Britain's loony rules for artist visas embarrass festival organizers
All of this is drawn from the national panic over immigration, the last respectable bastion of racism ("I mean, if they want to come in here, they should play by the rules, don't you know" -- ever seen those rules, much less tried to follow 'em? They'd give Kafka fits). Next time you hear someone whittering on about immigrants, call 'em on it. I'm an immigrant and the son of immigrants and the grandson of immigrants who shredded their papers to get through the Czech border and snuck into Canada without "following the rules." You got a problem with immigration, you got a problem with me.
Dorothea Rosa Herliany, according to the festival, is one of the most important poets writing in Indonesia today. She is a feminist, note the Muslim society in which she works, and has eight volumes of poetry to her name. Currently resident for a short time in Germany, she received this crushingly dim response to her application for a visa.Stopping culture at our borders (via We Make Money Not Art)"You have provided an invitation to participate in the Ledbury Poetry Festival in the UK, however you have failed to provide any documents showing the funds available to you or demonstrating your current circumstances in Germany. I note that you only arrived in Germany in April 09, and have limited leave to remain until 30/07/09. I am therefore not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that you are a genuine visitor, that you intend to leave the UK at the end of your visit..."
If you want to know about the new visa requirements, the excellent Manifesto Club has done much work on a campaign with the Observer. If you want to contact Woolas, the address and number given on his website, from which you can also email him, are 11 Church Lane, Oldham, OL1 3A. Telephone: 0161 624 4248.
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Actually I do have a problem with people who feel they can ignore any law they don't like.
So, for example, if you are a pregnant Red Army deserter who fled to Azerbaijan to give birth (e.g. my grandmother) and you're hoping to get to a refugee boat in Hamburg so that you can join your husband's brother in Canada and raise your family, do you think that you shouldn't be able to "ignore the law" that says you're not allowed to transit Czechoslovakia on pain of being sent to a gulag in Siberia?
Because that's what my family did.
"You can't ignore the law because you don't feel like obeying it" is a thing that privileged, happy people who've never been refugees, never been in war, and never faced any serious threat to themselves or their families say because they don't know any better.
Herliany's visa situation does seem a bit strange, and if I were in charge of considering her application, I would be confused as well. Why is she living in Germany, and on what sort of visa? If that visa is expiring at the end of this month, and she was going to a festival in the UK in the middle of this month, then was she planning on returning to Germany for the two weeks before her visa there expired? Was she planning on going somewhere else? Was she planning on using the trip to circumvent visa regulations in Germany and extend her leave to stay there? Her current circumstances in Germany do seem relevant, and it seems odd that she didn't include anything about them.
The situation with Crowe was an embarrassment, but with Herliany, I'm not so sure.
@3: At the end of my Fulbright at USC in Los Angeles, I applied for a six-week extension to my J-1 visa in order to stay on and pack up the house and be Guest of Honor at ComicCon while my wife's secondment to BBC America ran out. In the middle of the seven-month approval process, I went abroad, to keynote at the iCommons conference in Dubrovnik; this had the effect of nullifying my extension request, which meant that on my return to the USA, I was out-of-visa (without knowing it) for two weeks. At that time, I had to leave the country and re-enter as a B1 "Business Visitor."
Why is Herliany going to the UK on a trip that overlaps the expiry of her Germany visa? Possibly because *the conference was scheduled on that date*.
Why is she returning to Germany after the visa runs out? Possibly because she *has a return ticket that departs from Germany* and so rather than having to buy her an overseas ticket, the conference organizers are able to stick her on an EasyJet flight back to Hamburg or whereever so she can pack up her stuff and head home from her artist-in-residency or whatever else brought her there.
Giant corporations like the BBC make minor mistakes in planning their employees' foreign visas (as my wife, former exec producer at BBC who spent a year in the USA on behalf of her employer, can attest). Individual artists who are invited to visit on behalf of local, state-funded cultural institutions are no different. This is compounded by the impenetrable mess of regulations over artist visas here in the UK (and in the US and Canada, and many other places) and the incredibly slow approvals process that means that if you make a minor mistake you can't possibly correct it in time to make the event.
How many famous artists defected to Britain last year after being invited to attend a festival? I can't find evidence of a single one.
Britain is gripped by a racist panic over Eastern European and Romany immigrants who are entitled to come here under the terms of the EU, and since they can't do anything about these people, they're lashing out at everyone else. The former is shameful, the latter stupid *and* shameful.
governments fundamentally don't want their peons to mingle. They might get ideas.
@3 @1, can i simplify this for you? you have a stick in your ass and you're advocating a problem for problem's sake. what kind of muse is that? To prick on people's space and stretching space.
"Why is she living in Germany?" Why did you pick blue? It's easy to speak so swiftly about and in support of rules and regulations where you're privileged and sitting on the benefit side of the fence.
It's so simple: She was invited as a poet, for a poet festival. People stuck with these jobs aren't paid for good sense of judgement. They're hypocrites burning time to impose rules. If you're such a fan, go be a cop already and waste more people's time.
What has this benefited by blocking out a poet from a festival?
I think you're absolutely right that the UK rules are badly drafted and ineptly implemented. You may be right (if this is what you're saying) that important poets should have a large degree of freedom of movement. But the idea that as the son and grandson of immigrants you're bound to defend the interests of all other immigrants, irrespective of the merits of the case (again, if that's what you're saying), is surely a mistake. In fact, it sounds a bit like the sort of thing people on the other side of the argument say: 'My grandfather defended this land, my father defended this land, and if you think I'm going to let some Red Army deserter take a piece of it now, well, pal, you've got a problem with me.'
Ackpht @ 1: "Actually I do have a problem with people who feel they can ignore any law they don't like."
There's a fundamental difference between laws with moral force (forbidding murder, drunk driving etc) and those which embody immorality (mandating yellow stars for jews, or returning runaway slaves to their owners). The question is, if those are the extremes of the spectrum, where do the UK's immigration rules lie along that line? Or do you really think we should obey laws however bad they are?
Wa @ 3: "The situation with Crowe was an embarrassment, but with Herliany, I'm not so sure."
What's the difference? In both cases, ISTM, Germany were happy to accept the artists concerned, whereas the UK turned them away. Why? What harm were the UK authorities trying to prevent?
The British government is facing an immigration problem. There are two facets to this: the first is the popular vote, which loves to restrict free movement, the second is the dismal reality of a recession - the recent influx of EU workers compounding the already existing non-EU problem.
The UK is a rather small country. In this recession, many young people are finding it increasingly hard to find employment - both full time and part time. There is a shortage of working class jobs for the young. Many are often accused of being lazy and idle, but this is not always the case. The working class blames foreign workers, but regrettably they tend they blame all foreign workers. Free movement of workers within the EU is a fantastic development, and it works very well, but you cannot ask the lower class public to appreciate this if they don't have the capacity or opportunity to experience the benefits directly. Vastly reduced immigration figures during a recession will act as a political 'can-do' grenade in forthcoming general election. The favoured method of illegal migration to this country is through tourist visas, second to that are “meetings” and conferences.
In this recession people need work. There is a huge problem with unemployment. Recent expansion of the EU has meant that many jobs, such as service jobs at small traders and shops, have gone to nationals of other member states, swamping out local applicants. The electorate must accept this. But it has come at a very bad time - lax border control and visa permits have meant that there are now so many foreign nationals in the country, few people can work locally, and the EU expansion has only compounded the issue.
For students in the countryside, who rely on local towns for summer employment in order to pay debt or raise funds, there was little or no part-time work available before the recession, let alone now. In cities many workmen - who charge a fair price - are competing against EU and foreign nationals who merely wish to continue living here, but desire no specific standard of living (or don't have a family), allowing them to significantly undercut bids from nationals (the latter can also benefit from the use of illegally paid workers). Their 'situational elasticity' (I made that one up) is like some kind of member state backed predatory pricing scheme, but with human currency.
