We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14029690 and marked it off-topic.

That is not a EU permanent residency permit. It is just for Cyprus. Cyprus is not even in Schengen, and this permit doesn't even allow free travel, you still need a visa to go even to Greece. It also gives no right to work or do any kind of business (even in Cyprus), i.e. it is against the goals of these people, it is mostly for retirees.

A 2-year residence permit which becomes permanent in 5 years is easy to get in any Baltic country, and it is a lot less restricting. That is, if you are too rich to work, but not rich enough to buy a passport. Otherwise you can get a permanent permit in Germany after 2 years of work which will give you full rights similar to U.S. green card, in all of the EU.

Just as an aside, Cyprus is in the process of joining Schengen "soon", along with Romania, Bulgaria, & Croatia.

Romania and Bulgaria have been about to join Schengen any moment now for about a decade, and Cyprus is in a much less stable situation than either of them.

And Romania actually fulfilled all conditions for Schengen membership a few years ago... And it's still blocked from joining out of sheer spite, I guess?

I think Cyprus will resist entering Schengen with all means available, and Greeks are known for their skill of protracting any negotiations indefinitely. So, not any time soon.

Why? Cyprus has nothing but to gain from joining Schengen. Where does Greece come in? EU citizens can already travel freely in Cyprus [1], so why would you say GR doesn't want Cyprus in Schengen?

[1] http://www.cyprusembassy.fi/main/index.php?p=Consular_Sectio...

Schengen is for free movement. It does not give you work permit.

I don't think I implied otherwise.

Do you need a visa to go to Greece? Cypriot citizens can definitely travel to Greece with just their ID cards, but I'm not sure about immigrants.

Of course, because they are EU citizens. All EU citizens can travel freely. But immigrants need a visa since Cyprus is not in Schengen. This is the case with all non-Schengen EU countries, like, immigrants living in London need a visa to go to Paris, but a Romanian doesn't need visa to go to London. An immigrant in a Schengen country can travel to any other Schengen country plus new non-Schengen entrants: Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. For example, i am an immigrant in Lithuania (Schengen) and i travelled to Cyprus and Romania with no visa (i can't even technically apply for one), plus many Schengen states.

This situation is not uncommon. [Reunion Island][0] is a French province, but it is not in Schengen neither. Any European can go to live and work to Reunion Island, but a foreigner with a Schengen Permit cannot.

[0]: https://goo.gl/maps/TAJoEYLp7m32

Immigrants in the UK (right to remain, not just permanent resident) can travel freely in the EU (and CTA without even a passport).

Ah, I see, thanks. So immigrants aren't yet full citizens. In retrospect, that makes sense.

It is relatively easy to get a software engineer job in Germany and couple of years later get a residency, so no, residencies are not the only reason people moved to Cyprus.

If a person theoretically spoke French and English but had not yet studied German, would that make such a leap more difficult?

From my experience, people get along pretty well in Germany even if they know only English. Especially in large cities like Berlin, where they are likely to get such a job. So many people speak good English here, that it is actually hard to learn German, because the natives don't want to speak German with you :-). I'm in research, and half of my institute here in Berlin are foreigners.

Of course, it still helps a lot to learn German - and I think you miss out on a lot if you don't learn the language of a country. Also, you'll need a friend or colleague to help you with administrative stuff in the beginning (which may be in German only).

Going through the whoishiring.io job offers, Germany has a comparatively high number of job ads written in German (even for remote positions).

This is very interesting, as it may point to a less international work culture (although this is in the process of changing), which this translates to a "possibly yes" answer to your question. Of course, whoishiring.io may not reflect accurately real world, still, I don't think it's random.

Answer of the type "N people work here in Germany without speaking german" are not correct answers, since they don't imply a comparison (the question is comparative).

I know about 6 American software engineers who don't speak a lick of German working in Berlin.

Everyone sells residency and citizenship. The list of desirable countries that don't is probably shorter than the list that do.

Latvia, for instance, is much cheaper and gets you into Schengen with an investor visa followed up by investor citizenship.

In Latvia you either have to buy a property worth more than 250kEUR, invest more than 35kEUR in a business or deposit more than 280k.

From my standpoint, the biggest risk is a certain neighbour country with historical appetite for "preserving it's territorial interests".

Yep. Want to become resident in the UK? Agree to invest £1m and a "Tier 1" visa is yours: https://www.gov.uk/tier-1-investor. The US has a similar programme to sell Immigrant Investor Visas: https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/immigrate/Immigran....

2m for a limited time visa. 5m if you want to settle

And I personally there is nothing wrong with being able to buy a visa. Many people in a country don't pay few taxes in their life. So when someone comes and invests a good amount, it is ok to honor this with visa or passport. Would just be cool if every country would allow easier immigration for ordinary people, too.

No, it's not okay, it reduces citizenship and community to a dollar value, which is just more neoliberalism. It doesn't pay the government anything either - for eb5 investor commonly makes a profit, and only has to employ ten Americans at full time minimum wage (not much tax there). The immigrants income is usually left back home (mainly China) and they don't declare it in the US since it's out of reach of the IRS. Mainly they send the spouse and kids to use top public schools and down the line they get social security and Medicare too. It's a complete scam

I suspect that there's some potential for abuse under both the UK and US systems, but there are some safeguards:

1) US citizens are taxed on global income forever. (Perhaps it's hard for the IRS to enforce for people whose assets are in countries that don't share information with the US, but it's not impossible.)

