Since President Donald Trump took office, a new fear has spread among 19.1% of the US population. As if it were a 1984 version, the federal government has led an unprecedented persecution against the Latino population, on the pretext that insecurity has worsened and illegal immigrants are a burden to the country.

While the issue of immigrants had been a main focus during Trump’s campaign, no one would have imagined the abuse and numerous deregulations that would be carried out. Agents of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) run free across the U.S., arbitrarily stopping anyone for their subjective opinion who may resemble their Latino prejudice.

Several U.S. citizens have been arrested under the same pretext, setting a precedent never before seen in the history of the country of freedoms. However, all this ideal and this persecution against the Latino population is not something of now; many incidents were seen during Trump’s first presidency against ethnic minorities.

In turn, this is growing an idea of America without diversity, where all countries must be subjugated to the U.S. and where the services and benefits of others should only be given to the “legitimate American,” defined by the current government.

Multiple executive orders – such as Trump’s  “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing” order signed Jan. 20 –  follow this idea of redefining the identity of the U.S. to exclude groups of people whom the current government doesn’t consider to be related to its interests. Not the interests of the nation, but those of a select group that make a lot of noise from a position of power. Too much noise.

Trump’s fixation on illegal and legal immigrants is not just a personal whim, unlike several of his other policies. This view of illegal immigration comes from a crisis that has been going on in the old world for half a century.

Before the American dream – the ability for South Americans to come to the U.S. to get a better future – there was the European dream. People from all over the world went to Europe in order to get better opportunities.

This was not a phenomenon of a few decades. Since before the independence of any American colony, there were already many immigrants from all continents who received education in Europe and eventually formed a life in the colonies.

Since the 70s, the dynamics changed in some countries. South America no longer looked across the sea, now that it had a neighbor in the north. Since then, there have been two increasing flows of irregular immigration, regardless of the turbulent political context in certain countries that may cause temporary exoduses, such as in Venezuela and Syria.

A stream is one that goes from South America and Central America to the richest countries of the continent, Canada and the U.S. The American dream has become a common solution for many families dependent on the reseek. For many, coming to the U.S. is the beginning of a new life of opportunity, especially toward the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

The largest wave of migration since World War II occurred in 2015, when violence in Central Asia and the Middle East pushed millions of people to seek a future far from home, according to the BBC. And yet we are not counting the multiple movements of migrants within Europe, since many prefer to migrate from the former Soviet republics to the prosperous Western Europe without the scars of the Balkan War.

On the other hand, the other constant stream of illegal immigration has been the flow of Africans to Europe. Argelis, Tunisians, Moroccans, Libyans and others began to pass illegally through Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla. For those coming from further afield, such as Ethiopia, Ghana or Somalia, a sea crossing across the Mediterranean Sea might be the best option.

This has led to multiple shipwrecks with hundreds of deaths in recent decades, but that doesn’t seem to stop the waves of African immigrants.

Now, with this increasing flow of migration, in recent years the Western Hemisphere has emerged an anti-immigration phenomenon, where several countries in Europe and America have changed to right-wing governments, which may defend borders more vehemently. In turn, they adopt tougher policies towards those illegal immigrants who are already inside the country.

This phenomenon has a clear explanation, and for it the division into two streams – Europe and the U.S. On the one hand, Europe suffers a security crisis, in which several countries blame this wave of crime and violence on the newcomers, but before making prejudices, let’s see the data.

In Sweden, crime rates in one of the safest countries in the world have risen to levels comparable with those in other continents. The authorities don’t directly deny it, and rampant gun violence has already worried the Swedes, who are now seeking a radical change in their policies.

In Spain the policies of the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in its attempt to legalize immigrants and ignore the multiple crimes of immigrants against the Spanish population, including several murders, have led to a great unrest in the iberian country and several pitched conflicts between extreme right groups and immigrant groups.

The West and the East belong to different types of cultures. Europe manages a culture of dignity and the countries of Africa and the Middle East manage a culture of honor, which is much more confrontational and belligerent, where insults are resolved in a violent way to avoid loss of reputation or honor in a social group. America and Europe manage a culture of dignity, where dignity is more important, and there are usually no crimes of honor, since the resolution of these crimes is delegated to third parties.

When these two types of culture meet, there are clashes like those we have seen all over Europe, since the culture of honor tends to be more violent. This does not mean that all immigrants of a certain culture are more violent, but it does mean that a larger percentage will commit honor crimes.

And in turn, in smaller and more densely populated countries, it generates a conflict in the search for jobs and the priority of social assistance and state expenditure, which brings us to the global phenomenon we see today against immigration.

That is why the hunt for immigrants in the U.S. has no basis for argument, unlike the protectionist measures of European countries, which are on the verge of an economic and social crisis, partly due to illegal immigration.

Multiple studies support the claim that the U.S. is more prepared and draws more benefits from illegal immigration than European countries, and even the president himself has had to recant and admit that his immigration policies have been affecting the national economy, counterproductive for their economic war against the Asian giants.

Again, the narcissism and arrogance of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement lead to a new erroneous decision that affects all residents of the US. Each decision only continues to widen the gap between the population and the economic gap between the U.S. and China amid the economic war between the countries.

Regarding the president of the United States: How much is he willing to sacrifice to satisfy his arrogance and pride?