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In a previous open thread, the topic of immigration in Europe came up. At the time Sweden was being discussed and it was unclear to what extent immigrants were contributing to crime and other social problems. Unfortunately Sweden's publicly accessible data isn't sufficient to really dig into the issue.
Then I discovered this link which actually does address the issue of immigrant crime in Europe quite directly, albeit in Denmark instead of Sweden. It also addresses issues such as welfare use. As it turns out the racist right wing seems to be completely correct on facts.
Financial Contribution
Danes and western immigrants to Denmark are, on average, positive contributors to Denmark during their working years. The same is true, though less so, of "Other non western". However it turns out that the controversial group of immigrants - MENAPT (Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey) - are net negative contributors at every age.
A breakdown by country (for countries with at least 5000 immigrants to Denmark) is provided and the result is exactly what the far right would predict: white people, Indians and Chinese make good immigrants and contribute positively to Denmark. The average American benefits Denmark to the tune of about $12k/year, the average Indian a little bit less. The average Somalian costs Denmark about $18k. Thais, Vietnamese and Filipinos are net neutral.
Crime
Western immigrants commit crime at rates more or less equivalent to Danes. Non-western immigrants commit about 3.5x more violent crime (including murder) and 7x more rape.
Crime rates can be further broken down by country of origin. After adjusting for age and gender, we find that again the racist far right are entirely correct in their views. Somalians have crime rates about 7x that of Danes. Americans, British, Indians and Chinese have crime rates about half that of Danes. I was surprised to see that Israelis and Thais have higher than average crime rates.
Conclusion
In countries where data is available (such as Denmark and the US), said data strongly supports the position of educated internet right wing racists. Some countries, such as Sweden, try to obfuscate the data as much as possible to the point of not describing criminals.
I argue that the most reasonable thing we can do is assume that for nearby countries more or less similar patterns apply even if we lack data drilling down at the level of individual subgroups.
(I use "educated" as an important caveat. I do not necessarily expect a random American racist to make distinctions between Indians and Pakistanis, though a random Brit might. However the typical racist motte poster certainly does.)
Thanks for the links, one important point though is that this shouldn't matter for Denmark to not want to become Indian, Chinese, or MENAPT. I don't care if the Chinese have positive tax contributions and lower criminal behavior than Danes, I don't want Denmark to become Chinese. Opponents of immigration shouldn't fall into the trap of "it's not about race, it's about crime and tax dollars". That didn't work in the US, it's not going to work in Denmark. It is about race.
For you, sure. But it might not be for others - such as me - since among other things, I don't think I'm the same race as you.
So you would be fine with Denmark becoming significantly or even majority Chinese if it meant lower crime and higher tax income? I ask because so many conservatives try hard to convince themselves that it's not about race when they oppose illegal immigration, but they are just in denial.
I at least wouldn't have any problem with that in theory. I don’t see the point of trying to freeze the ethnic map of the world at any particular point in time, as these things are always in flux. In practice, however, the things I do care about (cultural practices, crime rates, behavior) are so highly correlated with national origin that the simplest approach is to screen by background rather than thoroughly vet every individual immigrant to get only those that will assimilate well.
When I have visited Scandinavia in the past, the thing that annoyed me about immigrants there wasn't that they were nonwhite, it was that many did not seem to speak the local language, and I came close to berating several shopkeepers in my broken Swedish for their lack of respect towards their new home.
Cultural homogenization or breakdown of law and order are much worse outcomes in my eyes than racial replacement, and to the extent that they can be disambiguated (and perhaps they can't, this a point of disagreement), I don’t particularly care about the latter.
I completely agree with that, but that is also the point I am trying to get across to OP. This isn't really about crime or taxes, it's about ethnogenesis, which is monumentally more important than any of those issues.
I also don't see value in trying to freeze the ethnic map of the world, but being conscious of its direction is of extreme importance, and hiding those anxieties behind complaints about crime or taxes is the road to failure. Ideally, you would rationally and intelligently influence the ethnic map of the world to achieve some desirable outcomes.
