Ah. “More urgency” that’s what we were missing in dealing with migration to the EU. More panic. More paranoia. Good.
Thank God we have Sunak & Meloni to bring us innovative ideas like “tougher measures” to stop migration. Why hadn’t we thought of that?
Groundbreaking. #r4today
The truth is you can ramp up the extremist rhetoric against refugees as far as you like.
Smugglers don’t cause migration.
Hope does.
Migration is life. It will happen anyway. It is happening anyway, even with these clowns & their deadly “tough measures” in power. #r4today
Smugglers just exploit people who have hope of a better life, take their money and don't care what happens to them.
@zleap @zoejardiniere I'm sorry but this is a bad take in my opinion (the original toot, that is) and is conflating the ideas of literal human trafficking (e.g. smugglers) with legitimate migration.
Additionally, I would argue that people should have at least some small amount of say in who they want in their neighborhoods, particularly if the migrants are culturally dramatically different than themselves.
While empathy is a good thing in general, too much empathy without regards to real world complications of mixing people from different cultural and religious backgrounds can cause disastrous consequences if not managed appropriately, and by ignoring these problems by saying "it will happen anyway, so why try to stop it" is ridiculous.
That same line of reasoning wasn't apply to covid, nor teen-pregnancy, nor AIDS, or so many societal ills, and yet for migration, something that can literally change the economy, election preferences, voting patterns, culture, etc. of a region/country over the span of 50-100 years, and we are suppose to uncritically accept it and "just let it happen"?
Again, I'm not saying migration is *necessarily* bad, but it's not *necessarily* good either. Suffering, persecution, poverty etc. needs to be alleviated, but migration alone cannot solve this problem; here's a good talk on this from the perspective of poverty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCcFNL7EmwY
I agree to an extent; however, it is also possible to create those skills locally by subsidizing training, or through other government programs aside from simply extracting wealth (in the form of trained individuals which their new country has incurred no cost in supporting or training) from impoverished nations (and subsequently putting the workers that are benefiting the new country at low cost through the mill to get citizenship/residency status, which is ridiculous).
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the migrants are wrong for wanting better living/working conditions (I'm considering immigrating to Europe for a tenure track job after I finish my PhD if possible for my wife's sake) but I'm also of the mind that bulk migration isn't necessarily the way to go.
I'm of the mind that hybrid approaches that are win-win for the migrant, the new country, and the old country would be ideal. Constructing such a solution may not be possible in all circumstances, but I think it should be something we strive for (e.g. you can come work here for higher wages and better quality of life, but you need to mentor more doctors that come here on study visas, and we'll compensate your local area for supporting you while you were being trained, etc. etc. etc.).
Long story short, I want to try to do this in the most effective, efficient, and non-zero-sum way possible, and I think our current policies leave a LOT to be desired because there is so little thought that goes into them other than "how many".
I agree, and escpecially on things like training people on skills, it is far better to invest in your own population, and toa point when you do so, you end up exporting that expertise around the world. I know in the US there is an intercompany transfer visa, (or there was) so a person working for a multi-national has a chance to go and work in different countries, great way to experience different cultures.
Another thing is, that we in the UK are already short on dentists for example so more people coming in puts pressure on an already overstretched system, that doesn't do anyone any good.
Migrants with speficic skills who want to carry on in a new country also need to be able to go to that area, so a farmer will want to go to a rural farm area, rather than a big city for example so they can carry on farming.
Perhaps also by knowing who is coming in to a country, it is hopefully possible to protect people from explitation, if you are not documented, you don't exist, so how can you even be here, on paper you are not. Being here legally gives you the same rights as others, if on a specific visa, then you can work in certain jobs, earn the right living / minimum wage and afforded the same rights as other workers.
Hopefully this is of course reciprocated.
What do you think to Suealla Bravermans comments about the UN refugee defintion being out of date as it was written in 1949 (or was it 1951) which was a different era. As I have mentioned before doesn't take in to account global warming (or at least I don't think it does). So her idea is to reduce incoming migration, my comment was to update it so it is fit for 2023 and beyond and the global situation, perhaps a new clause in there to say looka t this every 10 years and tweak accordingly. So agree with her but not in the way she wants us to agree.
@johnabs @zoejardiniere
Migration is needed to bring in skills to a country where those skills are in short supply, the downside of that is it depletes the originating country of those skills.
I think we have seen evidence of that in Nigeria, skilled doctors leaving the country to work elsewhere, and even here in the UK doctors are looking at leaving to work in other countries, better pay, better conditions and for many a better work life balance.
I agree that moving away from a country doesn't solve the inherent issues that country faces.
It will be interesting to see how climate change impacts on migration as areas of the world become uninhabitable due to heat for example.