[HN Gopher] France grants citizenship to 12,000 Covid frontline ...
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France grants citizenship to 12,000 Covid frontline workers
Author : _Microft
Score : 332 points
Date : 2021-09-13 12:29 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| sersi wrote:
| Smart action by the French government. France is not necessarily
| the most attractive country for medical workers and doctors in
| terms of income so being grateful for their support and giving
| them the citizenship is a smart thing to do when France needs
| more people doing those job.
| carlob wrote:
| This has nothing to do with doctors... medical workers are a
| small minority of the people being granted citizenship, a lot
| of these were street cleaners, caretakers, grocery store
| employees...
|
| They just took a bunch of essential workers who would have
| requested citizenship otherwise and lowered the legal stay
| requirement from 5 to 2 years for them.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Will it still be another 1-2 year wait for an interview once
| they're eligible or is that being sped up too?
| rockinghigh wrote:
| This is the count of people who have already been
| naturalized. There were 16000 applications and 12000 of
| those gained the French citizenship.
| eps wrote:
| They were _granted_ the citizenship. Already done,
| finished, they have it if they want it.
|
| They weren't made eligible for requesting it.
| BossingAround wrote:
| Are you basing the question on your experience with the
| French immigration system? In other words, why would there
| be a 1-year+ wait for an interview?
| ILikeBikes wrote:
| I mean, anyway, being naturalised here happens when you
| are in a stable situation, and is very symbolic in that
| case, so there is no rush.
|
| If you live in France, you are welcome to be in here, you
| can vote for local elections if you're from the EU, you
| pay taxes or not according to your income, like anyone
| else, you can access the full social security system and
| other public services,...
|
| I understand that being French is a stateless concept
| about living in here and sharing the moment, and it's not
| just a legal status ; so it makes sense if it takes time,
| but it arrives eventually.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Depends how good or useless your existing passport is.
| Travelling as a French national is a lot easier than
| travelling as an Algerian or Lebanese national. If you're
| a Canadian or USian, it's largely meh to get your French
| citizenship to travel.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It might be different now. I had read up to 2 years.
| There is a language requirement, but there used to be no
| test requirement, so the interview was to at least
| evaluate that.
|
| Now that they require test results, there's an added
| cost, but one less thing to evaluate directly in the
| citizenship process, so maybe they'll do away with the
| interview entirely.
| ILikeBikes wrote:
| Legally, the government has to reply within 18 months
| after your application, according to the page about
| Naturalisation on service-public.fr, an official website
| (idk if I may post links)
|
| In some cities like Lyon, you can indeed wait 1+ year for
| the process.
|
| Informally, the Administration / "Prefectures" are
| infamous for being slow, and requests are processed in
| each administrative division, so you'd rather not be in a
| city where there are a lot of applicants.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Which is really smart because those people will remember they
| were valued by the government.
| jhgb wrote:
| Service guarantees citizenship!
| make_clean wrote:
| I see what you did there.
| chuckee wrote:
| Is that how it worked out in, for example, Germany, with
| their Turkish immigrants? Are they the most grateful ones?
| jmll wrote:
| This kind of rhethoric weakens the discussion on the
| site. You can surely rephrase your counterpoint and avoid
| the implied sarcasm.
| Factorium wrote:
| Its not necessarily smart, these people will go on to
| impose large welfare, pension, healthcare burdens on the
| host society.
|
| Its easy for the French political elite to sign laws like
| this, but the social and economic burden of these decisions
| are borne by the lower classes.
|
| Its much more likely that this is a decision to add an
| extra 12,000 Macron voters to the rolls.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| They don't, in France you pay money into
| healthcare/retirement and you don't need citizenship to
| get welfare.
|
| Valuing people who put their lives on the line during a
| major healthcare crisis is the right thing to do.
| gamesbrainiac wrote:
| These immigrants in general have more children, who in
| turn work and pay for your pension. French birthrate is
| below 2.11.
| Factorium wrote:
| If French society is anything like Danish society,
| migrants from certain regions will use more in Government
| services than they will contribute in taxes:
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/S00148-017-0636
| -1
|
| "Immigrants from Western countries have a positive fiscal
| impact, while immigrants from non-Western countries have
| a large negative one"
| wreath wrote:
| they contribute to the system so they should be entitled
| to reap the benefits regardless of citizenship status.
| Your argument could be said for the unproductives natives
| as well, who are a burden on society
| [deleted]
| randomopining wrote:
| West should only let in skilled workers like this, or proper
| refugees who claim asylum. Not just any random 25 year old guy.
| bntyhntr wrote:
| I just watched Falcon and the Winter Soldier so I'm mentally
| biased, but this reminds me (or _doesn't_, I guess) of the plot,
| specifically the GRC.
|
| Specifically how attitudes changed towards people who crossed
| borders to help out when the blip was undone.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Some of it is laudable, some of it is just political show, IMHO.
|
| Indeed, was there really any pressing need to reduce the
| residence requirement from 5 to 2 years for garbage collectors?
|
| To be meaningful this sort of programme should focus on people
| who have gone significantly above and beyond otherwise it just
| dilutes the act of getting citizenship. For instance legionnaires
| wounded in battle can apply for citizenship... Clearly not the
| same at all.
|
| Let's not forget that next year is a major electoral year with
| both Presidential and general elections.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Why all this gatekeeping around citizenship? Why is 5 years the
| right number and not 2? If someone is going to live in your
| country long term you may as well give them citizenship sooner
| so they feel fully bought in as early as possible. And France
| has made the calculation here that, yes, garbage collectors
| that worked straight through the entire pandemic are both (a)
| vital and (b) likely to stick around long-term at this rate, so
| may as well officially recognize that now.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The idea is that citizenship may be granted _after_ a person
| has fully settled and _demonstrated_ that they have
| integrated in society, including through fluency in language
| and culture. I think 5 years is a fair period for this to
| happen and for a person to also _decide_ that this is going
| their 'forever' country.
