|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Satori
Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all
|
 Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:05 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Quote: |
| In any case, I doubt I could immigrate to Australia or New Zealand, BJWD, and I nearly have my doctorate. Because those nation-states, I understand, are closed and hostile to immigrants. |
Where do you get your information? New Zealand has a very open immigration policy and plenty of americans are coming all the time. We are far from hostile to immigrants. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Fresh Prince
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: The glorious nation of Korea
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
I've known a lot of people that have immigrated to different countries and some of the stories they tell are very interesting.
If you have a large enough net worth, most countries will let you immigrate in return for investing in their economy. Canada's net worth requirement is around $400,000 although it might have changed recently. Aside from a small amount of refugees and people marrying into the family so to speak, the only other option is to immigrate as a skilled worker.
Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand have a modified point system to determine who can immigrate as a skilled worker. The U.S. doesn't have that system yet but is developing a point system that will likely be imlplemented in the next couple years. Canada gives a lot of points to people that can speak French and English so it is relatively easier to immigrate their than say Australia where they give a lot of points to people that get a student visa and get a graduate degree first.
To get enough points in these countries, the applicant needs to have some skill that is in high demand and one that the country is short of. Usually they have to have several years documentable experience in addition to an advanced degree or certification in their field. The younger the applicant the more points they get too.
Four years ago Canada had the minimum points required bar up so high that almost nobody could possibly get in unless they had everything perfect. Now the pass mark is much lower although it's still difficult to get in. The U.S. is constantly changing their system and it's very complicated but they go through periods of extreme leniency where they let everyone in and then switch to periods where it's very difficult to get in.
New Zealand and Australia also have a very high pass mark which is quite hard for most people to reach. The UK is part of fortress Europe where immigration from the outside is nearly impossible however the UK gives a lot of points to people with a top-ranked MBA. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bonanzabucks
Joined: 09 Jun 2007
Location: NYC
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
I work for a Korean immigration law office. I know the immigration rules pretty well for both US and Canada and, to a lesser extent, the UK and Australia. I want to comment on some of the things you mentioned.
| Quote: |
| If you have a large enough net worth, most countries will let you immigrate in return for investing in their economy. Canada's net worth requirement is around $400,000 although it might have changed recently. Aside from a small amount of refugees and people marrying into the family so to speak, the only other option is to immigrate as a skilled worker. |
Canada has a set target of letting in around 250,000 immigrants a year. It is the highest amount per capital in the world for a country (not including city-states) � nobody else comes even close. And while Canada�s policy is to let in people mostly through the points system, the reality is much different. Most people either come through family immigration or as refugees. In 2005, only 20% of immigrants were of the skilled class! Family and refugees made up the other 80%. Both the latter cases are abused.
| Quote: |
Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand have a modified point system to determine who can immigrate as a skilled worker. The U.S. doesn't have that system yet but is developing a point system that will likely be imlplemented in the next couple years. Canada gives a lot of points to people that can speak French and English so it is relatively easier to immigrate their than say Australia where they give a lot of points to people that get a student visa and get a graduate degree first.
To get enough points in these countries, the applicant needs to have some skill that is in high demand and one that the country is short of. Usually they have to have several years documentable experience in addition to an advanced degree or certification in their field. The younger the applicant the more points they get too.
Four years ago Canada had the minimum points required bar up so high that almost nobody could possibly get in unless they had everything perfect. Now the pass mark is much lower although it's still difficult to get in. The U.S. is constantly changing their system and it's very complicated but they go through periods of extreme leniency where they let everyone in and then switch to periods where it's very difficult to get in. |
Canada�s point system was higher four years ago, true, but it was never that difficult to attain. Again, most immigrated through family and refugee methods. Nonetheless, the number of points required has been lowered since (for Quebec, it�s even lower still as they�re very desperate to attract immigrants there since a lot of people are moving out).
Australia�s point system is more difficult. And the reason they have such few immigrants is because their quotas are half of Canada�s (about 125,000 a year). Not to mention, their refugee system is really strict � they only accept about 10%. They also house their refugees in detention centers, while Canada just lets them go off and forgets about them. Not to mention, while Canada�s refugee approval rate is 90%, the 10% that are declined are never deported, nor is any effort taken to go after them. They just �disappear�.
