Anti-immigration

Anti-immigrant and anti-immigration are labels that are often considered inaccurate or prejudicial by those to whom they are applied. Immigration-reductionist is a more neutral term. The distinction is that the term anti-immigrant implies xenophobia, nativism and/or racism, though not all who oppose immigration hold those views. Some feel that anti-immigration is also inaccurate because many who wish to reduce immigration do not want to eliminate it entirely.

To the extent that there are people who hold anti-immigrant sentiments, they justify them with their belief that immigrants:

• isolate themselves in their own communities and refusing to learn the language/culture.

• steal the jobs

• damage the sense of community and nationality

• increase the consumption of scarce resources

Prominent opinion leaders that oppose immigration and immigrants' rights blame immigration for several problems, including unemployment, crime, harm to the environment, and detoriating public education. Their critics often argue that while the problems are real, blaming immigrants is rather a form of scapegoating.

In the US, immigration reductionism has a long history, including the Know Nothings Party of the mid-19th Century. Eugenicists in the early 20th Century used questionable data on the intelligence of Southern Europeans to influence the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. Immigration reductionism is not a strictly left/right issue. For example, the Wall Street Journal endorses liberal immigration policies in order to provide business with a steady supply of cheap labor, while some environmentalists call for immigration reduction in order to minimize pollution in the US. Illegal immigration, principally from Mexico, is the leading concern for most immigration reductionists. Prominent mainstream supporters of US immigration reductionism include: Tom Tancredo, Patrick Buchanan, John Tanton, and Roy Beck.

Immigration reductionism in Europe is based particularly on the influx of Moslems from Turkey and Northern Africa. Prominent European opponents of this migration include Jörg Haider, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and Pim Fortuyn (deceased). Anti-immigration views are sometimes falsely accused of being associated with neo-nazism in Europe and the US.