Plenty of people in the Western core already see migration as a threat, even though since the closing of the steppe highway three centuries ago migration has more often been a motor of development than a danger to it.138 In 2006 a Gallup poll reported that Americans thought immigration was the country’s second-worst problem (after the war in Iraq). To many Americans, the danger of Mexicans smuggling drugs and taking jobs seems to outweigh all benefits; to many Europeans, fears of Islamist terrorism loom just as large. In both regions, nativist lobbies argue that the new settlers are uniquely
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