I'm not trying to be snarky when I say that this is just a lack of cultural sensitivity on your part. If you put a mouse in a barn do you berate it for not acting like a horse? They are not Swedish and they never will be, you either accept that along with the concurrent changes in Swedish language and culture or you get serious about the problem of ethnogenesis.
Based on the last paragraph of this post perhaps you might allow me to pose a question.
I am an American citizen (Caucasian, more or less, if it matters, with some Native American ancestry) living in Japan, my home now over two decades. I speak the language passably well though my kanji isn't what it should be (even recently on this forum I goofed a very basic term, and, as one might expect, was gently corrected). Though I am not in a service job, I am public-facing in that I stand in front of adult students every day. Would you argue that I shouldn't make efforts to learn Japanese, or that my learning of Japanese should be done only as a means of communication, and not as one of a larger set of strategies to integrate (to whatever degree) into Japanese culture?
You may suggest that I am "not Japanese and never will be" and that is of course not an unpopular perspective (particularly, even especially here). But surely the old saw about when in Rome carries some water in your mind? It's possible I'm misunderstanding you.
You are inclined to learn Japanese and respect the local culture, my point is it's not reasonable to expect that same behavior from masses of third world economic migrants. If a Japanese person wanted to maintain Japanese culture, it would be a bad idea to import masses of people who are unlike the Japanese and expect they will adopt the "when in Rome" mentality that you have. Culture is more dynamic than people and their personalities, it's more likely the culture is going to change than a Paki is going to start acting like a Swede.
If mases of Turks or Syrians moved to Japan, how many Japanese people would say "oh well, being Japanese is an idea that has nothing to do with ethnicity so these are now fellow Japanese people"?
I'll trust your judgement on that question, but why would their response be so different than the Swede who feels compelled to voice his objection by couching it in terms of taxes?
A friend of mine has a daughter, raised her here though my friend and her husband are from the US and both blue-eyed and white--their daughter is also. But the girl, because of her upbringing, can, and does, move as fluently through Japanese culture as her classmates. She is also perfectly, natively fluent in English. It's a marvel to see her slip in and out of these versions of herself.
In Nihonjinron scholarship (if that's the word to use) there have been many efforts at defining "Japaneseness." Some suggest both parents need to be ethnically Japanese. Because Japanese culture is so much a part of functioning here, however (that's a whole can of worms), others suggest that to be Japanese one has to be fluent in the language and preferably born in Japan.
That, too, sometimes doesn't matter. Returnee students who may have spent a few years abroad (especially if in early youth) are routinely told, on return, that because of some alteration in attitude, dress, or ineffable behavioral trait, they're "not really Japanese," as if their Japaneseness has been stripped from them.
The dimensions of the definition become more and more Procrustean as one goes on, as you might expect.
Eventually the concept "I know a Japanese when I see one" becomes the answer if the subject is pressed--and of course one cannot press the subject very far, for highlighting disagreement.or inconsistency in this way would be poor manners, itself "un-Japanese."
Older people might not consider the girl in my example above as ever having any chance of being Japanese, any more than a Zainichi Korean or third-generation Chinese. It isn't hard to find people using the term "Japanese blood" when the topic comes up. One quickly realizes nationality isn't the issue, or even culture, or language--or even biology (though there is of course that rather infamous book arguing the Japanese person's brain is structurally different from, well, from all the rest of us.)
I have the distinct sense that all this evaporates if you boil it down enough and you'll be left with steam, and, eventually an empty pot.
To address your question, there seems to be no real movement here (with a non-Japanese presence of around 2%) to shepherd anyone into the Japanese fold. Though I am considered uchi (内) or "one of the group/family/elect" in certain contexts here, remove one layer and I am again soto (外) or an outsider. But I haven't ever considered attempting applying for Japanese nationality.
I'd a fairly extreme (if benign) racist acquaintance some years ago who liked Japan and the Japanese fine because of the sense of clear delineation he felt here.
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