Most folks really don't have an issue with immigrants. Our country was built on this principle. We have no mythical "history and culture" to protect...what we have a problem with is the lack of respect for the rules...becoming a US citizen for many is something they work towards...and something that honors them .....


.... I'm ok with a migrant worker status too...let them come work...but make sure they have to follow the same rules as I do, pay the same taxes that I do, and earn their "privileges" the way I do. Cause right now, they get alot of stuff for free, on my dime, that I have to pay thousands for (like healthcare).


Australia has a lot of the same types of problems, simply because its history makes it a desirable place to live. Like the US, it is regarded as an affluent society without a lot of racial or religious fighting. The laws regulating society tend to work better than average and in a more 'civilised' way. To compare, Malaysia is working hard to become a 'developed country' and is not doing too bad a job at it. I kept my eyes open when I was in Kota Kinabalu last month: I could live there similarly to how I live in Sydney. Mobile phones, satellite TV, internet and computers, new cars, fast food, current fashions, shiny shopping malls. There are still cultural concerns to overcome (for instance, public toilets are atrocious), but they are starting to recognise them. Curiously, this means Malaysia has a problem with immigration from neighbouring countries. Which can only get worse. So why are they working so hard to get there? The same reason the immigrants want to go there in the first place: it's a desirable place to live.

Of course immigrants bring their own problems. Australia was, like the US, built on immigration. European immigration, principally. The 'White Australia' policy of half-a-century ago was deplorable. Fortunately, it has been done away, so current immigration is more wide-ranging. And we've seen the rise in 'multiculturalism' which has been seen in some areas as encouraging immigrant enclaves and discouraging 'Australianisation'. This is often characterised as immigrants not speaking English or particular ethnicities behaving in ways at odds with Australian culture. Repeated incidents of rape of white girls by young men of middle eastern extraction is a good, albeit extreme, example of the latter.

However. Western Society is unavoidably based on cheap manufacturing in other countries. There are action groups trying to change that, because it is exploitation. The trouble is, solving that probably means either raising the costs of many many many items beyond what most people could afford (shades of saving 6 months for a TV...) or lowering the minimum wage domestically. Or both. Western Society wouldn't stand for that. Instead it prefers the econonic spiral of raising wages to afford more which means paying workers more which raises prices... And immigrants see the affluence and want to live in it.

Wade.