Asklemmy

Why do countries even exists? Everything else follows from that...

Once upon a time, immigration systems didn't exist and people could walk anywhere they wanted. In fact, immigration systems are extremely recent, historically.

Immigration systems achieve something very important: they help to further subjugate layers of the working class and divide them. Immigrant workers have to deal with very long processing times, forcing them to accept very low wages and horrible conditions, and reaching parity with citizen's working conditions and pay becomes a dream.

This way, corporations and capitalists receive cheaper labor and a weaker working class they won't have to fight.

Of course, there are other purposes it serves, but that is a pretty big one.

Those complex systems are trying to protect the standard of living for their citizens. Or at least that is what they think they do.

Countries tend to only allow immigrants that are essentially guaranteed to benefit the country. For example, in Canada and many EU countries, immigration generally starts with a work visa, but you can't just apply for any old job, it generally needs to be a job that the country is having trouble filling. This is enforced on the side of employers by requiring that they must search for applicants within the same country before opening the position up internationally.

In the much rarer instances where countries agree to give you permanent residence without a job first, it's almost always exclusively for highly skilled or educated individuals. For example, most countries tend to let you stay if you finish a PHD in their universities, or if you have an impressive work history in your home country in a white collar field like STEM.

Even rarer than the first two but still exists: "pay the government an obscene amount of money and we'll give you a residence card." For example: Austria, Malta, even Canada used to do this but has since stopped offering it as an option.

Basically, immigration policies are generally "unless you can be of significant economic benefit to the country, fuck off."

bureaucracy invents complexity to make itself feel important

I think alot of countries are afraid of taking on extra liability...and to degree, i understand this. However, wealthy countries, like mine, behave badly towards immigration - even though our country was started as a place to emigrate to.

Anyway, I'm looking into (casually, right now) emigrating to Equidor and currently, their policies are pretty fair in my mind. You have to prove you're not a criminal and as well that you will be capable of supporting yourself there. I think that is very reasonable.

Wish me luck!