translation: There are people conjuring thoughts like "I've seen one too many brown people".
Also unsurprising where the sentiment is coming from:
srcs:
- https://www.ipsos.com/en/perils/perils-perception-prejudice-and-conspiracy-theories-0
- https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/many-people-overestimate-the-percentage-of-immigrants-in-their-country
More imbecility (from the same src):
How do people in Japan think that 10% of the population is foreign!?
I guess Argentina makes a bit more sense - except that not many people are trying to get to Argentina. That sounds like Argentina though.
Argentina have a lot of immigration from Perú, Bolivia and Paraguay, but the important part, I think, is that Milei campaign were pretty much "illegal immigrants are destroying our country" and proposing a lot of shit that already exists, like background checks to get work and studying permits.
A lot is apparently not that many, and Argentina doesn't need migrants to destroy everything, the extremely racist middle class and other European migrants already did that.
I assume it's the same in most areas - humans are really susceptible to sampling bias and if you live in an urban area, you're going to see a higher number of immigrants or foreigners. Plus, in Japan specifically, there's currently a big backlash against tourists fucking with people's daily routines, so I'm sure people mentally think there must be hordes of foreigners constantly invading the country.
Interesting that Argentina has the largest disparity here, actually. I would have expected it to be the US, given the rhetoric.