Immigration

I didn't see a thread about this in the politics section, but I could have missed it. If I did, I apologize.

This is a thread for people to talk about immigration, specifically where you live. Is there an immigration problem where you live? Should something be done about it? What should the requirements for citizenship be*?

Using this time to clarify that I'm not asking if citizenship should exist at all.

The immigration problem in America is that we are racist and hate people who aren't white. Considering my country stole this land from the Native Americans, the least we can do is let people in who are truly happy to do so and contribute.

@ dru is beautiful.
I would agree with that, but from what I can tell, at least a portion of the illegal immigrants in America are European, specifically white Europeans. So it's not just non-whites we're not being helpful with.

@ CallusedSilk
We never focus on that when we discuss the immigration problem in America too. We only discuss Mexico and "closing the borders" and "I shouldn't have to press 1 for English". It's hard to have a discussion about actual immigration reform when hose are the current parameter of the discussion. I truly don't know much about our illegal immigration numbers, but I think the whole concept of owning land is weird and anyone should be able to go to any country and live there.

@ dru is beautiful.
I do agree that a lot of the conversation has been bogged down with racist talk. However I don't think it hurts to try and redirect the conversation back to where it should be, as to how we want the qualifications of citizenship to be. Currently we have a citizenship test that isn't obvious to find for people coming to our country, and it's at a level where our citizens can't pass it. We're expecting our immigrants to know more about this country than we're expecting 'our own' to know.

@ CallusedSilk

CallusedSilk:

@ dru is beautiful.
I as to how we want the qualifications of citizenship to be.

I agree with dru on this. I think there shouldn't be any requirement at all for a person to be a citizen in a certain country. I don't even think that such thing like "citizenship" should exist. It's just ridiculous that a person need to be a "citizen" to have certain rights in a certain place and that said person is not allowed to stay in a place where they'd like to live only because they don't meet a number of requirements someone (a government) set for a number of reasons (mostly economical). This makes zero sense to me.

Then there's all that whining "but all poor people in the world will want to emigrate to Europe/America and wherever else and the economy of these countries will collapse". Well, I think the real challenge here isn't keeping people confined within certain physical and political borders in order to protect only a few privileged economic groups, but to make life good everywhere in the planet, so people can go and live wherever they want.

@ taion
As much as I wish this planet were a place where people could just live somewhere and be a citizen, that's not economically feasible. it's also a recipe for disaster. Government needs to have some sort of idea of how many people are living in their country so they know how to allocate resources, as well as know how much tax money to expect so that they can continue to allocate resources.

On top of that, America in particular is a democratic republic. The senate would be just fine no matter what the population is, since every state gets two senators. However, state population does influence the amount of representation in the house of representatives. The larger the population, the more people they have, and the more of a vote they have. It also influences the amount of electoral votes they have, which changes how much influence they have in a presidential election.

So yeah, for other countries, just letting people show up and live there and be citizens might work, but for the way America is set up politically and economically? It just wouldn't work.

@ CallusedSilk

CallusedSilk:

@ taion
As much as I wish this planet were a place where people could just live somewhere and be a citizen, that's not economically feasible. it's also a recipe for disaster.

Why? Not all countries need to be highly developed like Norway, for example. Just developed enough that people will have their rights granted right where they live and won't need to expose themselves and their families to life threats and degrading conditions for a chance of a decent life.

CallusedSilk:

Government needs to have some sort of idea of how many people are living in their country so they know how to allocate resources, as well as know how much tax money to expect so that they can continue to allocate resources.

It isn't necessary to immobilize people to count them. Every country already tracks their residents all the time, either foreigners or citizens. And I'm not against it, so I don't see your point.

Even if people were allowed to live wherever they wanted, they most probably wouldn't be moving to a new country every month. At least I don't know anyone who does that. Most people I know just choose somewhere to live and sticks to that place for several years, even because they won't be able to learn another language so fast and getting used to a new country and a new culture takes a lot of time and effort.

CallusedSilk:

So yeah, for other countries, just letting people show up and live there and be citizens might work, but for the way America is set up politically and economically? It just wouldn't work.

