I can live and work permanently in 27 countries (including Finland) without having to change nationality.
All I had to do after I moves was to register with the local city authorities to indicate that I had moved there, and provide documentation proving that I had a job so that they knew they didn't have to put me on social security.
One might also make the counterpoint that while we can move between 30 states in the EEA US citizens can move between 50 states in their union, and their superstate comprises almost twice the surface area of the EU.
In contrast, one doesn't even need a law school degree to be able to take the bar exam in any US state. (admittedly it's almost impossible to pass without one).
Not quite: In a number of US states, a prerequisite to taking the bar exam is either graduation from an ABA-accredited law school, or a foreign law degree with additional training in a U.S. school. See Chart III at http://www.ncbex.org/fileadmin/mediafiles/downloads/Comp_Gui... and the supplemental remarks afterwards, also Chart X.
By contrast Canadian permanent residents are treated exactly the same as citizens - except you can't vote in federal elections. Although with the choices on offer that's probably a blessing !
Especially one return from a conference where the minimum-wage-moron on passport control didn't understand the concept of visas (to be fair he had a limited understanding of the concept of passports or even other countries) and allowed me in for 24 hours which I spent queuing at LA's delightful immigration office downtown.
Still, well done to him for protecting the USA from another foreign Caltech physics prof.
(Not that I disagree that the whole setup is ridiculous and probably doesn't meaningfully add to security.)
There are more than 12 millions illegal immigrants in US. Illegal immigrants owns houses, driver cars and go to college. I find it amazing. In Japan, if you're an illegal immigrant you're pretty much relegated to the underworld.
How? I'd love to be able to do that.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/European_Unio...
By comparison e.g. Spain and Germany and almost any two countries in the EU you care to name speak different languages, are very different culturally, and have different customs.
Apart from a few of the more 'third world' european countries (like France) if you speak english and work in high tech it's not a big problem to work in Scandanavia/Germany/Netherlands. The main difficulty is they drive on the wrong side of the road - but as consolation the coffee and women are much better.
How is France a third world country in any sense of the word? Because they don't speak English as much?
> The main difficulty is they drive on the wrong side
That's only in the UK, not Scandanavia/Germany/Netherlands.
It was 'irony' - France is notorious for obeying only those EU laws which benefit it. In particular there are lots of unofficial barriers to other EU individuals/companies working in France - even though they are legally allowed to. Is't common for various levels of government to delay required licencing for years.
It's an issue even with international collaborations - the European Space agency is in the Netherlands and CERN is officially HQed in Switzerland - there was a lot of concern over ITER before it was built in France, the French 'promised' to play nicely with people working there.
How difficult would it be to wipe and rewrite the constitution of the USA today? Imagine something 100 times more difficult than that, and that is how difficult it would be to create anything resembling the USA in Europe.
Incidentally, I don't know about "a lot". Many European countries formed as unions of smaller states not that much longer ago than the colonization of America--the UK, Spain, Italy, and Germany all formed this way, Germany after the United States and the UK only a couple decades before. And nearly every country on the continent of Europe has already had its constitution rewritten within the past century.
As a US citizen, it's a very appealing idea. While we do indeed have 50 different places I can live and work without applying for new/temporary status, the cultural, and historic nature of the places is certainly not as diverse as in Europe.