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When I lived briefly in London, I was shocked at the state of xenophobia there. I was sort of deluded into thinking Europe was a liberal fantasyland, but the reality is that America is far, far better on immigration issues than Europe. The fact is, the US may have massive issues with race and immigration, and a terrible history of racism, slavery, and slaughter, but its also been forced to deal with this issue since before it was even founded. This gives us much more perspective than European countries, which are for the first time really experiencing a large amount of foreign immigration.
Also, the reality is that European countries tend to have deep-rooted identities that combine ethnicity, nationality, race, and religion into a potent mix. Just take the French (please! Ba-dum ding). The US has the advantage of at least theoretically being founded upon an ideal of all men being equal. As a nation of immigrants, the US couldn't be founded on the same mix of identity politics as modern European nations. Obviously, the US has pulled some heinous shit, but this ideal has served us well and enabled us to assimilate just about every newcomer with relative ease.
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