Fear Factor

Stoking fears of foreigners is perhaps the oldest trick in the political playbook. From Benjamin Franklin's 1751 warning that Pennsylvania would soon become a "Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them," to modern-day Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who laments a coming "Eurabia" dominated by Islam, playing up the threat posed by new arrivals is a surefire, if cynical, way to win votes.

Why do such arguments still work? Western countries have absorbed wave after wave of immigration without civilizational collapse. How can Americans, whose ancestors were accused of importing German fascism, Italian Catholicism, or Jewish socialism, take seriously the threat of "creeping sharia" or a Mexican reconquista? If one judges by recent studies, it's pretty hard to stop the cycle of fear.

Paradoxically, anti-immigrant prejudices are often based on flawed premises, but exposure to more information doesn't necessarily change them. A 2011 study by political scientists Jennifer Fitzgerald, K. Amber Curtis, and Catherine L. Corliss found that anti-immigrant attitudes in Germany were far more closely correlated to fears of crime than cultural concerns, even though first-generation immigrants in Germany are no more likely than natives to be criminals. Surprisingly, they also found that Germans who are more politically engaged and consume more news are especially likely to make the dubious linkage between immigrants and crime, an effect they attribute to the anti-immigrant rhetoric employed by the media and politicians -- including Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said last year (incorrectly) that Germans "must accept that the level of crime in immigrant youth is particularly high." Surely it's no coincidence that fears of crime by immigrants increase during election years.

Such fears are often driven by factors that have nothing to do with the immigrant communities in question. A 2011 study, for example, found that anti-Latino sentiment in the United States jumped sharply following the 9/11 attacks -- though, of course, no Latinos were responsible.

This might seem odd in diverse, tolerant cities such as New York, but research finds that natives don't necessarily react better to immigrants when they live among more of them. French researchers conducted a game experiment with groups of "rooted" French and Muslims, finding that the generosity of the rooted French toward Muslims decreased as the number of Muslims in the group increased. The researchers named this the "Hortefeux effect" after former French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, who said of Arabs in 2009, "When there's one, that's OK. It's when there's a lot of them that there are problems."

Of course, attitudes do change eventually. In today's America, an Anglo-Saxon describing people of German descent as "Palatine Boors," as Ben Franklin did in the 18th century, would be viewed more as a quaint eccentric than a dangerous racist. But it's cold comfort to today's new arrivals to know that the only thing that may change attitudes is the passage of centuries.

Save big when you subscribe to FP.

PCDE

11:24 PM ET

February 26, 2012

distrust of others?

Czechs and Slovaks decided to divorce. North Sudan versus South Sudan, Walloons and Flemish are currently seeking a divorce as are Scots and English.

It's called human nature.

I would bet my next paycheck that the author, Joshua E. Keating, was raised in a neighborhood that was full of people like his mother and father (e.g all WASP).

Diversity is for the fool that can not move out of his horrid neighborhood.

WICKBAM

1:54 AM ET

February 27, 2012

sounds like someone

is a third positionist

RON BURGUNDY123

5:58 AM ET

Well I could be wrong...but I

Well I could be wrong...but I thought diversity is an old wooden ship used during the civil war era.

-This take is no more ridiculous (if not significantly less) than yours.

Enjoyed the article Josh.

GUNDARICUS

2:43 AM ET

immigration countries

Joshua, you present the US as an example of how to successfully absorb waves of immigration. Do not forget that the native Americans think completely different about that. They witnessed firsthand what immigration waves may accomplish.

CMACPHER

7:02 AM ET

Not true at all

"even though first-generation immigrants in Germany are no more likely than natives to be criminals."

"including Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said last year (incorrectly) that Germans "must accept that the level of crime in immigrant youth is particularly high." Surely it's no coincidence that fears of crime by immigrants increase during election years. "

You say this obviously without ever setting foot within Germany. I'm presently in Frankfurt, actually, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that your above statement is pure rubbish. Every weekend I go out I see Turkish youth hanging out around subways in groups of 20+, staring down and accosting people all the time. They make noise and a scene, and if anyone so much as looks at them crosseyed they come en mass and beat the s**t out of them. I've heard this repeated by many friends here, themselves sizable guys who can definitely take care of themselves. I was accosted at a parade by a few of them a day or two back, and even though I'm in my late 20's and held myself just fine in some bad neighborhoods before, 5+ people isn't something I can defend myself against. I'm not intimidated easily, but I was then.