So alas, while we want free movement to help enrich our workforce, and benefit us reciprocally with jobs in Europe, we're finding local employment tight on all fronts. Since we can't stop the influx of Europeans we have to go elsewhere - which means restricting immigration and by virtue, opportunity to access the UK.
So let's consider this prominent Indonesian's rejection:
"... however you have failed to provide any documents showing the funds available to you or demonstrating your current circumstances in Germany."
If you cannot get a working visa within the EU, you must have the funds with you. All EU member states require this. If she did not supply documents, then this is hardly a valid criticism of the immigration process when things are spelled out rather clearly on the application forms. If you had no money, and you wanted to go to another country with no money, what would you have to do to survive?
"I note that you only arrived in Germany in April 09, and have limited leave to remain until 30/07/09. I am therefore not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that you are a genuine visitor, that you intend to leave the UK at the end of your visit..."
Germany has granted a limited stay period. Since immigrants cannot teleport from one country to another, and they also find it rather hard to sail for some reason, if you were asked to introduce objective criteria that would identify a travelling immigrant, what would you use?
I am a post-graduate student, and since my 2nd year I have been unable to find or resume work while at home during the summer, because someone else has 'my' job: that someone else has cost me nearly £3000 every year I cannot find work. Each £3000 I cannot get I have to borrow to finish my studies. This is a similar problem for many, and one that did not affect my village before EU expansion. I believe that if the UK had tighter control immigration before EU expansion, migrant EU workers would have been easily assimilated into the domestic work force and I would still have a summer job. Sadly it is my belief illegal immigration have offset this assimilation so much, it is me who is pushed out of the market to make room.
There are many sides to the story, and I have told only one. I would like to think that I listen to my friends and their families and in doing so I have explained a story I share with them. Since we cannot curtail migration within the EU, something has to give: immigration.
As a hard working American, I feel Britain's pain. Who is to say that these artists won't stay in Britain and steal jobs from hard working British folks? I know that I personally live in mind numbing terror that a Mexican immigrant with a flimsy grasp on English is going to steal all the awesome jobs I want like field slave, toilet cleaner, cheaper-than-a-machine dishwasher, and floor scrubber.
People need to take a deep breath when it comes to immigration. I am okay with reasonable limits designed purely to spread folks out a little, not over tax the system or over concentration people in any one area. Outside of that, you are a paranoid nut if immigration keeps you up at night. Honestly, if there is anything good about immigration laws it is that it encourages only the most hardy, bad ass, get-me-out-of-this-shit folks to make the trip. People who break laws and take risks to get their family to a better place to live and grow are my kind of people. Send me your daughters and delicious food.
Anyone who can say with a straight face that if the US had imposed and (magically) enforced strict immigration control from 1776 to present day that the US would be a better place is full of shit. Further, such wishes a solid 99% of the time is also a wish for their own existence to be nullified. Believe me, if you are an American, you have ancestry that jumped on a boat after 1776 and probably did it, if not illegally, than at a time when there were no laws.
Hell, even the British, can sleep soundly know that chances are one of their decedents jumped on a boat, crossed some water, and knocked up a local, starting their family line.
There's probably a more nuanced conversation to be had over this; but I think both sides are being badly represented.
Firstly, Cory's ad hominem attack on immigration law, as Phanx says, isn't really that helpful. My grandfather's grandfather didn't spend his time bayonetting foreigners just so you'd be allowed into my country, etc etc. Secondly, it misses the point that the bureaucracy is something you have to engage with; and there's a marked difference, I'd have to say, between fleeing from the gulag and visiting for a poetry festival. There's no point crying 'loony' and 'racist' just on the basis of this.
I have to concede that the laws might not be designed with convenience in mind, and they may not be carried out by the most wonderful people in the world (although the UK immigration authorities did have the 'enlightened' stance at one point of employing an illegal alien to vet the applications of illegal aliens... whoops).
But on the other hand, there is a groundswell of misguided opinion in the UK towards immigrants (focussed mainly on people who do jobs that the jingoistic Little Englanders don't want to do themselves). While it pains me whenever I read that the UK is a small, overcrowded country that can't stand any more people infiltrating (which you might believe if you'd never been to, say, Hong Kong), it's a fact that lots of people in the UK do hold to those beliefs, and a certain number of them will be based in the immigration department. Thus to me there seems some naivete on somebody's part that the application wasn't put through more clearly (although since nobody here seems privy to the whole paper trail, who can say?)
@9: How do you know someone else wouldn't have your job anyway? Perhaps the job market you're looking in is just naturally very competitive, or perhaps you're not as promising a candidate as you might imagine (I don't mean that as a slight, I have no idea of your skills; you may be a titan of ability). Regardless, I am unaware of any evidence to show that unemployment amongst Brits has risen as a result of immigration. Immigrants take jobs, yes, but they also create them through their consumption. The only laws that should exist re immigration are laws that would help to ensure a healthy multicultural mix throughout all parts of the country, rather than ghettoization within the big cities. I'm pretty sure that all other concerns regarding immigration are fantasy constructed by people who would have a hard time finding a job anyway.
On the note of fantasy: a recent study here in the UK demonstrated that immigrants use exactly their fair share of government services. Yet, if one reads the Daily Mail, etc., one would believe that immigrants get first pick of the welfare state. There are many layers of myths surrounding immigration, and the idea that immigrants steal jobs is one of them I believe.
@9: "If you cannot get a working visa within the EU, you must have the funds with you. All EU member states require this. If she did not supply documents, then this is hardly a valid criticism of the immigration process when things are spelled out rather clearly on the application forms. If you had no money, and you wanted to go to another country with no money, what would you have to do to survive?"
When I applied for my first (rejected) Highly Skilled Migrant Visa, I was told that I hadn't provided evidence of my income, despite providing a year's worth of US bank-statements and a letter from the EFF saying I was employed by them. I happened to be lucky enough to be applying for a visa from my then-permanent home, so I had my bank-statements on hand.
An artist completing a residency in Germany who has been invited to present for a day in Britain isn't likely to have even that much paperwork with her.
When you go to uni to study, do *you* bring a year's worth of bank-statements with you? If I invited you to present on your research but required you, on a few weeks' notice, to come up with a year's worth of bank statements as a prerequisite for attending, could you lay hands on them?
"The favoured method of illegal migration to this country is through tourist visas, second to that are “meetings” and conferences."
CITATION NEEDED
"Since we cannot curtail migration within the EU, something has to give: immigration."
How much of a dent do you imagine stopping immigration will make in net migration to the UK? How many semi-skilled summer jobs for returning students will this open up?
Just because there's no light where you dropped your car keys, doesn't mean you'll find them by looking by the lamppost.
Have you ever been through the UK immigration process?
I have. I'm on my third visa (two Highly Skilled Migrant visas, now a Spousal visa). All told, I have spent on the order of GBP15,000 in immigration law fees to get these visas.
My UK-sourced income is practically nothing (most of my income comes from the USA) and I pay about 1,000% of my UK income in tax here in the UK. I am a major net benefit to the British economy.
Nevertheless, I am about to be issued a humiliating radio-enabled biometric ID card that will open me up to identity theft. Despite being the father of a Briton and the husband of a Briton, I am treated as a suspicious character by the system and liable to deportation for even minor infractions.
I've heard innumerable Britons moaning about how easy it is for foreigners to come and live here, but no one who's been through the nearly-impossible-to-navigate UK immigration system would ever make that claim.
Immigration laws are obsolete. This is the 21st century, not the 19th. The 21st world is global, travel is fast, the Internet is instantaneous. We know the news of the world faster and more intimately than we know of the problems of our own neighbourghs.
In such a world, believing that someone should be born in a place and die in the same place is a thing of the past. I was born in France, but that's pure luck. I might as well have been born elsewhere in Europe, in the USA, in Australia or in Africa - I have relatives from all these places. My country of birth and nationality is just a random event. As most people do when they dig deep enough...
