The Loudenia Crier

FROM CHRIS CLEAVE (award-winning novelist, reporter, London Guardian)
[couriered to Gordon Mitchell via email 28th July 2008, 4:36 am]

Dear Members of the Loudenese Government,

I send you greetings and offer my humble comments on the Immigration Bill that is before you.

The sponsors of this Bill are perspicacious in recognizing that the management of immigration and labor is a vital strand both of your economic strategy and of your national identity. I commend the Bill for addressing both economic and cultural factors. In particular I applaud the Bill’s insistence on a common language for Loudenia that all Lodenians should be able to speak, and the Bill’s provision for funding to assist acquisition of the national language.

In its current form I would not recommend that your parliament should pass the Bill, but if it were to be amended in the light of your debate around some of the issues I shall outline, then I am sure it could achieve a very satisfactory form.

(1) Middle East specificity
The Bill refers specifically to immigration from the Middle East, whereas a robust and durable piece of legislation might make provision for immigration to Loudenia from the world in general, perhaps with an adjustable quota system per country or region lest it become desirable at some time in your country’s future to favor or disfavor immigration from a particular region. Alternatively one could imagine an immigration bill which was blind to the ethnic or geographical point of origin of the immigrant, preferring instead to focus on the specific skills that the incoming individual was in a position to contribute to Loudenia.

(2) Uncertainty of immigration status
The Bill seems to propose a two-step immigration process, in which the immigrant in the first instance is granted a two-year permission to stay and work, and in which in the second instance the immigrant may qualify for citizenship and permanent residency rights after ten years (i.e. after five two-yearly renewals of the work permit). I would strongly suggest that this process be reconsidered, as it would condemn the immigrant to a decade of uncertainty in which they would be ill-advised either to fully commit to building a future in Loudenia, or to fully move on from their ties to their country of origin. They would live under a sword of Damocles, never knowing whether the next work permit review would see them repatriated or reprieved. Under these circumstances, humans tend to hedge their bets by living in ghetto-like communities surrounded by people of the same ethnicity and immigration status as themselves, rather than cutting loose into the more general populations and institutions of the country. This would be contrary to the Bill’s implicit ideal of cultural assimilation. Perhaps it would be preferable for Loudenia to make a single and immediate immigration decision on each immigrant, either granting them full citizenship or denying them entry altogether. If Loudenia does not commit to the immigrant, it makes it difficult for the immigrant to commit to Loudenia.

(3) Definition of qualification for entry
I would suggest that a workable immigration bill, if it proposes a minimum qualification for entry as this Bill does, should be exact in its definition of what such a qualification might be. In this Bill the phrase “either highly-qualified refugees or … those who live below the poverty line in their home countries” is used. This is at best a relaxed definition which admits two very different populations of qualifying immigrants. And without wishing to be too glib, almost everybody in the modern world is either highly skilled or highly poor, so it is hard to see who might be excluded by the Bill’s definition. Perhaps it might be interesting for your parliament to debate what qualities a prospective immigrant might have that would qualify them for credit on a “points-based” immigration system. Such an instrument could be a very effective manifestation of your country’s economic and cultural values, as it would allow credit for the particular skills, experience and language that are precious to you. (And as an artist I would put in a plea that factors be considered beyond earning potential in your “industrial based economy and high-salary jobs” - the cultural gold of a nation is as vital to its strength as the economic power it accrues).

Finally I would like to leave you with the thought that the immigrant can help the nation as much as the nation can help the immigrant. Carnegie, Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein, for example, were all immigrants. I would urge Loudenia to relish immigration, to find its own balance between courting the best potential immigrants and helping the world’s poor, and to see immigration as a positive force in the forging of its national identity.

With all good wishes for the future of your country, of which I may one day be proud to count myself a citizen,

Chris Cleave

More about Chris: