An informative comment by a Dane in this thread suggests that the Danish immigration system tries to prevent immigrants using/exploiting its great social welfare benefits while contributing little to the society or causing problems like forming ghettos.
A straightforward way to address this issue is to deploy a point system currently used by several countries, including Canada and Singapore.
I wonder why Denmark and the US, in particular, do not use this obvious sort of point-based system. There will likely be a massive 'brain draw' towards the US if this is implemented and specialized Startup Visa may not even be needed if the criteria/formulas are selected well.
In the Danish system, it looks like the criteria are not optimized towards its real goals and use non-optimal proxy criteria like EU citizenship to make decision on immigration. This creates many weird cases like this (it is obvious from his resume that Gus will contribute as much or more to the Danish society than an average Danish citizen, yet he cannot stay there) and many we did not hear of.
Note:
It is true that the politicians needs to balance the issues of cultural assimilation with economic advantages gained from getting all these qualified immigrants (for example, the US might not want 2 million qualified Chinese and Indians coming in every year and form cliques within the country), but this requirement is easily satisfied by a good quota/bucket system.
The right-wing parties like Dansk Folkeparti have recently begun talking about a reform in which new immigrants wouldn't be eligible for social welfare for the first one or two years. I am strongly against such legislation because it makes potential high-caliber immigrants feel like milk cattle. When you're a newly arrived immigrant in the highest tax bracket, you deserve at least the same basic level of social welfare as everyone else in the country, from day one. From a marketing perspective, Denmark's social system is one of its greatest strengths. Were you to listen to Danish politicians, you'd think the country had a monopoly on creativity and innovation. The reality is that Denmark is solid in those areas but not enough of a stand-out to make it a unique selling point. If the country wants to draw more highly skilled immigrants, it needs to make them feel welcomed.
No immigrant anywhere expects access to the social welfare system immediately. As an expat Dane I am not elligible to use the health system either for the first 6 months I'm in the country.
I doubt very much if any of the must immigrant friendly countries like Canada and Australia would be pushing a bunch of social services on their immigrants and they are considerably more popular with highly qualified people than Denmark.
When I went back to Denmark (I left again thank you very much) with my foreign wife, we had to go through the most ridiculous deceitful process of immigration I have ever seen.
Then they wanted my wife to take that start hjælp money and press her into a cleaning job. I told them to stick their integration process and starthjælp up where it belongs and not bother us anymore as we were not there permanently and were specifically not interested in integrating in a bull shit society.
Supposing I were a topskat-paying immigrant, newly arrived in Denmark, you better believe I'd expect the usual level of healthcare and childcare services. Unemployment benefits and the like are a different matter. The expectation is that you came to Denmark to work and you know what you're doing, so restrictions there make perfect sense.
As for how it works in other countries, here's an example. When I worked in Korea, I paid the mandatory government healthcare tax (it was a few percent) and thereby received the same level of treatment as everyone else. It went into effect as soon as I arrived. That's all I'm talking about. Fair is fair. If you try to turn the system into a one-way street, even if only for the first year or two, you risk pushing away the most attractive would-be entrepreneurs and workers looking to immigrate to the country, exactly the kind of people who have no shortage of options elsewhere.
I'm sorry you had to go through that shit. My fiancee and I visited my parents in Denmark for Christmas. The amount of paperwork to get her a simple two-week sponsored visitor's visa was staggering.
The Canadian list of "skilled workers" is a list of job types where they are current shortages. Some IT jobs were recently taken off the list, and it contains plenty of blue-collar type jobs:
I don't claim that they don't admit low-income workers, but that their laws discriminate in preference of high-income workers (that is, highly educated professionals). See their points system [1]. (It also discriminates on the basis of age, which would be a Human Rights violation if it was a private employer doing it. [2])
Some random other country doesn't owe you a thing and so they get to be selective about who they let in. In Canada you have to show you won't place "excessive demand" on their services, and it's defined as:
"Requirements for medical or social services of such a level as to threaten the sustainability of Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system, or deny or delay access to Canadians that would prevent the admission of an applicant to Canada."
Some random web link says that Excessive Demand was calculated to be $24,030 of health or social services over a five-year period. There's lots of stories of families with a mildly autistic child being denied residence in Canada, for example.
It's not in the best interests of a country to let an older person in who wont pay much tax and then try to collect social security and use health services as they get older.