Besides, we made the choice of a free economy, for better or worse. People are frightened of immigrants stealing their jobs. But that too is a thing of the past. It's your jobs that are bound to emigrate. The Chinese locked in a dictatorial country, with no right to have a syndicate is much more frightening than the Chinese going to work in your country...
Our countries are currently defending a system where merchandises and services enjoys more rights than human beings. A good made in China enjoys far more freedom than any Chinese citizen can dream on. And this means that our politics enforce a system that can not self regulate by construction : the people making our goods can't switch employer, can't go on strike, can't even move away; they have no way to ever increase their standards of living.
So, in the 21st century, immigration should mostly be free. Sure, there will be an influx of Mexican, African or Chinese. And then, maybe, we will stop protecting dictatorships in these countries so people don't have to emigrate - most human beings prefer to stay at home near family if they can. Maybe these countries will start paying peons better so they can keep them.
"Anyone who can say with a straight face that if the US had imposed and (magically) enforced strict immigration control from 1776 to present day that the US would be a better place is full of shit."
Do you know the history of American immigration law, when it underwent major changes, and what they were?
1965 is the date you're thinking about, which is when the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments passed. They gave preference to "family reunification" over the previous system which allocated based on education, marketable skills, and national origin (the last of which I'm not advocating; I'm just letting you know the history.)
The consequences to us are obvious: the educated can't even get a work visa, let alone a green card or citizenship. In contrast, anyone with so little to lose that they're willing to have coyotes sneak them across our southern border, especially when pregnant so they can have an anchor baby and later have their family "reunified", is welcomed with open arms.
So the educated are forced to go back to China and India, taking their skills and earnings back home and enriching China and India, instead of working and starting companies here in America and enriching America.
We're shooting ourselves in the foot over and over, and wondering why it hurts to walk. If we want an economy based on low-value manual labor, like Mexico, we're doing all the right things. If we want to keep an economy based on the fat part of the value chain, we need to make some serious changes, like allowing plenty of immigration. Immigration is good, it keeps the pot stirred.
Let's apply some common goddamn sense here, people. When you host a party at your house, do you go down to Skid Row and yell "FREE BEER AT MY PLACE!" Or do you email/Evite/Facebook your friends and say "Hey, come have fun, bring a little food or booze with you, and bring anyone you trust enough to be responsible for?"
I hope it's clear that my previous comment in no way refers to the situation in the original post, just to #10/Rindan.
And also that I managed to miss a sentence after "Immigration is good, it keeps the pot stirred," i.e. "but we should exercise some common sense and discretion about who gets to go to the front of the line, because right now, that's 'manual laborers with anchor babies', while all the Indian and Asian and Eastern European professionals are being sent home to benefit some other country's economy."
It's not just poets and artists being turned away at the border. Recently two Argentinians who wanted to come to Wales to learn Welsh - Evelyn Calcabrini and Shirley Edwards - were deported because the border officials didn't believe them.
For those who don't know, there's a Welsh colony in Patagonia called Yr Wladfa, founded in 1865, and they still speak Welsh there. There's a rich relationship between Wales and Yr Wladfa, with Welsh teachers going out there to help improve language skills, and students coming here to do likewise. The border official didn't know that and seemed to prefer to believe that they were, therefore, lying.
This is the big problem with immigration at the moment - officials' whims are binding. It's utterly appalling that the system allows, and encourages, such dreadful behaviour. More info here: http://bit.ly/M1BWE
Here's a datapoint for Americans:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/2242342898/
That's a photo of my successful O-1 "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" application. It is 680 pages long. It took four months to prepare and six months to be processed. I paid US$10,000 in legal fees to have it prepared.
I got this visa so that I could *visit* the USA from time to time to give speeches and attend conferences. I did so after being detained in the middle of the night at Logan for trying to enter the USA on a B-1 visa, per the instruction I got from the US embassy in London (at $1.50/minute on the toll advice line, after nearly two hours' discussion of my circumstances with the embassy staff). The customs and immigration officers at Logan told me that the embassy was wrong and that they would have to deport me. After spending several hours pleading with them and showing them my earlier successful visas (L-1A, TN, J-1, B-1, B-2), they relented but warned me that they were making a notation on my record and that I'd better have a visa on my return.
Oh, and fun fact: a US visa doesn't mean you're allowed in the USA. That determination is made at the border every time you cross. Even if you've lived in the USA for years, own a house, pay taxes, have a job and a visa, if you go home to visit your family and then try to return, an individual immigration officer can deny you entry, for any reason or no reason at all.
In addition to costing you your job, this can cost you everything else: If you don't have someone who can wind down your affairs in the USA, you might even have to forfeit your home and other assets, since you can't cross back in the States to sort things out.
"immigration, the last respectable bastion of racism" This sentence weakened the post considerably. If in a given set of particulars someone is using immigration as such, then yes, that is discreditable. But surely caution or even extreme defensiveness regarding immigration practices or laws isn't due only to racism.
Credentials Flash: grandchild of 4 immigrants from Eastern Europe, at least 2 of which fled Russia around 1917 due to loss of all property/ family being murdered before their eyes by anarchists, etc. In other words, I'm not unsympathetic to refugees. However there are plenty of folks who are not seeking refuge, which puts them into a different category. They can be evaluated differently without automatic unfairness.
Mawt @9:
because someone else has 'my' job
This is the idea that fuels immigration fears. That the USA and the UK would be wonderfull middle class paradises with full employment and prosperity if only those dastardly foreigners stayed back in their own countries.
Of course, the economic meltdown caused by the greed of our financial overlords has nothing to do with the current unemployment rates.
More likely, the "someone else" responsible for your woes not only does not has "your" job, He is likely very happy in his own job, enjoying his six salary bonus.
Around the time this blog ran, the members of Shakra (one of the top groups in the Goth/Industrial/Tribal Fusion dance world) were being detained on entry to the UK, and were soon turned around and sent back stateside after receiving the standard ten-hour dose of interrogation, dehumanization and humiliation. They'd been hired to perform and teach and vend their merch at the Gothla festival, but similarly failed to convince the UK Border Collies they didn't secretly plan on staying forever. These are friends of mine, and some of the hardest-working, sweetest, most creative independent artists I know.
As a result, today there are many in the tightly-knit dance community who can't even look at an English muffin without feeling a sense of rage and contempt. Good on ya, Mr. Woolas: your officious paranoia is yet again making your nation a laughing stock, an internationally reviled isolationist rogue state, a cultural backwater in the global exchange.
How, exactly, does one PROVE on paper that one really truly sincerely cross one's heart and hope to die plans on going home again after a few days' business? Does the same standard they're imposing on musicians, dancers and poets apply to businessmen in suits who fly in for a few days of schmoozing?
I agree with Corey most countries immigration/customs policy is ridiculous, and tends to just get in the way of people travelling.
I'm Half Saudi Arabian Half british living in the UK, my brother is the same. We went to The US in 2001 (just before 9/11 or 11/9 depending on which side of the atlantic you are from) I was traveling on a british passport and my Brother was traveling on a Saudi one.
They didn't bat an eyelid at me, but my brother (who was 15 at the time) Got a full on search. That was just customs let alone immigration...
I've been living in the UK for 11 years now and I constantly hear people talking to me about foriegners coming in and stealing thier jobs. They say it to my face knowing where I am from. I'm okay apparently because I'm only half foriegn and I don't sound foriegn. I consider myself as much Saudi as I do British, but I grew up in Saudi and the fact remains that despite having a British passport I'm technically a foreigner too.
@21: "Does the same standard they're imposing on musicians, dancers and poets apply to businessmen in suits who fly in for a few days of schmoozing?"
But how could a visiting financier possibly harm the British economy?