In fact, just a few months ago my girlfriend and her friends informed me, that a group of 15 turkish youth were on a subway and harassing this kid, so this older man told them to stop, so they all ganged up on him and beat him to death - an event that sees itself repeated often. Merkel is not only right, she's understating the situation. Maybe the truth doesn't play well with political correctness, but that doesn't mean it's not true. Perhaps you should come see the reality with your own eyes before you cast judgement on others for calling spades spades.

GRANT

7:34 AM ET

Really? That hardly follows

Really? That hardly follows what I've read in the more credible German newspapers.

B1GDON

5:23 PM ET

My Experince

It is funny that you mention this, because my experience has been exactly the same except substituting the word Neo-Nazi for Turkish. I guess that is what he meant by "even though first-generation immigrants in Germany are no more likely than natives to be criminals."

IRASTRAUS

1:31 AM ET

March 1, 2012

Thanks for an honest comment

Thanks to you and several others below who have shown the, frankly, dishonesty of the article (and, I should add, of the scholarly sources it cites).

Some of the others below have demonstrated its dishonesty in a scholarly way, analyzing categories, logic, and empirical studies to show the inherent dishonesty of the conclusions and the way they are reached; you and others have shown it experientially. Both methods are valid, and leave little space for doubt. Probably not everything in every one of the critical responses has been right, but they have been far more honest than the article itself. Also noteworthy is the lack of substantive answer -- you have suffered only ridicule and further illogic, a too-frequent kind of answer on this topic.

It is important to move beyond pointing out the deceptions and falsehoods in the article (and defensively denying the slurs that it put out in advance against at all who might answer it), and proceed to take note of the major societal and policy consequences of this dishonesty.

1. The elite/public divide on immigration. It is sharper on this issue than on most. It shows a pattern of aggressive elite maligning of the vast majority of the public, both in European countries and in America; answered by a mass distrust of the elite on this and related issues. This is dangerous. Elites are unable to formulate relevant policies for the public. The bulk of the public is able to formulate its policy thoughts only outside of elite guidance.

2. The content of the pattern of the elite maligning the public: a. Use of smear words, destruction of personal reputations, sometimes depriving people of their jobs for simply speaking honestly on some of these matters (look at Juan Williams' firing by NPR, for making a simple honest statement on a different but related matter!). b. A large element of psychological projection. The elite expresses wanton unwarranted prejudice against the public (using here the actual meaning of bigotry, "prejudice" itself being a neutral term that has come to be misued) ; it "others" the public (i.e. treats the public as an alien "them" and "other"), dehumanizes the public, is dismissive toward it and its valid concerns, attributes bad motives to it, refuses to process and report information on these matters logically or honestly, instead falsifying information lest people draw "prejudiced" conclusions, maintains its own ignorance on these subjects while branding as "ignorant" those who differ with it, claims for itself a superior moral status compared to its society; and ritualistically attributes these very sins, using these exact same terms, to the public. There is something unhealthy going on here in the morals and psychology of the elite; it needs analysis. There is also an apparent fear factor: fear of being smeared by fellow elite members as "prejudiced", "racist", "anti-immigrant", "Islamophobic", "ignorant", and so forth, if one fails to join in smearing the general public in this way. The role of fear adds to the Freudian mechanism of projection in this.

3. The public response, in the absence of a healthy elite guidance, is bound to be simplistic and to trend toward nationalism. This compounds the damage to public policy.

Thus, for example, the ease with which opposition to enlargement of third world migrant cohorts (Islamic, Mexican, and other) is conflated politically with opposition to (in Europe) the European Union and (in the U.S.) the other vital West-West arrangements for cooperation among our countries. This is done by ultra-rightist nationalist parties, obviously, but not only by them: Often it is done also by elites in the journalistic, academic and bureaucratic worlds as well, finding some sense of moral security for themselves by viewing matters as a choice between either their own blindly indiscriminate internationalism or else a blindly crude nationalism.

Actual internationalism is at risk of being ruined politically, ultranationalism empowered, by the mistakes in this brand of elite internationalism, and by the dishonesties and spiteful snobbery of its presentation to (or against) the public -- that is, by the impression it gives the public of a reckless disregard, on the side of what passes as internationalism in recent discourse, for legitimate, sometimes vital, concerns of the existing society.

4. Among the many serious public policy consequences, in the U.S. and Europe, one stands out as already horrendous: the damage done to the European Union.

