Xenophobia And Immigrants In The United States

Throughout the world, there is an estimate of about 65.3 million refugees that have either been forced out of their homes or chose to willingly escape the violence or corruption they faced in their homeland. Of those millions of people, only a small percentage are given the status of refugee as many nations have strict requirements and only allow a specific amount each year. This leads to an increase in the amount of illegal immigration as many are desperate to risk their lives to for a better one then they had back home. Even as refugees are given asylum, many often face difficulties such as discrimination due to the racial stereotypes that exist as a result of negative depictions in the news and media. Although nations have generally become more open to receiving and providing aid for a significant amount of refugees seeking asylum, people’s ideology of race and the misrepresentation of the media towards immigrants prevent an even larger amount of refugees from being accepted into society.

Our Fear of Immigrants by Jeremy Adam Smith uses emotional scenarios and scientific evidence to support his question of why people fear immigrants. Smith never clearly states his point in the paper, but he wants to address the issue of prejudice against immigrants. This is easy to figure out because of the content of the excerpt, and the headings that guides the reader to an additional support of the idea throughout the passage.

In the essay “Our Fear of Immigrants,” Jeremy Adam Smith writes about why it is we fear immigrants. Smith divides his essay with numerous examples and comparisons, through biological, sociological and psychological explanations. As unorthodox as it sounds, our hesitation towards outsiders can be explained in various ways we never believed imaginable; in Smith’s investigation, he unveils the bewildering reality about the contrasts between ourselves, as adults, and children when it comes to immigration. He begins with a distressful story of a classroom of 4th graders from Berkeley, California, who missed their classmate named Rodrigo when he didn’t return from Christmas break, due to his parents’ expired visa. Rodrigo’s classmates thought that it was so unfair, that they complained to their congressmen. Smith then contrasts this response of empathetic children to unsympathetic adults from Berkeley, California, who protested against immigrants who seek shelter in the U.S for the families. Smith pondered the questions: “Why do immigrants provoke such strong feelings of both empathy and revulsion, a polarization that pits fourth graders in Berkeley against the citizens of Murrieta?” and “What characteristics and qualities do Rodrigo’s classmates possess

In the battle of immigration, America is its own enemy. By abandoning and victimizing its refugee allies, America is no longer supporting its own. Anna Husarska has spent “two years of interviewing refugees"; with the notes that she gained through this process, her arguments concerning America’s ingratitude towards refugees are supported (90). In Husarska’s journal, “Exile Off Main Street: Refugees and America’s Ingratitude,” Husarska emphasizes how common America’s refugee abandonment is and the multiple temporary and rash reactions to the upset.

Fear of immigrants might be the most intractable of people, and they believe it is strongly linked to survival and natural selection. The most common human reaction is to monopolize resources. Some people might feel that having immigrants or foreigners in their counters are Threat. In “Our Fear of Immigrants” by Jeremy Adam Smith, one of the reasons or a real threat posed by the immigrant’s ability to distressed the power or the rich people of that country. Those rich people never think carefully about what other individuals can offer and contribute, and this leads them to embrace stereotypes. One of the most common stereotypes about immigrants is describing some Latinos or Mexican as rapists, killers and drug dealers. Fear and misinformation

In the battle of refugee resettlement, America is its own worst enemy. By abandoning and victimizing harmless refugees, America robs them of their chance at the American Dream. After spending two years interviewing refugees, Anna Husarska was able to support her argument that America is outrageously unfair to foreign refugees (90). In Husarska’s journal, “Exile Off Main Street: Refugees and America’s Ingratitude,” Husarska emphasizes how widespread and commonplace America’s refugee abandonment is, as well as how seldom America attempts to reconcile for it, and how poor it is at doing so.

Muslim immigrants have arrived to the United States of America from every nuke and corner of the sphere. The population is diverse in their own ways but each one of them bears similar reasons: Some desire to escape an old way of life, others to find a new one. Some wanted to escape violence, others the fetters of penury, or simple lack of opportunity. They have arrived with fervent hope, and often nothing more. The initial response received by them was largely varied. These new Americans found a vast new land hungry for their labor. But some, unfamiliar with these newcomers’ customs and religions, treated the new Americans as outsiders and believed they could never be real Americans. And with the events like the Gulf War and the World Trade Center bombing outpoured anti-Islamic sentiments in the 1990s. These sentiments intensified with the heinous and abominable attacks of September 11th. Muslims were being labeled as “extremists”, “jihadists”, “fanatics”, “fundamentalists” etc. They were being feared, discriminated and even harassed.