|
| If the requirements are too low then national identity no
| longer means anything.
|
| There can of course be exceptions but an exception should
| require something exceptional.
|
| > _garbage collectors that worked straight through the entire
| pandemic_
|
| Same as everyone else. The pandemic has not changed their
| job. Compare this with front line health workers in
| overcrowded ICUs who had to face "war-like" conditions for
| months.
| throwaway744678 wrote:
| I'm with you here, and don't understand the downvotes; I
| get that someone can disagree with you, but the argument
| seems reasonable to me, and made in good faith.
|
| Also, I'd like to point out that of lot of commenters are
| from the US: as a French citizen, I very much believe that,
| for obvious historical and cultural reasons, our conception
| of the citizenship (nationality) very much differ.
| BjoernKW wrote:
| In secular countries, citizenship often is considered to be
| something of almost sacred value. Citizenship also comes with
| very tangible benefits such as the right to vote or - in many
| cases - entitlement to social security benefits.
|
| That's not something that should be handed out lightly. That
| said, the current at least partially time-based requirements
| for naturalization in most countries probably aren't exactly
| perfect.
|
| The question is: How would one approach such an individually
| impactful decision differently and more effectively?
| Immigration authorities often already are unable to
| adequately cope with applications for naturalization as is.
|
| Further complicating matters by individually assessing if
| someone is likely to stay in a country probably isn't
| particularly helpful in that regard without a wholesale
| overhaul of the bureaucracy involved.
| carlob wrote:
| > In secular countries, citizenship often is considered to
| be something of almost sacred value. Citizenship also comes
| with very tangible benefits such as the right to vote or -
| in many cases - entitlement to social security benefits.
|
| Having the right citizenship also means you can command
| higher salaries for the exact same job. Some authors have
| called this citizenship premium or citizenship rent.
|
| To me all these seem like valid arguments against
| gatekeeping rather than for. In a way passports serve a
| similar role to what hereditary titles were until the
| 18th-19th century in much of the Western world, and what
| you're saying sounds a lot like the debates people had on
| newly minted barons not deserving the privileges of old
| blood...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Social Security is, more or less, tied to residency for EU-
| citizen across the board anyway. France has a long standing
| tradition of granting citizenship for service to state,
| nation or society (he right of spilled blood, bad
| translation).
|
| And I think we highly over estimate the value of
| citizenships, after all they can be literally bought in
| some places.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _France has a long standing tradition of granting
| citizenship for service to state, nation or society (he
| right of spilled blood, bad translation)._
|
| Indeed, and that should not be diluted by lowering the
| bar to " _has been showing up for work for two years_ ",
| which is pretty much as low as can be and, frankly, an
| insult to those who got it by spilled blood or
| outstanding service.
|
| I'm not against this program but, since it is done in
| relation to the pandemic, it should have been restricted
| to those who did _exceptional_ things to help during that
| time , garbage collectors clearly haven 't even if their
| role is essential.
| Bhilai wrote:
| Most legal immigrants (non-citizens) pay taxes which in
| some form are used to sponsor the very social security
| benefits that you talk about, so why should these
| immigrants not receive these tangible benefits for which
| they have already paid for?
| djbebs wrote:
| Because citizenship is supposed to be an important life
| changing decision with massive consequences at every level.
|
| The dilution of the meaning of citizenship is a massive
| tragedy.
| carlob wrote:
| No the life changing decision is to move to a new country
| to become a garbage collector.
|
| If you consider that the person collecting your garbage
| during a pandemic getting the same rights as you have by
| being born in the right side of the globe is a dilution of
| the meaning of citizenship I really don't know how to
| explain this to you any better.
| [deleted]
| sophacles wrote:
| What purpose does citizenship actually have?
|
| Why does it need to be such a huge deal, and why is it's
| difficulty to attain (unless you accidentally got born
| there) such an important aspect of it?
| blululu wrote:
| Accidentally got born somewhere is a very US centric
| perspective. Most countries do not follow Jus Soli births
| so this is not enough for citizenship. Citizenship is a
| matter belonging to a nation, past, present and future.
| Traditionally families have been the principle unit of
| human organization and citizenship acts as a
| generalization of the family unit to the nation as a
| whole. The answer to your question is pretty simple if
| you replace citizenship with family relations. This is
| perhaps changing as neoliberal ideology emphasizes
| individuals over families or collectives, but this is a
| separate matter.
| sophacles wrote:
| You have sort of explained "what is citizenship",
| complained about some random ideology, and completely
| failed to answer either of my questions.
|
| My country is NOT my family. My "nation" (whatever that
| is... a replacement for a tribe or something?) is NOT my
| family, nor even my extended clan. Why do I need to have
| "family" at a scale of millions of people, almost all of
| whom I will never encounter?
|
| A reminder of the still unanswered questions:
|
| Why does citizenship matter?
|
| What does any of that have to do with the difficulty of
| changing citizenship?
| bserge wrote:
| Lets you live in a place without worrying of being forced
| to go back home.
|
| Basically, you become a lazy local lol
| Zababa wrote:
| Citizenship is here to slow down the rate of change of
| the country/culture/population, which is something many
| country want (and by country I mean either the people
| voting, or the people in power).