Australia, for example, has a specific visa to enable retirees to live in Australia for a period of time. Note, however, that you need a lot of assets, a substantial income and proof of health insurance for the duration of the stay.
Plainly, to tolerate laws that explicitly discriminate against low-income and blue collar workers.
Genuine confusion here - are you taking the position that nations should not discriminate when choosing who they allow to immigrate, perhaps by preferring highly-educated immigrants?
Genuine confusion here - are you taking the position that nations should not discriminate when choosing who they allow to immigrate,
My position is that states shouldn't be empowered to allow or deny immigration, because freedom of movement is a human right. But separately, I think it's unjust that laws give preferential treatment for the wealthy (or education status as a PC indicator thereof). (Actually it's not just education; a lot of countries have explicit wealth discrimination in the form "investor" categories, for example the US' EB-5 program).
I have a small-government ideology; I believe laws should have highly compelling justifications, and I consider the two reasons for restricted immigration (one, central economic planning, and two, control of culture) not sufficiently so.
> My position is that states shouldn't be empowered to allow or deny immigration, because freedom of movement is a human right.
Any government is a sovereign nation. The laws are decided by a democratically elected legislature.
Are you proposing that state sovereignty should be abolished and power should be removed from a democratic legislature?
> I have a small-government ideology;
Then your ideology and your proposal are completely inconsistent. Rich countries will be flooded by poor and unskilled immigrants. These immigrants will then vote and fight for a redistribution of the wealth (through social services, etc...). Simple market forces will tell you that this would happen.
What is left is a big government with a small tax base (of former citizens).
---
On a side note, I believe that immigration discrimination is good. It allows minorities who are productive members of socialist societies (i.e. tax heavy) to flee in to countries where their skills are valued.
This then forces poor countries with socialist tendencies to either re-evaluate their taxation policies or face a huge brain drain.
Then your ideology and your proposal are completely inconsistent. Rich countries will be flooded by poor and unskilled immigrants. These immigrants will then vote and fight for a redistribution of the wealth (through social services, etc...). Simple market forces will tell you that this would happen.
I don't propose that states automatically grant welfare to any visitors; it's free movement that I claim is a fundamental right, not free money. Nor do I propose immigrants have automatic citizens' votes, not in any immediate time period. Nor that such welfare issues be up for a democratic vote -- they could be a constitutional issue instead.
I don't see how, with these qualifications, this leads to a collapsed welfare state. Without welfare guarantees (at least not for new immigrants), there's no selection tendency for rent-seeking. Instead there's selection pressure for hard-working people, living in states where their efforts are undervalued (because of broken government or broken economy).
On a side note, I believe that immigration discrimination is good. It allows minorities who are productive members of socialist societies (i.e. tax heavy) to flee in to countries where their skills are valued.
I think you've misunderstood your argument. You've argued that permitting highly-skilled immigration is beneficial; but not that restricting low-skilled immigration isn't. What's the economic argument for trade barriers on low-skilled labor?
> Nor do I propose immigrants have automatic citizens' votes,
Whether you propose it or not, they will fight it. And they will get citizenship through other means (such as ancor babies and chain weddings).
> Nor that such welfare issues be up for a democratic vote
You know that in many countries illegal immigrants protest for welfare benefits (even though they are not citizens). Whether you like it or not, they will claim it.
If an immigrant has cancer, you cannot just send him away from the hospital.
> You've argued that permitting highly-skilled immigration is beneficial; but not that restricting low-skilled immigration isn't. What's the economic argument for trade barriers on low-skilled labor?
The fact that low-skilled labourers are often a net-expense to most governments (i.e. more tax money is spent on them and their social ills).
The lower strata of society is also more likely to be involved in crime (which affects the rest of the population) and have explosive population growth. The latter is important since in 99.99% of countries, children born in that country gets citizenship.
It's very easy to develop and introduce an immigration scheme that will produce an influx of low-income and blue-collar workers. Points-based systems are not a replacement for the traditional immigration schemes, instead they are complementary to them.
It's obvious that it's discriminatory but at the same time there is a limited number of immigrants that are allowed into the country every year. It's probably best to take those who can easily get integrated into society. For example in the province where I'm from (Quebec) immigrants from French speaking countries get more points. This is very discriminatory but at the same time, the society here is predominantly French and it's obvious that some one who can already speak French will have an easier time finding work.(Actually now days, if you aren't bilingual in english and french in Quebec finding work can be really hard.)
