Annual Survey: governments fail immigration
Americans, Canadians and Europeans overestimate immigration figures, espress contradictory opinions about integration and worry about the effect of immigration on work and social services
WASHINGTON - TORINO (3rd February 2011) – Results of the recent survey ‘Transatlantic Trends: Immigration’ indicate that while North America and Europe are trying to overcome the world economic crisis, public opinion is becoming more critical towards governments in the subject of immigration. Furthermore, for the first time, competition from the immigrant workforce is causing concern, above all for those who ere hit directly by the crisis in 2010.
The data presented in the third edition of the annual report ‘Transatlantic Trends: Immigration’, which analyses North American and European public opinion, show that most citizens in the USA (73%), Italy and the UK (70%), Spain (61%), France (58%) and Holland (54%) are critical of their governments’ conduct regarding immigration. Only Canadians are equally divided between those who approve of the measures taken by their leaders (48%) and those who deem them to be inadequate (43%).Furthermore, in the United States (67%) and the United Kingdom (63%) those interviewed claim that immigration issues influence how they vote.
‘Transatlantic Trends: Immigration’ contains an interesting novelty in 2010, as pointed out by Angelo Benessia, Chair of the Compagnia di San Paolo. “The survey shows that, when properly informed about the number of immigrants in their own country, those interviewed are much more cautious in expressing an opinion on the presence of “too many foreigners”.