(I kid, I kid)
This is just not true. The tabloids do have an unhealthy obsession with immigration, and the Guardian does like to tell us how shocking this is; but 'panic' is a vast exaggeration.
This is actually a topic that I discussed with my non-American friends from Grad School. Most of them understood the mentality of coming to the US illegally but all of them resented illegals because of what they themselves had to do to be at University.
Cory,
Since you are doing it the right way at an expense of GBP15,000, doesn't it bother you that people sneak into the country illegally without the same expense/hassle?
Cory [#18]:
What makes you think we treat our own citizens any differently? I'm now at least a little bit afraid to travel abroad, not for fear of what will happen to me there, but for fear that my country will turn me away on my return. Whether a US passport is valid is another decision left to the whim of immigration officials.
I've had the experience of being held for a couple of hours while they determined that my passport was indeed valid - and then getting a stern warning from an officer, "Don't try that again!" (Try what? Returning home on my scheduled flight with my passport in hand?)
And for what it's worth, I look Northern European, and the most recent immigrants in my family came over around 1820. (And they were the minority - most of my family has been living in the swamps of Long Island since the 18th Century.) I don't know what provokes the reaction.
Maybe it's the fact that I write postings like this one.
@23: I am an immigrant in Britain. Since moving here in 2003, there has hardly been a single 48 hour period during which someone hasn't either lamented to me that more of the "right kind of immigrants" (e.g., white and professional) like me aren't coming to Britain rather than all those trademen and brown people; or denigrated me for being an immigrant.
As to whether there's a panic over Romany, I suspect that the ~100 Romany who were chased from their houses by mobs in Belfast would disagree with you.
Personally, I'm quite happy to let anyone silly enough to want to come here, do so.
The problem is, I'm in a minority. Most people in the UK (and many other countries) genuinely believe that we should have strict controls over immigration. Some for very well thought out, carefully rehearsed reasons, and others out of a basic fear of the unknown and a sense that it's easier to blame outsiders for your woes, than blame yourself. Whatever. It's what they want.
Apparently as part of this whole "democracy" thing everyone's so crazy about, if that's what most people want, that's what we get. Once you've accepted the whole bullshit notion then I'm afraid this sort of thing is an inevitable consequence.
The guy who refused this individual isn't a "snivelling bureaucrat", just someone doing their job. There are rules to follow, this poet didn't follow them, they don't come in. Again, once you've accepted the central notion (and I don't) it's fair enough. By getting incensed because they refused to admit an artist is weakening your point. Who gives a shit if they're an artist? It's no more, or less embarassing, than refusing access to any other human being.
By all means rail against the insanity of immigration control, but don't use the fairly minor fact that cosy middle class british people will be denied the opportunity to listen to a bit of Indonesian feminist poetry. What about all the others who are refused every day? Or is it only artists that matter? What about all the other countries with equally bizarre and bureaucratic rules to follow? What about those that wouldn't even entertain inviting these people along to talk?
Ahem. Sorry, you get my point.
@24: No, because I know that the majority of people -- including my immediate ancestors -- lack the resources to do what I have done. Just because I am risk averse and wealthy enough to play by the demented rules of the system (which mostly revolve around, "Can you hire a law firm that has old school ties to immigration officials, who can sweet talk them into taking it easy on you?" and not on objective criteria) doesn't mean I don't understand the reason that others don't.
I didn't know anything about Dorothea Rosa Herliany up to now but looking at this from the Frankfurt Book Fair, as well as having published 20 books of her own she's a director of a small publishing house in Indonesia called Indonesia Tera that has published 200 books.
I am guessing her past experience with the Frankfurt people makes her feel Germany is a congenial place to be based when on a long trip to Europe - everybody gotta be somewhere - plus it is in the middle of the Schengen Area, meaning once she is inside it she has easy passage into 25 euro-countries totalling 400m people - maybe she is nipping off to lots of festivals and visiting publishers on day or short trips in various different countries.
Of course, the UK (and Ireland) are among the few European countries not in the Schengen Area. But to get into Germany/Schengen in the first place Herliany presumably had to provide evidence of sufficient funds, good character etc., and has clearly been to Germany (and back) more than once in the last few years. Presumably once she got her visa she left her proving-paperwork and bank statements back at home and didn't have them with her - why would you?
It does seem odd that an individual with a public track record such as hers is denied entry, while thousands of dodgy "students", eg from Pakistan*, have been granted visas to study at what turn out to be bogus colleges and fraudulent front organisations. I guess the thing here is, those organisations are geared to filling out the paperwork so it looks correct; in a sense, that's all they do as a business; they are, as with the 11 July post on airport restaurants, "corporations whose primary skill is dealing with bureaucracies". To poets and festivals, immigration paperwork is not what they'are all about, an irritating bit of form-filling they can easily get wrong.
*I'm not against real overseas students - indeed my own brother's job is to visit Pakistan, India and China and sign up genuine students for the not-bogus University of Bradford, one time haunt of Mr C. Stross.
There seems to be the presumption here that people ought to be free to come and go as they please, regardless of the opinions (expressed, more or less, through the laws) of the countries they visit.
Consider if this is wrong-- if the country of your native citizenship is the only one where you truly belong. It is your home. In all other places, you are an outsider-- an alien, foreign, and forever an _other_, in a precarious position, subject to harm at a whim, tolerated but never truly welcomed...
London is not necessarily representative of the UK as a whole. I certainly don't encounter that level of resentment here in the NE.
There are obviously racist incidents in the UK- I still disagree that this is part of a nationwide panic.
Your post reminded me of something that happened to Seu Jorge when he tried to pass British Immigration. He was coming from Paris to do a radio show and interview with the BBC (!) and immigration held him. He tried to show them the situation, but no dice. He ended up so pissed, that he returned to Paris and he declared once in an interview here in Brazil that he wouldn't like to come back to Britain. Just incredible.
Wow Cory,
Not only is the 'foreigner took my job' business a red herring, (hint: corporations would rather you believe that than the truth that they want to cherry-pick candidates) but the draconian measures you have been subjected to stagger me.
I am Canadian, born and bred, but my parents as Dutch immigrants would never have stood a chance these days, even with their sponsors.
Your comparison to Hong Kong is the important one, as it seems only (relatively) sparsely populated Western nations that are comfortable asserting 'overpopulation' feel free to play this game.
Racism? Maybe, but I suggest fear as more significant. Racist beliefs get shored up when people just want an average lifestyle and are denied by economic circumstances. Blame foreigners, not the blessed corporations, right?!
It's really high time that we should organise full employment and maximal choice in this world, as we all know we can at this point.
@30: All right then, let's start by getting the Hapsburgs out of Buck House and sending them back to Germany. And then every bloody Norman who eats in a "restaurant" or a "cafe" can go back to France. Send the gingers back to Denmark. Send the hominids back to Gondwanaland, and the mammals back to Pangaea. England for the invertebrates! God Save the Queen Bee!
@32- What, then, are the xenophobes supposed to do to keep away from the xenophiles, if not say "Please stay out of here-- we don't want you. We won't actually shoot you, but we'll make it unpleasant until you choose to go and never return".
Why should I care what xenophobes think, apart from to the extent that understanding them helps me outmaneuver them and frustrate them?
(Admittedly, I have some more sympathy for New World indigenes, as they have a pretty good claim for the idea that the newcomers on "their" land have screwed things up pretty badly, especially where aboriginal people are concerned).
I am a Russian Jew whose immediate ancestors come from Romania, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Poland. My family lives in Canada, the US, Uruguay, Alma Ata, Poland, Russia, Israel. My inlaws live in England, Wales, Australia, and many other countries. The idea that we should just stay put is not only monumentally ahistorical (otherwise we'd all be still living in sub-Saharan Africa), it's inhumane and absolutely unrealistic. Where do you suppose you'll go when your country floods in a decade or a century?