By the way, after 9/11, I was looking into moving to Australia. They had an online assessment test on their website and I took it. I passed. Now, I do have a university education and English is my first language and I have a professional job, but there are far more skilled people out there than me. By the way, I heard that Australia has recently upped their quota and will let more people in.
I believe the US system is a disaster and in desperate need of reform. We need to have more of a point-based system too rather than the idiotic diversity lottery or that stupid political law that allows illegals from Cuba to become permanent residents right away. Been to Miami? That place is a mess!
Also, with regards to illegal immigration, here in the States, it�s estimated that we have maybe 13 million illegals (and about 60% of those are Mexicans). In Canada, they haven�t been able to do a decent study, but it�s been estimated that there are at least half a million. Australia only has about 45,000 illegals. I�m sure the low number has to do with the fact that Australia has no land neighbors and is more or less in the middle of nowhere, but they also enforce their laws with regards to overstayed visas. Canada does not and neither do we in the States. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bonanzabucks
Joined: 09 Jun 2007
Location: NYC
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:10 am Post subject: |
|
|
One more thing I'll add. It might be easier overall to immigrate to Canada than the US, the UK or Australia, but it's harder (or at least takes longer) to bring a spouse over. I have personal experience with that.
A few years ago, I was engaged to a Brazilian girl and wanted to bring her to the States. I thought of bringing her in on a tourist visa and marrying her when she got here, but it's very hard for Brazilians to get the tourist visa here. She was rejected when she applied. I then thought about bringing her through the fiancee visa (K-1), but the waiting time was about six months and I was tired of the long distance relationship and it was getting expensive for me to go back and forth to Brazil. I naively thought that I could move to Canada (as I'm a citizen there too) and bring her on the tourist visa and marry her when I got there. Well, she got the tourist visa (which is more difficult for Brazilians to get, but her aunt worked for the Canadian Consulate there and was able to pull a few strings). However, if I married her in Canada, it would have taken at least a year and a half for her to get the permanent residence and she wouldn't be able to work in the meantime. Canada doesn't have a finacee visa anymore, so I'd have to marry her in Brazil and then sponsor her to come to Canada as a family member. That would take at least a year (a friend of mine went through the same process and it took him a year and a half to bring his Brazilian wife).
To make a long story short, I moved back to Canada, but we ended up breaking up and now I'm back in the US. Since then, the US has streamlined the fiancee visa process and it takes about four months to bring them here. Not to mention, you can marry someone here on a tourist visa and it takes three to six months to get the advanced parole.
Australia and the UK are much easier places to bring your spouse to and they can work pretty much within weeks.
Lesson learned and I'll never do another long-distance relationship again. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:36 am Post subject: |
|
|
| bonanzabucks wrote: |
| I believe the US system is a disaster and in desperate need of reform... |
It is not merely a matter of comparing legal systems. The United States is under much more pressure than Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand combined. "Swamped," really.
What reforms or new-and-improved system do you have in mind which might deal with such pressures? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bonanzabucks
Joined: 09 Jun 2007
Location: NYC
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I actually posted a long response, but my browser crashed and, well, here it goes again, but a briefer version.
This is what I would do based on today's realities:
1. Get rid of the Diversity Lottery because it does no good and it's a silly policy.
2. Implement a points-based immigration system based on skills and education and actually enforce it like Australia does. It will attract much better-skilled immigrants who can contribute to society.
3. Close the border with Mexico. This is the biggest problem we have now. As soon as you close the border, they will stop coming and people will stop complaining.
4. Make the pathway for citizenship easier for the H1-B visa. Yes, you can get citizenship, but it takes a long time and is a pain in the ass. These guys get frustrated with the process and move on to the UK and Australia. Our loss is their gain. Yes, yes, I know the H1-B is a serious issue, but it's much better to bring these guys over and have them pay taxes here. When we reduced the number of H1-B's, did it give Americans more jobs? NO! Instead, companies outsourced these jobs over to India (corporate America has zero loyalty to this country...just look at Haliburton). We lost so much more than we gained, which was absolutely nothing. This situation sucks, but, hey, at least they pay their taxes. Better than paying taxes to India and the Philippines, right?