2) UK tier-1 investor visa holders must be outside the UK for fewer than 180 days per year, which means they must be in the UK for 185 or 186 days per year, which means they would be subject to tax on their global income during that period. (But of course once they become British Citizens, they could ensure they stay in the UK for fewer than 183 days per year, meaning they'd only pay tax on their local income (which could be zero)).

So you would rather not let them create the 10 jobs (which, compared to many other countries, is quite much)? I mean, they do not only have to "create" them and leave empty, they have to find real working people for them. So even if they were minimum wage, I guess American software architects would not take them. At least in the job market, those "evil" investors have to be somehow competitive (you get what you pay for). And what about those who create a bigger business with bigger salaries? Should they all stay in the home country?

I think Singapore gives you permanent resident status just for buying a house there! Of course, buying property in Singapore is no small feat for most people.

There is always an old trick of setting up a company and hiring yourself as qualified worker, then getting PR status in few years.

In Singapore that still requires large capital investment in your company.

Malta's still selling passports if you want in on EU and Schengen :)

http://www.maltaimmigration.com/

Just as a clarification, it does not mean anything to have citizenship of a country that is in the Schengen agreement, which simply covers border enforcement when traveling between signatory countries, not immigration status. These rules in theory apply equally to all citizens, with some special provisions for EU (+ CH, etc.) citizens covering things such as required ID.

> I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that since 3 years ago Cyprus (among others) 'sells' EU permanent residency permits to rich foreigners.

You know, the solution to "problems" like that is to abolish visas altogether.

A visa is essentially a permission to exist in a certain geographical area. Why exactly do you need one?

Yes I know governments won't let you in/out without one, but what sense does it make?

What possible moral justification is there, for preventing you from moving freely when you're not harming anyone else?

You've heard of people "misusing" their visas, right? But how crazy is the idea of "misusing" your permission to exist in an area?

How crazy is it that visas come with a list of activities you're allowed to engage in?

For example, if you're on a tourist visa, you're not allowed to work in exchange for money, nor sell your company's product to someone.

You might think it's because governments need to keep track of who owes them taxes and how much, but um.. what sense does that make?

Say you were born in England and lived there all your life. Then you fly over to Thailand on a tourist visa, and you fix someone's bicycle in exchange for a small fee.

How/why is Thailand's government entitled to a cut of the money you made in doing that? If you believe in the Social Contract, does that get temporarily passed from England to Thailand, for the duration of your stay?

Or did you perhaps unwittingly sign a new one with Thailand, by entering their territory?

Would sitting on a plane that happens to cross some specific unseen line on a map constitute agreeing to a binding obligation to hand over some of your income to the organization "in charge" of the area you entered?

Of course not, but that's what The Rules say. But why/how are we bound by The Rules?

Well, we're not. Not in any objective, moral sense at all. But we all obey the rules anyway.

Why is that, besides to avoid being punished for disobedience?

Visas exist because a group of people with self-determination, i.e., a country, have decided that it's in their best interest to require certain conditions to allow others to travel.

The moral justification is very simple - the people of Thailand (I hope the Thai people will pardon me from using them as an example, going on from the parent post ) get to make the rules of what happens in Thailand (e.g. they have sovereignty) and you don't. There can be international agreements where countries agree to give up part of sovereignty and agree to be limit their actions, but the default situation is that they literally get to make up laws in their borders, and existing in their borders means that you'll be held to these laws, by force if necessary, no matter if you agree or not.

They don't have to let you across the border if they don't want to, and they don't need a justification to do so - that is their inherent right. If they want to let anyone in, no questions asked, that is their right too. And if they choose to allow some people under some conditions - same thing. You're not part of their social contract, whatever that is, and you have no right to be treated equally unless they choose to - they can and will have preferential treatment for themselves.

From your comment "Or did you perhaps unwittingly sign a new one with Thailand, by entering their territory?" is probably the closest one to truth, but it's not unwittingly - the tourist visa explicitly has a number of terms and conditions; and you either intentionally accept them or don't get the visa. With this visa, they are offering a very particular social contract for you, and it's up to you to take it or leave it.

I could take your argument and say I'm moving into your house, I'm moving around freely and I won't harm you but thanks for the free rent. I don't think you'd like me coming into your house and not following your rules and not paying rent.

>Why exactly do you need one?

This is one of primary functions of any (democratic) government - to protect its people.

People don't want anyone to be able to come and settle as their neighbour - for both rational and irrational reasons.

And governments must listen to their people, because if they don't (like in case of EU/mainly Germany during last migrant crisis) people start having feelings that the government doesn't care about them, which in turn creates room for extreme populist and extremist parties.

Familiarize yourself with Chesterton's fence. It might give you some insight into one of the reasons why your rhetoric finds no traction.

Nah. I know exactly what I'm talking about.

Well that does it. I wasn't convinced before, but now I am.

I bet you found it convincing when someone evoked some Academic bullshit to hand-wavily discredit me?

Do you care whether anyone else does? Or does it simply please you to scream pointlessly, publicly, into a great big hole in the ground?