Remigration [...] is a [...] political concept referring to the forced or promoted return of non-ethnically European immigrants, often including their descendants who were born in Europe, back to their place of racial origin, typically with no regard for their citizenship [^1]
Sounds pretty racist to me. Maybe you can be clearer on what you mean by non-racist remigration? The far-right groups, which are, at least in my country (Germany), the only once using the term to my knowledge, clearly mean it in a racist way.
I think a lot of these discussions get held up on what "racist" means to them.
I don't think the native people of Hawai'i or the Maori in New Zealand wanting Americans (for the former) and Anglos (for the latter) to leave is "racist."
Similarly, I don't see how Germans wanting non-Germans to leave is racist.
To me, "racist" would imply the belief one is superior to the other, and that's clearly orthogonal to the remigration question.
Wow. Comparing colonization with 20/21st century labor migration is peak far right playing victims. I guess the people of Hawai'i and the Maori were also asked and decided in a democratic process if they want their colonizers to come in and help rebuild their economy and do the jobs no one else wants to do.
> Similarly, I don't see how Germans wanting non-Germans to leave is racist.
Wanting non-Germans to leave when they are not refugees and do not participate in society is not the problem. The problem is the definition of non-German.
It would be inhuman to not give someone either citizenship or a permanent permit residency if they worked for a long time in a country. Do people really expect guest workers to come (alone?) into a foreign country, work the shittiest jobs for 15 years and then return to their home country to start a family with 35+ years?
Also, it would not work. Germany still attracts foreign workers in some fields (e.g. nurses). If you tell them, they get to work for 15 years and then have to return, no one would come. If the indigenous people of Germania advocating for no labor migration are ok with dying in their own excrement, because there are no nurses, I guess that would be one way to solve the problem.
I don’t know any modern country where people got to vote on immigration. It seems like even if you vote for the anti immigration parties you get just as much immigration.
At least in America, “less immigration” won out over “more immigration” by clear polling margins every year since 1965, except for a few years in the 2010s. Democratic processes gave them more.
I’ve seen similar results in the UK. Parties mentioning immigration restriction consistently do well and then end up doing nothing or increasing it.
Obviously colonization is only one kind of mass human migration and there are important differences between it and the migration now ongoing, but I don't think "the choice of the people already there" is really a factor in either. One could also argue that in most cases, a determined effort to repel colonizers would have prevented colonization. There was no such societal consensus, so it happened.
> Also, it would not work. Germany still attracts foreign workers in some fields (e.g. nurses). If you tell them, they get to work for 15 years and then have to return, no one would come. If the indigenous people of Germania advocating for no labor migration are ok with dying in their own excrement, because there are no nurses, I guess that would be one way to solve the problem.
Why wouldn't more young Germans just go into nursing? This seems like a rather exaggerated doomsday scenario. There would be shortages, wages would have to rise, and more Gerrmans would choose nursing over what they choose now.
Further, since birth rates are dropping everywhere, aren't you just buying yourself a few years? Eventually everywhere the immigrants are coming from will have the same problem you describe - and their home countries will be in horrific shape because you've sucked away all their talent. What happens then? This is a shortsighted policy no matter how you look at it.
> At least in America, “less immigration” won out over “more immigration” by clear polling margins every year since 1965, except for a few years in the 2010s. Democratic processes gave them more.
You are probably referring to the Gallup poll [1]. To me, it seems, they don't make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration. Some questions even dig into the illegal part. I'd say illegal immigration is a different question, and also somewhat unique to the US. Here in Germany, illegal immigration would be a no-go. If you look at polls about legal immigration in the US it is a totally different result where 46% say keep the level and 30% want to increase it. [2]
> It seems like even if you vote for the anti immigration parties you get just as much immigration.
I did not find anything supporting your argument on an international level. Although for the US you are probably right considering the recent H1B drama. On the contrary, here is an international comparison showing that in many developed countries, people think migration strengthens their country vs. being a burden [3].
> wages would have to rise, and more Gerrmans would choose nursing over what they choose now.
I think it's not an either/or. It's a big problem with no silver bullet. We'll have to do multiple things.
> Further, since birth rates are dropping everywhere, aren't you just buying yourself a few years?