There is much worse things in immigration policy here like the amount of money you need to bring with you to be allowed in. Were talking about 15k in cash to prove to the immigration officers that you have enough to survive without needing Government assistance in the first year. I believe this is per person.
I think the reason for US not implementing any points-based system is that it's simply not that much needed there. US universities are constantly ranked as best in the world (6 of top 10 and 5 of top 5 technical universities are located there according to Times index), their (very skilled) foreign graduates constantly use K-* visas as a step towards a work permit of some sort and almost nobody of them leaves. Add relaxed immigration rules for Canadians and Australians, and last, but not least, the H-1B pool.
Of course, folks from the Google's HR will tell you that there's a huge shortage of technical talent out there. Still, given the US education system's power, introducing points-based system might make more harm than good.
Denmark, to the best of my knowledge, had points-based system around 3 years ago. I just checked nyidanmark.dk -- it's not there any more. Have no idea why.
Denmark does have something vaguely like it, though perhaps not as extensive. I'm on a researcher visa in Denmark (American citizenship), and it went via a separate program that was essentially, "rubber-stamp visas for researchers". I got my work permit by mail, in about two weeks after applying (!).
There are other Special Schemes for people who: have been offered high-paying jobs in Denmark (above ~$70k), who hold qualifications in professions deemed to be lacking available manpower, and a few other categories: https://www.workindenmark.dk/Find%20information/Til%20arbejd...
I think a point system is great for regular immigrants. But they have new rules about point system for bringing in a spouse. In that case they are just plain f-ing with our human rights as citizens, meaning that they are telling us that they can decide who we marry or not.
Comments
An informative comment by a Dane in this thread suggests that the Danish immigration system tries to prevent immigrants using/exploiting its great social welfare benefits while contributing little to the society or causing problems like forming ghettos.
A straightforward way to address this issue is to deploy a point system currently used by several countries, including Canada and Singapore.
I wonder why Denmark and the US, in particular, do not use this obvious sort of point-based system. There will likely be a massive 'brain draw' towards the US if this is implemented and specialized Startup Visa may not even be needed if the criteria/formulas are selected well.
In the Danish system, it looks like the criteria are not optimized towards its real goals and use non-optimal proxy criteria like EU citizenship to make decision on immigration. This creates many weird cases like this (it is obvious from his resume that Gus will contribute as much or more to the Danish society than an average Danish citizen, yet he cannot stay there) and many we did not hear of.
Note: It is true that the politicians needs to balance the issues of cultural assimilation with economic advantages gained from getting all these qualified immigrants (for example, the US might not want 2 million qualified Chinese and Indians coming in every year and form cliques within the country), but this requirement is easily satisfied by a good quota/bucket system.
The right-wing parties like Dansk Folkeparti have recently begun talking about a reform in which new immigrants wouldn't be eligible for social welfare for the first one or two years. I am strongly against such legislation because it makes potential high-caliber immigrants feel like milk cattle. When you're a newly arrived immigrant in the highest tax bracket, you deserve at least the same basic level of social welfare as everyone else in the country, from day one. From a marketing perspective, Denmark's social system is one of its greatest strengths. Were you to listen to Danish politicians, you'd think the country had a monopoly on creativity and innovation. The reality is that Denmark is solid in those areas but not enough of a stand-out to make it a unique selling point. If the country wants to draw more highly skilled immigrants, it needs to make them feel welcomed.
No immigrant anywhere expects access to the social welfare system immediately. As an expat Dane I am not elligible to use the health system either for the first 6 months I'm in the country.
I doubt very much if any of the must immigrant friendly countries like Canada and Australia would be pushing a bunch of social services on their immigrants and they are considerably more popular with highly qualified people than Denmark.
When I went back to Denmark (I left again thank you very much) with my foreign wife, we had to go through the most ridiculous deceitful process of immigration I have ever seen.
Then they wanted my wife to take that start hjælp money and press her into a cleaning job. I told them to stick their integration process and starthjælp up where it belongs and not bother us anymore as we were not there permanently and were specifically not interested in integrating in a bull shit society.
Supposing I were a topskat-paying immigrant, newly arrived in Denmark, you better believe I'd expect the usual level of healthcare and childcare services. Unemployment benefits and the like are a different matter. The expectation is that you came to Denmark to work and you know what you're doing, so restrictions there make perfect sense.
