When I tell people that prisons and immigration should use a similar mechanism, they sometimes give me a look of concern. This concern is based on a misconception
I’ll suggest that some people’s concerns are due to an accurate intuition that your proposal will make it harder to hide the resemblance between prisons and immigration restrictions. Preventing immigration looks to me to be fairly similar to imprisoning them in their current country.
No, I think they imagined I wanted to imprison all immigrants (which, as you can see, is not what I’m suggesting). To be clear, I’m not talking about preventing anyone from leaving your country; I’m talking about how to select which non-citizens can become permanent residents in your country.
As for non-open borders being equal to imprisonment, that’s incorrect. The fact that I can’t live in North Korea does not mean that I’m imprisoned in my country. By this definition of imprisonment, everyone is the world is imprisoned.
I believe this system would allow for more immigrants than there are currently. Government is slow at determining which people can enter (at least in my country). This might fix that. And knowing that every immigrant family is a positive contribution to the government’s balance sheet (and unlikely to commit crimes) will probably help society see immigration as a good thing, which may help gain political support for more immigration.
I’ll suggest that some people’s concerns are due to an accurate intuition that your proposal will make it harder to hide the resemblance between prisons and immigration restrictions. Preventing immigration looks to me to be fairly similar to imprisoning them in their current country.
No, I think they imagined I wanted to imprison all immigrants (which, as you can see, is not what I’m suggesting). To be clear, I’m not talking about preventing anyone from leaving your country; I’m talking about how to select which non-citizens can become permanent residents in your country.
As for non-open borders being equal to imprisonment, that’s incorrect. The fact that I can’t live in North Korea does not mean that I’m imprisoned in my country. By this definition of imprisonment, everyone is the world is imprisoned.
I believe this system would allow for more immigrants than there are currently. Government is slow at determining which people can enter (at least in my country). This might fix that. And knowing that every immigrant family is a positive contribution to the government’s balance sheet (and unlikely to commit crimes) will probably help society see immigration as a good thing, which may help gain political support for more immigration.