrant sentiment due to the 2005 civil unrest in France
2005 civil unrest in France
The 2005 civil unrest in France of October and November was a series of riots by mostly Muslim North African youths in Paris and other French cities, involving mainly the burning of cars and public buildings at night starting on 27 October 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois...
.
Opposition to lhigh levels of legal immigration is associated with many right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
groups in Europe. Expression of these views is often considered racist and sometimes even a criminal offense under anti-discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
statutes, and there are frequent calls for stiffer sentences for xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
in many European countries and by the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
.
Spain
A January 2004 survey by Spanish newspaper El País showed that the "majority" of Spaniards believe immigration was too high. Small Neo-fascistNeo-Fascism
Neo-fascism is a post–World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. The term neo-fascist may apply to groups that express a specific admiration for Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism or any other fascist leader/state...
parties, such as Movimiento Social Español, openly campaign using nationalist or anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Portugal
Portugal was long a dictatorship, and had little immigration until a sudden influx in the 1970s, as ex-colonists returned. Today there are Lisbon-born, African and Middle Eastern neighborhoods. Rural areas have just recently begun to see many new arrivals. The country has right-wing parties that support curbs in immigration quotas. Any resident of a Portuguese-speaking country is free to live and work in Portugal, and vice-versa. In recent years, the growth of the Portuguese far-right "National Renewal Party", known as PNR, has targeted the immigration and ethnic minorities issues.Japan
The movement for Japanese cultural isolation, sakokuSakoku
was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633–39 and remained in effect until...
(鎖国), arose in Edo Period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....
Japan, in response to the strong influence of Chinese culture. The study of (ancient) Japanese literature and culture was called kokugaku (国学 "country study").
Japan was an anomaly among states, as it went through post-war industrialization without any major use of immigrant labor (unlike countries such as France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
) instead depending more on labor from women and rural sections of the country. However, as Japan headed into the 1980s and the Bubble Economy
Japanese asset price bubble
The was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991, in which real estate and stock prices were greatly inflated. The bubble's collapse lasted for more than a decade with stock prices initially bottoming in 2003, although they would descend even further amidst the global crisis in 2008. The...
, there was a shortage of unskilled labor in the nation, and illegal immigrants from East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
and the subcontinent
Subcontinent
A subcontinent is a large, relatively self-contained landmass forming a subdivision of a continent. By dictionary entries, the term subcontinent signifies "having a certain geographical or political independence" from the rest of the continent, or "a vast and more or less self-contained subdivision...
began to trickle in.
These immigrants were a very visible part of Japanese society, performing the so-called 3K jobs
Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning
Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning , also known as the 3Ds, is an American neologism derived from an Asian concept, and refers to certain kinds of labor often performed by unionized blue-collar workers.The term originated from the Japanese expression 3K: kitanai, kiken, and kitsui, and has...
": kitanai (汚い dirty), kiken (危険 dangerous) and kitsui (きつい hard, tough); jobs that natives with higher skill sets wouldn't take. Despite their illegal status, they were generally tolerated by law enforcement and government, as they fulfilled a significant function in the Japanese economy
Economy of Japan
The economy of Japan, a free market economy, is the third largest in the world after the United States and the People's Republic of China, and ahead of Germany at 4th...
. Toward the end of the 1980s
Japanese asset price bubble
The was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991, in which real estate and stock prices were greatly inflated. The bubble's collapse lasted for more than a decade with stock prices initially bottoming in 2003, although they would descend even further amidst the global crisis in 2008. The...
, however, illegal immigration became a hot button issue, with many Japanese sharply divided about how to address the problem.
Those in favor of cutting off all immigration fell into the sakoku
Sakoku
was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633–39 and remained in effect until...
(鎖国) camp, and those in favor of a less restrictive policy were on the side of kaikoku (開国 "open country"). Those in favor of sakoku
Sakoku
was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633–39 and remained in effect until...
argued that immigration (illegal or otherwise) would be detrimental to Japanese racial homogeneity
Ethnic issues in Japan
- Demographic :About 1.6% of Japan's total legal resident population are foreign nationals. Of these, according to 2008 data from the Japanese government, the principal groups are as follows....
and also dilute culture as well as promote crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
. Kaikoku, on the other hand, wasn't necessarily in favor of immigration, but rather proponents acknowledged that illegal immigrants had arrived and were a viable part of the economy that must be addressed at the risk of eroding human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
further (conditions in factories were poor, and as illegal immigrants were on the periphery of society, they had no protection from the law).
