I'm ok with it as long as you come here and integrate, don't take welfare, and understand our Bill of Rights isn't a suggestion. We're done making "accommodations" on that stuff.
Good. World cultures need more diversity and exposure to each other. I am Russian who lived in Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, US and Italy. I’ve got tons of experience and emotions from each of these countries, and I am thankful that they welcomed me.
You might be the exception here because you can read, write, communicate in English, and handle computers.
A farmer from rural Malawi who cannot write and doesn't speak English would not be able to integrate into a European countries' economy and, accordingly, would be a lot less welcome.
Still don’t understand why I can’t just move to another country... I have a degree, no criminal records. But I need visas, permits, etc. Why all this difficulties?
In order to obtain global mobility, I will embed into my body a microchip of your choice that reports current location and biometric information continuously, and pay up to $10k into a yearly program that will report my per-country statistics into a global database.
If we just threw open the flood gates sure, but that's far from the only option. Simply increasing the immigration quotas gradually year-over-year would eventually allow an equilibrium to be reached without creating a large shock to the economy.
The poll says ~140M would migrate to the US if they could. That’s very different from saying 140M people would show up at our doorstep if we opened borders. It also says that 1/6 of Americans would leave if they could. You are ignoring these important
qualifiers.
Edit: it’s actually 158M who would migrate to the US if they could, and ~55M Americans who would leave, for a total net inflow of 103M, if everyone could magically teleport to a new country on a one time basis.
> Still don’t understand why I can’t just move to another country... I have a degree, no criminal records. But I need visas, permits, etc. Why all this difficulties?
If you are living in first world country, you should know that you still have it very very easy.
To some, a chance to move is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Isn’t cities and places are to connect different people? I will embrace the culture of a nation, if I move. That’s just the fact that you need to adopt. But I don’t see a reason for it being a hinder to choosing where people want to live.
Immigration policies aren't just about 'keeping the bad ones out', it's also about 'hey, how many people can we realistically bring into this economy over a given timeframe'?
If bringing people into the SF economy were actually a policy goal, you'd see very different policies deployed to that end. In fact, it seems like what's been decided is that we ought not bring more people into the economy (not because it's infeasible, just because we don't want to), so we are going to make it as painful as we possibly can.
Completely agree. SF is starting to see its set of socio-economic and cultural challenges and the situation might get worse before/if it gets better. A city of 800k can not take the bunt of 2M people without there being consequences. Local Govt policies aren't helping either.
Because different groups of people have their own interests, shared culture, etc. Just because you don't mind a homogeneous global culture doesn't meant that others do or should.
Why should people in CA let people from OK move there? They probably have more in common with major metropolises world-wide than they do a rural farming community they happen to share a nation with.
People are pointing out the hypocrisy in the selective application of freedom-of-movement. There may or may not be valid reasons for this but don't pretend its grounded in self-determination.
It is absolutely grounded in self-determination. That people from CA let people from OK move there is their choice. They could levy taxes on movers to discourage this no problem. And, frankly, I bet if you put this up to a vote a lot of people in (metropolitan) California would be just fine with a policy that aimed to keep those stinking farmers away.
Which would be very quickly struck down by the Supreme Court, like many of the other levies/duties that have been attempted to be applied on new residents from other states.
So this is the only part of that wiki article that suggests you're right:
>The U.S. Supreme Court in Crandall v. Nevada, 73 U.S. 35 (1868) declared that freedom of movement is a fundamental right and therefore a state cannot inhibit people from leaving the state by taxing them.
I'm having a hard time finding a controlling case that says states can't do the inverse, i.e. levy fees on those who want to move to their state. I don't have the time tonight to read the whole case and its references, but I'm happy to be proven wrong here. Levying a fee on people who move in seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do. After all, we all have to pay move-in fees when we lease a new apartment or buy a house.
The supreme court struck down the refusal to disperse welfare payments to new residents as unconstitutionally restricting freedom to travel. I gurantee you that taxing new residents would be struck down for the exact same reason.
>After all, we all have to pay move-in fees when we lease a new apartment or buy a house.
That has no bearing on this at all. Private companies are free to do many things the government can't.
The people in CA have certain shared interests with the people of OK. They have, for instance, pooled their military resources together, so that if anyone invades CA, soldiers from OK will protect it the same as they would OK.
To cement that special relationship, the people of those states have given each other certain privileges, such as being allowed to move freely between those states.
No, the people of CA have surrendered their ability to make these decisions to the State in exchange for certain benefits. The people in CA cannot, for instance, allow workers from London to freely immigrate despite their shared interests and mutual benefit.
I'm not making a value judgement on that claim -- just pointing out that it's no different than if two or more countries were to subvert their provinces/cities/communities/etc's wishes and allow for freedom of movement in pursuit of some benefit.
The fact that CA (which has more in common with London, UK than Oklahoma City) has freedom of movement only with the latter has nothing to do with their decision as a community and everything to do with decisions made long ago and social contracts they were born into.
My point is that a communities' right to self-govern has very little to do with where you're allowed to freely move today -- it's a vast web of historical agreements, geopolitics, and the lottery of birth.
