[omonra]

If we strip your comment from the emotional affect, you're essentially saying that immigrants are happy to do menial jobs that the locals do not.

How do countries without large immigrant (I won't even go to refugees) populations handle this? Switzerland seems to be doing fine. Japan isn't falling apart because there's nobody to cook. Most of Asia is doing fine without allowing any immigrants.

So on a strict analysis of whether immigrants are beneficial to the host population, your argument isn't made.

[trowawee]

Did you actually look at information for either of the countries that you cited? Immigrants make up 20% of Switzerland's population. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Switzerland). Japan's economy has been struggling for years now (http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-japans-economy-is-laboring-1...), and their population is aging at a rapid rate, compounding the economic stagnation, something immigration helps to combat (http://qz.com/173379/immigration-is-saving-the-us-from-an-ag...).

[omonra]

1. I don't think of foreigners who live in Switzerland as 'immigrants' (despite the article calling them that). They are foreigners who are residing in the country (and most of them come from Europe anyways). It's extremely hard to obtain Swiss citizenship.

2. All the talk about Japan economy doing badly is nonsense. If you believe that narrative (which is totally understandable as that's the conventional wisdom), I strongly suggest you read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-true-st...

Basically many Japan watchers (ie people who live there and know the country intimately well) subscribe to this 'alternative' view.

[trowawee]

So your response is:

1. Some inconvenient Swiss immigrants aren't immigrants.

and

2. Read this article from 2012 and ignore the last 4 years of Japanese GDP. (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp)

Care to try again?