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Comment by dauertewigkeit | Hacker News Reader

That's for them to find out. Employment status is probably a big one.

I was just on holiday in south eastern Europe in a resort town where the workforce was entirely composed of the same kind of immigrants, and none of these immigrants were "integrated" by this standard. But there was no criminality. Maybe because all of them were gainfully employed and felt like they had a future.

That's just one example.

My point is, there is a false equivalence being exercised here. Just because somebody is not integrated by whatever arbitrary standard, does not mean that they are prone to engage in criminal activity.

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I am sorry but I don't buy it.

If you don't integrate and don't learn the language and never have any contacts outside your community, how are are you supposed to survive, find a job, find spouse and eventually move out from those neighborhoods?

So you either live on welfare or you turn to criminal activities. What else is there?

If you are going to impose impossibly high standards on these people BEFORE they are gainfully employed, you're the problem. They don't need to integrate nor learn the language to do a variety of jobs. Give them a job and a reason to exist and believe they are advancing in life. Then demand that they learn the language. Don't put them in bureaucratic limbo for years, because they aren't "integrated enough". No wonder you end up with problems then.

So you are saying that learning a language is impossibly high standard? You can't be serious!

In which world do you live where not knowing the language is ok for any kind of job?

If you can't understand your coworkers communicate with your managers, talk with you colleagues, how are you supposed to do your job properly then?

It is perfectly reasonable to expect that if someone moves to a new country, they should learn to speak the language so that they can be understood and be an active participant in said country.

If this person is not willing to put in this kind of work, then that is not acceptable. You can't expect the local population to do the work for the immigrants. And that criteria applies to western immigrants too.

You’re saying “learning a language” like it’s learning Python or something. Come to my country and I bet you won’t be able to go through a day without falling back to English earlier than in two years.

You have been given an example exactly in the comment to which you are answering. If you ignored it, it speaks only for the interest you have in carrying a real discussion. In case it was a mistake instead, here's the argument: there are plenty of jobs in the "monochromatic" neighborhood just like in any neighborhood: construction sites, shops, clerks, schools, and I can go on. It seems you simply cannot imagine that an immigrant would do those jobs - when many (most?) of them came exactly for that, to have a stable life.

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