The EU is a construct of supreme importance for Western and global stability. It has been gravely weakened in its public legitimacy in its core countries, thanks to the longtime almost unqualified support -- in its own elite, and in the American elite when commenting on this matter -- for further opening to immigration and for Turkish EU membership.

It was this elite posture that induced the decisive margin for the defeat of the EU Constitution: it made the difference between the margins by which previous EUs treaties were ratified, sometimes barely and on second tries, and the margins by which the Constitutional Treaty was defeated so decisively that no further try was possible.

The elite had indicated, repeatedly and by near consensus, that adoption of the Constitution would be viewed and used as a reason for regarding the EU as ready for accepting Turkish membership, after satisfaction of technical criteria (and that satisfaction would be interpreted generously). The public was overwhelmingly against Turkish membership, seeing it as an existential danger, both in itself and coupled with existing problems with immigrant cohorts. The bulk of the elite failed to show any awareness of the legitimacy of the concerns of the public, instead dismissing the concerns as unfounded, ignorant, and bigoted; that is, using standardized smear words to vilify expression of these concerns and exclude consideration of them.

While the public cannot be sure how much of a danger is posed by further immigration or by Turkish membership, it could unfortunately be quite sure, in conditions of such elite discourse, that the elite would not recognize the dangers or protect against them, but would rather go on supporting policies that augment them, no matter how dangerous they might be becoming. Accordingly, it feared the worst, and it was unfortunately rational, on a certain level and in a certain sense, for it to act politically on this fear and reject the Constitution; despite the irrationality of that rejection and harm done by it on other levels.

Fortunately, some of the subsequent political elite -- Sarkozy and Merkel, both of whom are, significantly, maligned in the article we're discussing here -- broke ranks and spoke honestly about some concerns -- about immigration, and about strictly ruling out Turkish membership as unacceptable for reasons that are going to persist for a long time, even if Turkey were formally to meet all the Copenhagen criteria.

It was this posture, the one for which Sarkozy and Merkel are maligned in this article, that made possible the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, undoing some of the damage done in the previous period.

However, Lisbon could not reverse most of the delegitimization that the EU had suffered from the public fears about an elite hell-bent on Turkish membership; and failed to achieve more than a fraction of the institutional strengthening that the Constitution would have brought.

If today, God forbid, the euro were to collapse, or still worse, the EU itself collapse in the ensuing chaos, it would be a consequence, largely, of this recent past: the depletion of the popular legitimacy of the EU in its core countries as a consequence of the immigration and Turkish issues as fed into the heat of the Constitution-ratification debate; and the failure to reinforce sufficiently the institutional capacity of the EU to respond to new situations and crises, such as the financial crisis and its consequences for the euro.

This is the nightmare that could brought on by the elite incomprehension of these real issues, coupled with its dismissal and demonization of the public which inchoately, instinctively recognizes these real issues. It comes on top of the huge damage already done by bringing on the defeat of the EU Constitution.

Most of our responsible elites, in America as in Europe, support the EU. FP magazine among them. Most supported the EU Constitution. Yet, with their blind, quite spitefully prejudiced attitudes on border-defining questions of fundamental concern to the public, they have brought on the defeat of the latter and the risk of destruction of the former.

The consequences to public policy in the U.S. have been lesser, at least thus far, but certainly not insignificant.

As a member of the intellectual class who cares about the public responsibilities of my class, I would like to hope for better. We certainly owe the public better.

7:33 AM ET

Immigrants are usually both

Immigrants are usually both different and weak. It's hardly strange that people (especially those already inclined towards prejudice) will show discriminatory behavior. In fact the only immigrant group I can think of in the U.S that definitely avoided this would be the Cubans.

SPOOD

4:16 PM ET

It helps that few countries

It helps that few countries have realistic programs for providing citizenship to immigrants.

So they are a group which is usually different, not politically empowered and going after them allows bigots to run wild in a socially acceptable manner.

12:41 PM ET

February 28, 2012

There's also the factor of

There's also the factor of events from the immigrant's nation/region (or getting confused with another group from that nation or region). I suspect that you could find far more favorable opinions on Pakistani-Americans during the 1990s then you might now. Of course it can go the other way around. Assimilation might have played a role in making Polish-Americans more 'acceptable' but I suspect that Solidarity and Pope John Paul II had at least some influence.

8:56 AM ET

Chinese examples

If migration is so trivial if not beneficial, why do the Chinese use it actively to subdue the Uyghurs and Tibet? Exactly the same way as they made the Mongols a threatened minority in Inner-Mongolia.