>My point is that a communities' right to self-govern has very little to do with where you're allowed to freely move today -- it's a vast web of historical agreements, geopolitics, and the lottery of birth.
Historical agreements can be changed if there is political will, but of course inertia is important.
To put my answer to your question "Why should people in CA let people from OK move there?" in a different way, people from CA should allow people from OK to move there, and vice versa, because free movement between the two areas is a show of good faith. It tells the people of OK that the people of CA trust them not to exploit that privilege for their own gain, which is of course something that not everyone can be trusted not to do. Shows of good faith of that kind help both sides trust the other side more, to the point where they are comfortable with, for example, pooling military resources, which are absolutely critical to maintaining the future existence of both groups and are more effective when pooled.
Might the people of CA have enough in common with the people of London that each side could trust the other not to exploit their generosity? Maybe, but it takes quite a while for that trust to build.
Because the people of California and the people of Oklahoma both agreed to become part of the "United States", and in turn, the existing United States at the time also agreed to let them join. And the US Constitution and rules say that the residents of the states can move between them. So "self-determination" does seem like an important part of the reason.
There is no reason in theory why, say, Mexico couldn't apply to become part of the United States and the US accept them, but I suspect the reason this kind of thing doesn't happen any more is 1) being a leader of a nation state is much more fun / fulfilling than being governor of a state in the US, so why would the leaders of a country ever agree to it? and 2) the level of welfare spending under existing rules in the US would require a massive wealth transfer to any new state that isn't as developed an economy.
Personally, I still think it would be worth it for both the US and any state that wanted to join, but I don't think it will ever happen again.
I have a degree from US, been living here for 6 years now, been working here 2 years now, still cannot move here and need to wait about 3 more years to get a Green Card.
No offense intended but this strikes me as an underlying sentiment of entitlement. If we rephrase the question,
"Why should this person and by extension country allow a stranger who may or may not align with their culture, politics, society, etc in for an indefinite time with no restriction?"
Bucketing all North America together made this less interesting. I can't help but think the reasons of migrating from Mexico would not be the same as US or Canadian citizens.
I wonder if this correlates to the resolution and frequency of social media use globally. I might be completely happy with my apartment and job in the EU, but seeing 'ads' for the US on social media every day may begin to chip away at my contentment through the introduction of a comparison.
I have the reverse; those ‘ads’ (people talking about the US) make me happier about living in the EU. But you probably have a point that it makes people compare and then it is all down to situation and taste I guess.
i don't believe in borders and if you believe in the free market then you shouldn't either. of course this is heretical and people will immediately jump down your throat about culture and patriotism and etc as a diversion from the material fact that it's only about profits. right now globalization is very profitable for the west because manufacturers can arbitrage the differences in cost of living. it's not technical innovation in anyway shape or form that you can pay people to assemble iphones in a low cost of living area and then sell them in a high cost of living area. let people move freely and let wages equilibrate.
Which political parties believe in free market in 2020? You have one laying tariffs on everybody, and you have the other advocating for a strong federal government role in the markets. Nobody cares about free markets in 2020 and their politics are consistent with that.
The irony is that the people who tend to believe in freer markets are generally not the people who believe in freer immigration and the people who want increased regulation in one seldom want increased regulation in the other.
technology changes the rules of free market. 300 years ago you couldn't move thousands of people across the planet in a day. Migration was slow and sustainable.
Technology + No borders can destroy entire cultures.
> Technology + No borders can destroy entire cultures.
And that's a good thing.
The strong cultures will survive. I don't care if it is mine or not. If it is better, it's in my interest that it wins, and that I adopt it.
If you think differently, take a second to think about the implications: what exactly do you gain from a culture so weak that it can be destroyed by technology and a little immigration?
Do you get some pride? Ok then, how much is that pride worth? What about for your children?
When I look at Quebec and their desperate fight to try to impose french schooling, I conclude that people would naturally prefer to learn English and take the financial advantages that come with it - if not for them, for their children. This reeks of hypocrisy.
Stronger in what sense? Eradicating other cultures/people? Brainwashing/controlling people not to change their beliefs and stick to their culture? Are these properties you think are desirable in a culture?
So you will invite a bunch of strangers into your home and take care of them on your dime? That's awesome!
How do you know you don't like free markets? You've never lived within one, not one day of your entire life.
I spend a lot of time on Google maps looking around, especially the street views. I look around the UK a lot. I don't see a lot of prosperity there--the housing situation compared to most of the US is horrible. It looks like working class Americans have it way better than their British counterparts. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places? I don't know, but Canada looks the same way--run down, beat to shit. That's socialism in a nutshell. Run down and beat to shit.
I'd wager that as soon as the first homeless* person puts their tent in your garden, you'll find walls, borders and land ownership a lot more attractive.
*= made homeless due to the unequal distribution of wealth in so-called free markets
But that, sadly, is what the difference between a desire to migrate and actual migration boils down to. Most people in Sub-Saharan Africa wouldn't be able to buy or rent a house in the US or Europe due to their financial situation, which again is mostly caused by the unfair distribution in so-called free markets.
