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Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

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Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#91

Post by ben_w »

lmm wrote: post #21
zingar wrote: post #17

"...(the only access to the islands) is to have a pre-arranged job contract with a company that has signed a form of bond taking responsibility for you" That sounds like all British immigration rules. My employer had to apply for my visa and had to pay all my healthcare contributions for a year up front before I could move for a job in London. If I lose my job I have a few weeks to find a new employer (who will have…

Is it bizarre? Sounds like similar rules to anywhere - no country wants to let in people who can't support themselves.

It feels like double-counting to me:

> pay all my healthcare contributions for a year up front

Is fine by itself, at least assuming you then get a discount on the PAYE taxes that you’re essentially pre-paying here.

> If I lose my job I have a few weeks to find a new employer (who will have to be willing to pay for a visa transfer) or I have to leave the country.

Paying to transfer the visa seems a bit strange to me (though I’m conscious of my own naïveté), but otherwise this is also fine by itself.

Both together? Not so much.

Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#92

Post by BoxOfRain »

arcticbull wrote: post #12

Always been on my list to visit as a subject of Her Majesty, along with St. Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha and Pitcairn.

I'd love to visit all of the British Overseas Territories at some point, although I doubt I'll cross all of them off my list as a few of them are effectively off-limits to civilians.

Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#93

Post by barry-cotter »

wodenokoto wrote: post #79
MomoXenosaga wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is actually bizarre, anyone born in the US automatically gets US nationality. This leads to amusing birth tourism. Iirc it is the only country that does this.

It’s called Jus Soli and while not the most common thing, it isn’t exactly special to the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

The only other country with such liberal application of jus soli is New Zealand. In no other country I'm aware of can you show up, give birth and they will definitely give the child a passport unless the mother or father is a diplomat.

Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#94

Post by harry8 »

pjc50 wrote: post #88
mellosouls wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds perfectly reasonable. Barring exceptional circumstances, presumably the employer takes the decision to recruit externally for cost-cutting reasons; it's important then that the hidden costs of healthcare etc are not passed on to the tax payer.

But both the employer and employee are tax payers! There's nothing uniquely expensive about taxpaying employees that happen to be born overseas. I'm guessing the prepaid contribution refers to the "NHS surcharge": https://www.freemovement.org.uk/what-is-the-immigration-heal... (while Americans are probably going "hey that looks cheap at £624 a year compared to my insurance", note that it's not insurance and you still…

Without commenting on the policy I think you're missing the maths.

I can earn $x here or $(x - y) to be in the uk. In the UK I get healthcare on the NHS. I move. I quit / am fired / co goes (creatively?) broke. And I keep the healthcare on the NHS and have time to start a family before deportation etc.

Think about large values of y or indeed kickbacks. Does the firm really want /me/? Or do they just want cash which they get by paying very low (or taking a fee from me) as I get an end run around the immigration system to get healthcare without making the contribution, queue jumping better qualified, harder working, more civic minded people with greater compassionate grounds for being accepted? As ever there's a continuum. "Clearly this person is legitimately... ...then the unexpected thing happened." ends up being harder and quite expensive to identify and enforce fairly and equitably with a public service doing so.

I say nothing of the UK's policy here or its implementation as I'm ignorant. Assuming entrepreneurs won't spring up to arbitrage any system hole they can is naive. Immigration is super-emotive at the best of times especially arbitrarily unfair treatment and those who feel like they're losing from it (rightly or wrongly).

That's the general case being made. Immigration policy is super hard and you kind of have to willfully fortify your compassion as well. More than 700 million people on this planet have no safe drinking water and would want to migrate to any wealthy country under almost any circumstance. Plenty are literally dying to do it. How can we not feel for them? Being compassionate reduces to deciding how many people your country can take easily, with effort, or the level in which society collapses. 700m immigrating in a year will probably achieve collapse.

"What then must we do?"

I haven't got a good answer or indeed a better one than fight corruption everywhere and anywhere under all circumstances.

Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#95

Post by yardie »

barry-cotter wrote: post #93
wodenokoto wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s called Jus Soli and while not the most common thing, it isn’t exactly special to the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

The only other country with such liberal application of jus soli is New Zealand. In no other country I'm aware of can you show up, give birth and they will definitely give the child a passport unless the mother or father is a diplomat.

It is widely practiced in the Western Hemisphere. Which is why you can be Mexican or Panamanian and run for president of the US.

Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#96

Post by ShroudedNight »

chrisseaton wrote: post #67
arcticbull wrote: post #12

Always been on my list to visit as a subject of Her Majesty, along with St. Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha and Pitcairn.

Very unlikely you’re a ‘subject’ - that’s a very specific legal status designed for complex internationality edge cases which almost nobody uses any more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_subject

Exploring this rabbit hole evoked vague memories of Canadians holding British passports until around the time my parents were born.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Canadian_nationalit...

Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#97

Post by fiftyacorn »

hef19898 wrote: post #85
fiftyacorn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it the claim is whether or not Falklands was populated when UK claimed it. Argentina says yes, uk says no

Well, the French settled forst and handed over the islands to the Spanish in 1776 based on the Spanish/Portuguese colonial agreement from the 15th century. For most of the time since the 19th the islands were under British control. That would be like basing territorial claims everywhere based on borders from 200 years ago. Or worse, picking the borders from a period that suits best. And we are talking about the Spani…

The issue is were they defending the claim. To do that you needed to inhabit it according to the laws at the time

Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#98

Post by Nursie »

ben_w wrote: post #91
lmm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it bizarre? Sounds like similar rules to anywhere - no country wants to let in people who can't support themselves.

It feels like double-counting to me: > pay all my healthcare contributions for a year up front Is fine by itself , at least assuming you then get a discount on the PAYE taxes that you’re essentially pre-paying here. > If I lose my job I have a few weeks to find a new employer (who will have to be willing to pay for a visa transfer) or I have to leave the country. Paying to transfer the visa seems a bit strange to me…

> Paying to transfer the visa seems a bit strange to me

There's a bureaucracy to support, so fees for everything they do.

Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#99

Post by heavenlyblue »

arcticbull wrote: post #16
eitland wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think you are missing key details: Britain has already given up Hong Kong, i.e. (edit-->) according to how I understand you( The problem with China is they have broken the agreement on how they should rule Hong Kong during the first 50 years, isn't it?

Giving up Hong Kong isn't necessarily the "right thing" - Hong Kong Island was ceded to the UK in perpetuity ages ago, in the 1840s. Kowloon and the New Territories were on a 99 year lease expiring in 1997. The UK giving up Hong Kong Island is as "right" as America ceding California to the Spaniards in the late 1990s IMO. Both defeats occurred around the same time. The people of Hong Kong were as much Chinese IMO as…

Can you clear up what you mean by "as America ceding California to the Spaniards in the late 1990s IMO"? Can't find anything related to that, just curious.

Re: Why do so many people move to the Falkland Islands? (2009)

#100

Post by Nursie »

hef19898 wrote: post #36
Santosh83 wrote: post #13

If your occupied territory is far from the main seat of your remnant empire, you MUST send in as many troops as possible in the short term and then as many immigrants as possible in the long term, to consolidate your overseas hold by means of demographic claim. There is no great mystery here. What is interesting is how this behaviour from the Western nations is tacitly ignored but somehow China asserting its claim ov…

Never mind already back in the 80s and 90s the British population of the Falklands preferred to remain a part of the UK. Nevermind Argentina invaded the Falklands and was ultimately repulsed. No idea where the idea that the Falklands belong to Argentina comes from. The only meaningful population of the islands ever was and is British. Which makes the comparison to HK and Taiwan somewhat pointless, nevermind that Taiw…

> Never mind already back in the 80s and 90s the British population of the Falklands preferred to remain a part of the UK

The last referendum was in 2013, AFAICT, and gave a 99.8% pro-British result, on a 92% turnout. Seems pretty definitive to me.

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