@34- Because if you poke at the xenophobe enough, he stops trying to politely get you to leave and starts thinking of ways to get you to go away permanently. Don't go poking the hibernating bear-- it makes everyone less happy than they would be otherwise.
The idea that one human being should automatically like the company of any random other human being is also ludicrous. Some do-- some actively enjoy such a thing. Others find it to be actively and deeply unpleasant. You surely wouldn't stay in a house if the owner wished you to leave-- why would you do so in a country where the "owners" had made it clear you were unwelcome?
As for the humanity, there are plenty of countries full of xenophiles. Why bother the xenophobes? Why put refugees someplace they stand a risk of discrimination or violence?
OK, so for starters, I'm a UK national (lived here most of my life, except a brief stint in the USA). My father's an immigrant who did it the "right way", and I have family in the UK still (30 years later) trying to get UK citizenship the "right way" - never broken a law, children all British-as-British-can-be. Our immigration system is broken, I can have no doubt about that.
This being said, I think it's downright dangerous to engage in what our tabloids lovingly regard as "immigrant-bashing". I can see at the very least four VERY different types of individual who attempt to migrate to the UK (the same may be true of other nations, but I'm not qualified to comment...)
1/ Political refugees - "The situation in my country is so bad that I fear for my life/security and wish to seek asylum in your democratic state". Good luck with that, but by my books we (as a "civilised west" (/irony)) have a moral duty to try and support this, to whatever extent we can.
2/ Skilled workers - The other end of the spectrum, people like Mr Doctorow above. They essentially, for one reason or another, fancy living in another country; be that a family tie/spouse, job opportunity, or otherwise. Again, I (and I believe most outside of the BNP) would agree that you are probably of a net benefit to the country, both economically and culturally.
3/ Unskilled workers - More-or-less as above (I don't care if you're a plasterer, plumber, or programmer), but they somehow get branded as "taking jobs away from the people our government should be putting first"
4/ Social Service tourists - People who cannot / do not want to (important distinction) afford the costs of healthcare at home, and thus find ways to enter the UK solely to make use of our free-as-in-beer healthcare system, or to "lounge around on unemployment benefits". I have no numbers handy as to what proportion these two sub-categories are, but I think it's the one type people in the UK are most afraid of.
Now I'm inclined to think that this presents less of a "continuum of acceptability" than many seem to believe. Purely economically speaking, someone who has lived in the UK for their whole life will have contributed National Insurance payments, and paid their taxes (for the most part, criminals aside for the moment). These people have essentially paid for their own care in later life - be it healthcare, policing, or otherwise. I think it's clear that we tend to require differing levels of care at different points in our life; the young support the old, etc.
If someone of any of the four types above enters the country, they immediately put this slightly out of balance. If immigration levels are too high, then the country will simply be unable to susatain the levels of service its inhabitants expect. Unhappiness ensues, "immigrants" are blamed. Not a good outcome.
Nevertheless, we still have a moral duty certainly to type 1/, and arguably to type 4/ (not sure where even I stand on that!). Accepting types 2/ and 3/ are more of a "making sure the UK is a good global citizen", rather than a deity-given-right (yes, even though this is exactly the type of immigration that made my life possible...). I think it's important to recognise the differences between these types, and also to recognise that immigration is not without consequence; if we open the gates to the country entirely, without boundary, we will be unable to support our own country. We just don't have the infrastructure.
Regulation is paramount. How we regulate, is something which probably needs to change. Out with the old-boys-club, in with ........ ? Suggestions welcome :)
@tyrell_turing
Most migrant employees can only apply for no 'experience necessary' positions, which are the same, admittedly transitory, jobs that local people will take part time to generate a little income.
Migrant workers are not affecting the middle class labour market. They're occupying low skilled jobs at coffee shops and restaurants, and creating unrealistic competition between self employed tradesmen (some of which are cavalier and dangerous, although admittedly, having seen Bobski the Builder, many foreign workers are excellent).
It is worth remembering that some 40% of young adults are unemployed: http://www.poverty.org.uk/35/index.shtml
For example: just before EU expansion we could not employ people from Poland, as they were not EU citizens, and thus had no national insurance number. The year EU expansion and my previous employer had recruited several migrant Polish girls in spring on a part time basis, ahead of the summer influx of applicants. Where there was once a stable demand for workers, this demand vanished immediately, because the migrant workers would take any job, even part time jobs 'in retainer'. This mean that many returning locals could not find new employment or return to their old jobs. I have been told by several friends and ex-managers that they would rather hire migrant workers in these unskilled positions than locals because they're more available, and position themselves as a flexible worker. But this is illusionary - their immediate availability conceals the risk of flight, and work rates vary amongst foreign nationals as much local employees.
It really isn't hard to understand why migrant workers create an inequality in demand: more people who are willing to do anything, such as taking unreasonable and sometimes illegal hours, occupy the jobs local workers rely on during peak seasons. Local workers cannot compete with this, and are thus, severely disadvantaged. The unfortunately fact is it takes so few migrant workers to change the demand landscape, where a seasonal market is firmly established.
@Cory
>> When you go to uni to study, do *you* bring a year's worth of bank-statements with you?
Yes.
>> If I invited you to present on your research but required you, on a few weeks' notice, to come up with a year's worth of bank statements as a prerequisite for attending, could you lay hands on them?
Unreasonable, but yes. I relish being a highly skilled worker – I'm quite competent in keeping all my bank statements. They are, after all, posted directly to me. You have to remember that these artificial barriers to entry exist to stop fraudulent visa applications, and you are woefully under informed if you believe people aren't out there to exploit the process for both profit and illegal migration. The response is to preferably reject first, and accept later. I'm sad to have to tell you that we don't live in a Utopian world free from dishonesty. We can't take first hand information without further evidence, and if in doubt, as in so many situations, to err on the cautious side is not unreasonable.
You are wise to remember that the immigration services don't have access to your “foreign profile” (there is no such thing), they are relying on the information you give to make a very tough assessment. Information disclosure laws prevent much cooperation (and protect your information). But it would appear that you did succeed, whereas an Indonesian poet did not. Who is the greater flight risk and economically desirable individual – the person who spent years being paid and created a career for themselves, or the person who writes poetry? Just because the system failed someone of one value, does not mean it failing everyone of value.
>> I am a major net benefit to the British economy... (taxes etc)
Nice to meet you. You are doing exactly what a foreign worker does. A working visa isn't a permanent right of abode. If you want to stay for longer, you can continue to apply for working visas, or apply for dual citizenship.
Have you considered people who come and do not leave? They often outstay their visa and work illegally with their extended family or naturalised friends. I think you take the rights of citizenship for granted.
Regarding the costs, I believe they can be disproportionate, but if you took legal advise I can't but defend my own profession. If the costs weren't justified you can always write to an MP. You have to remember that cost is another barrier to entry – after all, no country wants every recent graduate of another.
>> Individual artists who are invited to visit on behalf of local, state-funded cultural institutions are no different.
The BBC as a state-funded entity is irrelevant. An invitation is just that – an invite. You can blame the invitor for not properly vetting the invitees ability to travel or you can assume that such invitations are subject to visa approval. A broadcaster should not be a conduit for visas the same way as MPs should not be allowed to approve or influence the renewal process of their nanny.
>> Nevertheless, I am about to be issued a humiliating radio-enabled biometric ID card
You might as well mention Hitler here since he's also irrelevant and I'm an avid fan of Goodwin's law. Fwiw, I'm a supporter for No2ID.
>> I've heard innumerable Britons moaning about how easy it is for foreigners to come and live here, but no one who's been through the nearly-impossible-to-navigate UK immigration system would ever make that claim.
As I've established, sometimes the honest suffer too.
There's nothing especially new here, in particular I doubt it is a reaction to the new wave of central Europeans in the EU. The situation was the same in the 80s, when I lived/worked in England; entering and leaving the country on a work visa was always a PITA. Even years after I returned to the US, every time I entered England just for a visit, UK immigration would find all the old stamps in my passport, apparently assume that I was trying to sneak in permanently, and hold me up for a good long while. (I usually had to come up with proof of my employment in the US.)