Ultimately, Japan passed the Immigration Control Act in 1990 which opened a side-door to ethnic Japanese (up to the third generation) living in other countries, allowing them to immigrate to Japan for the unspecified purpose of performing unskilled labor; Japan still does not issue visas to anyone but skilled workers. By adding this provision—they must be ethnic Japanese—the government had addressed the sakoku arguments by preserving racial homogeneity (despite the glaring cultural and linguistic differences), but also compromised with those in favor of kaikoku by allowing a legal loophole providing for immigrant unskilled labor. This caused a large influx of Japanese Brazilians, termed Dekasegi
Dekasegi
Dekasegi is a term used in Latin American cultures to refer to ethnic Japanese people who have migrated to Japan, having taken advantage of Japanese citizenship or nisei visa and immigration laws to escape from economic instability in South America...
.
As of now there has been a push to increase immigration due to the countries faltering economy.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704526504575634151044954866.html
Mexico
In Mexico, during the first eight months of 2005, more than 120,000 people from Central AmericaCentral America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
were deported to their countries of origin. This is a much higher number than the people deported in the same period in 2002, when only 1 person was deported in the entire year. Many women from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Central and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
are offered jobs at table dance
Table dance
Table dance, or bartop dancing, is typically an erotic dance performed at a patron's table, as opposed to on a stage. In some jurisdictions, a table dance may be an alternative to a lap dance, due to laws preventing exotic dancers from making contact with customers...
establishments in large cities throughout the country, causing the National Institute of Migration
National Institute of Migration
The National Institute of Migration ) is a unit of the government of Mexico dependent on the Secretariat of the Interior that controls and supervises migration in the country.-Controversy and public demonstrations against:...
(INM) in Mexico to raid strip clubs and deport foreigners who work without the proper documentation.
Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
has very strict laws pertaining to both illegal and legal immigrants. The Mexican constitution restricts non-citizens or foreign-born persons from participating in politics, holding office, acting as a member of the clergy, or serving on the crews of Mexican-flagged ships or airplanes. Certain legal rights are waived, such as the right to a deportation hearing or other legal motions. In cases of flagrante delicto, any person may make a citizen's arrest on the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities.
Many immigration restrictionists in the United States have accused the Mexican government of hypocrisy
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie....
in its immigration policy, noting that while the Government of Mexico and Mexican Americans are demanding looser immigration laws in the United States and oppose the 2010 Arizona Immigration Bill, at the same time Mexico is keeping even tighter restrictions than the Arizona law on immigration into Mexico from Central America and other places.
United States
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, opposition to illegal immigration has a long history, starting in the late 1790s, in reaction to an influx of political refugees from France and Ireland. After passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution's reign of terror and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. They were signed into law by President John Adams...
in 1798, opposition receded. Nativism first gained a name and affected politics in mid-19th century United States because of the large inflows of immigrants from cultures that were markedly different from the existing White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...
culture. Nativists objected primarily to Roman Catholics, especially Irish American
Irish American
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
s. Nativist movements included the American Party of the mid-19th Century (formed by members of the Know-Nothing movement), the Immigration Restriction League of the early 20th Century, and the anti-Asian movements in the west, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act and the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement" aimed at the Japanese. Immigration became a major issue again from the 1990s, with burgeoning illegal immigration, particularly in the Southwest. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provided an amnesty described as the amnesty to end amnesties was passed in 1986, but had no lasting impact on the flow of illegal immigrants.
Labor unions
The American Federation of LaborAmerican Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(AFL), a coalition of labor unions formed in the 1880s, vigorously opposed unrestricted immigration from Europe for moral, cultural, and racial reasons. The issue unified the workers who feared that an influx of new workers would flood the labor market and lower wages. Nativism was not a factor because upwards of half the union members were themselves immigrants or the sons of immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Britain. However, nativism was a factor when the AFL even more strenuously opposed all immigration from Asia because it represented (to its Euro-American members) an alien culture that could not be assimilated into American society. The AFL intensified its opposition after 1906 and was instrumental in passing immigration restriction bills from the 1890s to the 1920s, such as the 1921 Emergency Quota Act
Emergency Quota Act
The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act restricted immigration into the United States...
and the Immigration Act of 1924
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act , was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already...
, and seeing that they were strictly enforced.
Mink (1986) concludes that the link between the AFL and the Democratic Party rested in part on immigration issues, noting the large corporations, which supported the Republicans, wanted more immigration to augment their labor force.
See also
- Benefit tourismBenefit tourismBenefit tourism is a political term coined in 2003 for the perceived threat that a huge number of citizens from eight of the ten new nations given membership in the European Union in the 2004 enlargement of the European Union would move to the existing member states to benefit from their social...
- Brain drainBrain drainHuman capital flight, more commonly referred to as "brain drain", is the large-scale emigration of a large group of individuals with technical skills or knowledge. The reasons usually include two aspects which respectively come from countries and individuals...