It wouldn't work in most developed countries atm, unfortunately. That's the problem.

@ taion

taion:

Why? Not all countries need to be highly developed like Norway, for example. Just developed enough that people will have their rights granted right where they live and won't need to expose themselves and their families to life threats and degrading conditions for a chance of a decent life.

It has actually little to do with whether or not it's a developed country. Taxes are important, and currently citizenship is what determines who pays what, at least in America. So having an easier time making citizenship available makes more sense than recreating our entire tax code.

taion:

It isn't necessary to immobilize people to count them. Every country already tracks their residents all the time, either foreigners or citizens. And I'm not against it, so I don't see your point.

Even if people were allowed to live wherever they wanted, they most probably wouldn't be moving to a new country every month. At least I don't know anyone who does that. Most people I know just choose somewhere to live and sticks to that place for several years, even because they won't be able to learn another language so fast and getting used to a new country and a new culture takes a lot of time and effort.

Citizenship doesn't immobilize them, so I'm not sure what your point is for that either. I also never said you were against it, I was merely pointing out how it doesn't appear feasible to forgo citizenship entirely. Citizenship, once again, is more than just who's going to be staying there for a few years. It does take effort to assimilate into a culture, but once again, politically and economically we do need to know who counts as a citizen. Like I pointed out, it's not just for taxes and keeping count. It's also for voting and government representation.

We can't just assume that because someone's here for over a certain amount of time that they want to stay here for a long term effort or even just at all. Some people vacation in areas for a long time. Some people are only there strictly for a job. We can't base the amount of people in congress around people that might want to be citizens here.

@ CallusedSilk

CallusedSilk:

Citizenship doesn't immobilize them, so I'm not sure what your point is for that either.

Citizenship may not completely immobilize people but it does create a series of obstacles to permanence of people in certain countries for certain amounts of time. This way governments have the power to select who they want to stay in their country, and for how long, mostly for economical reasons.

That's messed up.

CallusedSilk:

but once again, politically and economically we do need to know who counts as a citizen. Like I pointed out, it's not just for taxes and keeping count. It's also for voting and government representation.

Like I said, residents are tracked all the time. Good. I see you're worried about the congress of your country, but that's what I'm telling you, the US government, and also most (if not all) countries in the world have ways to estimate the number of people residing in their territory each year, citizenship doesn't affect it. Therefore, it is possible to calculate the number of representatives in the congress by the number of residents.

So my point is, why foreigners don't deserve political representation if they live in the country and and are a part of society as well? Leaving them out sounds like racism to me.

As for the right to vote, what about, residents get to vote? If a person lives in a country for say, more than a year, why can't they have the right to vote?

And why don't people get to pay taxes in the place where they live and most probably work and generate receipt? This is way more simple and logical to me than force people to keep track of the economical and political life of a place they don't feel like they belong to anymore.

The problem is, governments don't want risk losing important tax-payers and they also don't want to give the power of vote to certain groups, among them, poor immigrants, so these things are not allowed.

CallusedSilk:

We can't just assume that because someone's here for over a certain amount of time that they want to stay here for a long term effort or even just at all. Some people vacation in areas for a long time. Some people are only there strictly for a job. We can't base the amount of people in congress around people that might want to be citizens here.

If a person lives in a certain place because of a job, or because they have family there, it's not that reason enough to let them get involved in the political life of that country? Do they need to profess eternal love to the country or what? Not even "purebred citizens" do that. What's the problem if these people move again?

@ taion
I personally don't see it as messed up, so we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

The fact of the matter is that every single year, civilians owe taxes beyond just property tax and sales tax. So, how do you presume we move forward with that if people are just, I guess citizens of the world? Also, representatives need to have more than just 'people are here'. If just people staying there for a while meant the area could have more representatives then areas with high tourism would regularly get more representation without actually deserving it.

What exactly do you want to happen with citizenship? This entire thread was to discuss how to get immigrants citizenship in a timely way with less confusion. Yet somehow this has turned into a weird 'citizenship is messed up' conversation. That was never the point of this thread.

@ CallusedSilk
It started with you asking "what should the requirements for citizenship be?" in your first post.

