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Comment by tuna-piano | Hacker News Reader

In relation to passport power - I find Trump's proposed ban on Muslims pretty interesting to think about. Although widely criticized, it seems to me more ethically wrong to base entry decisions on country of origin (not a choice) than of religion (a choice).

Obviously there are many issues with the practicality, unintended consequences, and the blanket nature of a ban on muslims. That said, I'm not sure I see an ethical issue compared to restricting based on country of origin (what this site shows).

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Reasoning about immigration laws is pointless because the foundation is based on magical thinking. There is no logic at all behind any of it. Citizenship by blood, by birthplace, by religion... then you look into getting a travel visa, or a work permit. There's nothing rational about any of it. Just endless lunacy. I probably shouldn't complain, as I'm eligible for four different citizenships... but when you look into this stuff, there's nothing very logical about it, and it's somewhat depressing that the planet is still this bizarre.

I'm not so sure it's illogical. It's tough to kick people out of a country that they were born in. While a 3 time armed robber born in the US and released from prison will be back on the streets of the US - ideally he / she would be sent somewhere else.

Immigration is a rare time when a country can choose what people to allow in or not. I would think that a country should be more concerned about its own residents than about residents of other countries. So for example, when the US sees that visitors / immigrants from some other country has on average high rates of unsavory activities - the US is in a position to restrict entry.

In a slightly extreme example: Imagine a country, safe-istan, has almost no crime. But 50% of immigrants / visitors from crime-istan commit crimes when they visit safe-istan. Should safe-istan allow all people from crime-istan unrestricted entry into their country? Or should they have an application / visa program?*

*I actually think this is a pretty realistic situation - visible especially in the Nordic countries and Japan.

I'd expand that to cultural preservation in general. The French like being French and living in a French country, with all that entails concerning values, music, food, and way of life. The Japanese like being Japanese and living in a Japanese country. Mass migration can change the character of a country. It's totally logical to want to preserve your culture and way of life.

If 100 million people from the Middle East moved into France (to use a hyperbolic thought experiment), it would cease to be a French country. And we don't need to use this thought experiment. You're kidding yourself if you think that mass migration from the Middle East and Northern Africa into France over the last few decades has been anything but an unmitigated disaster. There are plenty of great people from those countries, and their children, who have assimilated and contributed great things to French society. But the problems are so great that I think most French people would turn back the clock and undo the whole thing if they could.

This will be controversial, but France doesn't have any right to be a "French" country. Individuals have rights, but cultures and nations don't have a right to exist. If they did we would be obliged to preserve them, but peoples, countries and cultures always vanish over time, and there's no general obligation to stop this happening. Saying otherwise is simply a conservative demand, with no ethical basis.

"The French like being French and living in a French country, with all that entails" - This claim also implies a right for the French people to preserve the ethnic composition (white French) of their country, which is both racist and probably impossible.

I'd argue the aggregate human benefit to letting people from poor countries move to wealthy countries far outweighs any inconvenience or discomfort caused to the wealthy. 100 million people aren't going to move from the Middle East, but they might well move from subsaharan Africa, and it would certainly greatly improve their lives, and living conditions in Africa as they sent money 'back home'. French culture does not seem important compared to stopping millions of deaths from disease and starvation.

    which is both racist

Is it more racist than demanding the right for the non-French people to change the ethnic composition of their host country?

   and probably impossible.

Japan does it quite successfully. Try getting Saudi / Qatari citizenship ...

    it would certainly greatly improve their 
    lives, and living conditions in Africa

You state this pretty confidently. Have you got any evidence to back this up? Historically, successful countries have been the exception rather than the norm. The norm is failed states.

The fear of the anti-immigration crowd (whether right or wrong) is that mass migration will bring the target country down, rather than lift the immigrants up.

Part of the rights of individuals is self-determination. If a people want to pick and choose who they admit into their community, that is their right. If they want to close their borders to the rest of the world, that is their right as well.

