Hacker News Reader

Comment by meowtimemania | Hacker News Reader

Would this attract more migrants? (e.g. I could work for a year for 10k, or I could go to Sweden and get 34k)

They've probably thought through all the ways to exploit this, just curious.

Given the profound lack of higher order thinking that led to Europe's experiment along these lines over the last decade or so I wouldn't be so sure if they have.

For more context:

https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/systems-thinking-and-the-cobra-e...

The article addresses this. In Sweden in particular, a lot of the migrants are from countries in unrest. Last year's reward was $1k and exactly 1 person took it. The article said 'experts don't expect there to be a substantial increase in claiming the offer' with the increase to $35k which is surprising to me, but I suppose still makes sense as $35k won't make Damascus any safer.

Wouldn't it be possible to leave Damascus with $35k though?

They'll have forfeited the right to refugee status anywhere else and would have to migrate as an economic migrant. Which generally takes either six figures or decades, AFAICT.

Who enforces that? Is there an international registry of refugees?

Your passport, which contains stamps that form a record. And there is a European database too.

My acquaintance managed to sneak in multiple times, “losing” their passport if caught, then pretending not to understand fingerprinting instructions and smudging them on purpose until the police gave up. With face biometrics probably won’t work today. Just saying that a stamp in a passport is necessary a full proof solution.

Right. They throw away their documents, so EU countries have to document and fingerprint them again and also keep a database, preferably a shared one. Otherwise they just conveniently move from one country to another as there are close to no border checks in the Schengen area. Probably why Germany has reintroduced "temporary" border checks after the Solingen stabbing attack. Sweeden still has checks in place at the bridge to Denmark.

On what ground? If they come back from a country at war they can’t legally send them back (by EU law)

If you are in Sweden you have already left Damascus

The top 5 countries migrants to Sweden came from in 2023 ... India, Poland, Germany, Syria, China.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/522136/sweden-immigratio...

But Indian, German, and Chinese are the legal ones right? Maybe even Polish, too.

> Maybe even Polish, too.

What do you mean by that? Both Poland and Sweden are members of the EU.

They came through those countries, not necessarily being citizens of those countries.

Well Indians and Chinese need all kinds of visas and permits.

Probably not a thing in Sweden but in Italy there were a few scandals recently about illegal/semi legal Indian and other migrants working in sweatshops and farms.

Poles on the other hand have the legal right to come and work in Sweden with no legal restrictions whatsoever.

Illegal immigration from India has ramped up in very recent years.

About Poles, that makes sense.

> But Indian, German, and Chinese are the legal ones right? Maybe even Polish, too.

What do you mean ? He said: "a lot of the migrants are from countries in unrest.". /s

I’m certain the Indians, Poles, Germans or Chinese are not causing any problems.

As a Pole, I wouldn't be that optimistic, but for sure my compatriots are not the ones responsible for bombings, gun fights or juvenile gangs.

>As a Pole, I wouldn't be that optimistic

Probably similar to the native population though.

I agree, but they were good enough scapegoats to trigger Brexit so who can predict how things will go? (Though in classic Brexit irony two of those groups were encouraged to vote for Brexit to make immigration from their country easier).

That's because it's hard for them to claim citizenship. Those numbers don't include refugee numbers.

it probably works just once per individual at least

Per the article this is from the party that "began as a neo-Nazi movement in the 1980s but rebranded itself as a conservative party, with curbing migration at the center of it platform."

I would imagine it's ideological demagoguery and not concerned with serious critical analysis of long term effects.

These are two separate things: (1) the party being right-wing, (2) the immigration or more precisely the lack of integration causing problems for the Swedish society.

The previous left-wing government that basically said "we're taking everybody" had good intentions but extremely poor execution. Merkel's Germany didn't do much better tbh.

In any case, when migrants don't integrate, and you fail to make them do so, you can either ignore the problem hoping it goes away or try to solve it in a way that is human and causes as little suffering as possible.

Yes, but it is an explanation for how the debate landed.

Not everything in politics is pure logic, there are lots of emotions too. Not aligning with neo-nazis is one of those emotions.

Does this kind of criticism apply to US parties?

Like a pro-slavery party?

> from the party that "began as a neo-Nazi movement in the 1980s

Good find. By the same token though, the Democratic Party in US was the white supremacist party in the 19th century. There is probably ideological demagoguery involved with them as well.

The difference is how long time has passed. The current party leader joined the youth movement in 1994, when the party was still full of Neo-Nazi ideology.

I mean Joe Biden would hang out and campaigned with Byrd, an ex-KKK member. Even came to his funeral in 2010.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/164821-biden-rem...

> “A mentor and a dear friend”

Make what you will of it. Just saying that not that long of a time has passed. We’re talking about the sitting US president.

Byrd later apologized thoroughly as I understand it.

Jimmie Åkesson just says "I saw nothing of that".

an ex-KKK member

In the 1940s. Mentioning this, but the fact he would publicly denounce the Klan by the end of the decade, and spend the rest of his life profusely apologizing for having been so stupid as a younger person -- is just smear, basically.

  Byrd later called joining the KKK "the greatest mistake I ever made".  In his last autobiography, Byrd explained that he was a KKK member because he "was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision — a jejune and immature outlook—seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions".[37] Byrd also said in 2005, "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened".

So people can change their viewpoints from their youth?

Now imagine a politician from a political party we don’t like, apologized publicly about it. Would you believe them?

As an example if Vance apologized for being in the KKK, how eager would we be to forgive him?

Still pushing stories about Haitians and cats?

Probably not. Even if - as in this case - it was 30-50 years later. (That Biden said kind words about Byrd)

If they're a full-on toady windbag like Vance, it doesn't matter which party they're from.

Not very, because Vance isn't very old. When was he in the KKK? It would be very unusual to be in the KKK in, say, 1995. Someone would have to be extremely committed to white supremacist ideology to be in such a position, I would think.

>By the same token though, the Democratic Party in US was the white supremacist party in the 19th century.

You likely meant the 20th century. White supremacists were voting solidly Democratic up til around the 1960s.

Ah, good point. And even below I pointed out we can see a connection down to the the current president. Though, with a public repentance, for whatever that's worth from a politician.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com