5. Make the TN Visa (which is for highly skilled Canadians and Mexicans) a pathway to citizenship, which is not possible now. These aren't the berry pickers coming in, but doctors and engineers.
6. Make the E-3 Visa a pathway to citizenship. This is the same as the TN visa, but applies to Aussies.
7. Get rid of that stupid policy (Wet Feet/Dry Feet) that grants immediate amnesty to illegal Cubans. It only exists because of politics.
8. Fits in with #2 and it might be considered racist and elitist, but target specific countries for immigration. Target India, East Asia, Europe and the educated from Latin America, especially Brazil. Lots of people are emigrating from Europe because of chronic unemployment. And there are a lot of educated Brazilians who want to leave because of lack of opportunities, corruption and crime.
9. Lower the requirement for investment immigration. Right now, it's $1 000 000 ($500 000 for poorer cities). Lower that and a lot more people would invest here and it's never a bad thing to bring more money into the country.
It would be foolish to close our borders entirely, especially in an increasingly globalized world. We'd totally lose our competitive advantage and fall behind if we closed our doors. We should just be selective in who we bring in. And closing the border with Mexico would dramatically ease concerns with the illegals. Immigration should be based on what's needed here, not based on policy.
By the way, Canadians cities like Toronto and Vancouver are also swamped, maybe even more so. Like I said before, Canada lets in about 250 000 immigrants a year. Half of them go to Toronto and about a third go to Vancouver. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:08 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Bonanzabucks: obviously you are well-informed on this issue.
Nice post. Upon reflection, could not agree with you more -- esp. on Mexico and Cuba.
I do not think Canada is dealing with bleeding borders and tens of millions of illegals like we are, however. That was what I had in mind when I spoke of "pressures" and "swamped." Not merely those going through legal channels.
Brazilians also come here on the pretext of a student visa, never go to school, take the job they come here feeling entitled to (usually in a rest.), perhaps look for an American husband real quick-like, and then start bringing family members over. That is the kind of nonsense I want shut down. And I think I already covered the Mexican corruption issues, above.
Last edited by Gopher on Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bonanzabucks
Joined: 09 Jun 2007
Location: NYC
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Gopher wrote: |
I personally know dozens of Brazilians who come here on the pretext of a student visa, never go to school, take the job they come here feeling entitled to (usually in a rest.), perhaps look for an American husband real quick-like, and then start bringing family members over. |
LOL. Almost happened with me! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Close the border to Mexico? You make it sound a lot simpler than I imagine it is. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
Security is an important issue, but I don't see it as connected at all to the equally important issue of immigration.
Back in the days of the bad Senator McCarthy (from Wisconsin: Boooo!), not the good Senator McCarthy (from Minnesota: Yaaaay!), there was a thing called the loyalty oath. The premise was that all Commie spies could be uncovered by forcing people to take a loyalty oath and the Commies would fail, be uncovered and a)swapped for our good spies or b) be electrocuted.
For some unexplained (to me at least) reason, there is a segment of the population that thinks someone who is bent on murder would stop short of telling a lie.
I guess these same people have visions of some Border Patrol agent asking an undercover agent what his reason was for requesting a visa. "Drat! I was afraid you would ask me. I've got 52 sticks of dynamite strapped to my chest. Now I'll have to turn them over to you and go to Guantanamo. Foiled again."
There has always been a paranoid element in American society (and everyone else's, too, probably). I hope they can be managed this time around so they don't screw up the immigration issue. |
Want a light for that straw man? Here's how you do border security:
http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_02_06_a_pitbull.html
"Before Kelly became the New York police commissioner, he served as the head of the U.S. Customs Service, and while he was there he overhauled the criteria that border-control officers use to identify and search suspected smugglers. There had been a list of forty-three suspicious traits. He replaced it with a list of six broad criteria. Is there something suspicious about their physical appearance? Are they nervous? Is there specific intelligence targeting this person? Does the drug-sniffing dog raise an alarm? Is there something amiss in their paperwork or explanations? Has contraband been found that implicates this person?
