written on September 14, 2025
Across many countries, resistance to immigration is rising — even places with little immigration, like Japan, now see rallies against it. I’m not going to take a side here. I want to examine a simpler question: who do we mean when we say “foreigner”?
I would argue there isn’t a universal answer. Laws differ, but so do social definitions. In Vienna, where I live, immigration is visible: roughly half of primary school children don’t speak German at home. Austria makes citizenship hard to obtain. Many people born here aren’t citizens; at the same time, EU citizens living here have broad rights and labor-market access similar to native Austrians. Over my lifetime, the fear of foreigners has shifted: once aimed at nearby Eastern Europeans, it now falls more on people from outside the EU, often framed through religion or culture. Practically, “foreigner” increasingly ends up meaning “non-EU.” Keep in mind that over the last 30 years the EU went from 12 countries to 27. That’s a signifcant increase in social mobility.
I believe this is quite different from what is happening in the United States. The present-day US debate is more tightly tied to citizenship and allegiance, which is partly why current fights there include attempts to narrow who gets citizenship at birth. The worry is less about which foreigners come and more about the terms of becoming American and whether newcomers will embrace what some define as American values.
Inside the EU, the concept of EU citizenship changes social reality. Free movement, aligned standards, interoperable social systems, and easier labor mobility make EU citizens feel less “foreign” to each other — despite real frictions. The UK before Brexit was a notable exception: less integrated in visible ways and more hostile to Central and Eastern European workers. Perhaps another sign that the level of integration matters. In practical terms, allegiances are also much less clearly defined in the EU. There are people who live their entire live in other EU countries and whos allegiance is no longer clearly aligned to any one country.
Legal immigration itself is widely misunderstood. Most systems are both far more restrictive in some areas and far more permissive than people assume. On the one hand, what’s called “illegal” is often entirely lawful. Many who are considered “illegal” are legally awaiting pending asylum decisions or are accepted refugees. These are processes many think shouldn’t exist, but they are, in fact, legal. On the other hand, the requirements for non-asylum immigration are very high, and most citizens of a country themselves would not qualify for skilled immigration visas. Meanwhile, the notion that a country could simply “remove all foreigners” runs into practical and ethical dead ends. Mobility pressures aren’t going away; they’re reinforced by universities, corporations, individual employers, demographics, and geopolitics.
Citizenship is just a small wrinkle. In Austria, you generally need to pass a modest German exam and renounce your prior citizenship. That creates odd outcomes: native-born non-citizens who speak perfect German but lack a passport, and naturalized citizens who never fully learned the language. Legally clear, socially messy — and not unique to Austria. The high hurdle to obtaining a passport also leads many educated people to intentionally opt out of becoming citizens. The cost that comes with renouncing a passport is not to be underestimated.
Where does this leave us? The realities of international mobility leave our current categories of immigration straining and misaligned with what the population at large thinks immigration should look like. Economic anxiety, war, and political polarization are making some groups of foreigners targets, while the deeper drivers behind immigration will only keep intensifying.
Perhaps we need to admit that we’re all struggling with these questions. The person worried about their community or country changing too quickly and the immigrant seeking a better life are both responding to forces larger than themselves. In a world where capital moves freely but most people cannot, where climate change might soon displace millions, and where birth rates are collapsing in wealthy nations, our immigration systems will be tested and stressed, and our current laws and regulations are likely inadequate.