Although the disparate waves of postwar immigration have different origins and characteristics, as we have seen in Chapter 2, each converges into a single coherent phenomenon. With the onset of the first wave of predominantly labor immigration, a new economic, political, and social context with regard to immigration was established, a context that, once embedded, became self perpetuating.

Among the most important political features of this new context is the surge of popular support for anti-immigrant groups, movements, and political parties. As we shall see in this chapter, anti-immigrant groups are in the vanguard of the domestic actors attempting to politicize state immigration policies and issues related to the permanent settlement of the new ethnic and racial minorities. Since the 1970s, they have proliferated across Western Europe, provoking considerable consternation among traditional political elites and mass publics.

The political influence of anti-immigrant groups and their chances of future electoral success should not be overestimated. Nowhere in Western Europe are these groups poised to force radical change in state immigration or immigrant policy (Minkenberg 2001).