The fact that everything dies in the long run doesn't mean that those who hold their nations and cultures dear today should not work toward their preservation. An argument from nihilism isn't convincing to me. You and I will die too, but that shouldn't stop us from pursuing the good life in the meantime.

Besides, it's not a given that all current nations and cultures will die. They will certainly change over time, but it could very well be that the first human colony in another galaxy will fly an American flag. It's unlikely, but who knows.

Why don't I have self determination? Why can't I get together with a few like minded friends and secede from our country?

Indeed it's unlikely. That flag will be the Chinese flag.

Travel restrictions sound okay until you're in a situation where they actually affect you. I went on my share of hostel trips after university. I have yet to meet a traveler from any country, who thought it was fair that they couldn't work or live wherever they wanted. If you wanted to live in Japan, for example, and some Japanese guy told you he was worried you'd personally be damaging the country with your foreign values, I doubt you'd find much merit in the argument. That might be correct, I don't know, but it's hard to accept when the liberty being denied is one's own.

Immigration policy isn't for your convenience as a foreigner. It's made solely for the benefit of the people who already live there, as it should be.

"As it should be" kind of rubs me the wrong way. The world is the way it is, not because it's the best of all possible worlds, but through a bunch of historical accidents.

You wouldn't want to live in a world where you were subject to the majority rule of the entire human race, which seems to be the logical conclusion of your reasoning on this.

I get your drift, but at this point we're conflating two different issues. I'm just arguing for freedom of movement. There are many forms of government under which that could happen. Everything from the mundane (treaties) to fringe ideas (direct democracy, government by AI, total anarchy, or whatever else). But to discuss the merits of those... feels like it's going OT.

This clearly doesn't apply the United States then, who's culture is swallowing up immigrants and adding their influences to our melting pot.

Depends which Americans you ask. Try asking old, white and rural people about this and you might get a surprising answer. There is a disagreement about what America is and what's un-American and foreign.

The US is a mix of different European cultures and touches of other cultures in some regions. Hamburgers, pizza, enchilada's for simple minded examples?

I'm not talking (just) about who came on the mayflower, there has been influxes of immigrants since the founding of the nation. I currently reside in a part of town referred to as "German Village", which was settled primarily by German immigrants in the mid to late 1800's and continues to have places that serve "German" cuisine.

America from its founding was a place for people of all stripes to gather. It of course not only is a amalgamation of cultures but it has birthed its own cultures, some of which are associated with certain groups or regions: southern culture, new england culture, african american culture to name a few subcultures/groups--even the cultures we've birthed show diversity!

I'm the son of Cuban immigrants and I think that immigration levels are much too high right now, of populations that are a mismatch for our economic needs (lots of low-skill workers, but we have a tragic surplus of low-skill labor), into a system that doesn't encourage integration (welfare state and identity politics), and sometimes from cultures that don't share our values.

I think anyone who wants to come to this country to become one of us should be able to, provided they;

Can pass the citizenship test.

Can speak english at a conversational or better level.

Can afford a more than nominal sum for a visa (1500-5000 dollars).

Can pass a criminal history check of some sort.

Doing so would get you a 5 year work visa, after the expiration of that, you could renew it again, and after that, you must either formally file for citizenship (and then agree to remain here for 5 years after other than short visits home) or go back home for at least 5 years when you can start the process over again.

I agree with the citizenship test and the criminal history test. I think English at a conversational level is good too for practical reasons but that matched with the visa sum would select for more wealthy and hence educated immigrants. That isn't an issue, but given that many illegal aliens are filling unskilled jobs that Americans are unwilling to fill seems to suggest to me that the general desire is for unskilled immigration, not skilled. I mean this is hackernews, just look at how many H1b visa stories make the front page. Generally, people benefit from low skilled labor while they suffer from skilled immigrants who would compete with them while accepting lower wages.

I believe if we passed these rules, you'd see schools open just on the other side of the border. But, my idea is that it would be accompanied by a guest worker program, that would allow someone to come for say, 8 out of a rolling 12 year period.

if you asked those same old white and rural people a century ago.. well wait - they would have largely been freshly immigrated from Scandenavia or Germany.

