This is plainly not true. EU has a lot of its own walls. It's just the fact that it lacks long land border with countries from which major migration flows originate is what makes it a lesser topic for debates.
Why do you think migrants coming from the Middle East prefer to cross Aegean sea, instead of going by land? Because land border is all fences, barbed wire, and even landmines with not a single gap.
And limiting migration is very hot political issue in many EU countries currently.
Really? Are you talking about the landmines in Croatia that weren't fully cleared after the 1990s Balkan war? People were actually providing maps with the approximate locations of the fields so they can be safely bypassed.
You make it sound like Europe is planting mines to keep migrants out. If the reaction of a small minority of European countries (2-3) seems exaggerated when faced with over 1 million (!) immigrants, then the fact that over 7000 people [0] were killed at the US-Mexico border just over the past 20 years should really shock you to the core.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexic...
Btw, I'm quite certain number of migrants drowned in Meditteranean over past 20 years is much more then 7000.
It felt like a "whatabout" reaction and no effort was made to remove the impression that mines are actually employed with the purpose of keeping migrants out.
As a Canadian who's lived in Europe for the last 4 years, this is farcically false.
When my family emigrated to Canada, we were Canadian from day 1. And as you also noted in your dashed qualifiers, all those people are still considered AMERICAN. That is the North American way.
On the other hand, in Europe, i meet people who have been in their current country for 3 generations but still consider themselves as from the country of their ancestors.
I completely disagree. I'm from Europe and applied to a few American-based companies and they all had these ridiculous forms related to anti-discrimination and the like. Is it that big of a problem in the US? That's whay I'm asking myself when I have to fill in those forms. Why do you have to know my ethnicity? Why do people in the US _constantly_, and I mean CONSTANTLY, talk about their origins? Literally no one cares in Europe, but it's always said in the US. "Native-american btw", "african-american btw", etc. I personally think this is an issue in the US, but it isn't that big of an issue in Europe.
> This is not to say we don't have room for improvement, we do. Just that we're more meritocratic than certain other first world countries.
I personally think that this is an illusion. Europe is in my opinion a lot more meritocratic than the US from my visits. I think the US is very hypocritical when it talks about immigrants as the whole of the US is made of immigrants, just all from different generations. Europe doesn't currently have a problem with building a wall to keep the Mexicans out or anything.