As for how it works in other countries, here's an example. When I worked in Korea, I paid the mandatory government healthcare tax (it was a few percent) and thereby received the same level of treatment as everyone else. It went into effect as soon as I arrived. That's all I'm talking about. Fair is fair. If you try to turn the system into a one-way street, even if only for the first year or two, you risk pushing away the most attractive would-be entrepreneurs and workers looking to immigrate to the country, exactly the kind of people who have no shortage of options elsewhere.
I'm sorry you had to go through that shit. My fiancee and I visited my parents in Denmark for Christmas. The amount of paperwork to get her a simple two-week sponsored visitor's visa was staggering.
A straightforward way to address this issue is to deploy a point system currently used by several countries, including Canada and Singapore.
Plainly, to tolerate laws that explicitly discriminate against low-income and blue collar workers.
The Canadian list of "skilled workers" is a list of job types where they are current shortages. Some IT jobs were recently taken off the list, and it contains plenty of blue-collar type jobs:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who-ins...
You spent 1 year in the past 10 as a fry cook or installing flooring? Great! Canada needs your skills!
The Australian list contains plenty of blue-collar jobs too:
http://www.workingin-australia.com/visa/skill-shortages/skil...
I don't claim that they don't admit low-income workers, but that their laws discriminate in preference of high-income workers (that is, highly educated professionals). See their points system [1]. (It also discriminates on the basis of age, which would be a Human Rights violation if it was a private employer doing it. [2])
[1] http://www.workpermit.com/canada/points_calculator.htm
[2] http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/lp/spila/wlb/caowc/10chapter_5.sh...
Some random other country doesn't owe you a thing and so they get to be selective about who they let in. In Canada you have to show you won't place "excessive demand" on their services, and it's defined as:
"Requirements for medical or social services of such a level as to threaten the sustainability of Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system, or deny or delay access to Canadians that would prevent the admission of an applicant to Canada."
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/publications/dmp-hand...
Some random web link says that Excessive Demand was calculated to be $24,030 of health or social services over a five-year period. There's lots of stories of families with a mildly autistic child being denied residence in Canada, for example.
http://www.canadianimmigrant.ca/health/healthinsurancecovera...
It's not in the best interests of a country to let an older person in who wont pay much tax and then try to collect social security and use health services as they get older.
Australia, for example, has a specific visa to enable retirees to live in Australia for a period of time. Note, however, that you need a lot of assets, a substantial income and proof of health insurance for the duration of the stay.
http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/retirement/405/
Plainly, to tolerate laws that explicitly discriminate against low-income and blue collar workers.
Genuine confusion here - are you taking the position that nations should not discriminate when choosing who they allow to immigrate, perhaps by preferring highly-educated immigrants?
Genuine confusion here - are you taking the position that nations should not discriminate when choosing who they allow to immigrate,
My position is that states shouldn't be empowered to allow or deny immigration, because freedom of movement is a human right. But separately, I think it's unjust that laws give preferential treatment for the wealthy (or education status as a PC indicator thereof). (Actually it's not just education; a lot of countries have explicit wealth discrimination in the form "investor" categories, for example the US' EB-5 program).
I have a small-government ideology; I believe laws should have highly compelling justifications, and I consider the two reasons for restricted immigration (one, central economic planning, and two, control of culture) not sufficiently so.
> My position is that states shouldn't be empowered to allow or deny immigration, because freedom of movement is a human right.
Any government is a sovereign nation. The laws are decided by a democratically elected legislature.
Are you proposing that state sovereignty should be abolished and power should be removed from a democratic legislature?
> I have a small-government ideology;
Then your ideology and your proposal are completely inconsistent. Rich countries will be flooded by poor and unskilled immigrants. These immigrants will then vote and fight for a redistribution of the wealth (through social services, etc...). Simple market forces will tell you that this would happen.
What is left is a big government with a small tax base (of former citizens).
--- On a side note, I believe that immigration discrimination is good. It allows minorities who are productive members of socialist societies (i.e. tax heavy) to flee in to countries where their skills are valued.
This then forces poor countries with socialist tendencies to either re-evaluate their taxation policies or face a huge brain drain.
