Poll: Immigrants meet increasing acceptance

The increase in immigration has some people — like Briton Arthur Hooker — very nervous. The number of people applying for British citizenship surged by 64 percent in 2005 as immigrants rushed to beat deadlines before new restrictions went into effect.

“It’s a small country and bringing people into it is sinking us into the ocean if we’re not careful,” said Hooker, a 65-year-old book stall owner in central London.

The growing number of immigrants is a strain on countries that shows up in different ways.

• In the United States, there’s a debate on how to secure the nation’s borders while determining what becomes of more than 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has made improving integration of the nation’s roughly 7 million foreigners a top goal of her new government.
• Spain faces an increasing tide of desperate migrants arriving in the Canary Islands nearly every day, gaunt and exhausted from days packed together at sea.

The arrival of thousands of newcomers is raising fears of crime.

Soaring unemployment, dissatisfaction
More than a third of Germans, Italians and Spaniards say they think immigrants are more likely to be involved in criminal activity than people born in their countries. A fourth in France and Britain feel that way.

“Often the immigrants come here and can’t find work, they are forced to become criminals,” said Leonardo Delogu, a doctor from Sardinia, who was visiting Rome.

For three weeks last November, youths from depressed suburbs of Paris — where youth unemployment soared to around 50 percent — burned thousands of cars and some public buildings in France’s worst public unrest in decades. Many of those who rioted were the French-born children of immigrants, who often have difficulty finding work, getting into good schools, even being able to get into nightclubs or renting apartments.

An overwhelming number of those polled in all eight countries said immigrants work as hard or harder than people born in those countries.

Many times, the immigrants take jobs that are less desired by the native-born population.

“Working hard is the only way they’re going to survive, isn’t it,” said Sunny Siddiq, a liquor store owner in London who moved to Britain from Pakistan nine years ago. “They don’t have luxuries in their home country, so when they come here, they only have one mission: to work hard and to support families back home.”

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