- Economic impact of immigration to CanadaEconomic impact of immigration to CanadaThe economic impact of immigration is an important topic in Canada. While the immigration rate has declined sharply from its peak early in the 20th century, Canada still holds the title of accepting more immigrants per capita than any other country....
- EmigrationEmigrationEmigration is the act of leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement before the establishment of political boundaries or within one state is termed migration. There are many reasons why people...
- Illegal immigrationIllegal immigrationIllegal immigration is the migration into a nation in violation of the immigration laws of that jurisdiction. Illegal immigration raises many political, economical and social issues and has become a source of major controversy in developed countries and the more successful developing countries.In...
- ImmigrationImmigrationImmigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
- Immigration policyImmigration policyAn immigration policy is any policy of a state that deals with the transit of persons across its borders into the country, but especially those that intend to work and to remain in the country. Immigration policies can range from allowing no migration at all to allowing most types of migration,...
- Immigration reductionImmigration reductionImmigration reduction refers to a movement in the United States that advocates a reduction in the amount of immigration allowed into the country. Steps advocated for reducing the numbers of immigrants include advocating stronger action to prevent illegal entry and illegal immigration, and...
- Immigration reformImmigration reformImmigration reform is a term used in political discussion regarding changes to current immigration policy of a country. In its strict definition, "reform " means to change into an improved form or condition, by amending or removing faults or abuses....
- International Organization for MigrationInternational Organization for MigrationThe International Organization for Migration is an intergovernmental organization. It was initially established in 1951 as the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration to help resettle people displaced by World War II....
- MulticulturalismMulticulturalismMulticulturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
- NationalismNationalismNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
- NativismNativism (politics)Nativism favors the interests of certain established inhabitants of an area or nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. It may also include the re-establishment or perpetuation of such individuals or their culture....
- OverpopulationOverpopulationOverpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
- People smugglingPeople smugglingPeople smuggling is defined as "the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries laws, either clandestinely or through deception, such as the use of fraudulent documents"...
- Political asylum
- Right of foreigners to voteRight of foreigners to voteSuffrage, the right to vote in a particular country, generally derives from citizenship. In most countries, the right to vote is reserved to those who possess the citizenship of the country in question. Some countries, however, have extended suffrage rights to non-citizens...
- RefugeeRefugeeA refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
- Rivers of Blood speechRivers of Blood speechThe "Rivers of Blood" speech was a speech criticising Commonwealth immigration, as well as proposed anti-discrimination legislation in the United Kingdom made on 20 April 1968 by Enoch Powell , the Conservative Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West...
- XenophobiaXenophobiaXenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
United States
- Allerfeldt, Kristofer. Race, Radicalism, Religion, and Restriction: Immigration in the Pacific Northwest, 1890-1924. Praeger, 2003. 235 pp.
- Anbinder, Tyler. "Nativism and prejudice against immigrants," in A companion to American immigration, ed. by Reed Ueda (2006) pp 177–201 excerpt
- Barkan, Elliott R. "Return of the Nativists? California Public Opinion and Immigration in the 1980s and 1990s." Social Science History 2003 27(2): 229-283. Issn: 0145-5532 Fulltext: in Project MUSEProject MUSEProject MUSE is an online database of current and back issues of peer-reviewed humanities and social sciences journals. It was founded in 1993 by Todd Kelley and Susan Lewis and is a project of the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. It had support from the Mellon...
, - Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955), the standard scholarly history
- Hueston, Robert Francis. The Catholic Press and Nativism, 1840-1860 (1976)
- Schrag Peter. Not Fit For Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America (University of California Press; 2010) 256 pages;
Canada
- Mclean, Lorna. "'To Become Part of Us': Ethnicity, Race, Literacy and the Canadian Immigration Act of 1919". Canadian Ethnic Studies 2004 36(2): 1-28. ISSN 0008-3496
- Palmer, Howard. Patterns of Prejudice: A History of Nativism in Alberta (1992)
- Robin, Martion. Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada, 1920-1940 (University of Toronto Press, 1992);
- Ward, W. Peter. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia (1978)
Other countries
- Betz, Hans-Georg. "Against the 'Green Totalitarianism': Anti-Islamic Nativism in Contemporary Radical Right- Wing Populism in Western Europe," in Christina Schori Liang, ed. Europe for the Europeans (2007)
- Finzsch, Norbert, and Dietmar Schirmer, eds. Identity and Intolerance: Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia in Germany and the United States (2002)
- Lucassen, Leo. The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe since 1850. University of Illinois Press, 2005. 280 pp; ISBN 0-252-07294-4. Examines Irish immigrants in Britain, Polish immigrants in Germany, Italian immigrants in France (before 1940), and (since 1950), Caribbeans in Britain, Turks in Germany, and Algerians in France
- Liang, Christina Schori, ed. Europe for the Europeans (2007)