>Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>>Let's be real - who gives a shit about criminals and immigrants?
>
>I think this is too pessimistic. Americans pay lip service to this
>being a nation of immigrants, and sometimes they even mean it. We're
>certainly more welcoming than Australians, Japanese, or Europeans.
Why do you think that the United States is more welcoming of immigrants than Australia? The proportion of the foreign-born in Australia is double that in the United States:
<blockquote>From 1860 to 1920, more than 13 percent of the population was foreign-born. In 1990, roughly 8.5 percent of the population--about 1 person in 12 in the United States--was born abroad, considerably smaller proportionally than during much of U.S. history.
The present proportion in the United States, 8.5 percent, also may be compared to 1990s' proportions of 22.7 percent in Australia; 16 percent in Canada; 6.3 percent in France; 7.3 percent in Germany; 3.9 percent in Great Britain; and 5.7 percent in Sweden. Figure 2.5 shows the recent trends. ("Immigration: The Demographic and Economic Facts," <http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-imquant.html>)</blockquote>
<blockquote>Over the past decade, Canada has become one of the most polyglot countries in the world, with the census listing 18.4 percent of its population, or 5.4 million people, as foreign-born, a full percentage point higher than the 1996 census. Only Australia has a higher proportion of foreign-born residents -- 22 percent, while the United States has 11 percent. (Henry Michaels, "The Changing Face of Canada," 29 January 2003, <http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jan2003/can-j29_prn.shtml>)</blockquote> -- Yoshie
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