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Cool, make everyone apply for it them so that people don't
| get inflated ideas of their own worth just from having the
| good luck to be born within a jurisdiction.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > for garbage collectors?
|
| If these people stop showing up for a month, you'll find out
| just how essential these people are. If it is hard to find
| people to do this domestically, then offering citizenship to
| attract foreign workers is a good idea.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| When the salary is raised, more folks will show up.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Both your points are red herrings. In addition, France does
| not offer citizenship to attract foreign workers. It has sped
| up the process for a few people so that the government can
| have its PR less than a year before elections.
|
| Again, I'm not opposed to granting citizenship outside of the
| normal procedure, but I think this should require having done
| some _exceptional_ to deserve it. I have no problem with
| granting it to a law-abiding health worker who has pulled 60
| hour weeks in ICU since the beginning of the pandemic, but I
| don 't see what a garbage collector who's been doing their
| job normally (like everyone else) has done to deserve "a
| medal".
|
| Lastly, France has a high unemployment rate so I don't think
| there is a need to attract unskilled foreign workers. If
| unskilled jobs are left unfilled (and I don't have data to
| say they are) the issue is not workforce shortages.
| Bayart wrote:
| High unemployment and difficulty to find low-skill workers
| aren't mutually exclusive. In fact it's _exactly_ what is
| going on in France.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Indeed, but I don't think "difficulty to find low-skill
| workers" necessarily equals actual shortages.
|
| What I'm suggesting is that high unemployment is a sign
| that there are people available locally. If there are
| difficulties filling jobs, especially unskilled jobs,
| this therefore points towards problems within the
| employment market and benefits (which are indeed well-
| known for having systemic problems in France for a very
| long time) not 'shortages' per se. In such situation the
| claim that immigration is 'needed' to fill these jobs
| does not hold water.
| phtrivier wrote:
| "Giving citizenship to foreigner" is definitely _not_
| something that the government wants to have in the news
| during the election period (the election will be played, as
| usual, between the candidate that manages to balance
| fearmongering about foreigners and following the eternal
| french mandate of welcoming the oppressed.)
|
| So if there is a calculation, it's to do it _well_ in
| advance of the campaign, so as not to have to justify
| themselves.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| No-one forced the government to set up this program,
| which is not a usual thing to do, and obviously
| everything is political when you're the government. They
| have not really done anything on immigration, it's not
| where they want to go, quite the opposite: " _immigration
| is an opportunity for France_ " [1] and this is part of
| that stance.
|
| Marcon is appealing to the centre and left because I
| think he'd be quite happy to have another second round
| between him and Le Pen. It'd be closer than last time but
| he'd win. So ideally the best things he can do are things
| that make more people on the left vote for him and keep
| Le Pen on top on the right. This might be one of them.
|
| I also think Macron launched his campaign with his visit
| to Marseille, which also looked very much like an appeal
| to the centre and left.
|
| [1] https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-
| news/Immigration-is-a...
| sersi wrote:
| Hadn't read about garbage collectors but given that it's a job
| that's hard to recruit for and has a higher accident than most
| jobs, it makes sense. It's the kind of job that non-immigrants
| tend to not want to do.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Garbage collectors are explicitly mentioned in the article
| and the original article in French.
|
| I'd like to see data to back your claim that it is hard to
| recruit for that job in France. I'm far from convinced and in
| fact in some French cities it is a very coveted job because
| it is well paid taking into account the low number of hours
| (famously source of a long conflict in Marseille where they
| are paid 35h per week but usually work 15h and go on strike
| when attempts are made to increase number of hours actually
| worked...)
| sersi wrote:
| Well, purely anecdotal but a family member was part of the
| local communaute de commune and they had difficulties
| recruiting Eboueurs. This is more in the country side where
| I imagine that the risks in term of accident might be
| higher? (at least when it comes to road safety), I do not
| know the situation in cities.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I had to look up that word (eboueur). I like it, maybe
| they'd have better luck recruiting with a classy french
| title. ;-)
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Only immigrants work for their citizenships, I got mine and you
| got yours as birth and it's clearly a dilution of citizenship.
| vinay427 wrote:
| This is a fantastic reframing, even from someone that already
| generally felt in line with this view. If you consider the
| citizenship test in the US, which is already far easier than
| in much of Europe (and certainly the places with more
| assimilationist tendencies), it's fairly clear that a decent
| number of native-born citizens wouldn't pass in the US, and
| people in the country in which I live would probably do even
| worse on the test here.
|
| A question once asked here was which two species of animals
| are kept together in the local zoo. Another person was denied
| by their town (until appealing to a higher court) because
| they were involved in some animal rights activism, which the
| people in her town/community disagreed with.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Garbage collectors are more essential to a society than any
| developer. Don't mistake being well compensated with being
| important. A lot more people are going to find themselves
| inconvenienced if the neighborhood garbage collector stops his
| route than if the neighborhood software nerd stops writing
| code.
| [deleted]
| throwaway744678 wrote:
| Making the world a better place, one garbage can at a time.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Indeed, was there really any pressing need to reduce the
| residence requirement from 5 to 2 years for garbage collectors?
|
| Judging by piles of garbage decorating biggest cities of
| Western Europe every few months, yes.
| bibinou wrote:
| it's 12000 in a year, not 12000 this week:
|
| " _Un an apres son lancement, 16 381 dossiers ont ete deposes en
| prefecture sur l'ensemble du territoire francais et 12 012
| etrangers sont devenus Francais_ " from the first link in the
| article:
|
| https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/actualites/communiques/marlene...
| bibinou wrote:
| Yearly acquisitions and naturalisations (blue bar) from French
| National Statistic Office:
|
| https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2381644
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| It's similar to an existing law that recognize citizenship
| through spilled blood ( _Francais par le sang verse_ ) [0].
|
| Basically, if you were injured in a battle fighting for France,
| you get expedited citizenship.
|
| Interesting idea to extent it to frontline workers who risked
| their health during the pandemic.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion#Composit...
| Proven wrote:
| Why not decide all matters on a case by case basis?
|
| If they manage to extend these lockdowns for another decade or
| so, they'll solve the problem of illegal immigration too!
| warning26 wrote:
| That's great news!
|
| It seems strange to me that more countries don't offer
| citizenship programmes like this.
| icare_1er wrote:
| Making it easier for foreign doctors, nurses, etc, to become
| French, American, English, etc, cannot go together with
| "helping the southern hemisphere".