XTIANGODLOKI

9:21 AM ET

Is migration to Tibet and Xinjiang bad?

Since the Hans migrated to Western regions of China, the average life expectancy went up by over a dozen years, literacy, income, standards living, all shot up.

Has it occurred to people that the major reason why Chinese from middle parts of China (the poorest regions usually) move to places like Tibet and Xinjiang is because there are more job opportunities due to natural resources, rather than them being forced by the government to "subdue" other minorities?

2:11 PM ET

why the quotes

@XTIANGODLOKI

Why the quotes? The Chinese government uses migration as a weapon. Afterwards, when the original population has become a minority in their own realm and their fate won't ever be decided by themselves anymore people like you state things like: "The people who are against immigration are those who cannot adapt and thus fear change."

It is a very effective weapon.

JBGODZILLA

1:00 PM ET

February 29, 2012

How can China send settlers to Tibet while condemning Israel for

settlers going to live in Judah and Samaria? China claims that Tibet is part of China, as they do Taiwan, but no one dares argue with China because of its size and power today.

KA5S

9:27 AM ET

Daja vu all over again!

Remember The Kingston Trio? 1959 or so?

excerpt from "There's Rioting in Africa":

quote:
...The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much!
:end quote

War is the nat'ral state of Man;
Best taste of peace while still you can,
And know a folk must end in flame
That wars for creed, or wealth, or fame.

If someone famous didn't write that, he should have.

9:30 AM ET

People are reactionary by nature

I don't think there is any nation which doesn't have its anti-immigration moments. At the end of the day people migrate because they seek better lives, and opportunities outweighs the risks. People from poorer areas with less opportunities will always try to move to wealthier nations/cities.

The people who are against immigration are those who cannot adapt and thus fear change.

LITTLEMANTATE

10:50 AM ET

Nice way to sidestep some of the issues raised by our

immigration policy. The kindly humanitarian defense of the weak that will lead to greater poverty in our country for the masses. Nothing like some good old neoliberal, DC preachifying to the bigoted sinners.

It is possible to be opposed to large numbers of unskilled peasants entering into a country and not be motivated by xenophobia, provincialism or sadism. Indeed, one can be quite tolerant and still be a brutal sadist. Expanisionist, bellicose, aggressive empires of the past provide examples of this. One can be quite familiar with a foreign culture and empathetic to its world view and still be opposed to large numbers of peasants entering one's country, and not because one views the lower class in one's own country with any sort of romantic sentimentalism. We are up to our ears in yokels, whose worldview involves magical thinking and who are amenable to paternalistic authoritarianism (i.e. compassionate conservatism). Let's be quite explicit here, we are talking about lower class and rural whites, who are not extremely different, psychologically speaking, from the rural and lower-class Hispanics who are moving in. The popularity of George W. Bush with said new group should serve as a warning.

Also, it must be stressed that xenophobia is often a top down process. One doesn't have to go back to Colonial times for anti-German hysteria, WW1 is a perfect example, and that was encouraged by Government agit-prop. More recent anti-Eastern European propaganda, the kind one encounters frequently in Evangelical literature can be traced to DC cold war fear-mongering. Think of the name of the antichrist from the deplorable LaHaye-Jenkins series, Nicolae Carpathia, gasp! scary, scary, Slavic man.
Anti-Muslim hysteria can also be attributed to more recent WoT agit-prop.

What is amusing, if somewhat annoying, is the way the political centrists, who run the country, often express disgust with the xenophobia of the masses, even though they are complicit in its origins. One must keep the hoi polloi forever roused, it makes for easier mobilizing the nation for a profitable blood-letting in foreign parts, not to mention daily M.I.C. profiteering and scams. So what we get is the leadership talking out both sides of its mouth and engaging in inclusive, tolerant language for the purposes of politically correct plausible deniability.

PHILBEST

6:12 PM ET

Cultural conviction and "buy in"

The strength of conviction in the local culture, really matters for just how assimilated immigrants are going to become over time.
When cultural relativism has undermined conviction in our own society, of the worth of our own values, there is a genuine danger that immigrants will become a serious problem, unlike in earlier generations when immigrants knew we stood for something, and coming here was because the immigrants wanted to "buy in" to those values, not be a kind of third column to bring the same ruin on us as exists in their own countries of origin.

