Immigration and Freedom

Ethnic and Racial Studies. 2022. Vol. 45. No. 13. P. 2532–2534.

Asatryan G.

The Trump administration was the first anti-immigrant administration in the United States since the 1920s, but the American public did not share a consensus against its policies. Trump’s anti-immigrant narrative helped change attitudes towards immigrants, at least among his supporters. As Fredrick Von Hayek noted, institutions can change public perceptions. Alexis de Tocqueville had noted the people of the United States’ commitment to liberty is sentimental and cannot be understood without the context of its relationship to other values including equality. The “forever war,” including United States interventions in Syria and Iraq, has led to mass movements of Middle Eastern and Afghan refugees, during a time when right-wing politics has been on the rise in the European Union and the United States. In the European Union, anti-immigrant parties have gained parliamentary representation. In the United States, a country that until yesterday called itself a “nation of immigrants,” an anti-immigrant president was elected in 2016. One of Trump’s first actions was to ban people from Muslim countries from visiting or migrating to the United States. Anti-immigrant politics have survived the end of the Trump administration, so it is important to read Chandran Kukathas’ Immigration and Freedom.

Keywords: immigration, Cовременная западная социальная теория, global liberalism, вертикальная миграция, иллиберализм