|
| The West is often accused of "pillaging" the rest of the
| planet. Whether it is true or false, what is sure is that this
| cannot go together with key workers and vital forces, being
| sucked into western hospitals.
| imtringued wrote:
| The trade deficit nations send their citizens to trade
| surplus nations. The US is a unique country because its
| citizens don't have to go abroad, they can get their dollars
| straight from the central bank.
| nradov wrote:
| It's difficult for doctors from the southern hemisphere to
| work in America. US licensing authorities don't consider most
| foreign medical training as sufficient so at a minimum they
| usually have to repeat residency.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| And for good reasons.
| rscho wrote:
| Are you sure about that? The reason is certainly not the
| quality of incoming personnel, as even german docs have
| to repeat residency. And TBH, I'm quite convinced that
| the average german doc is better than the average US doc.
| The real reason is about having complete control over the
| health worker supply.
| twofornone wrote:
| What exactly is the benefit to importing personnel who
| will work for lower wages and draining talent from other
| nations when we have 300MM+ local people from which we
| could train medical workers?
|
| I fundamentally don't understand why people feel that
| they are entitled to a job in the US, that we somehow owe
| people from other nations a chance to immigrate, when we
| have entire swaths here in the country that have been
| effectively left behind by the economy (inner cities and
| rural america, especially Appalachia). Maybe we should
| focus more on training our existing citizens out of
| poverty and into skilled labor, rather than brain-
| draining the rest of the world.
| wreath wrote:
| What convinces you of that, im curious.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| The control over healthcare supply is pretty obvious
| given how limited the seats are each year for residency
| and matching process. It is entirely controlled by a
| system that has a cap on how many can go through to the
| next stage of mandatory post-med school training...
| rscho wrote:
| I'm an MD and have worked on both sides of the pond. That
| said, I clearly have a negative bias against the US
| system stemming from (bad) personal experience.
|
| What I can say objectively is that US docs are educated
| to be hyperspecialists. They do their thing, and their
| thing only and often have very narrow general medical
| knowledge. Europeans usually are more well-rounded, but
| that tends to backfire in smaller countries where there
| aren't enough cases to become truly expert.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I know an Eastern European surgeon who had to become a
| lawyer in the US because of the licensing game.
| brian_herman wrote:
| I can only hope that other countries follow suit in europe. I
| wish the american government would take action but our
| immigration system is so broken it would just be a drop in the
| bucket.
| vinay427 wrote:
| > our immigration system is so broken
|
| There are plenty of those in Europe as well, in case you've
| missed the barrage of news about migrant crises, xenophobic
| naturalization policies, etc. Certainly, there are also
| countries like France that don't treat citizenship like some
| reward at the end of a pointlessly contrived maze, and these
| countries (IMO) deserve credit for that.
| prpgnda wrote:
| It seems hacker news can't or won't read between the lines here.
| These people aren't medical professionals as implied, the real
| story is that immigration standards have been lowered, and covid
| is the justification.
| baybal2 wrote:
| A laudable advancement for the institute of state, and French
| political process.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| People should not have to be heroes as a precondition of
| citizenship. France did this before with the Malian migrant who
| performed a super-human feat of scaling the facade of a Paris
| apartment block to save a boy.
| lowkey_ wrote:
| Risking his life to save a young child was a selfless and
| commendable act, and his actions really helped add color to the
| national perspective of illegal immigrants in France, who have
| often been discriminated against and viewed as selfish.
|
| He supposedly began working as a firefighter afterwards, which
| France set up for him, and has since become a citizen.
|
| What's the issue with that?
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| The issue is that * _People should not have to be heroes as a
| precondition of citizenship*_. There are hundreds of
| thousands of other illegal immigrants who are not super-human
| heroes but who still as a basic civil right deserve
| citizenship which France denies.
| Bayart wrote:
| Citizenship _isn 't_ a basic civil right. People who follow
| the law can get long term visas. And those who want to stay
| can go through the process of becoming citizens. Plenty do,
| without any heroism involved.
|
| You don't get to show up and become a citizen just for the
| sake of existing.
| RIMR wrote:
| I don't see why not. If we want a strong country, we need
| more people living here. If people want to move here and
| start a life, we should enable that by any means
| necessary.
|
| I understand that the current system doesn't work this
| way, but I also think that the current system is broken
| and unsustainable.
| Zababa wrote:
| Most people would rather have stability of culture and
| the population not changing much compared to having "a
| strong country", especially with France where the
| standard of living is already high.
| lowkey_ wrote:
| Why should everybody who can illegally enter another
| country automatically become a citizen of that country?
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Pen testing border security. The bug bounty is
| citizenship.
| rfrey wrote:
| It's not a precondition, the overwhelming majority of
| citizenships (e.g. all of them minus 12,001) are granted
| through regular channels.
|
| Rewarding exceptional or deserving people does not mean that
| those not rewarded have been treated unjustly. That is a
| perversion of egalitarianism.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| Rewarding exceptional or deserving people _should_ not mean
| that those not rewarded have been treated unjustly.
|
| Yet there are hundreds of thousands of other illegal
| immigrants beyond these 12,001 who maybe are not exceptional
| heroes but who still as a basic civil right deserve a
| citizenship which France denies.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| A citizenship in a foreign country is not a basic civil
| right
| donquichotte wrote:
| As a cynic, I see this as a message to the healthcare workers
| that are unwilling to get vaccinated: you are replaceable, there
| are plenty of people waiting at our doors to take your jobs.
| baud147258 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the Ministry of Health will go forward and push
| the non-vaccinated workers outside even if they don't have
| replacements available. And considering how much non-doctors
| healthcare workers are treated here, I can understand people
| not wanting to work there. (also it's not as if French
| hospitals require being French to work there)
| aaomidi wrote:
| I'm pretty sure Biden can do similar with an executive order. The
| feds do own the entire citizenship pipeline.