7:13 PM ET

Philbeast

I'd have to say the blame for a loss of American cultural self-confidence that you refer to can be found in those same bellicose, cosmopolitan elites who spend the better part of their time convincing us that we aren't a community so much as an experiment. It is a bipartisan effort, btw, that involves secularists and religious conservatives. We are an experiment who needs to spread the message, increasingly with drones. It's the invite the world/bomb the world/ redeem the world mentality.

I'd also caution you about putting too much stress/belief in the idea of the moral immigrant who simply wants to join the experiment. It isn't realistic; most of our forebears were motivated by less lofty, more crass motives, and they engaged in identity politics from the get go. Our inability to discuss our immigrant past in a demoralized, objective way has real relevance for our foreign policy, not to mention domestic politics.

2:27 PM ET

gundaricus

"modern-day Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who laments a coming "Eurabia" dominated by Islam, playing up the threat posed by new arrivals is a surefire, if cynical, way to win votes. "

Do I read between these lines that Joshua thinks these people play the electorate to win? That would somehow mean they don't believe this themselves, wouldn't it? The unspoken accusation here is that populists harvest votes by issuing statements of xenophobia to win votes.

I don't agree with Mr. Wilders on many things. But his view on Islam has certainly been bolstered by the fact that he lives under constant threat. After the murder of Theo van Gogh by a salfist he was brought to a safehouse by the Dutch secret service and he lives under constant protection ever since.

Think of him what you want, but trust me if I say he actually believes what he says.

SIN NOMBRE

How ... conveeenient....

Joshua Keating wrote:

"A 2011 study by political scientists Jennifer Fitzgerald, K. Amber Curtis, and Catherine L. Corliss found that anti-immigrant attitudes in Germany were far more closely correlated to fears of crime than cultural concerns, even though first-generation immigrants in Germany are no more likely than natives to be criminals."

Frankly this smells to me like the exact spot where some disengenuousness on Mr. Keating's part can be observed, leading to the suspicion that he's either willing to throw facts overboard in favor of his partisanship on an issue, or is simply attempting to show how fine and superior his own sensibilities are.

Why, that is, in this relatively fact-free opinion piece, does he so oddly configure what we're supposed be to concerned about—in one of the few facts he *does* relate—to talk only about *first*-generation immigrants?

If I'm not mistaken it's because study after study has shown that with immigrant populations in the West it is indeed in later generations that social pathologies become much greater. (And sometimes much much greater.)

And of course this only makes sense: New immigrants into any country are generally utter strangers there: If not positively grateful to receive *any* welcome they are at least probably hyper concerned about how they conduct themselves given their unfamiliarity with the laws and rules of their new environment, the possibility they will be kicked out and/or etc. Give it a generation or two however and ....

Not that this justifies any anti-immigrant positions whatsoever, or undermines them: I don't care at this point. I just smell a rat here suspecting Keating is playing cute with the facts.

HACIMO

3:04 PM ET

straw men

Why does the author resist in trying to denigrate his opponents and argue against scarecrows. There may be a few gap toothed idiots on the left and right who think there will be some danger of a "reconquista" but this is not the crux of the opposition. Further there is no one on the right side of the political spectrum who would argue against legal and controlled immigration as provided for under the laws passed by our congress. The present movement to limit immigration is directed only at the inflow of immigrants who enter our country without proper documents. Such persons are illegally trespassing and violating our rights as a sovereign nation. I cannot imagine any american citizen or politician who could possibly stand before the voters and say that he approves of such activity. The question is how to stop it and how to deal with those who have entered our country illegally and have been living here illegally for some time. My own view is that we have no choice but to adopt a policy of zero tolerance and that there can be no amnesty or forgiveness under any circumstances. I feel that the policy of "attrition though enforcement" is the most effective way to deal with the situation. Essentially this policy involves making it as hard or impossible for an illegal immigrant to work or profit from their crime. The logic is to remove the financial incentive that drives illegal immigration. By this same logic we should also make it difficult for Illegals to obtain tax funded welfare benefits and other privileges like drivers licenses and business licenses. Sometimes it seems that the democrats would like to put out a welcome sign and offer tea and cookies to any foreigner who decides to sneak into our country to steal employment opportunities that rightfully can only go to american workers.

4:28 PM ET

When it comes to the US, there is so much stupidity...

with the anti-immigration platform.

Yes, despite rather lame prounouncements to the contrary it is largely informed by bigotry and ignorance. There is a certain irrational vehemence and some outright stupidly dangerous ideas being brought forward on the subject which cannot be considered the workings of rational thought.