>I'd wager that as soon as the first homeless* person puts their tent in your garden, you'll find walls, borders and land ownership a lot more attractive.
you'd lose that wager. i've lived in the third world (africa) and my relationship to space and community is probably much different from yours.
That is probably correct, as I am on the side of the spectrum where I like sitting in perfectly quiet nature to relax. Too much noise or too many people would ruin that experience for me.
While global wage equilibrium would be great, how do you deal with the challenges that large, diverse societies already have in governing effectively? It’s tricky to build a “good feeling” cultural/legal/political landscape for 300MM people of diverse languages, religions, education levels, etc. I think we can eventually get there (we are getting there... via globalization), but it must be gradual.
Thoughts on this problem?
(Sidenote that wage equilibrium != outright wage equality)
I think companies like Apple who outsource manufacturing to poor countries would, on the contrary, support increased immigration.
There's more pressure against immigration from Americans who are effectively collecting rent on their citizenship by keeping job competition outside of the US.
>i don't believe in borders and if you believe in the free market then you shouldn't either
"Free" doesn't necessarily mean unregulated or without limitations. If you want to scrap a norm as old as borders there's going to be a dazzling amount of fallout given that the people that built nations were led to believe that they were building collective homes for themselves rather than mere "markets" for global corporations.
Utopian optimism about Big Changes, like tech had in the early days (before the reality of mass surveillance, algorithmic perception manipulation, online mobs, etc. emerged) tends to be proven wrong.
If some small country wants to test open borders then great, but this idea that some Big Change will be so beneficial that we should push for its widespread implementation without testing is kinda nutty.
Looking at those numbers, isn’t the EU the most desired place to migrate to? Feels odd to not split the USA into its member states while splitting Europe up.
How many of those potential migrants want to move to Texas vs Spain?
An American citizen can freely move to any state in the United States. A citizen of European countries may or may not be able to freely move to other European countries without citizenship related changes, visas or other sponsorship.
You can move freely amongst counties in the Schengen Area, which is a subset of EU counties (which itself is a subset of European counties).
> The free movement of persons is a fundamental right guaranteed by the EU to its citizens. It entitles every EU citizen to travel, work and live in any EU country without special formalities.
You can move freely among EU countries, not just Schengen countries. Schengen isn't just a subset of EU countries -- it's many EU countries and some non-EU countries, and it's to do with a lack of border checks rather than the basic freedom of movement right.
I'd add some background to what fehyjn says below.
The entire world was relatively borderess prior to 20th century, and it was completely outside of humanly possible for the state anywhere to keep tap on every individual.
If you talk about the period from medieval, to early renaissance. It was very natural for every polity to want to get more subjects. Feudal lords couldn't have been more happy to see more people migrating to their domains.
Things started changed with appearance of early nation state model in late renaissance. The more central the role of the nation state got, the further right was the centre of power.
All of the above culminated with introduction of the visa system in Europe, shortly prior to WWII, which was later adopted by nearly all nations around the world.
History is full of folks complaining about migrations / stranges and states / groups taking action to prevent
/ persiculte newcomers, and travel was not easy.
I feel like your comment makes it seem a lot more fluid than it was for a group to simply migrate and enjoy their new country.
Yes, that was there, I and think anybody here is erudite enough to know that.
It was never easy, but for vastly different reasons than today, and, historically, there was a lot more migration than people today tend to think of that time period.
No, he’s right. It was very much in the interest of rulers to rule over as large a population as possible as that meant more tax income.
Think of all the slaves that were brought into the Roman Empire for an example. Or the laws binding serfs to the land in the Middle Ages. Or of the early modern kingdoms of South East Asia, which were essentially slave states, raiding their neighbors for their population so they could at them to their own.
That’s one aspect of it.
The other is that despite travel being difficult, historically people have done a lot of it. This has become clear in recent years as DNA analysis of ancient populations has become possible. The origins of most Western Europeans lie in the steppes of Ukraine (it might not be clear who built Stonehenge but it’s certain it wasn’t an ancestor of a modern Briton). There were Indian traders in Rome (probably to sell silk and spices) and Dutch settlers in South Africa were witness to Bantu immigrants sweeping in from he north.
Why do you not just post your reply to his comment as an actual reply to his comment?
Your point is an interesting addition (have you read "The Art of Not Being Governed" by any chance?) but this seems to me to just be for the sake of getting more karma, which I will not support.
Prior to the 20th century we also didn't have mass transit and air travel. That pre-Renaissance nations didn't have borders as we have them today isn't really a meaningful distinction because, as you say, the Nation-State didn't really meaningfully exist.
Animals protect their territory. Fierce tribalism has long existed. I find the idea that people could just live anywhere, back in the day, to be hard to believe. In some places? Sure. In "the entire world"? Not so much. Spain was invaded by the Moors, back in the day, because someone opened the gates, from the inside, for them for example.
Your comment still lacks more context why migration wasn't a big deal and why more decentralized power structure didn't need to control migration as much.
