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Hello all,
In connection with a course I’m taking, I’m interested in feedback about an idea, which I call
‘reciprocal immigration quotas’– a global citizen exchange programme to provide immigration opportunities for those who can’t qualify by the traditional legal options of investment, ancestry, or marriage, or by refugee status.
It is estimated that over 700 million people in the world want to emigrate permanently to another country, for many reasons not necessary to list here. Although immigration is often stereotyped as ‘poor people from poor countries’ wanting to go to ‘rich’ countries, rich and poor are relative terms, and there are 4 classifications of countries by income level according to the World Bank - high income, upper middle income, lower middle income, and low income. Most countries in the world are classified as either lower middle income, upper middle income, or high income, not in the poorest ‘low income’ category, and all except the low income countries have some level of immigration from countries in the other categories. Many people from high income countries want to live in middle income countries as well as other high income countries, also many from middle income countries want to emigrate to other middle income countries.
Most governments have restrictive immigration policies, except for those who can invest large amounts of money or who automatically qualify by having a foreign parent or grandparent. So governments should not be surprised when people immigrate or work illegally, or use marriage scams and other ways to shortcut the process.
In 20+ yrs of living abroad, I’ve met many long-term expats living or working, often illegally, in countries where many of the people want to emigrate to their countries, and often do so illegally. Either way, most experience problems with their legal status, or spend many years fighting with bureaucracy to try and legalize themselves. This has made me wonder, why can’t these countries just ‘trade’ their citizens? Or citizens effectively ‘trade’ their passports?
So then how would this programme of ‘citizen exchange’ work?
- anyone who wants to emigrate could register on a global database
- each person could apply for as many countries as they want, in order to increase their chances of being accepted somewhere. However, if accepted by more than one country, they would be able to choose only one.
- each country would accept the same number of citizens from another country as the number of their own citizens who would immigrate to that country.
- although interest in different countries’ citizenships would not be equally balanced, most countries’ citizens would still have a better chance to emigrate than existing options allow them.
- countries classified as ‘low income’ by the WB would not benefit from this scheme, as almost no one would want to immigrate to them. However, citizens of these countries usually suffer from war, persecution etc. and so can have grounds to claim refugee status.
Under this ‘RIQ’ system, the number of immigrants from country X to country Y would match the number of immigrants from country Y to country X. So for example, if 1 million citizens of country X want to emigrate to country Y, and 2 million citizens of country Y want to emigrate to country X, then the two countries would effectively ‘exchange’ one million of their citizens. Yes, citizens of country Y would be comparatively disadvantaged in this system, but it would still give 1 million the opportunity. And those who can’t go to country X could also apply to country Z etc etc. Of course there would be standard criteria to apply, persons with serious criminal convictions would be excluded, and priority would be given to those who already speak the language etc.
This would not replace existing immigration options, but provide an additional route that would be more efficient and humane than the normal naturalization process.
Of course, countries would need to be willing to make bilateral agreements with each other instead of setting their immigration policies independently.
In short, this scheme would reduce illegal immigration by making legal immigration easier, while removing one of the main arguments against immigration- the perception that immigration is out of control and that immigrants compete for jobs, government assistance, limited space and resources- because the inflow would always equal the outflow.
All opinions welcome :-)
In connection with a course I’m taking, I’m interested in feedback about an idea, which I call
‘reciprocal immigration quotas’– a global citizen exchange programme to provide immigration opportunities for those who can’t qualify by the traditional legal options of investment, ancestry, or marriage, or by refugee status.
It is estimated that over 700 million people in the world want to emigrate permanently to another country, for many reasons not necessary to list here. Although immigration is often stereotyped as ‘poor people from poor countries’ wanting to go to ‘rich’ countries, rich and poor are relative terms, and there are 4 classifications of countries by income level according to the World Bank - high income, upper middle income, lower middle income, and low income. Most countries in the world are classified as either lower middle income, upper middle income, or high income, not in the poorest ‘low income’ category, and all except the low income countries have some level of immigration from countries in the other categories. Many people from high income countries want to live in middle income countries as well as other high income countries, also many from middle income countries want to emigrate to other middle income countries.
Most governments have restrictive immigration policies, except for those who can invest large amounts of money or who automatically qualify by having a foreign parent or grandparent. So governments should not be surprised when people immigrate or work illegally, or use marriage scams and other ways to shortcut the process.
In 20+ yrs of living abroad, I’ve met many long-term expats living or working, often illegally, in countries where many of the people want to emigrate to their countries, and often do so illegally. Either way, most experience problems with their legal status, or spend many years fighting with bureaucracy to try and legalize themselves. This has made me wonder, why can’t these countries just ‘trade’ their citizens? Or citizens effectively ‘trade’ their passports?
So then how would this programme of ‘citizen exchange’ work?
- anyone who wants to emigrate could register on a global database
- each person could apply for as many countries as they want, in order to increase their chances of being accepted somewhere. However, if accepted by more than one country, they would be able to choose only one.
- each country would accept the same number of citizens from another country as the number of their own citizens who would immigrate to that country.
- although interest in different countries’ citizenships would not be equally balanced, most countries’ citizens would still have a better chance to emigrate than existing options allow them.
- countries classified as ‘low income’ by the WB would not benefit from this scheme, as almost no one would want to immigrate to them. However, citizens of these countries usually suffer from war, persecution etc. and so can have grounds to claim refugee status.
Under this ‘RIQ’ system, the number of immigrants from country X to country Y would match the number of immigrants from country Y to country X. So for example, if 1 million citizens of country X want to emigrate to country Y, and 2 million citizens of country Y want to emigrate to country X, then the two countries would effectively ‘exchange’ one million of their citizens. Yes, citizens of country Y would be comparatively disadvantaged in this system, but it would still give 1 million the opportunity. And those who can’t go to country X could also apply to country Z etc etc. Of course there would be standard criteria to apply, persons with serious criminal convictions would be excluded, and priority would be given to those who already speak the language etc.
This would not replace existing immigration options, but provide an additional route that would be more efficient and humane than the normal naturalization process.
Of course, countries would need to be willing to make bilateral agreements with each other instead of setting their immigration policies independently.
In short, this scheme would reduce illegal immigration by making legal immigration easier, while removing one of the main arguments against immigration- the perception that immigration is out of control and that immigrants compete for jobs, government assistance, limited space and resources- because the inflow would always equal the outflow.
All opinions welcome :-)