|
| Will we take care of the people who took care of us?
| datavirtue wrote:
| Pretty sure we have zero undocumented healthcare pros in the
| US. You have to prove citizenship to change bed pans for $10 an
| hour.
| rockinghigh wrote:
| The workers who gained citizenship in France were not
| undocumented. They were on temporary work visas.
| afavour wrote:
| There's a big gap between "undocumented" and "citizen"
| though. I'm not familiar enough to know how many healthcare
| workers are here on a visa (student visa for medical school
| perhaps?) but in theory any that are could be granted
| citizenship or permanent residency.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| There are people of concern other than undocumented workers.
| There are presumably lots of people in one point or another
| of the healthcare pipeline (H1B's, green card holders, other
| types of working non-citizens. In light of an imminent boom
| (if you will) in demand for healthcare (especially elder-care
| related) we should probably be doing everything we can to
| encourage them to stay.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > You have to prove citizenship
|
| What makes you think such a strange thing? It obviously isn't
| true. Have you never met a foreign healthcare worker?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ruined wrote:
| a huge fraction of nurses and other hospital staff are
| immigrants on work visa, particularly Filipinos. they are not
| undocumented but many would like citizenship.
| wil421 wrote:
| Not true. My brother in laws wife is Costa Rican and was able
| to get a job doing similar work. She's here legally and a
| permanent resident but not a citizen.
| dmix wrote:
| I hope not, America takes enough Canadian health care workers.
| This is better for countries with socialized medicine. They
| don't need any more incentives to go.
| Veen wrote:
| Yeah, as a Brit I find it a little irksome when we pay for
| medical training for people who sod off to the U.S. as soon
| as they are qualified.
| clort wrote:
| as another Brit, I wondered if it is the case that "we pay
| for medical training for people", so I looked it up
|
| https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/career-planning/study-
| and-t...
|
| and it seems that basically you can get a student loan for
| this for the first four years of your degree, then you
| might be eligible for a means tested bursary afterwards and
| a non means-tested PS1000 grant. This scarcely counts as
| paying for medical training, in my opinion.
| Veen wrote:
| That's true, but the costs to the student are heavily
| subsidized. It costs about PS220,000 to train a doctor
| for the first five years. The tuition fees paid by
| students with loans are less than a quarter of that, and
| don't include on-the-job training after the fifth year,
| which significantly inflates the cost.
|
| That's why doctors trained in the US typically graduate
| with around $240,000 in debt, while doctors trained in
| the UK owe a fraction of that.
| mlinhares wrote:
| This is, unfortunately, a win-lose game. If the US relaxed
| its requirements for nurses and doctors they could actually
| destroy the healthcare or many other countries. I've multiple
| friends that are experienced healthcare providers in Brazil
| that would love to move here but the rules are so draconic
| and complicated they have just given up.
|
| In a way I think it's good they have these requirements in
| place as that means people in Brazil won't be without doctors
| but its also pretty awful for me to say something like this
| given I DID move here to work, so I guess anyone else should
| have the same shot.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > If the US relaxed its requirements for nurses and doctors
| they could actually destroy the healthcare or many other
| countries.
|
| Some medical professionals find the US healthcare system to
| be unconscionable. Some would move, some wouldn't. My
| doctor parents were offered jobs in the US but they refused
| on moral grounds - forgoing a somewhat higher salary -
| preferring to stay in Canada.
|
| The best outcome would be for them to move to the US, push
| down salaries (salaries in the US are something like 56% of
| all of healthcare spending) and that normalization would
| then stem the flow of foreign professionals while seriously
| benefitting Americans.
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| Doctor salaries only comprise 8-9% of total healthcare
| spending in the US
| arcticbull wrote:
| hm you're right, I may have found a bad source.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Why doesn't Canada just... compete?
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| I doubt. Forget citizenship, the US is not processing permanent
| residency for its employment based applicants, many of which
| are MDs working in hospitals. The backlog spans more than a
| decade and if the applicant passes away, their family is
| subject to self deportation. The backlog is due to antiquated
| per country caps which result in prolonged waiting times for
| populous countries (I am personally waiting for the last 11
| years). Forget citizenship, forget changing legislation to give
| them green cards faster, the agency (uscis) is poised to waste
| 100,000 of such green cards this year (which cannot be
| recaptured without legislation next year). These numbers would
| otherwise be useful for applications whose petitions were
| approved up to 2013. Truly dystopian.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-100-000-green-cards-at-ris...
| wil421 wrote:
| Why shouldn't we have per country caps? India and China could
| easily become the majority of immigrants due to the
| population size. Mexico is the top country of origin for
| lawful residents but they are our closest neighbor and many
| families have ties to both countries, especially in boarder
| towns. Followed by China and India.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-
| finding...
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| The US issues approximately 1 million green cards per year.
| 86% of those (860k) are for family based and 140k are for
| employment based. Country caps for family based GCs is not
| a bad thing and in fact it does address your point
| domination by populous countries. In absence of a secondary
| differentiation criteria, per country caps are a good thing
| for family based GCs.
|
| But for the 140k employment based GCs, it depends on the
| company hiring the individual based on a
| skillset/qualification and sponsoring them for permanent
| residency. Google doesn't differentiate between an engineer
| from Argentina and an engineer from India (arbitrary
| example). Why should one get a greencard within a year and
| the other have to wait 10+ years?
|
| John oliver did a piece on it last year
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs
| sdenton4 wrote:
| 'Open Borders' lays out the extensive arguments for
| getting rid of caps altogether.
|
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/openborders/
| arcticbull wrote:
| > ... per country caps are a good thing for family based
| GCs.
|
| Would you mind going into detail on why you think that?
| To me, it's not obvious.
