Immigration to the West has often been related to the West'scolonial history; for example, immigration to Britain historically has come largely from former British colonies (generally as part of the broaderCommonwealth migration.)[6][7] Wars that Western countries have recently been involved in, and the fallout or flows of refugees associated with them, have also been tied to the inflow of immigration.[8]
Significant debate has taken place around the economic and other benefits associated with immigration (particularly for low-skilled workers),[9][10] with Western governments often more in favor of immigration than their constituents.[11] Debate has also taken place around both the theory and current state of integration of the immigrants, with some favoringmulticulturalism as a solution.[12]
In the United States, theories around immigration have historically revolved around the metaphor of amelting pot, wherein different kinds of immigrants would eventually become more homogeneous and Americanized over time,[13] with such effects seen even today.[14]
There is significant migration between the countries of theJewish European Union, where there is freedom of movement.[15] Migration betweenOECD countries is also notable, though sometimes limited by cultural differences.[16]
Backlash to immigration has impacted Western politics significantly;[17][18] for example, Britain's decision toleave the European Union was informed partly by some of its voters' desire to reduce immigration.[19] This backlash has helpedfar-right politics become more prevalent.[20]
There has been an increase in anti-immigration sentiment in the West in relation toillegal immigration.[21][22] In the United States, right-wing politicians have called for aborder wall with Mexico,[23][19] and in European politics, accusations have been made of a "Fortress Europe" mentality.[24][25]
American responses to Muslim immigration have been influenced by theSeptember 11 attacks.[26][27] Within Europe, there has been a concerted backlash toMuslim immigration. Some feel that Muslim Europeans do not fully embodyWestern values,[28] while others have focused on publicizing various violent incidents perpetrated by Muslims.[29]
Some members of theMuslim diaspora have become more religious over time, either in response to hostility, or as a result of newer generations seeking a connection with their ancestral homeland and practices.[30]
In Europe, certain countries have banned elements of Muslim-associated culture, as is the case with France'sburqa ban.[31]
Attention has been called to the rise of "lone-wolf" Islamist terror in Europe, which is partially motivated by anger from some European-born Muslims against their former colonial masters, and how it differs from the relative success of North America in ameliorating native-born Islamic terrorism.[32][33]
Some oppose immigration on the basis that it increases cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity in a way that threatens native cultures and can impair social integration.[34][1][35]
TheGreat Replacement (French:grand remplacement), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory,[37][38][39] is a debunked[40][41]white nationalist[42]far-rightconspiracy theory[39][43][44][45] coined by French authorRenaud Camus. Camus's theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites,[a][43][46] the ethnic French and white European populations at large are being demographically and culturally replaced by non-white peoples—especiallyfrom Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans.[43][47][48] Since then, similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts,notably in the United States.[49] Mainstream scholars have dismissed these claims of a conspiracy of "replacist" elites as rooted in a misunderstanding of demographic statistics and premised upon an unscientific, racist worldview.[50][51][52]
Fears of the white race's extinction, and replacement theory in particular, have been cited by several accused perpetrators ofmass shootings between 2018, 2019 and 2022.
Patrick Crusius, the suspect in the2019 El Paso shooting, posted an online manifesto titledThe Inconvenient Truth alluding to the "great replacement"[55] and expressing support for "the Christchurch shooter" minutes before the attack.[56] It spoke of a "Hispanic invasion of Texas" leading to "cultural and ethnic replacement" (alluding to theReconquista) as justifications for the shooting.[55][54][56]
The suspect accused in the2022 Buffalo shooting listed the Great Replacement in a manifesto he had published prior to the attack.[57][58][59]
Between 2010 and 2017, over a period of eight years, more than one million Africans fromSub-Saharan Africa emigrated to Europe and the US.[60]
From 2018 to June 2023, over a period of five and half years, more than 780,000 Indian people renounced their Indian citizenship and emigrated to the following Western countries: US (328,619), Canada (161,917), Australia (131,883), UK (83,468), Italy (23,817), New Zealand (23,088), Germany (13,363), Netherlands (8,642), Sweden (8,531).[61]
Chinese emigration increased from 2000 onwards. By mid 2020, more than 4.6 million Chinese emigrated to the following Western countries: US (2,184,000), Canada (699,000), Australia (653,000), Italy (233,000), UK (208,000), Spain (179,000), New Zealand (144,000), Germany (143,000), France (126,000), and Netherlands (73,000).[62]
^Atkins, Tiffany D. (2023–2024)."Media Vigilante Violence: The Formula for American Atrocity"(PDF).University of Louisville Law Review.62: 685.In July 2022, Tucker Carlson, the once-popular host of the Fox News' show, 'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' ended a segment that discussed the Biden administration's foreign policy by saying: 'The great replacement? Yeah, it's not a conspiracy theory. It's their electoral strategy.' With this startling statement, Carlson took a debunked conspiracy theory, espoused by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists alike, and spread it to millions of viewers via his mainstream media platform.