Then your ideology and your proposal are completely inconsistent. Rich countries will be flooded by poor and unskilled immigrants. These immigrants will then vote and fight for a redistribution of the wealth (through social services, etc...). Simple market forces will tell you that this would happen.
I don't propose that states automatically grant welfare to any visitors; it's free movement that I claim is a fundamental right, not free money. Nor do I propose immigrants have automatic citizens' votes, not in any immediate time period. Nor that such welfare issues be up for a democratic vote -- they could be a constitutional issue instead.
I don't see how, with these qualifications, this leads to a collapsed welfare state. Without welfare guarantees (at least not for new immigrants), there's no selection tendency for rent-seeking. Instead there's selection pressure for hard-working people, living in states where their efforts are undervalued (because of broken government or broken economy).
On a side note, I believe that immigration discrimination is good. It allows minorities who are productive members of socialist societies (i.e. tax heavy) to flee in to countries where their skills are valued.
I think you've misunderstood your argument. You've argued that permitting highly-skilled immigration is beneficial; but not that restricting low-skilled immigration isn't. What's the economic argument for trade barriers on low-skilled labor?
> Nor do I propose immigrants have automatic citizens' votes,
Whether you propose it or not, they will fight it. And they will get citizenship through other means (such as ancor babies and chain weddings).
> Nor that such welfare issues be up for a democratic vote
You know that in many countries illegal immigrants protest for welfare benefits (even though they are not citizens). Whether you like it or not, they will claim it.
If an immigrant has cancer, you cannot just send him away from the hospital.
> You've argued that permitting highly-skilled immigration is beneficial; but not that restricting low-skilled immigration isn't. What's the economic argument for trade barriers on low-skilled labor?
The fact that low-skilled labourers are often a net-expense to most governments (i.e. more tax money is spent on them and their social ills).
The lower strata of society is also more likely to be involved in crime (which affects the rest of the population) and have explosive population growth. The latter is important since in 99.99% of countries, children born in that country gets citizenship.
It's very easy to develop and introduce an immigration scheme that will produce an influx of low-income and blue-collar workers. Points-based systems are not a replacement for the traditional immigration schemes, instead they are complementary to them.
It's obvious that it's discriminatory but at the same time there is a limited number of immigrants that are allowed into the country every year. It's probably best to take those who can easily get integrated into society. For example in the province where I'm from (Quebec) immigrants from French speaking countries get more points. This is very discriminatory but at the same time, the society here is predominantly French and it's obvious that some one who can already speak French will have an easier time finding work.(Actually now days, if you aren't bilingual in english and french in Quebec finding work can be really hard.)
There is much worse things in immigration policy here like the amount of money you need to bring with you to be allowed in. Were talking about 15k in cash to prove to the immigration officers that you have enough to survive without needing Government assistance in the first year. I believe this is per person.
I think the reason for US not implementing any points-based system is that it's simply not that much needed there. US universities are constantly ranked as best in the world (6 of top 10 and 5 of top 5 technical universities are located there according to Times index), their (very skilled) foreign graduates constantly use K-* visas as a step towards a work permit of some sort and almost nobody of them leaves. Add relaxed immigration rules for Canadians and Australians, and last, but not least, the H-1B pool.
Of course, folks from the Google's HR will tell you that there's a huge shortage of technical talent out there. Still, given the US education system's power, introducing points-based system might make more harm than good.
Denmark, to the best of my knowledge, had points-based system around 3 years ago. I just checked nyidanmark.dk -- it's not there any more. Have no idea why.
Denmark does have something vaguely like it, though perhaps not as extensive. I'm on a researcher visa in Denmark (American citizenship), and it went via a separate program that was essentially, "rubber-stamp visas for researchers". I got my work permit by mail, in about two weeks after applying (!).
There are other Special Schemes for people who: have been offered high-paying jobs in Denmark (above ~$70k), who hold qualifications in professions deemed to be lacking available manpower, and a few other categories: https://www.workindenmark.dk/Find%20information/Til%20arbejd...
I think a point system is great for regular immigrants. But they have new rules about point system for bringing in a spouse. In that case they are just plain f-ing with our human rights as citizens, meaning that they are telling us that they can decide who we marry or not.
> I wonder why Denmark and the US, in particular, do not use this obvious sort of point-based system.
They don't because the obvious supporters of such a system have joined forces with the open borders folk and/or the "let in low-income/skills" folk.