1. Human labour was much more critical to survival than today. It was a great thing if one family from another town moved under you cause they'll farm and pay more taxes. Now labour is cheap and isn't critical survival. In fact, there's so much labour that social ills that arise from unemployment is a way bigger problem.
2. Migration happened in much shorter proximity. Therefore, the difference in language, culture, ethnicity and religion were much smaller than the effects of migration today. The host society wasn't concerned about huge changes of their society as much as today where changes of biblical scale are happen in a matter of decades.
3. There was no welfare. If you failed as a migrant, the cost of the failure is paid by yourself. If you fail as a migrant in the host society today, you still have free healthcare, education, citizenship for your children, child care, endless support system to sustain your living in the country. It makes sense the modern state wants control over who enters their state much more.
> The entire world was relatively borderess prior to 20th century,
The Romans spent a lot of effort in trying to keep the various barbarian tribes from migrating freely into the Roman Empire. In fact, for much of the Roman Empire, the bulk of the Roman Army was stationed on the frontiers such as the Danube and Rhine to keep the German tribes out. One of the big turning points was in 406 when the Rhine froze and removed a natural barrier that had kept a lot of these tribes out before hand.
Imperial China also worked hard on keeping the various northern groups from migrating into China, going so far as to build the Great Wall.
It seems that the more developed the civilization, the more effort it expends in defining and guarding it's borders.
> entire world was relatively borderess prior to 20th century, and it was completely outside of humanly possible for the state anywhere to keep tap on every individual
You could also write that it was borderless because they couldn't track every individual.
> The entire world was relatively borderess prior to 20th century,
Until fairly recently, historically, if you weren't locally known or vouched for by those either locally trusted or in positions of authority, you'd often be completely ostracized and potentially subject to arbitrary violence that authorities wouldn't concern themselves with. So, effectively, not only wasn't the world borderless but the borders were at the village level.
> If you talk about the period from medieval, to early renaissance. It was very natural for every polity to want to get more subjects
Not really; plenty of them had every sustainably farmable acre under the plow, and any more people was more to support; there wasn't land for more peasants or agricultural surplus for more in the upper classes; conversely, with the agricultural revolutions as you exited this period to later periods, the constraints that make additional population an unsustainable burden are somewhat relieved.
And they will. I think the current migration crisis in Europe is nothing compared to when the Sahel will be finally total uninhabitable all those people will move to Europe. And with the current speed of the global warming I don't think it's that far away.
Africa is headed for a population crisis. Places like Somalia and Niger have around 6 or 7 children per woman. These are countries that already import a lot of food to feed rapidly growing populations. If we have another energy shock, it's unclear to me who is going to feed all of these babies.
This is what I am waiting for, anxiously too I will ad. How long before we see the first heat wave kill a million people? Or drought kill several hundred thousand people in a weeks time. Last year South Africa almost ran out of water. I really think it will only be then that we realize the extent of our dire situation and start really acting. What would our government do if there were 5 million people lined up at the border? Would they shoot them down? I don’t like to fear monger but the world is a rough place. It is also unclear to me how we will handle this as it happens.
Edit: right after writing this the very next HN article I come across is massive locust swarms threatening crops in Africa. Scary
The burden of responsibility lies with the Africans, whose numbers are artificially inflated due to religious ideology and Western aid. Migrating to Europe will not alleviate the lack of self-sustainability.
The same could be said of immigration movements in North and Latin America. Taking advantage of legal loopholes and dubious claims of persecution for asylum does not improve their home countries.
You say that as if you've completely abandoned the prospect of Europe defending herself. It's depressing at times seeing the state of affairs there, sure, but I think you'd be in the small minority of those who are this defeatist.
Perhaps these Africans will try to "move" to Europe. That much might be inevitable. But while many Europeans are currently in a state of fuzzy naivety propped up by the dwindling luxuries their ancestors afforded them, I suspect an invasion of that magnitude - and yes, by any rational definition, that's an invasion - will easily meet the threshold for the awakening of their survival instinct and a United defence of whatevers left of their once-great nations.
I don't understand why I should not be allowed to take a 2 year vacation in another country without having to leave every 6 months and pray the border agent doesn't find it suspicious that I keep coming back.
I don't want to take someone's job, or milk the welfare system, and I would be a net positive to anywhere I decided to vacation (sales tax/VAT, property tax, hotel tax, income tax from the profits off all the crap I bought to live, etc).
I'd be happy if I still had to apply for a visa, but the typical 6 month visa prevents me from easily signing a lease.
Many countries do. Yeah, it usually requires a TON of liquid cash or assets, though there are even a couple of EU countries that are hard up for investment money and provide easy investment visas for very little. Some (like Estonia) require that you get your business plan validated by a committee or board, but others (like Spain and Portugal and Hungary) really don’t seem to care as long as you claim you can make money and/or employ people (or buy or rent a property for a certain amount and spend 180+ days a year there).
There are VERY few people in the world who can take two years off and not worry about needing any income, so it’s incredibly understandable that that’s not a common visa scenario. Americans also forget that the rest of the world doesn’t have to pay income tax on earnings no matter where they live, so the visa ties into tax residency as well.