Incidentally, following the 1986 US bombing of Libya (using RAF bases), the Home Office called for extra supervision of all foreign residents, and I had very intrusive weekly visits for a while from the local police. Granted, I was pretty much the only foreigner resident in my small Yorkshire market town, and so I was likely the only way they could fill their visit quota. However, as an American Jew I was an unlikely person from whom to fear retaliation for the bombing!
*stares down the long list of the anthropology of borders, immigration, and refugees...*
cory, why dont you go back and live in russia then? As far as i know they arnt sending red army deserters to gulag anymore.
1965 is the date you're thinking about, which is when the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments passed. They gave preference to "family reunification" over the previous system which allocated based on education, marketable skills, and national origin (the last of which I'm not advocating; I'm just letting you know the history.)
The consequences to us are obvious: the educated can't even get a work visa, let alone a green card or citizenship. In contrast, anyone with so little to lose that they're willing to have coyotes sneak them across our southern border, especially when pregnant so they can have an anchor baby and later have their family "reunified", is welcomed with open arms.
You have it pretty much backwards. Skilled workers can get work permits, although it requires sponsorship, and some dedication to paperwork, bueareaucracy and waiting. Unskilled workers by contrast have no real way of getting in legally.
Here's a little chart from Reason showing the different hoops need to jump through and immigrate to the US: http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf
I call for a world with open borders.
How can we be world citizens otherwise?
Barring artists from overseas not only effects events in the UK. We had tickets for an event with an african dance group in The Netherlands this year. We received a letter from the organisation that since their concerts in UK were cancelled due to undisclosed circumstances(I can now guess why) the tour in The Netherlands was cancelled too because of too high a cost for a tour only in The Netherlands.
I am sorry we didn't get to see this dance group but luckily we got a refund for our tickets. I am more sorry though for this dance group because they are deprived of probably much needed income.
@40: Well, I wasn't born there. I don't speak the language. I'm not a citizen, nor am I eligible for citizenship. It is a failed state with 10% annual premature mortality due to disease. It is ruled by a corrupt elite of ex-KGB apparats.
IOW: WTF are you talking about?
Alison Crowe's Canadian.
As such, she's, on the face of it, a subject of the Queen of England. She's even 'allowed' to wear the Royal Steward tartan.
Canada's a member in good standing of the Commonwealth. It used to be that, as a citizen of the Commonwealth, you didn't even need a work visa to be able to find work in the UK - as long as you were out of the country every six months for more than 24 hours.
So what's the problem? Why was she deported?
The thing to remember about immigration and border officials is that not a one has ever got fired for turning someone away, and none have ever been promoted for letting someone in.
Kudos to you, Cory, for taking a stand on the whole immigration issue.
However, pursuant to your last statement, I do have a problem with those who circumvent the immigration process and don't play by the rules. Circumventing the immigration process != immigration.
I realize that isn't what this article is about, but I just wanted to call you on this.. since we're going around calling people on things.
You got a problem with that?
Cory --
Isn't it just more obvious that these countries are trying to make the barrier so high that you DON'T want to visit? Their land, their rules...Personally, I don't buy the whole thing of My Grandparents Did It So It Is Right idea...I'm a second generation Italian...my family did not get here to the US the right way. Regardless of the issue, I would have sent them back...
Why? Because the very basic need for a country is system of laws and if the VERY FIRST THING ONE DOES is to break the law, that means they are statistically likely to not be a good fit as a citizen / resident / visitor.
That said, I wish my own country would vastly reform their immigration and laws on citizenry. The US was founded as a nation of immigrants, and I thought the laws should be changed back to welcoming folks so they don't have to come here illegally...change the laws so they aren't breaking the rules upon entry.
Working for a university, I find it horrific the people we turn away or make the barriers to entry too great. I've had students that worked for me have to leave within days of graduation or risk being barred from ever coming back to this nation. I've known friends that were welcome residents that couldn't even go back home for a funeral because too many exits / entries look suspicious and I've had a friend miss the first week of school because his papers were denied (and as part of the process, the school sends out notices to the gov't if you miss the first week of school as this is a sign of trying to use the educational system as a way of gaining illegal entry...which led to more problems...) I personally believe that ANYONE who gets an advanced degree in the US should be given citizenship with their diploma.
But again, this is my country that I feel is failing...I'm not going to criticize any other nation for wanting to do what they want to do. It would be like being invited to a party and then crapping on the sofa because your host doesn't want you to invite the homeless people in for some cake.
I'd like to make a call for new internal controls, pass laws and internal-migration-paperwork within the UK. After all, the 7/7 bombers didn't sneak in from abroad, they were British. But an internal border, say just outside the M25 London-orbital motorway, complete with checkpoints, holding centres and X-ray searches on roads and rail could have helped prevent the disaster.
Other borders could be between England, Wales and Scotland, not to mention Northern Ireland and the Republic, and within England we could split into the South West, Midlands, North, and South East excluding London (maybe with old names, like Cymru, Wessex, Mercia).
There would be many advantages - increase in security, more option of rational economic, education and housing planning, less greenhouse gas emission due to unnecessary travel, vast job-creation in building and manning the system, increased revenues from customs and excise duties, and the opportunity for new representative assemblies and flags.
Also, I fancy being Prime Minister but some Scottish git has come down here and taken the job. He should go back to Ireland where the Scots came from in the second place.
We want the government to provide health care for everyone in the country, and not let anyone starve.
We don't want compulsory ID cards, video surveillance, or other intrusions on privacy and free travel within our borders.
We don't want to have Byzantine immigration and visa laws, nor to be continually hassled at the border.
We have an overconstrained problem.
Many of the comments on the linked article are pretty darn horrifying as well.
Good grief.
Seems to me people forget regardless of skin color or nationality, we're all just human beings trying to get by and be happy.
But I guess that's less important than keeping out the filthy foreigners, eh.
(I see very virulent anti-immigrant messages on my local newspaper message board too, not saying its just a British problem - I'm American).
Cicada, why on earth do you think that bureaucrats and immigration officials are the owners of a country? They most certainly aren't. Nor are the politicians or leaders the "owners."
Hey Cory:
This is a subject I care quite a bit about myself as well as an obsessed Anglophile who dreams of living and working in the UK one day. I've written about my frustrations with the British Immigration System quite often over at Anglotopia.net. Basically I probably won't ever be able to live in the UK unless I somehow become independently wealthy. It's a real shame, I would love to live and work in London and contribute to making Britain a better place. I hate to play the American Card, but America has a 'special relationship' with Britain (shared culture, history, language and all and you're Canadian! The Queen is your head of state!) I think we should be given some special consideration instead of being lumped in with the rest of the third world.
#44 Canadians can't go in and out of Britain presumably because Britons can't go in and out of Canada.
There isn't a single country I know of that is immigrant friendly. Foreigners are perceived as a problem.
Hrm. I abhor byzantine visa/immigration procedures, but I'm not in favor of a completely open border policy. Do I have a problem with Cory? (or just with hyperbole?)
calais ... jungle?
these young Afgans/Mexicans should not have to swim the channel/cross the border
how many dead British Army/U.S Forces now?
let's give them a holiday on Christmas Island.
Here are the cliff notes of what has happened to a friend of mine over the past 2 weeks:
*He is a New Zealand Citizen, worked in the States, transferred to the UK.
*He occupies a highly paid (£62k per year) position in a software company.
*The role is made for him; there is no job to steal, without him there is no job.
*He had a team of 4 people working for him, they're all British.
*He has been deported but not fired; he's on gardening leave in NZ.
*His employer’s legal team has gone for blood and filled legal proceedings against the British government.
*The punch line? The company fired the 4 British guys who worked for him while they sort this mess out.
Yeah... not a very funny punch line but think of that next time you hear "Der stealin muh job!". So the UK is out of pocket to the tune of £19,452.15 tax money and added four more people to the tally of unemployeed. Stick that on a BNP leaflet.
@ Cory, I'm astonished that you would imply, or admit to hiring "a law firm that has old school ties to immigration officials, who can sweet talk them into taking it easy on you?"
Is that really how you got your visa? And if so aren't you putting your visa in jeopardy by letting everyone know?
apologises to the Afghans..
In the US, the most vibrant and productive cities are those that have historically had the most immigrants. Xenophobia and racism tend to occur with more frequency in areas with smaller populations, economies and less homogeneity.
Which of these has done more to build the US?
#58
native americans
#58, #59
The French and the Dutch ;-)
Guys, you've just killed Beethoven.
#60
let's focucus on the hotspots
iran/tehran
uighur/china
panceracic cancer
world peace
f**k yeah!!!
the whole point of having complex laws and regulations (and expensive law-trade workers) is so you can selectively enforce them.
I don't understand why people have such a hatred for immigrants.
we are 1.taking the best and brightest of other nations and allowing them to use their highly developed skills to make our own country greater, and 2. working our low-wage, hard, physical labour jobs that none of us are willing to do.
immigration gives us skilled workers, and cheep workers to exploit.
and, before complaining about immigrants 'stealing our jobs' remember this: you were born in a 1st world nation, with a 1st rate education system, and given every conceivable advantage in life. if someone who was born/raised without all of these benefits is able to out-perform you, you don't deserve that job.
Well I...I think that nobody who has gone abroad should be allowed back in the country! I mean... blimey! Blimey! If they're not keen enough to stay 'ere when they're 'ere, why should we allow them back at the tax-payers' expense!? I mean, be fair, I mean, I don't eat squirrels do I!? I mean well perhaps I do one or two but there's no law against that, is there!? It's a free country! I mean if I want to eat a squirrel now and again, that's me own business, innit!? I mean, I'm no racialist!
I know that I personally live in mind numbing terror that a Mexican immigrant with a flimsy grasp on English is going to steal all the awesome jobs I want like field slave, toilet cleaner, cheaper-than-a-machine dishwasher, and floor scrubber.
You may not, but it is a problem for poor and working class citizens, especially minorities.
if some nations are so worried about the negative effects of "sending money home", why don't they just make that illegal? Or does that get in the way of off-shore tax shelters?
NEW WORLd oRder?
One thing I find odd. People who advocate for very liberal (essentially free) immigration policies are usually all about the minimum wage.
I can see being in favor of one (people need to make a living wage) or the other (you need to compete with these people from an agrarian society who are willing to do this for less) but the combination seems a bit utopian (we will let these people in to do our scut work, and everybody else will get a college degree and secure some bit of IP that will have them and their grandkids rolling in dough.)
I find it oddly amusing that as an expatriate Australian in england, for some reason, some people think it's weird that I take offense at people slagging off immigrants.
Invariably, when I point out that I am in fact, an immigrant, the people who complain to me about immigration will comment "Oh, I don't mean immigrants like you, I mean (xyz borderline-Racist term for any particular minority group)"
(Also, As an Aside - I find it interesting that The captcha for a post about my immigrating to England, one of the words is "Catherine" - the Name of the woman I came to this country for.)
Until we get some kind of whole world government (i.e. never) then some kind of immigration policy is probably going to be a given.
The problem with ours (UK) at the least is it's oddly semi draconian nature.
We seem to enjoy having the flexibility to make your entry a freaking nightmare. But never flex the other way to make sensible allowance.
You'd think with the ultra-secret lists of people who are possibly terrorists (because they bought blue ice-pops on a thursday, wearing red socks, etc) we could be a lot less harsh.
The crazy crux of the matter is - if you really plan to go 'illegal' then you're going to do it no matter how many forms you've filled, how in date your visa is, or what you say you're there for. The UK's not huge, but it's big enough to get lost in.
Closed immigration polices make it harder to cross pollinate culture, learning and growth. And as a born and raised Brit (I'm Welsh - with a long line of very bigoted, close communities ancestors to look to) I'd prefer to see a more open, flexible and understandable policy.
This.
Actually the last bastion of authorised racism is probably the Orange Lodge Marches, which have just blighted northern ireland and scotland for the past two weekends, as the protestants celebrate their hatred of other christians and the winning of a battle hundreds of years ago, by initiating their kids into another generation of sectarian bigotry.
You may not, but it is a problem for poor and working class citizens, especially minorities ...
Seriously guys,
referring to #72 and #41: If you want protection from wages-dumping from foreign unskilled labour then what you need to do is support your unions!
Be in a union, support their demands for limited working hours and reasonable, mandatory minimum wages. In that case, "wages-dumping" foreigners will never be an issue!
But that'd go against the neoliberal policies which allow the rich people to line their pockets while pushing some people to the unemployment in order to take advantage of other people's misery, so let's not do that - let's bash the immigrants instead.
Underdogs bashing underdogs while their masters pocket the proceeds. How's that for sad?
The problem with immigration policy (and the issues that go along with it; xenophobia, illegal immigration, and the excessive hoops and whimsical selective enforcement of immigration processes) are caused by two fundamental facts. I don't think we can deny these facts, and we probably should not resent them too much. (But I could be wrong).
Fact 1) There is often a difference between the interests of a society and the interests of the migrants who want to enter it, even though both those sets of interests are understandable and not immoral. (The society wants a prosperous economy, a balanced labor market, etc, while the migrants want to go someplace where the is more opportunity for the pursuit of happiness as they see it). We can expect that a society will want to control who comes in and who doesn't, and this means creating laws and often enforcing them. And we can expect that, if a person is in a country where there are wars, genocide, natural disasters, and/or an economy collapsing due to too much corruption and too little social justice... then they'll do whatever it takes to go somewhere else, and this sometimes means breaking the law and dealing with (at least the risk of) consequences.
Fact 2) The creation, refinement, and enforcement of laws - including immigration laws - are messy and inefficient. Even if most people recognize that the immigration officials of their society are not doing a good job picking who comes in and who is turned away at the border, any "patch" to fix that system usually just adds to the mess, and it's impractical to just wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. Of course, this doesn't mean that people shouldn't try to fix the system, but doing so is not straightforward.
Does a society have a moral obligation to take in refugees from wars and other disasters? Does a society have a moral obligation to take in some unskilled workers who are not refugees of a disaster but who just want the kind of opportunity for growth not currently available in their home countries? What is the impact (on the economy, the job market, etc) of letting in some given mix of immigrants; How can the bad aspects of that impact be mitigated; and Is it worth it to let them in? In other words, how are the differences in "Fact 1)" dealt with? These are all tricky philosophical questions to do with morality and justice and governance. (And I'm not even considering the fact that the New World was essentially invaded by colonizers who imposed a society upon the Americas and largely ignored the social structures of the natives). But even if everyone in a society agreed on the answers and came up with some ideal immigration algorithm, "Fact 2)" still means that it's a whole other issue to create and execute a system of immigration laws and processes that realizes that algorithm.
What I'm trying to say is, the fact that there are unreasonable bureaucracy and whimsical decision-making and insufficient accountability at the border... is a separate problem from the question of whom a society wants to allow in and why or why not. They want you in, but they didn't do a good job configuring the mechanism at the gate.
Being turned away at the border could mean "That society doesn't want me in" (and we could discuss whether the reasons for this are good or bad) or it could mean "That society isn't very good about setting up a system that allows in the people they want" (and we could discuss how to fix that, and as with changing any law, it won't be straightforward or quick).
I think things become clearer when we separate those two discussions and stop assuming that a country's immigration algorithm actually reflects that society's vision of an ideal immigration policy.