People seem to be willing to tear up their 4th Amendment protections or undermine basic guarantees of citizenship of the 14th Amendment just so they can go after brown people with a funny accent. It seems the perfect platform for voting away one's own civil liberties.

People shouting the most about upholding the laws when it comes to immigration are usually people who don't know jackshit about them. Usually it involves making completely ignorant analogies of immigration violations to criminal violations. They are not the same thing. They are not handled in the same way under our laws. They are not treated as equivalents. Its not burglary or trespassing, it is not theft. It is an administrative law violation. All such arguments show is that someone really doesn't understand the situation nor legitimately wants to.

People talk about our legal immigration system but seldom know how it operates or how dysfuctional it really can be at time. Again ignorance of the facts of the matter seem to be the norm rather than the exception.

Those who claim tight immigration restrictions protects workers are utterly delusional. It does nothing of the type. Never has, never will. All it does is drive cheap immigrant labor underground and depress wages.

Plus it feeds into the insanely stupid idea that we can make conditions here harsh enough to act as a deterrent for illegal immigration. Of course it would never work because there is no way we can replicate the crappy economic and political conditions which usually spurred the migration to begin with.

1:10 PM ET

Ethnicity trumps democracy?

For generation, if not centuries, "internationalists" going back as far as Alexander the Great, have argued that race, ethnicity, nationalism, and religions are all divisive factors that must and can be done away with, and must be if there is to be peace and harmony in the world. The Greeks tried to "Hellenize;" the Romans to "Romanize;" the Americans to "Americanize;" and so on, but yet ethnic, tribal, racial and religious ties refuse to die. The Bible claims that God divided the nations in Babel and confused their languages so that man could not challenge Him. Whatever the case, the present HOPE is that secular Democracy can overcome all the traditional barriers of ethnicity, race and religion, but I remain a skeptic. I believe nobody wants to become a minority, and right now, the Caucasian Euro-American is feeling increasingly threatened as his relative numbers, though still a majority, continues to dwindle. The fear of White become the minority is something new for Europeans, and very scary. I'm a Jew. Welcome to my world.

AVA1

1:29 PM ET

Not fear, frustration

I have no fear of foreigners. I am frustrated having to deal with people who can't understand what I say and I certainly can't understand them. Yes, they are speaking "English" but pronunciation is often so far off that I just don't understand, regardless of the native language. At the pharmacy? That's one place I feel I should understand and be understood. Doesn't happen. I have told my mailman several times where to leave packages for me so they'll be safe. Doesn't happen. He asks me same questions over and over again. When I take a cab I like peace and quiet. Do I have the right to ask the cab driver to hang up even if he's using an ear piece? Because I know he wouldn't be yapping away if he thought I could understand him. Or perhaps I want to talk on my phone, maybe to tell someone I'm on my way. Can't hear the person on the other end of the line, thanks to the driver. I'm the customer.

I'm sure this comment isn't going to go over well and I sound elitist. But I stand by what I have to say. And for the record, my grandparents were immigrants forced out of their homeland on a death march. Forced, I have to emphasize. Yes, they learned English, but definitely not enough to work in service industries. So they didn't. They worked in factories, unfortunately, there are no factories in America anymore. So basically what we have here is our service jobs are filled by foreigners and our manufacturing jobs are overseas (coincidentally, probably by many of the relatives of my pharmacist). All I'm asking is that when I ask a question or make a request of my mailman, or drycleaner or pharmacist or cabdriver that there be a simple exchange of information, not frustration or pantomime. And I don't believe that nobody would do those jobs if the immigrants weren't here. Nature abhors a vacuum. So does industry and economy.

HANS KLOSS

12:08 PM ET

March 25, 2012

There is something unhealthy

There is something unhealthy going on here in the morals and psychology of the elite; it needs analysis. There is also an apparent fear factor: fear of being smeared by fellow elite members as "prejudiced", "racist", "anti-immigrant", "Islamophobic", "ignorant", and so forth, if one fails to join in smearing the general vrásky public in this way. The role of fear adds to the Freudian mechanism of projection in this.People talk about our legal immigration system but seldom know how it operates or how dysfuctional it really can be at time. Again ignorance of the facts of the matter seem to be the norm rather than the exception.

Foreign Policy Magazine

Inside National Security

Why is distrust of immigrants so universal?

BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | MARCH/APRIL 2012

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