What does this say in general about the United States? Well, out of the 38 countries the United States ranked and scored very highly in some of the categories. For example, the United States scored a 90 and ranked second with regards to anti-discrimination laws. Some people may find this hard to believe given the recent and ever growing controversy in the media regarding discrimination towards the homosexual community, but keep in mind, this study only focuses on immigration. What this ranking means is that the United States has some of the best laws in the world for preventing discrimination based on where someone has immigrated. For example, in our country you cannot be denied employment simply on the grounds that you are an immigrant from Mexico. In some other countries there may not be such laws.
This shows that the United States has put a lot of effort into preventing immigrants from being discriminated against, but this does not show that we treat out immigrants properly. Nor does it show that we make effort to integrate immigrants into our society. This then makes you ask, why do we want to integrate them into our society, don’t they have their own cultural heritage? While this is very true, but we are not talking about taking that cultural heritage away, we are simply talking about making sure that immigrants to the United States feel as though they are American citizens, and can do anything that someone who was born here can do.
MIPEX also made a point of stating that the United State’s complex set of immigration laws, high fees, limited access to visa’s, and long backlogs can make integration very difficult, which played heavily into the United States receiving a 63 out of 100. What this entire index has shown is that the United States and much of the world has a long way to go with making the final stage of immigration easier. Once someone immigrates to a new country, it is still very difficult to feel as though you belong in that country. Unfortunately, even the countries that are doing the best at making them feel at home, are not doing a good enough job.