China once used to be like that, and the 10 years "golden" (called that way for a hefty processing fee) business visa was pretty much accepted as a "pay to play" option to stay in China.
A few years ago China made a u-turn and started tightening on legit applicants. Property bought by business visa holders is now in legal limbo. It's said that it is now nowhere as certain for small business owners to get an extension, even when their business operate in good standing.
If you get kicked out with you business still in China, it will suck.
I know the UK just got rid of their "pay-to-stay" visas (Tier 1 - Entrepreneur (£200k) and Tier 1 - Startup (£50k + endorsement), and now have endorsement-based visas (Innovator and Startup).
So I guess it is still pay-to-stay, but instead of paying the government, you are paying one of a few dozen private companies that the government chose based on some random criteria, and apparently there were many endorsing organizations that didn't even know they were selected.
That's how rules/law work. If they'd let people enter 2 years on a tourist visa, for every person like you they'd get 100 with the intention to settle. So better ban it outright.
Signing leases and spending a lot of time somewhere kind of means you live there. And if you live there, then you start to have a reasonable claim to the rights and privileges of a citizen.
I'm not saying that's bad, but countries typically want some control over this process.
Great point. If you stay somewhere for such a long time, you are much more likely than the average tourist to use government services, meaning you start to consume other people's tax dollars.
As such, it makes a lot of sense for the government to charge you lots of money extra for a longer stay, which is what most of them do.
I imagine another concern is that the longer you are in a place, the higher the chance you're going to get pregnant or get someone pregnant. Children born within a nation's borders often are citizens which then complicates your situation if you plan to leave and gives you more of a claim to go "but you can't deport me, my kid is a citizen!" in more civilized countries.
Because not every country wants to be overflowing with expat techbros.
I've seen some of this resentment in SE Asia. Foreigners work remotely from paradise, which is great for us -- but the locals see you filling up the nice restaurants and renting the best apartments and driving up the cost of living for locals who, unlike us, don't have many options about where they live.
Plus most of the tech bros I met in Asia were socially awkward and super horny which doesn't exactly fit nicely with conservative cultures that highly value marriage and family.
> I don't understand why I should not be allowed to take a 2 year vacation in another country without having to leave every 6 months and pray the border agent doesn't find it suspicious that I keep coming back.
If you live in a country for 50%+1 days of a solar year you're considered resident in that country and this has a number of implications (first of all taxes). I guess that's why you can't get more that 6 months of visa.
You can ask for a resident permit though, but if you come from a rich country and you can show that you have enough money to live you may get it. (I had an American friend that did exactly that).
I know the UK allows you 180 days continuous stay, and then you have to leave, but can technically just wait a day and come back, the only problem is the border agent might not like it.
Lots of people would move into other people's nicer homes if they could too, but the owners of the homes might take issue with that. Nations are a form of collective property.
If you ever want proof HN is not Libertarian, they way it downvotes open borders shows it is not.
Libertarians don't have to believe open borders work fully but should be open to talking about it.
It's also something in the future people will judge us for. They will live in a world where richness is less border based though, so get rose colored glasses. Like slavery, easy to judge when you don't get to do it.
I consider myself a libertarian, but I have realized that open borders is a bag of dicks idea. Fucking beyond stupid.
Private property exists for a reason. Political boundaries exist for a reason.
If we got rid of the welfare state and did better at enforcing private property rights (I'm not sure what that would look like or if it is even possible) maybe we could relax on border security. That's not the world we live in, however.
Why welcome people who run from problems rather than fixing them--especially when many are of considerable wealth, and are disproportionately responsible for the unsatisfactory condition of their own countries?
If we shut the door on wealthy Chinese/Indians/Saudis/Nigerians/etc, I'd bet big money that the condition of those countries would improve rapidly and substantially.
I've worked in this industry for a while, helping people immigrate to Canada, and one interesting thing I've experienced are newcomers that don't want their former peers following them. They left for a different way of life and don't want the past recreated in their new home.
For myself I tend to agree - I want to help those that believe moving to my home country will improve their lives, while at the same time want them to leave some baggage behind. Multiculturalism is great, until it isn't.
Canadian immigration is rather straightforward and all avenues are well described on the IRCC website.
If you still have questions I'd recommend the ImmigrationCanada and/or IWantOut subreddits. You can get excellent advice there. If you do your homework and work out the possible avenues applicable to your personal situation they are more than happy to help.
You can keep your costs down by doing a lot of your own research, but there are still shortcuts and pitfalls that you can be made aware of by getting some professional advice. My recommendation is having a paid consult at the beginning of your research, and then near the end before submitting an application. The people of forums can typically only talk about their own experience based on their own profile / program / timing, which will not be exactly like yours. I've cleaned up many people's application messes, (I'm not trying to solicit any business for myself.)
I'm not operating my consultancy anymore or holding the consulting license, I moved on to making software for the industry but don't have anything to offer at the moment. If you're <=32 look up Express Entry for skilled workers. You can email me and I can answer some general questions. blake@blakesieders.ca
These people openly tell you that living among them must be avoided at all costs, and yet you work to subject our children to a future of living among them?