To it I answered, in other words, there shouldn't be any requirement. Citizenship is an unnecessary and sometimes discriminatory concept, imo. If we eliminate the concept of citizenship then everybody living in a country gets the same rights, independently of where they were born, how much money they have or who their parents or grandparents are/were. There would be no immigrants.

And then again, if we work so all countries in the world reach a certain level of human development, immigration will also stop being a problem, don't you think? But most of the time our governments love to use the lazy way out of problems. They demonize immigration and still act surprised when racism makes a comeback and extreme right parties assume strong positions in the government like it's happening right now in Europe.

I guess I could I sum up all my feelings about the whole discussion on "immigration problems" in one single phrase (or even a single word), but then I'd be banned from Mibba for sure. So I'm sorry if I ended up sounding like I'm beating around the bushes instead of going straight to the point.

But well, you questioned my opinion, I answered. If you had said "well, you're going off-topic here", I would have stopped earlier

@ taion
That was actually one of like, four things I asked. All centered around reforming citizenship requirements/immigration, not removing citizenship entirely.

I personally don't think simply having citizenship is discriminatory. In fact, regardless of citizenship, many of US rights are available to everyone. The only one you don't have as a non-citizen is the right to vote. That's it. I think it should be easy to make someone a citizen so that they can influence the politics of the place. However, I don't want it to be so that if someone just happens to be vacationing here during a presidential election can vote in it.

I think it's more the media than the government that demonize immigration. Now I'm curious what your single phrase/word is. Although I feel like it starts with bull, ends with hit and has a consonant in the middle.

And eh, it happens.

@ CallusedSilk

CallusedSilk:

That was actually one of like, four things I asked.

but if you asked, I think I have the right to answer. If you didn't want answers to that question in particular, then you shouldn't ask it in the first place or maybe formulate it in another way so this line of discussion won't be encouraged? Idk.

CallusedSilk:

The only one you don't have as a non-citizen is the right to vote. That's it.

Well, it just happens that the right to vote is THE most basic political right.
Take it away from people and you don't have a representative democracy anymore. I'm sure most American people would feel extremely angry if they were denied to right to vote, and rightfully so.

And this precisely is the right that is being denied to "immigrants".

Just to clear things up, tourists aren't immigrants (or what I call residents).

I don't know anyone who goes on vacation for more than a month straight anyway, so I don't know why are you so worried that a tourist would end up getting the right to vote. I never said that only because the person set foot on the country they should have granted ALL the rights residents/citizens do.

All this time I've been talking about residents, people who are in a country to stay there, maybe not forever, but for a significant amount of time. So it's possible to think about setting a minimum time for a person to be considered resident. After that time the person gets to vote, pay taxes and all these awesome things.

SO, my question is, WHY NOT?
As you said, this is just an incidental question to this thread, so don't feel like you need to answer me here. Maybe we could open another thread and discuss it there. The thing is, until someone points out a valid reason why things should be kept the way they are, I'll keep my opinion.

And if you keep questioning it, I'll keep answering, even though I'm apparently going off-topic

CallusedSilk:

I think it's more the media than the government that demonize immigration.

You say it like government and media were two very separate and independent entities, when this is not true at all. Researchers in the field of social communication have established this for some time already. But then again, this is discussion for another thread.

CallusedSilk:

Now I'm curious what your single phrase/word is. Although I feel like it starts with bull, ends with hit and has a consonant in the middle.

You've got it.

@ taion
And once again, I asked what requirements, not should their be requirements. Which are totally different questions.

I disagree with it being the most basic right since not everyone in every country has it. Minors don't have it and in our country felons don't have it. Also, if you're deemed mentally unfit to take care of yourself, you also don't have it then either.

Then how are we defining who gets to vote? At what length of time does someone stop being a tourist and start being a resident or a citizen? If someone is there for four years but strictly there for a job, does that count? If someone's there just for the summer, does that count? Do we then deal with people who've been living there for a day less than we've deemed 'resident' crying out that it's unjust?

'Significant amount of time' is a really generalized way to deal with it. You have to be specific with the law, otherwise it will fall apart or it will needlessly hurt people.

