Or by making getting citizenship something that's attainable in my lifetime. Everyone complains about the US immigration system and of course it's not great but when I came here I kinda knew what the path forward was and how long stuff will take, for a lot of European countries there's no way to ever get citizenship and the path to permanent residency changes every three or four years.
I emigrated to Canada pretty much on a whim (using a fiance visa) and have fared quite well there. We (my partner and I) are weighing the possibility of emigrating again to Portugal which offers a rather reasonable golden visa - with a wide variety of European countries offering "trial" visas for workers under 30 with the most bare of requirements.
As a US citizen I've contemplated getting my wife residency down there and it's simply ridiculous - as are the hoops I'd have to go through to relinquish my US citizenship and that only matters because the US feels entitled to own me even though I haven't resided there for nearly a decade at this point. US immigration, from the working visa angle, is extremely unpredictable and only really estimable if you've got a large corporation with a whole bunch of lawyers to get your back - spousal visas aren't terrible but most come with some seriously onerous lifetime costs to execute (like taking a year off working).
I know there are a bunch of European countries and they've all got their quirks to immigrate into but you can really trivially get an EU passport and then move around within the EU.
Switzerland and some nordic countries make it impossible. Portugal wants me to marry a Citizen, otherwise it's only residency. Luxembourg and the Netherlands wants me to learn their language, which is not something I would need to work there and in my experience visiting neither to be able to live there. It's not great.
On the other hand Italy denied my application once already, after my great grandparents basically left the country because Italy was not defending their town from Germany. They rejected my application because they say my great grandparents were not Italian but Austro-Hungarians. The lady at the consulate was super racist to my grandmother about it, in my face. After that now there's another way I could get my Italian citizenship by birthright by suing the government because of another racist thing they use to do where women were not transferring citizenship.
Again the US is not great but a lot of this things make me feel whatever "racial tensions" I may be a victim of in the US are mostly the media blowing stuff out of proportion, when most of the "racial tensions" I felt dealing with the EU are actual racial violence or discrimination that either me or my family where victims of.
> Luxembourg and the Netherlands wants me to learn their language, which is not something I would need to work there and in my experience visiting neither to be able to live there. It's not great.
That seems like a very reasonable requirement. How can you expect to participate in society, especially elections, without a decent command of the local language?
> How can you expect to participate in society, especially elections, without a decent command of the local language?
By hiring a local accountant and paying a small fortune in taxes? If I learn the language then yeah cool maybe I'll get into their politics thing but it's not that if I don't vote I'm not going to be a productive citizen. A lot of countries let you become a citizen without learning their language, most notably the US.
> By hiring a local accountant and paying a small fortune in taxes? If I learn the language then yeah cool maybe I'll get into their politics thing but it's not that if I don't vote I'm not going to be a productive citizen.
Being a part of society is a lot more than working and paying your taxes.
> A lot of countries let you become a citizen without learning their language, most notably the US.
Speaking as a US immigrant to Finland (a Nordic country), the citizenship requirements here seem quite reasonable to me. Minimal language proficiency, a civic knowledge exam, and at least 5 years drama-free residency.
Switzerland is 10 years and then you need to pass a language and general knowledge test. The contents of the test depend on the region you live. Honestly I don't see it as that ridiculous.
Well, the exact requirements depend on the canton and commune you happen to be in. If you're in a village in Appenzell Innerrhoden it's going to be more tricky than if you're in one of the more international cities like Basel, Zürich, Geneva etc.
The rest of the world could also brain drain the US if it was easier to get into. The US -> EU/UK immigrants that I personally know have had a pretty hard time getting there permanently.
I moved from the US to the NL. Love it but I can’t get dual citizenship and getting permanent residence requires knowing the language well enough to pass a test, so why stay? It’s kind of a bummer because my son speaks native-fluent Dutch now. Next up will probably be Ireland.
To my knowledge to get naturalization in the Netherlands you must have stayed there for ~5 years and the required language level is A2, which is beginner level.
This doesn't sound like a crazy requirement to me. The giving up other nationalities would be a deal breaker for me thought.
Learning the language to a conversational level as someone who speaks English is exceptionally hard. As soon as a Dutch person hears the accent, they switch to speaking English. Therefore you need very expensive classes to properly learn the vocabulary you’re expected to know for the test. We can stay here forever on our current visa, but I’d rather be a proper resident and be able to take advantage of the entire job market. I’d be happy to pay the money if the Netherlands would let me have a Dutch and American passport. Pre-COVID I didn’t really care, but post-COVID, having a passport to get to my sick family and be guaranteed re-entrance to the US is very important.
The language test is incredibly easy, for what it’s worth. It is nowhere near fluent, or really even conversationally competent. It’s things like saying the correct words when buying an apple at a store.
