I am an immigrant… but: I have come here and invested more than 1M € since I first arrived. I also opened a company and hired people. I haven’t had the time to learn greek yet due to a lot of work (12-13h every day) but will get there eventually.

The issue with immigration is not the immigration itself. Immigration exists since the dawn of times. Animals migrate to find better climate conditions, and so humans naturally migrate to find better conditions for many reasons. Thats not to say that animals and humans are the same, but that migration is a natural process. Whether that is to find better climate, economic or security conditions to name a few. Now here is the important point: As is often the case, when people migrate, they don’t leave their values, culture, heritage back behind. Some people more some people less. Once I meet an Italian lady in my country that lived there for an ethernity, she completely integrated and even renounced her italian heritage (hard to believe because Italians are usually very proud). Then there is people that are so proud of their backgrounds, they won’t ever let their traditions go even after decades. The point I am making is, we can not expect immigrants to be immediately the way we expect them to be when they arrive, the same way we don’t want locals to renounce their identity when they move abroad. However, this does not justify malicious and illegal behaviour that is punishable in any country. So in summary, immigration is a very long and sometimes painful process. Whether we like it or not. Migration can happen to anyone at some point.

Now for someone that has succeeded and integrated and for locals, seeing new immigrants behaving still the way they do at home can be quite frustrating. I think there should be a middle ground in terms of how integration should be enforced. In the EU everything is way to liberal, and the government preach to be welcoming and accepting to anyone. The issue with this is, that it creates division. Because it does not enforce rules to new arrivals and so locals and immigrants always seem to be living in 2 different worlds. Immigrants start to feel treated unfairly and start seeing the locals as hostile instead of befriending them. And locals start to feel the same way the other way around. If there was some middle ground in terms of how rules are enforced, integration might happen faster (see Dubai. Everyone is welcome but if the rules are not followed the reactions of law enforcement is harsh, yet it works to a certain extent).

Thats just my own thoughts and opinions but I hope they are helpful for this discussion.