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 218 ms ] thread- U.S. still No. 1 desired destination for potential migrants
- 18 countries attract two-thirds of all potential migrants worldwide
A farmer from rural Malawi who cannot write and doesn't speak English would not be able to integrate into a European countries' economy and, accordingly, would be a lot less welcome.
This farmer from rural Malawi who can't communicate in English may not want to move to Europe, because he would have a bad time there.
Edit: it’s actually 158M who would migrate to the US if they could, and ~55M Americans who would leave, for a total net inflow of 103M, if everyone could magically teleport to a new country on a one time basis.
If you are living in first world country, you should know that you still have it very very easy.
To some, a chance to move is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Immigration policies aren't just about 'keeping the bad ones out', it's also about 'hey, how many people can we realistically bring into this economy over a given timeframe'?
People are pointing out the hypocrisy in the selective application of freedom-of-movement. There may or may not be valid reasons for this but don't pretend its grounded in self-determination.
>The U.S. Supreme Court in Crandall v. Nevada, 73 U.S. 35 (1868) declared that freedom of movement is a fundamental right and therefore a state cannot inhibit people from leaving the state by taxing them.
I'm having a hard time finding a controlling case that says states can't do the inverse, i.e. levy fees on those who want to move to their state. I don't have the time tonight to read the whole case and its references, but I'm happy to be proven wrong here. Levying a fee on people who move in seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do. After all, we all have to pay move-in fees when we lease a new apartment or buy a house.
>After all, we all have to pay move-in fees when we lease a new apartment or buy a house.
That has no bearing on this at all. Private companies are free to do many things the government can't.
>(for those who become permanent residents of a state) the right to be treated equally to native-born citizens
mentioned in Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999)
Edit: ah sorry I replied to you downthread.
To cement that special relationship, the people of those states have given each other certain privileges, such as being allowed to move freely between those states.
I'm not making a value judgement on that claim -- just pointing out that it's no different than if two or more countries were to subvert their provinces/cities/communities/etc's wishes and allow for freedom of movement in pursuit of some benefit.
Right, part of the pact with OK is that they have ceded some rights to a common political body. Nothing you've said contradicts what I said.
The fact that CA (which has more in common with London, UK than Oklahoma City) has freedom of movement only with the latter has nothing to do with their decision as a community and everything to do with decisions made long ago and social contracts they were born into.
My point is that a communities' right to self-govern has very little to do with where you're allowed to freely move today -- it's a vast web of historical agreements, geopolitics, and the lottery of birth.
Historical agreements can be changed if there is political will, but of course inertia is important.
To put my answer to your question "Why should people in CA let people from OK move there?" in a different way, people from CA should allow people from OK to move there, and vice versa, because free movement between the two areas is a show of good faith. It tells the people of OK that the people of CA trust them not to exploit that privilege for their own gain, which is of course something that not everyone can be trusted not to do. Shows of good faith of that kind help both sides trust the other side more, to the point where they are comfortable with, for example, pooling military resources, which are absolutely critical to maintaining the future existence of both groups and are more effective when pooled.
Might the people of CA have enough in common with the people of London that each side could trust the other not to exploit their generosity? Maybe, but it takes quite a while for that trust to build.
There is no reason in theory why, say, Mexico couldn't apply to become part of the United States and the US accept them, but I suspect the reason this kind of thing doesn't happen any more is 1) being a leader of a nation state is much more fun / fulfilling than being governor of a state in the US, so why would the leaders of a country ever agree to it? and 2) the level of welfare spending under existing rules in the US would require a massive wealth transfer to any new state that isn't as developed an economy.
Personally, I still think it would be worth it for both the US and any state that wanted to join, but I don't think it will ever happen again.
"Why should this person and by extension country allow a stranger who may or may not align with their culture, politics, society, etc in for an indefinite time with no restriction?"
What would be your answer?
An instead of North America it says ‘Northern America’ which makes me believe this refers to just the US & Canada
What ads are you talking about?
great then let's introduce the free market* and retire the unadorned unqualified free market as an ideological and rhetorical tool.
*subject to constraints that maintain status quo wealth and power
Technology + No borders can destroy entire cultures.
And that's a good thing.
The strong cultures will survive. I don't care if it is mine or not. If it is better, it's in my interest that it wins, and that I adopt it.
If you think differently, take a second to think about the implications: what exactly do you gain from a culture so weak that it can be destroyed by technology and a little immigration?
Do you get some pride? Ok then, how much is that pride worth? What about for your children?
When I look at Quebec and their desperate fight to try to impose french schooling, I conclude that people would naturally prefer to learn English and take the financial advantages that come with it - if not for them, for their children. This reeks of hypocrisy.
Cultures have no inherent worth. Civilizations live and die.
peak nihilism. Then nothing has inherent worth. we choose whats valuable. Culture is valuable.
>people adopt it because makes sense economically
that depressing. A restaurant on every corner is also good for the GDP but I'd rather cook a meal with my family and friends.
you can put anything in that blank. coral reefs, imagination, happiness, ecosystems...
