USA Only Ninth On Integration

The Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) rates 31 Western nations (EU plus Norway, Switzerland, Canada, and the U.S.) when comes to integration of immigrants, weighing efforts against 148 policy indicators (such as opportunities for education, political participation, levels of protection against discrimination, prospects for reuniting with family, likelihood of achieving permanent residence status and citizenship, and so on).

The Atlantic has more on the story. It's in the Business Section, because MIPEX scores can also be linked to business performance and competitiveness.

Politically correct Sweden is top on the list. Most of mainland Europe is "halfway favorable" or worse, and USA still does comparatively well.

Intensified Cultural-Evolutionary Pressure

At it's root the discourse about immigration standards is as much about "selfish" national interest in World 1 as it is about an idealistic concept of "open societies".

Striving for heterogeneity may be in line with the philosophical ideas of democracy and enlightenment - contest of ideas, diversity of culture - and these may have a beneficial effect.

But overall the issue of integration is as much a question of whether or not a people, race, culture or nation is "integrable", understood as deserving of the benefits of a multiethnic "super-culture."

The question the immigration debate raises above all else is the distance between the stress point of a culture and the point, where the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

In the age of globalization the leading countries compete on their capacity to embrace diversity and change - their cultural adaptivity.

Somewhat ironically immigration is a forced position, regardless of what the actual preferences of the indigenous populations may be.

The privileges and the incentive to keep it creates the need for 2 classes of workers: Low pay uneducated labor to fill in the ranks in job positions shunned by the Alpha class of citizens (and also effective to press the wage level down) and elite workers who can benefit the country by "brain-gain" or "brain-burst", whatever we choose to call the opposite of brain-drain.