Have you ever lived overseas? Honestly you sound delusional. Do you think the USA makes it easy to become a citizen? Short of that, there is a wide spectrum on how countries treats immigrants. This is the most important factor for people actually living in a place. Acting like the bar for living somewhere is citizenship is nuts.

> Are you seriously suggesting that people can literally just not engage at all with the society they live in?

This pretty much confirms you have never lived overseas lol. Anyone who has will have met many people that achieve this. Like living anywhere immersing yourself in your surroundings (w/e that means to you) takes extra effort. Most people go overseas to work. It's not playtime. With that comes a built in community.

> None of which is related to immigration

How is getting money and support to live in a place not related to immigration?

Why are you so reactive about something you clearly know nothing about? Because China bad?

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Levitz 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have lived abroad, yes. Does the USA make it easy to become a citizen? If the comparison is China, yes, a thousand times yes. Does language and society matter a truckload? Absolutely.

>Short of that, there is a wide spectrum on how countries treats immigrants. This is the most important factor for people actually living in a place.

Yes. Does China treat immigrants better than the US? As I explained, no. There is no contest. The comparison borders on the absurd. The US is a remarkably flawed country in many aspects, but the vast majority of the stigma around its immigration comes from the fact that it's a matter that the US takes very, very seriously. The bar for living somewhere is not necessarily citizenship but it absolutely is a factor if someone is seriously planning to immigrate somewhere.

For an incredibly evident and very current example, the 14th amendment was very recently reaffirmed, with a whole lot of people being horrified it was even thrown into question at all.

>How is getting money and support to live in a place not related to immigration?

Because any quantity of money beyond a livable wage has barely any relation to integrating people into a culture. A model of immigration based on money is not immigration at all, that's just hiring foreign workers.

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godwinson__4-8 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You clearly have a certain cultural fixation with immigration that frankly is pretty narrow and seems of a particular American variety.

How is the condition of foreign workers not a question of immigration? What distinction are you making? Is your logic the United States treats immigrants well because any foreign national treated under a subpar regime you get to reclassify as a "foreign worker"?

You know not all "foreign workers" are treated the same right? This applies to almost all countries. Plenty of people are happy to go to a place and work. Not everyone who goes to a place wants to or plans to become part of that culture. Or would expect to fully integrate. It is a balance. The reaffirmation of the 14th amendment is not exactly impressive. Quite a low bar you've reached for there.

Where did you live overseas? For how long? Did you consider it "immigration"? What were the terms of your status re work? Did you become a citizen?

I just don't really buy it. For someone who lived overseas the narrowness of your perspective is rather alarming.

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BeetleB 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Not the person you're responding to, but I've spent almost 2 decades outside the US.

Sorry, his perspective matches my experience much more than yours.

	▲	godwinson__4-8 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Why would you apologize for that? Name one claim I've made that is impeached by your "experience"? Doubtless many others have shared your experiences. Good for you. It's not really the point. My questions as to the OP I was responding to of a personal nature were quite obviously rhetorical. The point was to perhaps suggest some introspection. Not everyone's experiences are the same. The more substantive questions have still not been answered. Oh well, I'm not owed anything. But the fact you doubled down with a "me too" shows you also missed the point. I can supply you with people who have the opposite experience. Will you suddenly have a different view? How have you spent two decades out of the US and found yourself so self assured? In your two decades did you not come across thousands with different experiences than you? Why would this give you such a high opinion of your own?

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0xDEAFBEAD 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

>The reaffirmation of the 14th amendment is not exactly impressive. Quite a low bar you've reached for there.

Can you name a single country in the EU which offers birthright citizenship? Any country in Asia?

	▲	godwinson__4-8 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Sort of a silly question. Can you name a single country like the US? Have you read your own history? I said the reaffirmation was not impressive, not the amendment or the nature of said citizenship itself. The fact it had to be reaffirmed is not impressive. The OP I replied to already acknowledged this. Learn to read.

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BeetleB 28 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> Do you think the USA makes it easy to become a citizen?

Just because there are plenty of countries that make it easier to become a citizen doesn't mean there aren't plenty of countries that make it worse.

People going the H-1/O-1 route in a STEM field with an MS degree don't have a hard time becoming a citizen, unless they're Indian (and a little bit if Chinese). Literally everyone I know from my university and work days who went that route got it. A few got audited along the way, which added 1-2 years to the process, but they all still got it.

Now compare that with many friends of mine who left the US for ideological reasons and moved to countries where ... they have no hope for permanent residency, let alone citizenship. I just recently visited one of them - he has been in that country for 18 years, and is about to be kicked out because the economy is poor and they likely won't renew his residency status. For all those years, he never had a path to permanent residency (without paying a huge amount of money).

Another is a faculty member at a good university in the country he's in. He's surrounded by people who've spent their whole careers at that university and are now wondering where they'll move to post-retirement.

Yet another has spent almost two decades in a third country. He likes it, but admits the pressure to never lose a job and always find a stable one so he doesn't get kicked out does get to him sometimes.