This divide has existed as long as the united states has existed - and it will exist as long as there is immigration - this pressure exists to ensure that too much immigration doesnt happen, and that the melting pot can keep up.

That said, we're the only country in the world where being an 'real member of the country' largely means some legal gobbily-gook and deciding that you wish to ascribe to some somewhat nebulous american ideals.

>somewhat nebulous american ideals

The constitution and the philosophy espoused in the declaration of independence are perhaps open to interpretation but it's not that nebulous. I do agree you saying "somewhat" could either be sarcasm or you could literally mean that the "American ideals" are just somewhat nebulous other than totally arbitrary.

What constitutes the whole of american ideals is somewhat nebulous is what I was saying. I value american ideals, but my concept of what american ideals mean - outside of a few very key items - may vary widely from another person my age, with a similar background.

Yes, but as far as I can tell this is not France's biggest problem, and if they fixed the bigger problems this one would get a lot more manageable.

It's... frustrating... that a failure in presenting 1st, 2nd, 3rd generations of immigrants with a good life results in terrorism, but two wrongs don't make a right.

"ideally he / she would be sent somewhere else."

Where? Who would want them?

Some years ago, there was a judge in a Southern town who had the bright idea of giving their criminals a bus ticket to LA. One of the criminals was arrested in LA and told cops and prosecutors about this. LA authorities were annoyed, and there was some press coverage. Someone pointed out that LA could easily give bus tickets to a few hundred of their crooks and send them to the Southern town. The judge stopped sending people to LA.

There is nothing illogical about it.

If all the worlds borders were open then economies would move to the average. Workers in poor countries would move to rich countries (because they have higher wages) until those countries wages had gone down, and the countries they left would have their wages go up due to the supply decrease in workers.

It's complete logical self interest for country richer than the average to not want to allow this to happen.

Economies are not zero-sum.

The flow of capital and education to poor countries would increase their productivity (and thus wages and standard of living) while the increased supply of labor decreases prices in rich countries, and the new equilibrium would be strictly better for both sides.

Find a good economics textbook. (This is an issue where economists are in almost universal agreement, and almost universally opposed by politicians and the general public).

Free trade (and free immigration, which is essentially the same) is undoubtedly good on the whole. However, the current anti-trade pandering from Trump / Sanders and the like may also be correct.

Expanded access to markets may be unequal. For example, if there was an untapped country that had a million unemployed meteorologists - signing a free-trade deal with that country would most likely be terrible for meteorologists in America - although all other Americans would be better off with improved weather forecasts.

Replace "meteorologists" with "factory laborer" and you can see why so many of the current anti-trade folks are upset with what they see happening. They aren't barbers or plumbers - they're factory workers. The barbers, plumbers and engineers get cheaper stuff (and are better off), but the factory workers get paid less.

I'm sorry but that's transparently bullshit, an example of good on paper but bad I reality. It does very little but line the pockets of a select few in the rich nations. There is no reason for me to give a shit about someone in Africa if it means my own family, my own people struggle.

"My own people".

Clearly you use that phrase to mean people who share a nationality with you. Historically, this phrase has been used more often to refer to people with the same skin color, or religion, as you.

You could use the exact words you used to justify systematic exclusion of people of another race or religion from jobs and markets controlled by "your people". I like to think that we’d all consider that appalling.

Like race or religion, nationality is largely determined by an accident of birth. It is inconsistent to hold that racial or religious discrimination is unethical, but discriminating on the basis of nationality is somehow okay.

We are all human, we deserve the same opportunities. But when mass migrations happen, they threaten the host country and also don't solve the problem back in the source country. The solution would be to make it better to live everywhere, so that people would not be so tempted to migrate. It will probably happen for Africa and Middle East in this century, as technology advances quickly.

And I assume a very similar argument was made in apartheid South Africa, or Jim Crow US.

