The speech part 2, or the 13%

The U.S. accepts far more immigrants than any other country in the world. The U.S. is home to 43 million* immigrants, who make up about 13% of the total  population (there are 314 million Americans). The majority come from Mexico, China, Philippines and India. The star I put above means that this is the official count of immigrants, but does not include the number of undocumented people, which is about 12 million more. In Germany, with a population of 82 million, immigrants also make up about 13% of the population. Immigrants to Germany come primarily from Turkey, Poland, Italy and Greece.

In Germany there is another important statistic, called 'Migrationshintergrund'. Literally this means migrant background, and practically it means someone who has a parent or even grandparent who is foreign-born. In the U.S. this is not an important statistic. Almost all of us have a migrant background, sometimes it reaches back one generation and sometimes a dozen generations.

Anyone who wants to immigrate to the U.S. needs a reason. The options are:

• family reunification, where a family member who is a citizen or resident applies for you to join him/her in the U.S., 
• a work visa, where a company applies for you and shows that they need you as an employee
• refugee or asylee status, when your home country is unsafe, at war or politically unstable
• a few less common statuses, like the diversity visa (immigration lottery), student visa or other special cases (my classmate Elias is still trying to get his visa since he worked as an interpreter for a U.S. contractor in Iraq. His paperwork is held up in Lincoln, Nebraska).
• There is no visa for Germans who want to drive around the country like hobos in their RVs.

Even though both the U.S. and Germany have the same proportion of immigrants - about 13% of the whole population - there are some differences between the two.

Germany has better, more generous social programs. These are available to everyone, including immigrants. With universal health insurance, housing assistance, 12-14 months of paid parental leave, subsidized child care, etc., there's a big safety net in Germany. There is social assistance in the U.S., but it's more difficult to qualify and benefits more restricted.

Any child physically born in the U.S. is a citizen - period. The parents' immigration status doesn't matter. And the U.S. allows you to have dual citizenship for your entire life. In Germany, if a child's parents are not German citizens, the baby is not a citizen either. The parents need to live and work in Germany for at least eight years before they can apply for the kid's citizenship.

The U.S. has a lot of illegal immigration, something that is rare in Germany. Undocumented people come to the U.S. and stay because there are jobs for them and because immigrating through proper channels is difficult, expensive, and can take several years for even the luckiest candidates. Undocumented immigrants can and do lead fairly normal lives in the U.S., but they have few rights, often work under poor conditions, and constantly run the risk of deportation.

In my opinion, the U.S. does a better job of integration for immigrants. We are just more used to having them around. Immigrants to the U.S. have opportunities that immigrants to Germany do not, like:

• all immigrant children have the right to go to school regardless of their status
• interpreters are widely available and considered necessary in hospitals, courtrooms and schools
• adults can study English for free through the school system

In Germany, you can often tell by reading someone's last name whether he or she is a foreigner. A last name of Waskowski or Kaladakis tells you that someone has at least a "migrationshintergrund".  In the U.S., the last name could mean that you just showed up last week, or that your ancestors came to America 200 years ago. There's no way to tell.

Of course, racism and prejudice against immigrants do exist in the U.S. But we immigrants are a part of almost every community, and have been for a long time. So even with their prejudices, everyone has to co-exist. Even the most hard-headed Americans have to admit that their families once immigrated too.