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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

It's strange when I think about it that I could tell you quite a bit about the US immigration and visa system (and I've never even used it apart from a J-1 years ago) but I have absolutely no idea how my own country the UK does immigration and visas.

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I don't think it's that strange at all: information about your native country's visa system is almost entirely irrelevant to you. I also don't know what's on my country's citizenship exam because I'll never have to take it.

> information about your native country's visa system is almost entirely irrelevant to you

It's not irrelevant to me - I depend on doctors and nurses who are recruited on that system to give just a single concrete example, and what's more I'm responsible for the system via my representative as a voter.

Exactly. People think it's easy so they vote for it to be made harder, again and again, resulting in an increasingly unfair system.

Surprisingly, the UK is not that bad.

For the UK I hit some dead programs (ex. Sirius, which is supposed to be one of the endorsement options for the Tier 1 Graduate Entrepreneur visa). Is it because no one knows how Brexit will affect the rules? Just this program stopped being interesting or is on temp hiatus?

I do think it's pretty neat that just getting into an accelerator in the UK can also help with your visa process (endorsements for entrepreneur visa)

http://www.siriusprogramme.com/apply https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/entrepreneurs-set...

UK immigration experience varies hugely by income. Some friends of mine experienced trying to move a young family from the US to the UK to be close to grandparents were separated for more than six months while the UK parent found a job and applied for the visa for their partner.

Why is that surprising? The UK has had huge immigration numbers for decades and a centrist/centre-right government that is (mildly) interested in simplifying government procedures.

Wrong on two counts. The UK home office is not interested in simplifying but in creating a hostile environment for skilled immigrants [0]. Second, the current government is certainly not centrist but far-right nationalist - if the above policy doesn't clue you in, Brexit should...

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Office_hostile_environm...

I was referring to simplifying procedures in general and yes, they have done a lot of that. Look at gov.uk, look at how there are now new banks in the UK after hundreds of years with none.

The "hostile environment" is all about illegal immigration and as such is certainly not about pointlessly complicated paperwork for people who are legal immigrants. It says absolutely everything about the extremist position that some people have reached that you appear to be treating illegal and legal immigration as exactly the same, and then describe a government that tries to enforce its own immigration rules as "far right nationalist". If that's the case then practically every country in the world is "far right nationalist", which would make it a meaningless designation. Exactly what it's become!

Because reducing the number of immigrants has been a hot topic politically for over the past decade.

I think in most of Western Europe "limit immigration" is just the politically correct code for "stop immigration of Muslims and other people from non-Western nations". Skilled workers from Western nations are usually welcomed with open arms.

In England at least, there seems to be a significant “EU immigrants took our jobs” factor as well. As I understand it, that perception was a significant factor in the Brexit vote.

For example see: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/20/reality-che...

Also immigrating from another EU country just means to move there and register with the local authorities. Also works for Iceland and Norway, but there you have to get a job within 3? months to be allowed to stay.

Although we're currently having great fun (/s) at the lower end of the German rental market due to all these new young people working here and of course wanting to live somewhere as well.

I think almost everyone wants skilled immigration. People who were supporting Brexit specifically for immigration reasons were saying they'd support exceptions for skilled immigration, especially into the NHS.

Even Nigel Farage is against a cap on immigration and for a points system for skilled immigration!

My point was more addressing why anyone might be surprised at the UK being relatively easy immigration wise.

That said, I'm not sure it really is as simple as skilled immigrants being welcome: there's plenty of people who'd rather we didn't have so many non-Western (culturally!) immigrants regardless of skill.

> centrist/centre-right government that is (mildly) interested in simplifying government procedures.

None of this is in any way true; I've known several people personally who've had difficult and expensive fights with the Home Office, and every indication has been that they're looking to reduce absolute numbers at any cost, including egregiously unfair processes.

For one person, their tax accountant made an error in filing to the Inland Revenue. That resulted in a fight that cost 6 months, £12k legal fees, and was barred from working or renting property during that time.

Nor is it appropriate to characterise any government contemplating no deal Brexit as "centrist".

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