Spot the difference:
http://www.labour.org.uk/asylum_and_immigration
http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Immigration.aspx
But that'd go against the neoliberal policies which allow the rich people to line their pockets while pushing some people to the unemployment in order to take advantage of other people's misery, so let's not do that - let's bash the immigrants instead.
I'm pro-union and for raising the minimum wage as well as amenesty for undocumented workers. There was nothing "neoliberal" or "immigrant bashing" about my comments at all. Yes I have that stance, and I *also* find the "jobs Americans won't do" argument to be b.s.
Be in a union, support their demands for limited working hours and reasonable, mandatory minimum wages. In that case, "wages-dumping" foreigners will never be an issue!
I'm for all those things, yet what I said is also unfortunately true.
Hell no. People willing to fight tooth and nail for a better life, irregardless of bureaucratic bullshit which, for the vast majority of migrants rules them out ENTIRELY of ever immigrating legally, are EXACTLY the type of people I want. Hardy pioneering people willing to face risk and adversity, to get to a place where they face huge cultural barriers, and will literally clean shit off a toilet for the singular reason of providing a better life for their family are exactly the kind of bad ass folks that my country needs more of. They can clean toilets and their sons and daughters, blessed with a little fortitude and determination that has slowly bled away from the locals can grow up to rule. Good for them. Give me more hardy bad ass who will not balk at an immigration system that rules out their immigration, not less.
I don't think people fully understand what they are getting when they get a refugee willing to cross a few hundred or thousand miles to here, enter the country illegally because there is literally no legal avenue, and then exist on a hostile foreign nation to give their kids a better chance. How well would you do if you had to cross from whatever cozy country you live in, sneak your way into say Russia, and survive despite your complete lack of language skills and cultural understanding. If you can do that, you are probably bad ass. If the thought of doing that sends you into fits of terror, your immigrant blood has probably finished bleeding out and it is time to stop whining about people with more balls and guts than you.
Cory,
I'm with you all the way on this.
I have two points to make in this discussion: Firstly, this is one of those rare situations where only those who have direct experience of the process can legitimately comment on it's awfulness. The whole nightmare is completely invisible to virtually all UK citizens, and most people here have the impression (from reading the Daily Mail et al) that foreigners just need to turn up at the border and they'll get handed a British passport and a council house without even having to ask.
My family is provably British right back to the 15th Century (therefore in fact, more "British" than Britain itself, since we were here before the country existed). We recently obtained my wife's "indefinite leave to remain" visa and I was utterly shocked at how vague, complex and downright contradictory the system is. Truth is, even those employed to administer the process don't understand it. We received incorrect information more than once from those paid to provide it - via an outsourced information phoneline at £1.00 a minute, mind.
We wasted more hours than I care to count gathering proof of address documents (not easy to come by now that I choose the green option of getting all bills and statements delivered electronically) and sitting in a dismal Borders Agency office in Croydon, not to mention several thousand pounds on fees (not to lawyers - I'm talking about the cash we paid to HM Goverment) to get to where we are. All this in order to allow the two of us to remain in this country and carry on paying the nearly £35,000 in income tax that we handed over last year to fund this absurdity. Those making blithe remarks about how important and necessary the rigid enforcement of the rules is simply have no idea of how arbitrary and unnecessarily byzantine the whole process is. It smacks of a bunch of blokes down the pub discussing the relative merits of an epidural during childbirth. Until you've experienced the pain, you are simply in no position to comment.
My second point is focused more on the future. I consider it a strong likelihood that, given the shift in economic power happening in the world right now, my children may well find it necessary to emigrate to find decent jobs. I'd say the chances are better than evens that the best jobs in the future may well be located in one of the countries whose citizens we currently seem to be so irrationally opposed to welcoming - India, China, Brazil and various African countries. We are laying down a spirit of hostility towards immigration that may well come back to bite us in 20 or 30 years' time.
Which countries have liberal and progressive immigration rules that Britain should try to emulate ? Seems to me they'd be great places to live.
Hey everybody! House party at Cory's!
Immigration laws are like DRM applied to people.
And remember that they're based entirely on the completely fucking random contingency of where, through no fault of your own, you happened to be born.
If we can legislate against racism, sexism, ageism, etc etc, then how about we try to eliminate country-ism as well?
Thanks, Cory, for raising these issues.
Among many good points made in this thread, is one to which I can well relate - made by #85 Johnny Foreigner who observes "this is one of those rare situations where only those who have direct experience of the process can legitimately comment on it's awfulness. The whole nightmare is completely invisible to virtually all UK citizens..."
Prior to serving as manager to Canadian musician Allison Crowe, I devoted some 15+ years of my life to investigating and exposing corporate and political corruption. I've witnessed plenty of bureaucracies at work and waded through oceans of paper.
The current situation in the UK is one which I'd have a very time hard time understanding, even believing, had I not the direct experience. It's still hard to explain publicly, at least concisely, because things are so arbrary and irrational. A functional system that was in place for 30 years has been replaced by a new set of rules that are not even understood by the people charged with enforcement.
Allison and her bandmates were subjected to abusive and stupid treatment recently when they arrived at London's Gatwick airport. They were unreasonably denied entry to the UK, improperly deported to Canada. We were given wrong and misleading information by various officials throughout the 10+ hour ordeal.
Still, the experience has alerted us to the insanity of these new rules, the climate of authoritarianism ("fascism by stealth" as it's been aptly tagged) - and, most positively, we've become aware of, and connected with, people, inside and outside the UK, fighting for reform.
The Visiting Artists and Academics Petition @ http://www.petitiononline.com/MCvisit/petition.html provides a rare opportunity to hear the direct stories of people impacted. For me, reading the comments among the thousands of signatories has been the best way to gain a broader understanding of what is happening to university lecturers, tango dancers, neuroscientists and many, many, more.
The Manifesto Club, spearheading efforts to bring about change, has published a report - "UK Arts and Culture: Cancelled by Order of the Home Office" - available for download @ http://www.manifestoclub.com/files/UKArtsCancelled.pdf
They've also presented the first in a series of 'Cabaret Without Borders' events. We aim to be part of one in Canada.
p.s. North America is, regrettably, no exemplar when it comes to immigration matters. Shining light on practices in all countries that are heading in the wrong direction is essential.
The truth of the matter is that Britain is an endemically racist and xenophobic society - always has been, always will be. The state of the economy is irrelevant. Britain, and the British, are just simply pathologically RACIST to the core.
I think that historically, this xenophobia had its roots in the fact that Britain is an island nation. Waves of invasions (Roman, Saxon, Norman, etc.) produced fear in succeeding generations of further waves of invasion to come, and a sense of Britain being an island under constant threat from the outside world. Today, Britain is a shadow of its former self. Its once vast empire is long gone, and the country struggles to maintain its influence on the world stage. I think that today's xenophobia stems from this loss of status, and the feeling of insecurity that accompanies it. British people see immigrants arriving in their country with nothing and becoming successful, often in a very short space of time. This causes both envy and, again, fear that the new "invading hordes" are supplanting the "natives" - this time through hard work and ingenuity. This, in turn, manifests itself in the form of blaming immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers for all of Britain's problems. Why confront one's own fears and insecurities when you can blame everything on the "other?"
I wonder how people in Britain would feel if, for the example, the government of Spain (home to nearly a million Brit expats) decided that the expat population was becoming too much of a drain on Spanish society and demanded that they all leave? Not a likely scenario, but my guess is that were such a scenario to materialize, the British populace would be up in arms about "anti-British racism" and would be demanding that Spain be taken to task for violating the human rights of all the good, upstanding British citizens residing in Spain.
To conclude: over the last several centuries, Britain has had no qualms about barging into foreign lands without invitation, taking what they wanted without asking, and leaving behind a legacy of repression, displacement and instability, which remain very much in evidence in many places even today. As the old saying goes, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. British people should keep this in mind the next time they start harping on about their glorious island being "invaded."