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| " In absence of a secondary differentiation criteria,"
|
| I was addressing the concern of the PP who mentioned
| immigration being dominated by a few populous countries
| in absence of country caps. Ideally the immigration
| system should be revamped bottom up to include a point
| based system which gives points to educational
| qualifications as well as familial ties.
|
| The current political climate leaves that option out of
| the window. Hence at least removing country caps from
| employment based immigration (which is 14% of the total
| annual quota) is a reasonable common sense fix.
| solveit wrote:
| > immigration being dominated by a few populous countries
| in absence of country caps.
|
| Why is this bad?
| [deleted]
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| Honestly I don't think it is. However a lot of opponents
| to removing country caps are always concerned with this.
| Hence I was saying if anything country caps _may_ be
| justified for family based GCs. There is no viable
| argument for them to remain for employment based GCs.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Diversity?
| arcticbull wrote:
| Does diversity mean you have to have proportional
| representation for everyone on earth? Or does diversity
| just mean having various different ethnicities or
| national origins within the country? Does constraining
| some very large groups actually skew the demographics
| anyways?
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| Obviously these people can perfectly live on their own
| and forget their family behind
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > India and China could easily become the majority of
| immigrants due to the population size.
|
| Ok?
|
| What's your problem with that?
| Veen wrote:
| It's not very diverse, is it? You'd end up with many
| times more people from India and China as from the whole
| of Africa, for example. Basically no one from small
| nations would get a green card.
|
| The problem is that the number of green cards is
| relatively fixed, so there has to be some way to
| distribute them that prevents two nations from taking
| almost all the spots.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > there has to be some way to distribute them that
| prevents two nations from taking almost all the spots
|
| But why?
|
| Why is it so important to you what countries people are
| coming from?
| arcticbull wrote:
| > It's not very diverse, is it?
|
| The responsibility of an immigration program to its
| citizens isn't necessarily to maximize diversity. It's to
| maximize the benefit to the country. A points-based
| immigration program would allow the country to optimize
| along any number of axes: under-represented minorities,
| skills, etc.
|
| > The problem is that the number of green cards is
| relatively fixed, so there has to be some way to
| distribute them that prevents two nations from taking
| almost all the spots.
|
| Is it? Canada brings in 3x as many immigrants per capita
| as the US does. It's brought in 1% of its population each
| year for roughly the last 100 years - so the equivalent
| of 3-4M green cards per year. I think there's probably a
| lot of wiggle room.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > A points-based immigration program would allow the
| country to optimize along any number of axes: under-
| represented minorities, skills, etc.
|
| That's what the cap is for.
|
| > Canada brings in 3x as many immigrants per capita as
| the US does. It's brought in 1% of its population each
| year for roughly the last 100 years - so the equivalent
| of 3-4M green cards per year.
|
| Almost every week there's a thread with Canadian
| Engineers whining about low pay. How are these out of
| control immigration quotas helping them out?
| arcticbull wrote:
| > That's what the cap is for.
|
| Yes, but it selects for the wrong things. It's an axe
| when you need a scalpel.
|
| > Almost every week there's a thread with Canadian
| Engineers whining about low pay. How are these out of
| control immigration quotas helping them out?
|
| What on earth do you mean "out of control" lol. That's a
| value judgement you made that you're projecting.
|
| Canada has low inequality. Most people are paid roughly
| the same amount - in line with much of Western Europe.
| The US is closer to PNG, the Philippines, Turkey and
| Madagascar. You can't have low inequality and high pay
| for one group. [1] Canadians value that. You don't, and
| that's ok too.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_in
| come_eq...
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > You can't have low inequality and high pay for one
| group.
|
| You also can't have overachievers. This becomes obvious
| when looking at academia. [0]
|
| These individuals are the ones bootstrapping entire
| businesses and economic sectors.
|
| [0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-global-brain-trade
| arcticbull wrote:
| Of course you can have overachievers, I suspect this is a
| very American perspective. Japan Airlines' CEO makes $90K
| a year. Money isn't the be all and end all, promotions
| come with more pay and more social status.
|
| [edit] did you not have overachievers in high school and
| college? I suspect they weren't getting paid! Quite the
| opposite.
| triceratops wrote:
| > It's not very diverse, is it?
|
| Why do you think India and China aren't diverse by
| themselves, and within themselves? India probably has
| more languages than all of Europe. Would it be sensible
| to treat Europe (or even just the Schengen area) as one
| country, to "increase diversity"? I think that would be
| dumb. European countries are obviously very diverse and
| we see that more clearly because they're sovereign
| nations on a map. India and China are mega-countries and
| we fail to appreciate the diversity within.
|
| > Basically no one from small nations would get a green
| card
|
| Why would that happen? It would be a first-come-first-
| served system. If a person from a small nation applies,
| they'll get it at the same time as someone from a bigger
| nation who applied at the same time as them (modulo
| processing time variances).
| cyberlurker wrote:
| This is a really good point I had not considered before.
| I assume there is no policy to look for diversity within
| countries? That's a shame, because probably many majority
| nationals from one country may apply and many minorities
| from those countries are unlikely to make it through.
| triceratops wrote:
| There isn't any "look for diversity" policy at all. The
| law simply establishes caps for the number of green cards
| issued to applicants based on country of birth. Country
| of birth is considered a proxy for diversity. If
| countries were generally of a similar size IRL, and had
| similar rates of migration to the US, it might work
| better.
| Veen wrote:
| > Would it be sensible to treat Europe as one country
|
| Why would it? Europe isn't a country. India and China are
| countries. I fail to see your point. It's obviously more
| diverse if Chinese, Indians, Europeans, South Americans,
| Africans etc have a more or less equal chance, and that's
| what the current rules are supposed to provide.
|
| > It would be a first-come-first-served system
|
| So you think immigration status should be determined by
| whether someone gets their forms in on the 1st of January
| or not? I'm not sure that's entirely practical or fair.
