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More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

news.gallup.com

71–80 of 157 posts

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#71

First World Problem, I know, but: I don't understand why I should not be allowed to take a 2 year vacation in another country without having to leave every 6 months and pray the border agent doesn't find it suspicious that I keep coming back. I don't want to take someone's job, or milk the welfare system, and I would be a net positive to anywhere I decided to vacation (sales tax/VAT, property tax, hotel tax, income t…

Because other people that seemed to be like you based on easily measurable characteristics tried to stay after all. That said, apart from the US, I wouldn't know any country where a rich German citizen couldn't get a long-term business or investment visa.

> Because other people that seemed to be like you based on easily measurable characteristics tried to stay after all.

Exactly. Like all things, a few bad actors spoil it for the rest of us.

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#72
post #32
post #26

I'd add some background to what fehyjn says below. The entire world was relatively borderess prior to 20th century, and it was completely outside of humanly possible for the state anywhere to keep tap on every individual. If you talk about the period from medieval, to early renaissance. It was very natural for every polity to want to get more subjects. Feudal lords couldn't have been more happy to see more people mig…

Wasn't travel across great distances commensurately difficult, making such restrictions unnecessary even if they weren't desired?

It must not have been that difficult considering how much impoverished labor immigrated to the United States during the 19th century.

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#73
post #8
post #5

Still don’t understand why I can’t just move to another country... I have a degree, no criminal records. But I need visas, permits, etc. Why all this difficulties?

I think the poll answers your question. It would be a little bit disruptive if 140M people suddenly moved to the US.

The poll says ~140M would migrate to the US if they could. That’s very different from saying 140M people would show up at our doorstep if we opened borders. It also says that 1/6 of Americans would leave if they could. You are ignoring these important qualifiers.

Edit: it’s actually 158M who would migrate to the US if they could, and ~55M Americans who would leave, for a total net inflow of 103M, if everyone could magically teleport to a new country on a one time basis.

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#74
post #13

Looking at those numbers, isn’t the EU the most desired place to migrate to? Feels odd to not split the USA into its member states while splitting Europe up. How many of those potential migrants want to move to Texas vs Spain?

An American citizen can freely move to any state in the United States. A citizen of European countries may or may not be able to freely move to other European countries without citizenship related changes, visas or other sponsorship.

You can move freely amongst counties in the Schengen Area, which is a subset of EU counties (which itself is a subset of European counties).

> The free movement of persons is a fundamental right guaranteed by the EU to its citizens. It entitles every EU citizen to travel, work and live in any EU country without special formalities.

Source: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/border...

As an aside, this was a hotly contested subject during the UK EU “Brexit” referendum.

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#75
post #26

I'd add some background to what fehyjn says below. The entire world was relatively borderess prior to 20th century, and it was completely outside of humanly possible for the state anywhere to keep tap on every individual. If you talk about the period from medieval, to early renaissance. It was very natural for every polity to want to get more subjects. Feudal lords couldn't have been more happy to see more people mig…

> The entire world was relatively borderess prior to 20th century,

The Romans spent a lot of effort in trying to keep the various barbarian tribes from migrating freely into the Roman Empire. In fact, for much of the Roman Empire, the bulk of the Roman Army was stationed on the frontiers such as the Danube and Rhine to keep the German tribes out. One of the big turning points was in 406 when the Rhine froze and removed a natural barrier that had kept a lot of these tribes out before hand.

Imperial China also worked hard on keeping the various northern groups from migrating into China, going so far as to build the Great Wall.

It seems that the more developed the civilization, the more effort it expends in defining and guarding it's borders.

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#76
post #50
post #26

I'd add some background to what fehyjn says below. The entire world was relatively borderess prior to 20th century, and it was completely outside of humanly possible for the state anywhere to keep tap on every individual. If you talk about the period from medieval, to early renaissance. It was very natural for every polity to want to get more subjects. Feudal lords couldn't have been more happy to see more people mig…

History is full of folks complaining about migrations / stranges and states / groups taking action to prevent / persiculte newcomers, and travel was not easy. I feel like your comment makes it seem a lot more fluid than it was for a group to simply migrate and enjoy their new country.

Yes, that was there, I and think anybody here is erudite enough to know that.

It was never easy, but for vastly different reasons than today, and, historically, there was a lot more migration than people today tend to think of that time period.

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#77
post #7
post #5

Still don’t understand why I can’t just move to another country... I have a degree, no criminal records. But I need visas, permits, etc. Why all this difficulties?

How does anyone know you have a degree and no criminal records?

In order to obtain global mobility, I will embed into my body a microchip of your choice that reports current location and biometric information continuously, and pay up to $10k into a yearly program that will report my per-country statistics into a global database.

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#78
post #5

Still don’t understand why I can’t just move to another country... I have a degree, no criminal records. But I need visas, permits, etc. Why all this difficulties?

Because different groups of people have their own interests, shared culture, etc. Just because you don't mind a homogeneous global culture doesn't meant that others do or should.

Why should people in CA let people from OK move there? They probably have more in common with major metropolises world-wide than they do a rural farming community they happen to share a nation with.

People are pointing out the hypocrisy in the selective application of freedom-of-movement. There may or may not be valid reasons for this but don't pretend its grounded in self-determination.

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#79

First World Problem, I know, but: I don't understand why I should not be allowed to take a 2 year vacation in another country without having to leave every 6 months and pray the border agent doesn't find it suspicious that I keep coming back. I don't want to take someone's job, or milk the welfare system, and I would be a net positive to anywhere I decided to vacation (sales tax/VAT, property tax, hotel tax, income t…

Because other people that seemed to be like you based on easily measurable characteristics tried to stay after all. That said, apart from the US, I wouldn't know any country where a rich German citizen couldn't get a long-term business or investment visa.

I know the UK just got rid of their "pay-to-stay" visas (Tier 1 - Entrepreneur (£200k) and Tier 1 - Startup (£50k + endorsement), and now have endorsement-based visas (Innovator and Startup).

So I guess it is still pay-to-stay, but instead of paying the government, you are paying one of a few dozen private companies that the government chose based on some random criteria, and apparently there were many endorsing organizations that didn't even know they were selected.

Re: More Than 750M Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could

#80
post #48

I wonder if this correlates to the resolution and frequency of social media use globally. I might be completely happy with my apartment and job in the EU, but seeing 'ads' for the US on social media every day may begin to chip away at my contentment through the introduction of a comparison.

> seeing 'ads' for the US on social media every day What ads are you talking about?

What some call "American cultural imperialism" is what he/she is likely talking about.
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