You'll find nothing here about race or gender or ethnicity, and nothing here about expensive jewelry or deplaning at the middle or the end, or walking briskly or walking aimlessly. Kelly removed all the unstable generalizations, forcing customs officers to make generalizations about things that don't change from one day or one month to the next. Some percentage of smugglers will always be nervous, will always get their story wrong, and will always be caught by the dogs. That's why those kinds of inferences are more reliable than the ones based on whether smugglers are white or black, or carry one bag or two. After Kelly's reforms, the number of searches conducted by the Customs Service dropped by about seventy-five per cent, but the number of successful seizures improved by twenty-five per cent. The officers went from making fairly lousy decisions about smugglers to making pretty good ones. "We made them more efficient and more effective at what they were doing," Kelly said." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
twg
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Getting some fresh air...
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bonanzabucks wrote: |
| 3. Close the border with Mexico. This is the biggest problem we have now. As soon as you close the border, they will stop coming and people will stop complaining. |
Ineffective, high cost, showboating.
You wanna stop it, you target the Americans who are paying for these people to come over and work for a dollar a day. They wouldn't be border hopping if they didn't keep having this incentive to do so.
And throwing tonnes of cash to place a Texas Ranger every ten feet along the border isn't going to do anything but force the traffickers to get more crafty, and pay out more bribes on the American side of the fence.
The source of the problem isn't Mexico, it's the US citizens who support it and refuse to allow any worker program to be passed into law because all of that near-slave labor would all go away. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| twg wrote: |
The source of the problem isn't Mexico, it's the US citizens who support it and refuse to allow any worker program to be passed into law because all of that near-slave labor would all go away. |
I know you want to live in a nice little world of either/or's, but your are once again wrong. Yes, I know. Rich (white) Americans and the poor (non-white) Mexicans they exploit. It makes for a nice narrative. Perhaps you could teach your kindy kids about it.
Yes, the people who reject amnesty are the same ones, exclusively, who hire illegals.
What honest, non-racist person would believe in the rule of law anyhow? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
twg
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Getting some fresh air...
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:26 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Let me walk you through this:
1- Somebody wants something and they're willing to pay for it.
2- Someone gives it to them.
In this case, someone wants cheap labor. Now I know why this is so difficult for you to accept, but instead of going over your glaring personality flaws, let's just accept that there will always be people willing to provide the cheap labor.
But since obtaining this cheap labor is running counter to the law, you have two options: You change the laws, or you target the Americans who are breaking the law to begin with. They should easy to persecute since they are citizens, right? It makes a lot more sense than blowing an assload of money monitoring a border that's thousands of miles long, capturing, processing, and sending back illegals.
You get rid of the demand, and the supply ends. Try to block the supply, and the demand just finds more under-handed methods to get it that do nothing but put money into the pockets of criminals.
Seriously, are you "fence" people idiots? Did you not learn anything from prohibition? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| twg wrote: |
Let me walk you through this:
1- Somebody wants something and they're willing to pay for it.
2- Someone gives it to them.
In this case, someone wants cheap labor. Now I know why this is so difficult for you to accept, but instead of going over your glaring personality flaws, let's just accept that there will always be people willing to provide the cheap labor.
But since obtaining this cheap labor is running counter to the law, you have two options: You change the laws, or you target the Americans who are breaking the law to begin with. They should easy to persecute since they are citizens, right? It makes a lot more sense than blowing an assload of money monitoring a border that's thousands of miles long, capturing, processing, and sending back illegals.
You get rid of the demand, and the supply ends. Try to block the supply, and the demand just finds more under-handed methods to get it that do nothing but put money into the pockets of criminals.
Seriously, are you "fence" people idiots? Did you not learn anything from prohibition? |
I've had to help you out far too often on this. Your reading comprehension is as strong as your hairline and future employment prospects post-Korean esl fad.
Disgustingly enough, I don't, ugh, disagree with you. You see, I believe in a little thing called economic liberty. People like me want labour to be mobile, as is capital. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Comes now the antiAmerican comic-book enthusiast whose hatred blinds him to the fact that people do not leave in vast numbers from healthy, viable countries.
You want to get to the root of the problem? Here it is: Mexico is broken. Has been so since "Emperor Agustin Iturbide" decided he would live better and more extravagantly than any Roman emperor ever did and broke the bank in the process -- not to mention nearly every single one of his corrupt successors from Santa Ana to Salinas, the racism and land issues landowners have created for themselves since the colonial era, and the list goes on.
Yes. Close that border, at least legally. And build from there. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
