I've lived in places where you have a zero chance of getting permanent residency, let alone citizenship. Even if you marry a citizen.
A friend of mine lives in a similar country. On paper there is a route to permanent residency, but no one gets it unless they're well connected to a senior government official. Lots of people living there for 30+ years who have to renew their status every few years.
In parts of Switzerland, your neighbors will vote on whether to grant you citizenship.
Of course - it is fair to criticize the US immigration process - particularly in regards to Chinese and Indians. It's also perfectly fair to be grateful that their is a path.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZQl6XBo64M
That said, as a green card holder, sure, I'm grateful that the US has this process. But I think Americans need to also acknowledge that they've generated trillions of dollars of wealth from immigrants and they could make the paperwork a little bit simpler.
I've lived in places where you have a zero chance of getting permanent residency, let alone citizenship. Even if you marry a citizen.
> Another country that is very difficult to receive citizenship is Qatar. There are lengthy continuous residence requirements and not all children or spouses receive citizenship automatically.
> Children born in Qatar to Qatari parents are automatically entitled to citizenship. Any person born with a Qatari father may apply to be a citizen, if they meet eligibility criteria. However, the same is not true for individuals with a Qatari mother.
> People who qualify for permanent residence through naturalisation are those who have lived in Qatar for at least 20 years consecutively (if born outside Qatar) or ten years (if born there).
> Applicants must be fluent in Arabic, hold good character, and be able to support themselves financially during their stay.
> Although there are very generous government benefits available for citizens, the government only grants a maximum of 100 permanent residencies per year.
So if you're male, marry a Qatari woman, your kids won't even be citizens. While there technically is a process to get permanent residency, you can see how limited it is - a max of 100 per year, and I bet the majority of those have government connections. Similar story with nearby countries.
Also, you are talking about your wife's family?!!! You mean her great great grandparents or even earlier ancestors?
I am very intrigued by this inheritance based credit system that you are proposing that goes beyond wealth inheritance?
Do you still get points if your ancestors participated in the revolt but were highly incompetent? How many points do you lose if some of the ancestors fought on the British side? Do you gain or lose points for capturing native American territory and massacring them? Do you also get to keep the points earned by the slaves the ancestors owned or do they go to the descendants of the slaves? Do you gain/lose points for dropping napalm in Vietnam or searching for WMDs in Iraq?
I find this line of argument intriguing. I have soooooo many questions!
It's not about "assigning points" but rather distinguishing "of a place" from "foreign to a place." I think I win on points--my family was wealthy landowners in Bangladesh, and her's settled the west coast of the US. My family had indoor plumbing way earlier than her's did.
But that doesn't mean I'm "of the U.S." just because I'm a citizen in the same way she is "of the U.S." The U.S. as it exists today reflects the culture that her ancestors handed down to her much more than it reflects the one mine handed down to me.
> I find this line of argument intriguing. I have soooooo many questions!
I have come to the conclusion that most Americans don't understand that culture exists in the same way most can't tell the difference between the national deficit and the national debt. They know the words, but don't actually grasp the concept.
ask yourself: why would the US allow these people to come and work here in the first place?
it’s because they NEED them. from highly skilled tech workers to “unskilled” low wage workers. Immigration and pumping human capital into our economy is the way the US stays/stayed? dominant and a superpower.
Close the pipeline and in 10-20-30 years innovation is gone ,the edge we have us gone. The American dream fuels the growth. Act shitty toward the fuel, scratch your head why things fall apart.
Really shocking how an immigrant describing his decades long naturalization process has triggered so many white men!
The idea is to not look at a gift horse in the mouth. And stop punishing the most productive people in your economy. You don't want brexit thinking if you want to have an economy.
That's debatable.
>It is a tremendous gift, not a punishment- unless you are alluding to some wierd racial monoculture thing.
Immigration is not free. There are social costs which are being dismissed with shallow accusations of bigotry as an alternative to engagement (as you are implicitly doing with your monoculture reference). All peoples are entitled to preserve their cultures, that a particular nation happens to have a predominantly white population does not erase this entitlement.
Cultures clash. Immigrants vote and potentially originate from countries with incompatible cultures, many of whom have no interest in assimilating, yet their votes influence the laws that natives are obligated to follow. If democracy is meant to represent the will of the people, then it is unfair to dilute representation with immigration from nations with totally different value systems. Case in point is the ubiquitous middle eastern treatment of women; how much influence do you want such beliefs to have over your laws and cultural norms? Not even getting to the statistically proven increase in sexual assaults that native women have to suffer on behalf of immigrants in certain European countries. Consider it the paradox of tolerance.
No, its not.
> votes influence the laws that natives are obligated to follow
Natives? You might want to think again before using that word. Trust me, none of the new immigrants have any violent intentions or intent to steal from earlier immigrants or native Americans.
> Not even getting to the statistically proven increase in sexual assaults that native women have to suffer on behalf of immigrants in certain European countries.
I thought we were discussing US immigration. Columbus was an accomplished rapist too. Or do rapes by white men not count?
> Case in point is the ubiquitous middle eastern treatment of women; how much influence do you want such beliefs to have over your laws and cultural norms?
The post is by an Indian Hindu. Keep in mind that not all brown people are the same. Especially considering the kind of racist violence some white men inflicted on the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps, it is unsafe to let white people dominate a culture. The risk of holocaust and genocide is ever present. It's great if some non white culture is introduced in the society to keep the keep the genocidal tendencies of "white" culture in check.
> shallow accusations of bigotry as an alternative to engagement
You can do your part by not making the bigotry so easy to spot. A highly productive brown immigrant describing his 2 decade long naturalization process really really ticked you off, innit?
>Keep in mind that not all brown people are the same. Especially considering the kind of racist violence some white men inflicted on the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps, it is unsafe to let white people dominate a culture. The risk of holocaust and genocide is ever present. It's great if some non white culture is introduced in the society to keep the keep the genocidal tendencies of "white" culture in check
Your post is predictably combative so I don't know if you're being ironic here or if you are acknowledging these increasingly common and overt intentions, but in any case you are generalizing all of Europe and today's culture based on the actions of Germany 80 years ago. This is textbook racism. I'd remind you that some 50MM+ white european allies died opposing the nazis.
>You can do your part by not making the bigotry so easy to spot.
This poor substitute for an argument demonstrates my point.
>I thought we were discussing US immigration. Columbus was an accomplished rapist too. Or do rapes by white men not count?
Again, textbook racism. Generalizing all of modern day Europe based on the actions of a small minority from a selection of countries. In any case this is another deflection and says nothing about the modern day increase in documented rapes and assaults. An academic who tried to report on it was placed under investigation [0], so it seems that institutions really do share your fervor in denying inconvenient truths. Almost like people are using equality as a trojan horse for petty revenge.
How much time must pass after a land is conquered before nations are morally justified in enforcing sovereignty over borders? Particularly when the border belongs to a welfare state with finite resources and a host of internal issues that require fixing.
If you have to hide your arguments behind accusations of bigotry, you don't have a very good argument. Border enforcement is about far more than blind xenophobia. Such accusations are reductive appeals to ethos over logos.