I'm stubborn. It's one of my fatal flaws, so even if you are absolutely off-topic, I find that I'm too pigheaded to not respond. xD

I do know that media and government are connected, but that doesn't make them the same entity. Therefore, I can make distinction about which one has more of an effect. Also, quite a lot of the media seems to be out of the government's control. If it were more in the government's control, a lot of stuff on TV just would not exist. I'm connected to my family, but that doesn't mean I don't exist outside it.

...I can already tell that this thread will cause me big headaches...

@ CallusedSilk


then we've got a serious problem here. I love a debate, I can't just NOT to answer.

CallusedSilk:

And once again, I asked what requirements, not should their be requirements. Which are totally different questions.

What I did was to point out that the premises to your question are wrong, imo. I'm not entirely sure if this was off-topic as you want it to be, but I'll just leave it at it.

CallusedSilk:

I disagree with it being the most basic right since not everyone in every country has it.

I'm talking about political rights.
There are countries that grant those rights to their citizens and some don't. A country that does grant these rights is called a representative democracy. In any democratic country the right to vote is the most basic political right. If you don't agree with that, then I'll ask you to name one single democratic country in which citizens aren't allowed to vote.

And the fact that certain people aren't allowed to vote in certain circumstances doesn't invalidate the whole system, quite the opposite.

I see that to support your argument you're bringing up problems that could be solved with public discussion and maybe a referendum. To be honest, I can't be bothered to discuss if a person should be considered a resident after three, six or ten months living in a country. Also, there isn't an one-size-fits-all solution for all countries, so there's that as well.

CallusedSilk:

I do know that media and government are connected, but that doesn't make them the same entity. Therefore, I can make distinction about which one has more of an effect. Also, quite a lot of the media seems to be out of the government's control. If it were more in the government's control, a lot of stuff on TV just would not exist.

I never said media and government were the same entity. What I meant was that all media companies are economically linked to governments, direct or indirectly. Yes, in America they are out of the government's control, in a way. But government and media are not independent from each other. They do share agendas, and they cooperate more often than not.

@ taion
My point wasn't that voting isn't an important right, but that I disagree with it being called the most basic human right if members of society automatically don't get that right. I consider other rights more basic, such as freedom of speech, since regardless of age, criminal record and various other things, everyone has it under US law.

taion:

. To be honest, I can't be bothered to discuss if a person should be considered a resident after three, six or ten months living in a country.

Wait, seriously? From what I can tell, your entire point was saying that residency can be just as feasible of a system for voting as citizenship, yet you can't be bothered to discuss when 'residency' would begin? If you can't define that or don't even want to define that, it's hard to take your argument seriously since something that general is impossible to implement in a rational way. You can just say 'residents should be able to vote' and then not narrow down what qualifies as a resident.

I never said media and government were independent, but even with co-dependency, I can state which one has a bigger influence on an issue than the other.

@ CallusedSilk

Political right. The right to vote is the most basic political right, not human right. There's a difference.

I said before that I think a resident is someone who is in the country with the intention to stay for a significant amount of time. I just can't be bothered to discuss small details like the minimum time to consider someone a resident in a country. I can just say that, imo it would be okay sometime between six months and a year. If you disagree, I'll agree to disagree and we won't get anywhere with this discussion. It's pointless, unless you can tell me some sort of sociological or political fact that can be used as a guideline. You didn't point out any as well.

This should be a political decision to be made, as I said earlier, through public discussion and maybe referenda since there's not a "right" or optimal answer to it. That's what I meant.

CallusedSilk:

I can state which one has a bigger influence on an issue than the other.

How?

@ taion
Technically freedom of speech is a political right, not a human right.

I then asked you to define what 'significant' is since it's not a small detail. These kinds of details are the very real things that are keeping people from being seen as full citizens/residents of a country.

I can state which one has a bigger influence on an issue than the other because of the fact that it's been influencing the issue longer than the two have been combined. Media and government haven't always been so interwoven as they are now. Also, the parts of government that aren't interwoven with media aren't usually the parts I see that influence bigotry. However, the parts of media that aren't interwoven with government do regularly promote and show bigotry. That is how I define which one shares more of the burden.