“We are all human, we deserve the same opportunities. But when [black people move into white neighborhoods], they threaten [white neighborhoods] and also don't solve the problem back in [black neighborhoods]. The solution would be to make it better to live everywhere, so that people would not be so tempted to migrate. It will probably happen for [Cape Town and Johannesburg?] in this century, as technology advances quickly.”

Or, in other words, you propose the “separate but equal” solution.

It lines the pockets of everyone who purchases better, cheaper goods and has more money left over for other stuff. Everything we buy that's made abroad is made abroad because doing it that way makes it better or cheaper or both.

And if you married an African, should you be allowed to live together in the same country? Her parents? Grand-parents?

> The flow of capital and education to poor countries would increase their productivity (and thus wages and standard of living) while the increased supply of labor decreases prices in rich countries, and the new equilibrium would be strictly better for both sides.

The fact that it isn't zero-sum doesn't mean that it's always strictly better for both sides. There are many policies that will give +4 to a foreign citizen at the cost of -2 to a US citizen, which is not zero sum but is still not to the advantage of the US.

> (This is an issue where economists are in almost universal agreement, and almost universally opposed by politicians and the general public).

Not an unexpected result, since economists are generally utilitarians more than nationalists and politicians the opposite.

The way you describe it, it sounds like you believe there are no negative consequences for anyone, anywhere, ever.

> If all the worlds borders were open then economies would move to the average.

That's not the case. That premise would only hold true in a bad simulation - ie one that ignored or removed thousands of factors. Back in actuality, those thousands of factors would still ensure drastic differences between countries. Equilibrium in regards to this premise is inherently impossible. Any amount of friction alone guarantees it, and there would be vast amounts of friction.

One other simple reference proves this point dramatically as well: governance.

The equilibrium theory of borders is equivalent to the perfect market pricing theory in equity markets. Both assume and require omniscience along with perfect action at all times by all actors. All possible knowledge must be perfectly distributed to all actors involved at all times, and then digested and acted on identically at exactly the same time. It collapses into comedy extremely quickly if you try to actually pursue the thought concept.

> That's not the case. That premise would only hold true in a bad simulation - ie one that ignored or removed thousands of factors. Back in actuality, those thousands of factors would still ensure drastic differences between countries. Equilibrium in regards to this premise is inherently impossible. Any amount of friction alone guarantees it, and there would be vast amounts of friction.

The conclusion that all countries with open borders would become exactly average is clearly wrong, but the principle that allowing unrestricted immigration will tend to move your country closer to the average still holds.

And is actually worse than that, because the people in an above average position within their own countries would have less incentive to emigrate. If you open your borders to countries with exactly the same population composition but your country has more economic mobility or better social assistance programs then those things will disproportionately attract economically weak immigrants.

This is highly confusing to political partisans because the two issues contradict party lines in the US. Democrats generally favor both reducing immigration restrictions and increasing social assistance and mobility, but the two policies don't mesh well.

Is there a real world, factually verifiable example of this ever happening in the past, or is this an untested theory?

Maybe the word is unethical, then?

It's quite depressing to see how the concepts of country, nationality, borders are still widely accepted without questioning.

Yes. If you want to amuse yourself, take a look at the "I Want Out" section of Reddit. How quickly people begin to question when they realize how restrictive the situation really is. It all seems rational until you discover you can't spend more than three months in your girlfriend's country, or accept that job offer if some committee hasn't placed it in the "skilled labor" column.

Especially when human rights are only bestowed on citizens by a government and denied for others just for not being born in their country. Seems hypocritical to me.

Yes, and you could make an argument that using blood or place of birth - as opposed to ideology - actually hinders people who have similar values from living together in the same parts of the world.

> There is no logic at all behind any of it.

It isn't logic, it's politics. Immigrants who become citizens get the vote. It should be self-evident that the ideological composition of the voters controls what our laws and constitution will be and is therefore very important to the existing people.

Even outside of general ideological differences, you can imagine the trouble if antagonistic governments were free to send a million of their people to vote in strategic districts in swing states.