| Perhaps a lottery would be more suitable.
| monocasa wrote:
| For immigration purposes, since the EU is one open
| territory, it absolutely could make sense to treat it as
| a single entity if you buy into the base ideas here
| behind the caps.
| Veen wrote:
| Maybe, but I didn't mention the EU. I said Europe.
| monocasa wrote:
| The common legal system that includes immigration which
| covers the vast majority of Europeans seems on topic for
| your point, AFAICT. Can you elaborate more how you think
| it's not applicable?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| triceratops wrote:
| > Europe isn't a country. India and China are countries.
| I fail to see your point
|
| The point was in the rest of my comment. "Country"
| doesn't imply a homogenous, non-diverse group of people.
| And "diversity" is the purported reason for country-of-
| birth caps.
|
| > It's obviously more diverse if Chinese, Indians,
| Europeans, South Americans, Africans
|
| You said China and India are countries, then went on to
| compare them to continents. Surely you see the fallacy
| here.
|
| > someone gets their forms in on the 1st of January or
| not?
|
| I didn't say anything about the 1st of January (or any
| other date). "First-come-first-served" means applications
| are treated on their merits and processed in the order
| they arrived. If two people with the same application,
| but different country of birth, apply at the same time,
| they should have roughly same result in the same amount
| of time. That's not the case today. And I'm struggling to
| understand how a single queue is "unfair".
| Ekaros wrote:
| Why have caps anyway? There was nothing such in place 400
| years ago, why should there be now?
| jacob2484 wrote:
| Who will pay for all the social services required? The
| existing tax paying citizen via increases taxes and
| lowered standard of living. We already have a shortage of
| housing, overcrowding in schools & major budget deficits.
| No, open borders are not the answer - no country
| has/allows them because of the reasons above.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Maybe allow them to steal some land and build there
| without regulations? Just like the previous people did?
| jacob2484 wrote:
| Are you offering to volunteer your place to live? A lot
| of things, like slavery and public beheadings were done
| 400 years ago, which aren't done today. Any other
| arguments you can provide to make your case rather than
| revisionist history?
|
| You asked a question, I tried to provide an answer to it
| which is reflective of the common viewpoint.
| arcticbull wrote:
| They're based on country of birth, not on country of
| citizenship of the individual or country of recent
| residency of the application. There's no reason,
| whatsoever, to have immigration tied to where your mother
| happened to be physically located when you came into the
| world. It's meaningless. One of my buddies was born in
| India, lived there for a couple of years and moved to the
| UK. He's a UK citizen. He's a principal engineer at a top
| Bay Area tech company. He's been in the India backlog for a
| decade.
|
| Who cares if India and China become the majority of
| immigrations? What difference does it make?
|
| What the US needs is top-down immigration reform and a
| points-based program like Canada and Australia. Those
| countries get to cherry-pick the most skilled immigrants
| and the most likely to thrive in their new homes.
|
| Who cares where they were born?! That's literally the least
| interesting thing about an immigration petition.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I don't know about Australia, but Canada also has a much
| stronger refugee program than America that bypasses the
| whole points system. The US refugee system got worse
| under Trump & I suspect it'll be a constant pendulum
| swing now whenever the GOP gets into power. You can't
| have one without the other.
|
| The other challenge for America is that it gets
| drastically more applications than Canada does (not to
| mention that IIRC Canada does have a bottleneck). I think
| putting region restrictions/incentives for immigration
| might be better, so that you give preference to residency
| outside of already populated areas/less populated states.
| munk-a wrote:
| Canada does have quite visible regional incentives for
| northern settlement - I don't actually think they make
| the northwest territory financially viable, but you will
| get a fair-sized income supplement.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Also to the Maritimes - IIRC the provincial governments
| can nominate individuals to bypass the quotas/caps in
| exchange for committing to spend a couple of years in the
| province.
| klipt wrote:
| How do you enforce regional restrictions on immigration?
| Once someone is a citizen they can move anywhere within
| the country.
|
| If you want to make it attractive to live in some region,
| just create good jobs there and people will follow.
| Trying to force immigrants to live there if there are no
| good jobs sounds like a terrible bandaid.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > How do you enforce regional restrictions on
| immigration? Once someone is a citizen they can move
| anywhere within the country.
|
| My understanding is that there's one province (Quebec)
| that select it's own immigrants (quotas are per
| province).
|
| They can't force anyone to stay so they tune their
| selection algorithm to match profiles that are most
| likely to stay.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I believe each province can nominate individuals under
| PNP. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-
| citizenship/se...
| valarauko wrote:
| > _How do you enforce regional restrictions on
| immigration? Once someone is a citizen they can move
| anywhere within the country._
|
| I'll preface this by saying that this my anecdotal
| understanding of the Canadian immigration process.
| Essentially provinces can nominate the immigration of
| certain desirable professionals, boosting their cases to
| the top of the queue for an immigrant visa. It comes with
| a requirement to live and work in the sponsoring province
| for a minimum period of time - something like 3 years.
| Immigrants are also eligible to apply for citizenship
| after 3 years of residency, and citizens have the right
| to live and work anywhere. From my understanding of the
| provincial nominee system is that they strongly prefer
| that you have an existing social and family network
| within the province, encouraging you to stay put even
| after you become a citizen.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| First, green card != citizenship. You don't get
| citizenship until 5 years have passed & residency limits
| are typically in the 3-5 year range, not beyond. Once
| someone establishes roots for 3-5 years, they usually
| stick around there long term anyway (unless they're young
| & childless).
|
| Secondly, you know how you fill out taxes every year &
| you have to say where your primary residence was for tax
| purposes? That's how you enforce it.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > There's no reason, whatsoever, to have immigration tied
| to where your mother happened to be physically located
| when you came into the world. It's meaningless.