>a little immigration
a little? no, before technology we had a little.
How do you know you don't like free markets? You've never lived within one, not one day of your entire life.
I spend a lot of time on Google maps looking around, especially the street views. I look around the UK a lot. I don't see a lot of prosperity there--the housing situation compared to most of the US is horrible. It looks like working class Americans have it way better than their British counterparts. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places? I don't know, but Canada looks the same way--run down, beat to shit. That's socialism in a nutshell. Run down and beat to shit.
*= made homeless due to the unequal distribution of wealth in so-called free markets
But that, sadly, is what the difference between a desire to migrate and actual migration boils down to. Most people in Sub-Saharan Africa wouldn't be able to buy or rent a house in the US or Europe due to their financial situation, which again is mostly caused by the unfair distribution in so-called free markets.
you'd lose that wager. i've lived in the third world (africa) and my relationship to space and community is probably much different from yours.
there are more people living in the third world than in the first world.
Thoughts on this problem?
(Sidenote that wage equilibrium != outright wage equality)
There's more pressure against immigration from Americans who are effectively collecting rent on their citizenship by keeping job competition outside of the US.
"Free" doesn't necessarily mean unregulated or without limitations. If you want to scrap a norm as old as borders there's going to be a dazzling amount of fallout given that the people that built nations were led to believe that they were building collective homes for themselves rather than mere "markets" for global corporations.
Utopian optimism about Big Changes, like tech had in the early days (before the reality of mass surveillance, algorithmic perception manipulation, online mobs, etc. emerged) tends to be proven wrong.
If some small country wants to test open borders then great, but this idea that some Big Change will be so beneficial that we should push for its widespread implementation without testing is kinda nutty.
How many of those potential migrants want to move to Texas vs Spain?
> The free movement of persons is a fundamental right guaranteed by the EU to its citizens. It entitles every EU citizen to travel, work and live in any EU country without special formalities.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/border...
As an aside, this was a hotly contested subject during the UK EU “Brexit” referendum.
Kind of. There are passport checks and you have no automatic right to work (which is what the GP was discussing). So in practice no you can’t.
> and it's to do with a lack of border checks rather than the basic freedom of movement right
It’s both. As the link I posted clearly states
Anyway, for immigration that’s a bit moot as there is a universal policy for EU member states. Which was a contentious issue during Brexit.
Canada, maybe. I'm looking into that.
The entire world was relatively borderess prior to 20th century, and it was completely outside of humanly possible for the state anywhere to keep tap on every individual.
If you talk about the period from medieval, to early renaissance. It was very natural for every polity to want to get more subjects. Feudal lords couldn't have been more happy to see more people migrating to their domains.
Things started changed with appearance of early nation state model in late renaissance. The more central the role of the nation state got, the further right was the centre of power.
All of the above culminated with introduction of the visa system in Europe, shortly prior to WWII, which was later adopted by nearly all nations around the world.
I feel like your comment makes it seem a lot more fluid than it was for a group to simply migrate and enjoy their new country.
It was never easy, but for vastly different reasons than today, and, historically, there was a lot more migration than people today tend to think of that time period.
Think of all the slaves that were brought into the Roman Empire for an example. Or the laws binding serfs to the land in the Middle Ages. Or of the early modern kingdoms of South East Asia, which were essentially slave states, raiding their neighbors for their population so they could at them to their own.
That’s one aspect of it.
The other is that despite travel being difficult, historically people have done a lot of it. This has become clear in recent years as DNA analysis of ancient populations has become possible. The origins of most Western Europeans lie in the steppes of Ukraine (it might not be clear who built Stonehenge but it’s certain it wasn’t an ancestor of a modern Briton). There were Indian traders in Rome (probably to sell silk and spices) and Dutch settlers in South Africa were witness to Bantu immigrants sweeping in from he north.
People have always been mobile, it turns out.
Your point is an interesting addition (have you read "The Art of Not Being Governed" by any chance?) but this seems to me to just be for the sake of getting more karma, which I will not support.
1. Human labour was much more critical to survival than today. It was a great thing if one family from another town moved under you cause they'll farm and pay more taxes. Now labour is cheap and isn't critical survival. In fact, there's so much labour that social ills that arise from unemployment is a way bigger problem.
2. Migration happened in much shorter proximity. Therefore, the difference in language, culture, ethnicity and religion were much smaller than the effects of migration today. The host society wasn't concerned about huge changes of their society as much as today where changes of biblical scale are happen in a matter of decades.
3. There was no welfare. If you failed as a migrant, the cost of the failure is paid by yourself. If you fail as a migrant in the host society today, you still have free healthcare, education, citizenship for your children, child care, endless support system to sustain your living in the country. It makes sense the modern state wants control over who enters their state much more.
The Romans spent a lot of effort in trying to keep the various barbarian tribes from migrating freely into the Roman Empire. In fact, for much of the Roman Empire, the bulk of the Roman Army was stationed on the frontiers such as the Danube and Rhine to keep the German tribes out. One of the big turning points was in 406 when the Rhine froze and removed a natural barrier that had kept a lot of these tribes out before hand.
