ILYA SOMIN: “The advantages of life in the US over life in Russia are perhaps too obvious to dwell on. Less often appreciated are the ways in which life for immigrants in America is much better than in most other affluent liberal democracies. Although the US is not free of racism and nativist xenophobia, on the whole immigrants are much better accepted by natives than in almost all of the many other countries I have seen. We take it for granted that a person born in Russia or China or India can become as much a ‘real American’ as the descendants of the Founding Fathers. Yet such ready acceptance is far less common elsewhere.”