No. Look at the age pyramid of Germany. We have to overcome the baby-boomer generation.
> and their home countries will be in horrific shape because you've sucked away all their talent. What happens then?
In the past, Germany had deals with the respective Governments called "Anwerbeabkommen." The other state often had a high rate of unemployment. Also, they haven't been skilled workers, mostly. But yes, I think now it is different. And I heard, they are already pissed at us today.
But it's also a totally different argument. And the Nazis on German streets definitely don't care about effects in the home countries. They just want ethnic homogeneity without the consequences.
> No. Look at the age pyramid of Germany. We have to overcome the baby-boomer
Everyone has this problem. Birth _rates_ are declining everywhere. Different countries are just in different parts of the decline. Even if this is your reason for importing immigrants and you think it’s worth any negatives, you are simply helping the boomers and doing nothing to help later generations. In addition, you are making the situation dramatically worse for migrant origin countries as their young people leave to be workers somewhere else.
I do think it’s also worth asking, if you keep this policy up, what you mean by “Germany.” If it’s an economic zone defined by arbitrary borders, all well and good, but if you think anything more of it than that, then obviously importing immigrants to create a square or non-inverted population pyramid means that at some point in the next century, German culture, norms, morals, and ethnicity will be a tiny minority in Germany the economic zone. If you’re okay with that tradeoff then alls well, but it seems worth acknowledging. I did some rough calculations with Canadian demographics for example, and in 80 years Canada will be totally unrecognizable as it will have had near-total population turnover via migration. Unless birth rates suddenly skyrocket instead of declining, or immigration comes to a screeching halt.
The future is never really predictable, but it’s looking like the future of a lot of Western countries is that they’ll end up basically satellites of countries like India, China, or Turkey. (Of course they’re facing their own declines, particularly China, but there’s a lot of quantity involved.) It’s also unclear to me that voting blocs of young voters will continue to fund entitlements. It will be pretty interesting to live through. I think the closest historical parallel is the total collapse in the Roman population during the early empire.
> In addition, you are making the situation dramatically worse for migrant origin countries as their young people leave to be workers somewhere else.
I did not disagree. But I also think this is a whole other argument.
> German culture, norms, morals, and ethnicity will be a tiny minority in Germany the economic zone.
Ethnicity I really don't care about. Why do you? I'm also fine and actually glad about people bringing along their culture as long as it doesn't get in the way of life of other people and most importantly respects everyone's human rights. The other ones are a question of integration. There is certainly a lot of room for improvement, but making it sound like they come here and will replace German culture is a big stretch. If anything is killing German culture, it is increasing cost of living and it being somewhat outdated, e.g. a lot of meat in cuisine, outdated values from Christianity and alcohol consumption. If any culture is replacing ours, it is US/consumerism.
People want temporary foreign workers--who immigrated here in unprecedented numbers in recent years--to leave the country, not anyone who has darker skin. No no brought up remigration.
Not sure how "No no" is, if it is a language barrier or if you meant to write "No one". But the parent comment to mine brought it up.
> People want temporary foreign workers--who immigrated here in unprecedented numbers in recent years--to leave the country, not anyone who has darker skin.
I'm not very familiar with Canadian immigration. But if they are temporary foreign workers, they by definition shouldn't have a citizenship and instead just a (temporary) work visa. Also, I wouldn't call that immigration, hence it also isn't remigration. The challenge should just be, to no longer extend the visas and not fuck up the economy, right?
I think I understand the disconnect. In Canada, anyone who is living here but is not a citizen is usually considered an immigrant (unless they are a refugee). Once they have their citizenship, they're just Canadian. We don't really make the migrant distinction, at least in my experience.
So when I say that we need to reduce the number of immigrants living in Canada in 2025, I only mean we need to reduce the number of temporary foreign workers. Part of the problem is that many people who came on temporary work visas don't plan to leave, they intend to exploit loopholes in the system to turn what was a temporary visa into permanent residency. So yes, in theory we just need to not extend the visas. In practice things will be messy.
Sounds pretty racist to me. Maybe you can be clearer on what you mean by non-racist remigration? The far-right groups, which are, at least in my country (Germany), the only once using the term to my knowledge, clearly mean it in a racist way.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration