No visa required
economist.com
economist.com
I'm told visas are about equally expensive for Chinese entering the US (although the US does a much more thorough background check to ensure the Chinese person has consistently had a good job with regular income), so I guess the feeling between the 2 governments is mutual.
The visas for foreigners here are also of relatively low quality - they have a short duration. And the rules about what a person can obtain are constantly changing. I've spent so much time, effort, and money dealing with visa issues, I've really contemplated marrying my Chinese girlfriend. We're not really ready to get married from a relationship perspective, but we're both pragmatists and it would save us money and headaches.
It was just that British immigrants had the nasty habit of overthrowing the government in their new homes.
Highly inaccurate.
Accurate : 4 or small 5 penal settlements in a vastly empty continent with only a few hundred thousand native inhabitants started the colonies of Australia. The main reasons for convict settlement in Australia were (a) the loss of the USA in the revolutionary war and, as such, the need for new colonial holdings to offset this loss, and (b) the need to establish a permanent settlement on the continent to cement the claim made 18 years earlier by Captain Cook. It's a little known fact that a French expeditionary force also landed in modern-day Sydney the day after the 'first fleet' landed and erected the Union Jack.
Tiny numbers of convicts (164,000) were transported over a 80 year period from 1788. This is against estimates of the England/Wales population of 8.5 million people, and you can see that transportation wasn't really a useful way of reducing the English population - certainly not as such a great expense when execution was just as effective and a whole lot cheaper (and regularly handed out by magistrates)
Also compare the convict numbers to numbers of people arriving for the Gold rush - 370,000 in 1852 alone - and you can see that while Convicts make for a great story, they really aren't a large part of the story.
So the true story of Australia was that it's foundation as a European colony were more to do with establishing new colonies after the loss of the revolutionary war than it was in reducing english population. The shipping of convicts merely met two aims simultaneously : establishing a colony with forced labour and removing the eyesore prison hulks being used as prisons. It didn't meaningfully help in reducing the overpopulation or unemployment in England. That was eventually solved by free immigration in large numbers to both Australia and the USA/Canada.
How many countries did that happen in?
Any others?
Of course, if you compare the British to other colonial powers, they also did a significant amount to preserve the local culture, even when assuming sovereign power from the local states.
Also visa free doesn't mean much - europeans can go to the US without a Visa, you just need to register online in advance, provide all your details and have the airline supply the details of all the other flights you take, your credit card numbers and what kind of meal you had - but no actual visa
You don't need a visa, a visa is a form you have to fill in before they allow you in the country.
Instead you just have to fill in these other bunch of forms before they allow you in without a visa.
Initially I also thought it must have to do with the empire/commonwealth, but this makes it seem less likely. And yes, why Denmark? It was number one since 2006!
The only annoying part is getting back into the US.
We used to do Seattle, Chicago or NYC. Now we nearly always do Toronto, and occasionally Vancouver. No-one objects to my having set the location north of the border, and the Hong Kong attendee greatly prefers it too (for the same reason, though he has extra hassle at immigration).
Speaking of Toronto, there's a ridiculously good restaurant there. One worthy of saving up for months in advance... North 44. If you get the chance go.
In the rest of the world - you simply stay in the secure international area of the airport, and never have to deal with customs & immigration until you land in your destination.
1. Taking so long to get my bags, then getting them re-scanned, that I miss/almost miss the connector
and/or
2. answering 20 questions to the customs officer
Also now they fingerprint and photograph permanent residents. So what used to be "Hello!" + 2 questions now is "Hello!" + 5 questions + fingerprinting + photographing.
But, hey we all feel safer, right !?
Every time I've returned to the US, however, I've had to go through an exhaustive baggage screening and pat-down before I could even board the plane, and then stand in line for half an hour in Immigration once I got back, filling out an entire form to declare that I have nothing to declare, and answering random identity-verifying questions from an immigration officer. I feel tired and uncomfortable just thinking about it.
Returning to the US you have to fill out that annoying form on the plane but other than that it's just a rubber stamp
i usually get searched when entering a foreign country because i have snacks on me or something. i usually have very little hassle when returning to the US, never been searched (knock on wood).
Immigration "officer": Are you sure you still have your job at the bank.
Me: yes
Immigration "officer": If that turns out to be false we will kick you out like dogs
We employ people from all corners of the globe here in the UK and hate the visa hurdles. We opened our US subsidiary in February and had to jump through all kinds of hurdles and pay lots of legal fees to set up a company that already employs 6 Americans.
I think if there was a way of limiting social benefits until you had proved you planned to contribute then unlimited economic migration would greatly help entrepreneurship.
I think if there was a way of limiting social benefits until you had proved you planned to contribute
That should apply to "locals" as well!
First, all the countries in the Schengen treaty I think end up with the same score. Indeed France, Germany and Italy do. I would imagine many more do too (e.g. Spain). It seemed like it would have been a better label.
On the other hand I am surprised that Denmark got more.. .and it is kind of a counterexample to my first point. Isn't Denmark in the Schengen treaty too? Where else can they go than Germany/French/Italians can't?
There are only some old EU15 members listed, but not a single country from the 2004 extension, nor Bulgaria and Romania. I live in the Czech republic, which has some kind of non-visa agreement with the USA (ESTA?), something much simpler and easier than regular visas, but you still need some kind of stamp. In fact, there was a discussion about this and how should be our EU membership leveraged in order to get a better position, but there weren't much of a agreement. I believe that old EU states (Great Britain first) weren't happy about the fact that there should be some common policy.
(Indeed, Schengen isn't equal to EU, it isn't even a subset of it, there are non-EU countries included, and some EU states aren't members (Great Britain). But there isn't any common policy, both EU and schengen-wide.)
Anyway, I wonder how Switzerland would rate on this list!
The full list is at http://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship/visa-restrictions/
I'm surprised that you're surprised.