The US is scared of immigrants from outside of the US. Europe is scared of immigrants from outside of Europe. Europe is not scared of immigrants from inside Europe.
Not entirely true - there was a lot of scaremongering in the UK when Eastern European countries (like Poland) joined the EU because of fears about an influx of immigrants working for cheap wages.
I am British and live in the UK, I remember this happening, and I had it in mind when I wrote the comment above.
If you take Europe as a whole, it's not scared of immigration between member countries. The UK is simply more racist and narcissistic than the rest of Europe.
I'm British, and I've lived between Holland, Italy and France for a few years. I don't think it's really true that the British are more racist or narcissistic. I think they are more fake, and more arrogant. I think the racism is really a reflection of the British newspapers than the people.
A thing that British people forget is that our country is the only in Europe where there are no ID cards (yet). In Italy, Holland and France people think it's strange when I tell them that it's not only that you don't have to carry an ID with you in Britain, but that it's not even compulsory to own an ID (passports, driving licenses, etc. are all optional). Furthermore, you are not required to register your address in Britain, like you are in, for example, Austria, Italy, and Holland. In Britain, the state doesn't know for sure how many people there are, and where they all live because there is no national database. They have the voting register, NHS database, DVLA database, whatever the Inland Revenue has, and the census, but it's a mess and they don't really care.
In comparison, when I moved from Holland to France recently, we had to de-register (in Holland), and we took great care to say that we were travelling (not true) and we gave no address. We didn't even give the country. But they found out anyway, because they sent us letters and stuff, even though we didn't have to register in France. The Dutch state is extremely efficient, data is shared widely and easily between state organizations. It's vaguely fascist. The British system, in comparison, is chaotic.
In my opinion, the British don't appreciate how liberal their state is.
"not only that you don't have to carry an ID with you in Britain, but that it's not even compulsory to own an ID (passports, driving licenses, etc. are all optional)"
That's probably because the cameras spying on you wherever you go already know who you are.
"In my opinion, the British don't appreciate how liberal their state is."
Liberal in some ways. But there's no freedom of speech guaranteed in the British constitution, protesters are atrociously abused, and the British libel laws are outrageous. I would not call either of these things very liberal.
Of course, the British system is more liberal in some ways than some countries -- particularly in regards to their NHS -- but more conservative in other ways (see above, plus the push to privatize more and more over recent decades -- Britain is getting more and more conservative).
There's certainly some sectors where that happened (transportation comes to mind). Now some relatively overpaid UK/EU people are out of work, and some Polish families have much better living circumstances. It's just a determination of where you put your social borders.