...while I'm ranting: citizenship in return for military service, honorary citizenship, citizenship from owning property, and outright purchase of citizenship. Can anyone think of more? I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Birth tourism, or the politically freighted 'anchor baby'?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_tourism

And I missed a few common ones ...by marriage ...by continuous residence ...political asylum! Duh!

While a lot of people think what Trump said is extremely out of what United State legislators stand for, current Senate and President passed and signed HR-158[1] which bans European citizens that visited Iran, Syria and Iraq in past 5 years from getting into United States without a visa. This is going to apply to pretty much any dual citizen of Europe that visit their families back home in every couple of years.

Obviously asking for someone's religion is the most stupid way of filtering terrorist, when governments decide to do something like that they discriminate based on place of origin.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/158

IANAL, but the bill sounds like it doesn't ban Europeans to enter the country, but waives the right to travel without a visa. It might be possible to enter U.S. by acquiring a visa.

This is correct. I am a European who visited Iran. Before that, I could travel to the U.S. with the ESTA (14$). Now I must ask for a B2 tourist visa, which is valid for 10 years and is multi-entry - but it costs ~160$ and it requires me to have an interview with the consul to prove that I am not going to just not fly back to my country and immigrate into the US permanently.

Believing in a religion is largely a choice though some arguments could be made for conditioning from childhood meaning it isn't but being a member of a religion definitely isn't a choice in large parts of the world.

"Conditioning" is a very mild way of putting it. The parents' beliefs are almost always presented as fact to the child, from a very very tender age.

It'd be better off to quiz people on their beliefs. Perhaps if someone answers they think honour killings are barbaric (to play off what Trudeau said), then they don't get a visa. But I suppose that'd be as much of a joke as the previous questions they asked "are you a member of a terrorist organisation". OTOH maybe it's not such a big stretch to say that visa-issuing officers should review for cultural acceptability in addition to financial capability, likelihood-of-return and all the other criteria they use.

And then it'd leak information. People would say "hey, wait, how did you get a visa if it asks serious questions". Unless there's an exemption for lying in that group, then the group might go after them. (IIRC, certain religious groups in Europe were big on quizzing others regarding baptism. Some answerers viewed lying incredibly poorly, to the point of answering truthfully even if it mean they'd be killed.)

I'm not sure religion is so much of a choice. I grew up in a household of a particular religion that my parents imposed and even though I don't really identify what that religion anymore it was a very strong influence on me until my mid-20s. Even when I didn't identify with it internally, I still said i was a ______. IMO, It's extremely hard to find an alternative and maybe even harder for one to say they're agnostic or atheist.

And the fact that you were able to separate from said religion is probably made easier by the society you live in. In some cultures, the religion is synonymous with cultural identity, if not at least a central part of it.

very true!

This goes both ways:

(1) a ban on a country is usually there for a temporary reason of leverage on leaders/system of government on which the citizens may have a varying degree of control through different means.

(2) However, a ban on a religion which has many movements (some of them infighting), and radically opposed views and some crazies, on which the majority have no control or relationship with whatsoever could seem more wrong.

(1) is trading on an existing system of unethical attributes (2) is creating an additional one.

Let's not forget that the USA was founded by people who were looking for religious freedom and peace from prosecution.

A test on specific beliefs is much more appropriate and actually already implemented on immigration forms (e.g. questions on polygamy).

But wasn't Trump not only suggesting a visa-requirement, but a complete ban? Seems very different.

That's what he originally said and all I could find on his website[1]. I think in other interviews he's backed off, first with "of course there'd be exceptions". Which would be obvious: otherwise you'd prevent heads-of-state visiting. Then he changed it to "obviously this is about countries related to terrorism" which can probably be seen as just an extension of current policy, a backtrack from his earlier position. Which seems typical: stay something "outrageous" back off to something more reasonable.

1: Side note: How utterly obnoxious is CloudFlare? They feel they need to present a CAPTCHA to visitors (at least out of US?) to prevent a DDoS of read-only material. Lame.

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