Imperial China also worked hard on keeping the various northern groups from migrating into China, going so far as to build the Great Wall.
It seems that the more developed the civilization, the more effort it expends in defining and guarding it's borders.
You could also write that it was borderless because they couldn't track every individual.
Until fairly recently, historically, if you weren't locally known or vouched for by those either locally trusted or in positions of authority, you'd often be completely ostracized and potentially subject to arbitrary violence that authorities wouldn't concern themselves with. So, effectively, not only wasn't the world borderless but the borders were at the village level.
> If you talk about the period from medieval, to early renaissance. It was very natural for every polity to want to get more subjects
Not really; plenty of them had every sustainably farmable acre under the plow, and any more people was more to support; there wasn't land for more peasants or agricultural surplus for more in the upper classes; conversely, with the agricultural revolutions as you exited this period to later periods, the constraints that make additional population an unsustainable burden are somewhat relieved.
Africa is headed for a population crisis. Places like Somalia and Niger have around 6 or 7 children per woman. These are countries that already import a lot of food to feed rapidly growing populations. If we have another energy shock, it's unclear to me who is going to feed all of these babies.
Edit: right after writing this the very next HN article I come across is massive locust swarms threatening crops in Africa. Scary
The same could be said of immigration movements in North and Latin America. Taking advantage of legal loopholes and dubious claims of persecution for asylum does not improve their home countries.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Perhaps these Africans will try to "move" to Europe. That much might be inevitable. But while many Europeans are currently in a state of fuzzy naivety propped up by the dwindling luxuries their ancestors afforded them, I suspect an invasion of that magnitude - and yes, by any rational definition, that's an invasion - will easily meet the threshold for the awakening of their survival instinct and a United defence of whatevers left of their once-great nations.
I don't understand why I should not be allowed to take a 2 year vacation in another country without having to leave every 6 months and pray the border agent doesn't find it suspicious that I keep coming back.
I don't want to take someone's job, or milk the welfare system, and I would be a net positive to anywhere I decided to vacation (sales tax/VAT, property tax, hotel tax, income tax from the profits off all the crap I bought to live, etc).
I'd be happy if I still had to apply for a visa, but the typical 6 month visa prevents me from easily signing a lease.
How are they supposed to know that? A two year vacation is extraordinarily strange.
For example, Singapore requires you to have SG$ 2.5 Mio in assets if you want an unlimited visa.
There are VERY few people in the world who can take two years off and not worry about needing any income, so it’s incredibly understandable that that’s not a common visa scenario. Americans also forget that the rest of the world doesn’t have to pay income tax on earnings no matter where they live, so the visa ties into tax residency as well.
A few years ago China made a u-turn and started tightening on legit applicants. Property bought by business visa holders is now in legal limbo. It's said that it is now nowhere as certain for small business owners to get an extension, even when their business operate in good standing.
If you get kicked out with you business still in China, it will suck.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/16/canadians-deta...
That said, apart from the US, I wouldn't know any country where a rich German citizen couldn't get a long-term business or investment visa.
Exactly. Like all things, a few bad actors spoil it for the rest of us.
So I guess it is still pay-to-stay, but instead of paying the government, you are paying one of a few dozen private companies that the government chose based on some random criteria, and apparently there were many endorsing organizations that didn't even know they were selected.
I'm not saying that's bad, but countries typically want some control over this process.
As such, it makes a lot of sense for the government to charge you lots of money extra for a longer stay, which is what most of them do.
I've seen some of this resentment in SE Asia. Foreigners work remotely from paradise, which is great for us -- but the locals see you filling up the nice restaurants and renting the best apartments and driving up the cost of living for locals who, unlike us, don't have many options about where they live.
If you live in a country for 50%+1 days of a solar year you're considered resident in that country and this has a number of implications (first of all taxes). I guess that's why you can't get more that 6 months of visa.
You can ask for a resident permit though, but if you come from a rich country and you can show that you have enough money to live you may get it. (I had an American friend that did exactly that).
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/residence-domicile-...
Up to 60 days can be disregarded in the case of "exceptional circumstances", which generally have to be pretty extreme.
Libertarians don't have to believe open borders work fully but should be open to talking about it.
It's also something in the future people will judge us for. They will live in a world where richness is less border based though, so get rose colored glasses. Like slavery, easy to judge when you don't get to do it.
Private property exists for a reason. Political boundaries exist for a reason.
If we got rid of the welfare state and did better at enforcing private property rights (I'm not sure what that would look like or if it is even possible) maybe we could relax on border security. That's not the world we live in, however.
If we shut the door on wealthy Chinese/Indians/Saudis/Nigerians/etc, I'd bet big money that the condition of those countries would improve rapidly and substantially.
For myself I tend to agree - I want to help those that believe moving to my home country will improve their lives, while at the same time want them to leave some baggage behind. Multiculturalism is great, until it isn't.
You still working in this? Would like to have a chat if possible.
I'm honestly furious. Shame on you.