The 2016 presidential election and the now 2017 president, has struck fear in many Americans, especially immigrants; both legal and illegal. Immigration has been one of the top headlines throughout President Donald Trump’s presidency. Many immigrants feared for their lives. They did not know what to expect if Trump were to become president, but now, the fear of being kicked out of America or even being restricted from coming back to America with a green card, has increased. While we still have other issues surrounding us, immigration plays a key factor in causing mayhem in our society.

As an aspirant journalist, I want to give a voice to those who can’t be heard; I want to write their stories and help them express their experiences. I want to advocate for immigrants. Throughout the years I have seen with my own eyes the demoralization they are forced to live in, because they are in the search of a new home, a better home. Many people have a misconception towards why immigrants come to the united states, the majority only think they are trying to invade the country, when in reality they are just trying to survive. Most of the immigrants that come to this country are escaping corruption, violence, and poverty. They are forced to be separated of their families to send them money or to save enough money to bring them later. They are forced to do the job that no other person wants to do, because the pay is so low and the hours are long. Many live with Fear. Fear of dying in the journey, fear of being deported, fear of being discriminated for not speaking the language, or just the fear of not being able to provide for your family because you have been capture into one of the “retention” places (aka jail) like Eloy. Every day we heard the negative connotation of immigrants. The media portraits them as stealers not only from the “benefits” but also of American’s jobs. But, they are just marginalized by the society who main component are immigrants.

A recent survey was conducted which revealed that forty-one percent of Americans currently hold anti-immigrant sentiments. Similar trends were discovered for Europeans with thirty-seven percent of people in the United Kingdom and fifty-two percent of people in France expressing anti-immigrant attitudes (Krogstad, 2015). These trends show that negative views about immigrants are evident globally, and thus should be treated as an important issue. However, anti-immigrant attitudes are not involuntary and do not emerge from individual thought. Western nations, the United States in particular, use significant events in history such as the 9/11 attacks to their advantage by inciting extreme nationalism that demonizes immigrants which allows for the

Canada is home to the oldest standing democracies of the world and is named as one of the safest places to reside in. Canada had embraced its nationalistic moments under the British Empire during the Battle of Ypres, Vimy Ridge and the Somme in World War 1 and in World War 2. However, these periods also created tensions within Canada, as many foreigners from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Japan received internment and were racially profiled.

America has long given up it’s former glory as a “melting pot.” Discrimination and xenophobia has caused the pride of being a country where everyone's ideas are accepted to downgraded. In 2012, the department of homeland security estimated there is about 11.4 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States. This causes diversity, which is important. But with 114 million immigrant and counting in the country and a president that has suggested a wall around the border as a solution to this, it’s safe to say there is a problem.

When thinking of Europe, it is automatically thought of anti-immigration and xenophobia due to the numbers of immigrants from diverse parts of the world; that is with the exception of Spain. A country in the south of France with southern borders to a developing country and a strong colonizing history, Spain does not seem like a country that had just started to become an immigration country. For a country with recent immigration history, it does have a lot of migration dilemmas that test the tolerance of the nation. Spain has migrants from all over the world, mainly from its old colonies in Latin America and northern Africa. Unlike Europe, Spain has careful over the years to maintain pro-immigration, even after its terror attacks and

There are many factors that need to be observed to determine what causes people to experience xenophobia. Xenophobia is defined as a condition where people suffer irrational fear of strangers or foreigners. The symptoms of people that suffered from this condition are very real and can range from feeling nauseated or excessive sweating to dry mouth, heart palpitations, a fear of dying, and anxiety attacks. Nevertheless, what exactly causes people to experience from Xenophobia?

In addition, the continued increase of the migrant workers in Singapore might lead to xenophobia in the country. According to Khan, Rola and Ruxandra migrant workers continue to suffer economic prejudice because government employment policies operate in favor of “national workers” (1). In Singapore, migrant workers make up a larger percentage of the population thereby leading to competition over employment with the natives. As such, the possibility of xenophobia prevailing in Singapore is high. This is because competition between natives and foreigners over meager economic resources has always led to xenophobia in many other countries. For example, xenophobia has been a problem in South Africa because the residents accuse African immigrants from the horn of Africa for stealing “their jobs” (Slier, para. 3). The xenophobia problems come from unemployed South Africans. Nonetheless, most of the immigrants struggle to earn a living in the same way the natives do but the natives view them as competitors. For instance, most successful immigrant groups are Somalis. The reason for the success of the Somalis is their entrepreneurial skills as well as their strong intra-ethnic ties that resemble those of the Indians. Each slum has an isolated “Somali neighborhood” where most Somali refugees live and work (Abdi, para. 7). Nonetheless, most Somali refugees and immigrants face insecurity from the local vigilante groups and gangs because they view them as aliens.