|
| It's to avoid people using passports of convenience to
| game the system.
|
| > He's been in the India backlog for a decade.
|
| Truth is, a lot of that backlog is self-imposed. H1B are
| supposed to be for real employment for a specialty
| occupation. There are "Body Shops", mostly Indian owned,
| that will submit fraudulent applications to import cheap
| underqualified labor in the country. [0] [1]
|
| If the people working at these body shops or their owners
| simply decided to start following the law, this would
| clear the backlog almost instantly.
|
| > What the US needs is top-down immigration reform and a
| points-based program like Canada and Australia. Those
| countries get to cherry-pick the most skilled immigrants
| and the most likely to thrive in their new homes.
|
| And yet how does it explains the brain drain these two
| countries have towards... the US!
|
| [0] https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-
| valleys-body-s...
|
| [1] https://cis.org/North/Indian-Body-Shop-Indicted-
| Abuse-H1B-Pr...
| arcticbull wrote:
| > It's to avoid people using passports of convenience to
| game the system.
|
| Yes I'm sure people looking to immigrate to the US are
| _checks notes_ becoming British Citizens. A country with
| notoriously difficult immigration requirements.
| Citizenship requires 5+ years in most instances to obtain
| (with a few small exceptions). Generally speaking all
| first-world countries have stringent rules.
|
| > Truth is, a lot of that backlog is self-imposed. H1B
| are supposed to be for real employment for a specialty
| occupation.
|
| I'm not sure that's what self-imposed means.
|
| > And yet how does it explains the brain drain these two
| countries have towards... the US!
|
| Immigration to the US is effectively suspended. [0] These
| days those folks are going to Canada. [1]
|
| '"While the States has gone, 'Let's make it difficult to
| get the employees here on a visa,' Canada's gone the
| exact opposite, and it's beneficial for Canada," says
| Alex Norman, the other co-founder of TechToronto. "You
| had a fast-growing ecosystem here that's been getting a
| shot of steroids."'
|
| That's what it looks like when you hang a "NO VACANCIES"
| sign in the window.
|
| [0]
| https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-
| news/s...
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/01/27/799402801/canada-wins-
| u-s-los...
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Generally speaking all first-world countries have
| stringent rules.
|
| First world might, other countries don't. So it would be
| easy to get citizenship from one of those and then use it
| to bypass the cap.
|
| > I'm not sure that's what self-imposed means.
|
| Indian nationals applying for fraudulent visas.
|
| > and it's beneficial for Canada
|
| Is it really? How's the VC ecosystem? Unicorns? Not long
| ago the government bragged to investors that Canadians
| devs were worth 50K less than their American
| counterparts. [0]
|
| [0] https://globalnews.ca/news/4178326/amazon-vancouver-
| tech-wor...
| arcticbull wrote:
| > First world might, other countries don't. So it would
| be easy to get citizenship from one of those and then use
| it to bypass the cap.
|
| In this case I was saying that quotas and caps would
| still apply but be basted on citizenship instead of place
| of birth. If everyone started buying Cayman Islands
| citizenship instead, the quota would fill up fast.
|
| > Indian nationals applying for fraudulent visas.
|
| Again, that's not self-imposed.
|
| > Is it really? How's the VC ecosystem? Unicorns? Not
| long ago the government bragged to investors that
| Canadians devs were worth 50K less than their American
| counterparts. [0]
|
| This is a new phenomenon, and it takes time to turn a
| boat. I think it would be pretty myopic not to see the
| trend, however. The ecosystem will follow in time.
|
| [edit] I think Shopify was the defining moment when
| things started to turn. If an Ottawa startup can reach a
| $200B market cap in a few years, that's going to create a
| lot of wealth, spawn its own startups and an investment
| ecosystem in its own right.
| vikingerik wrote:
| > What the US needs is top-down immigration reform and a
| points-based program like Canada and Australia.
|
| Right. Trump tried proposing a merit-based immigration
| system while he was in office. It quickly got shouted
| down and fell off the radar, by people and factions who
| didn't want to consider that different people have
| varying levels of merit to offer society.
| munk-a wrote:
| The US immigration system is already strongly weighted by
| merit but the lack of family immigration causes a lot of
| folks who marry internationally to just emigrate (like
| me!) - the issue with attracting "good" immigrants isn't
| going to be solved by making it more merit based - it'll
| be solved by making it more fair and predictable.
| Families can spend decades partially locked into green-
| cards that can be revoked without warning forcing them to
| relocate their lives. This isn't an attractive option for
| most people looking for a new home.
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| There wouldn't necessarily be a indian/chinese majority
| if immigration were to "cherry-pick the most skilled
| immigrants"
|
| As the current system is being abused by Indian
| consulting companies plahying the numbers games and
| filing for as many people as possibly to place them at
| low(er) income roles
|
| https://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-
| abuse-h-1b-pr...
| sombremesa wrote:
| As usual, no reply to this comment is actually addressing
| the question:
|
| > Why shouldn't we have per country caps?
|
| So, I'll give it a shot.
|
| Let's say that 1% of the human population happens to have
| great genius. They're the cream of the crop in terms of
| ability, though perhaps they lack opportunity.
|
| Statistically, where are most of them going to be born? In
| the most populous countries of course...
|
| If you choose a flat-rate cutoff for importing talent on a
| per-country basis, you're choosing "diversity" (of
| birthplace...which might not mean anything at all) over
| "talent". Which would be fine, except that this particular
| route to residency was ostensibly created to bring in
| talent specifically.
|
| Although, immigration is a highly politicized issue and
| practicality usually has little to no bearing on the policy
| in this area. It appears many other issues in America are
| heading that way...
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| And... why is that bad?
| wil421 wrote:
| Personally I don't think it's bad and allows immigration
| to happen from more cultures and regions. GP was the one
| who had an issue with the per country caps.
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