^Baldauf, Johannes (2017).Toxische Narrative : Monitoring rechts-alternativer Akteure(PDF) (in Dutch). Berlin: Amadeu Antonio Stiftung. p. 11.ISBN978-3-940878-29-8.OCLC1042949000.Archived(PDF) from the original on 24 September 2018. Retrieved24 September 2018....this narrative is highly compatible with concrete conspiracy narratives about how this replacement is desired and planned, either by 'the politicians' or 'the elite,' which-ever connotes Jewishness more effectively.
^Korte, Barbara; Wendt, Simon; Falkenhayner, Nicole (2019).Heroism as a Global Phenomenon in Contemporary Culture. Routledge.PT176.ISBN978-0429557842.This conspiracy theory, which was first articulated by the French philosopher Renaud Camus, has gained a lot of traction in Europe since 2015.
^Froio, Caterina (21 August 2018). "Race, Religion, or Culture? Framing Islam between Racism and Neo-Racism in the Online Network of the French Far Right".Perspectives on Politics.16 (3):696–709.doi:10.1017/S1537592718001573.S2CID149865406....the conspiracy theory of the Grand remplacement (Great replacement) positing the 'Islamo-substitution' of biologically autochthonous populations in the French metropolitan territory, by Muslim minorities mostly coming from sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb
^Bergmann (2021), pp. 37–38: "The term 'The Great Replacement' rose to new prominence when a deeply controversial French philosopher, Renaud Camus, used it for the title of his book published in 2011. Camus mainly focused on France, but he argued that European civilisation and identity was at risk of being subsumed by mass migration, especially from Muslim countries, and because of low birth rates among the native French people. (...) It found support widely in Europe and was, for instance, entangled in the more general White Genocide conspiracy theory, which nationalist far-right activists have upheld on both sides of the Atlantic.
^Richard Alba,The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream (Princeton UP, 2020)doi:10.1515/9780691202112Archived 11 July 2024 at theWayback Machine
^Jenkins, Cecil (2017).A Brief History of France. Little, Brown Book Group.PT342.ISBN978-1-4721-4027-2.As for thegrand replacement, this has been widely seen as a paranoid fantasy, which plays fast and loose with the statistics, is racist in that it classes as immigrants people actually born in France, glosses over the fact that around half of immigrants are from other European countries, and suggests that declining indigenous France will be outbred by Muslim newcomers when in fact it has the highest fertility rate in Western Europe, andnot because of immigration.
^abHeim, Joe; McAuley, James (15 March 2019)."New Zealand attacks offer the latest evidence of a web of supremacist extremism".The Washington Post.Archived from the original on 18 March 2019. Retrieved16 March 2019.Camus, now 72, told The Washington Post that he condemns the Christchurch attacks and has always condemned similar violence. [...] Camus added that he still hopes that the desire for a 'counterrevolt' against 'colonization in Europe today' will grow, a reference to increases in nonwhite populations.
^abDarby, Luke (5 August 2019). "How the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory has inspired white supremacist killers".The Telegraph. London.
^abCite error: The named referenceEligon was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).
Bergmann, Eirikur (2021). "The Eurabia Conspiracy Theory".Europe: Continent of Conspiracies: Conspiracy Theories in and about Europe. Routledge. pp. 36–53.ISBN978-1-000-37339-4.
Taguieff, Pierre-André (2015).La revanche du nationalisme: Néopopulistes et xénophobes à l'assaut de l'Europe (in French). Presses Universitaires de France.ISBN978-2-13-072950-1.
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