• smeg
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    15 months ago

    My employer offers visa sponsorship to employees wanting to migrate to the Netherlands. Once I meet the tenure requirements (a little over a month left), I intend to start the process. My spouse and kid are onboard. We’ve already started learning Dutch and made a week-long trip there a couple weeks ago to make sure we would like it.

    • Phoenixz
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      15 months ago

      Everyone likes the Netherlands, the Netherlands is fuckin awesome. Good choice!

  • @sloppychops@lemmy.ca
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    15 months ago

    I fear that Europe, as is tradition, will fail to capitalise on this moment due to internal division, with China reaping most of the benefits as a result.

    I would love to be wrong. I hope I am. I feel like an EU at the centre of global trade and geopolitics is the least awful option at this point in history. Although with the continued rise of the far right in France and Germany that may not be the case for much longer.

  • @azimir@lemmy.ml
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    15 months ago

    I’ll be in a German Consulate soon to submit the last paperwork for my immigration paperwork. Our family is taking 2x STEM Phds, and kids going into engineering, computer science, healthcare, and education with us. This is a generational loss, but I’m doing it to protect my children, as well as myself.

    I’m performing a short fuse wedding next weekend for a prior student so they can seek asylum in Canada as a couple soon. The number of students/prior students who have been reaching out about how to emigrate to anywhere else is very high.

  • @moktor@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Immigrating to Europe isn’t the easy process a lot of people think it is. At least for the countries I tried (Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands)…but I do know some things have changed recently, at least for Germany.

    My efforts were about ten years ago thought. Despite having a graduate degree from a European institution I still found it impossible.

    For Germany, though I had spent the previous 10 years as a software developer (which is classified as an Engpassberuf), I was told that the regulations would only allow me to seek work based on the skills from that degree (Berufsqualifikation). My Master’s degree was in a different technical field (European development planning), and my BAs were in europe-related areas and German. I also studied at the Goethe Institute and completed the Oberstufe C2 exam. But none of that was sufficient.

    Now I am middle aged, have a wife and kids, chronic health issues…and though I would love to emigrate, I can’t imagine uprooting them all, even if I could find a European country willing to take us.

  • @rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    05 months ago

    I’m sure trying to take in americans (many of whom will not look like northern europeans) while having an extreme anti-immigration policy (e.g. in Germany) will go over well with no friction.

        • @huppakee@lemm.ee
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          05 months ago

          But ‘we’ also have an endless capacity of trying to help others and especially the Ukrainians who now have a job are being very appreciated as well. Not saying there is no hate, but the Americans who’d cross the pond are most likely the more wealthy and better educated than average. They might get some hate but they will probably be much more easily accepted as islamic and African immigrants.

          • @shaserlark@sh.itjust.works
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            05 months ago

            Our “capacity to help” is inconsistent and conditional. Yes, there was initial support for Ukrainian refugees, but as I mentioned in another post politicians like Friedrich Merz (likely next German Chancellor) soon accused them of “social welfare tourism.” Same happened e.g. in Poland. The welcome narrative quickly gave way to scapegoating.

            This pattern happens repeatedly. We initially welcome groups based on perceived usefulness or cultural similarity, then turn on them when convenient. Polish workers in the UK went from being praised as hardworking to being blamed for “stealing jobs” and straining services.

            You’re assuming Americans would be “more easily accepted” because they’re “wealthy and educated,” but this ignores how xenophobia operates. Brexit campaigners didn’t distinguish between Polish doctors and laborers - they lumped all migrants together.

            Even well-off migrants become targets during economic downturns. Look at how Romanian doctors and nurses in the UK were treated during Brexit despite filling critical NHS shortages. Or how German refugees after WWII faced hostility from other Germans.

            Our immigration policies aren’t based on humanitarian concerns but on economic utility and cultural anxieties. When politicians need scapegoats, they’ll target any migrant group regardless of their contributions.

            The Americans who’d face the most persecution under Trump are often the same ones who’d face discrimination here - LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and people of color. The idea that we’d somehow treat them better than other migrants ignores Europe’s deep-seated xenophobia.

            • @huppakee@lemm.ee
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              15 months ago

              The Americans who’d face the most persecution under Trump are often the same ones who’d face discrimination here - LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and people of color. The idea that we’d somehow treat them better than other migrants ignores Europe’s deep-seated xenophobia.

              I don’t disagree, but I do believe there (unfortunately) is a scale of how well migrants are generally treated that is based on their culture. education and economic status.

              I also don’t disagree with you saying there is a deep-seated xenophobia, but I do believe if you choose to migrate from where ever to where ever you’ll come across people who act xenophobic and racist. Humans tend to like the familiar better than the unfamiliar. Also, wherever you go you will have people (though politicians more than any) using this basic fear to further their agenda. ‘We’ humans are good and bad, often a curious mix of both and most of us have deep-seated fears and most of us are vulnerable to being influenced by others with a good story. Despite this, I still think immigration in general is a good thing. Not always, not every form; but people deciding to move from a bad place to a good place is a good thing.

        • @CAVOK@lemmy.worldOP
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          05 months ago

          The fact that the EU manages its borders just like every other country/union in the world is proof that Europe hates migrants?

          • @shaserlark@sh.itjust.works
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            15 months ago

            Frontex literally sends them back to get raped & tortured and literally is the reason thousands per year drown in the Mediterranean Sea. We hate migrants, that is a European core value.

            Not convinced? After 2nd world war, Germans even hated German refugees. Since then, migrants in Western/Northern Europe have been 2nd class citizens. Brexit went through partly as a campaign against migrants from Poland & Romania.

            Still not convinced? It’s not about cultural compatibility or religion or skin color or anything. Ukrainian refugees have been met with empathy because of their skin color and religion at first (but we‘re _ definitely_ not racist and sorry for saying the quiet part out loud). However, in countries like Poland, Hungary and Germany who took on most of the refugees politicians already started using Ukrainians as scapegoats and the hate mongering hit them too.

            Think it will be different with Americans? They’re gonna be the ones who took our jobs, always act entitled, destroy our work culture by always being available and ruining the housing market (as if that weren’t already fucked up). To an extent, this is how we see Americans already.

            We are a racist, backwards continent. I wish it were different, but this is who we are.

            • @CAVOK@lemmy.worldOP
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              -15 months ago

              Do I wish there was a better way for people to seek asylum? Absolutely. There was talk about setting up centers in some northern african countries to let people apply without crossing the Med. Don’t know if that happened yet though. Sounds like a reasonable idea to me. And I seriously doubt that Frontex “sends them back to get raped & tortured”. If they knew that was going to happen they’re not allowed to.

              Brexit was a Russia sponsored fluke. I’m not saying there aren’t people using migrants as scapegoats for everything, but they’re a minority, but as times gets tougher I get how migrants gets blamed. It’s hard to help someone when you barely got enough for yourself.

              About the americans, they would by what’s commonly referred to as “high value migrants”, meaning educated and experienced, someone who can go more or less directly into productive work. That’s the kind of migrant every country on earth wants. Those are the kind of workers that helps grow the economy.

              As a continent I think we’re very far from both racist and backwards. Yes, there are those elements among us, but for the most part we’re decent people. We make mistakes and stumble, but we’re generally doing the right thing. I have fatih in us.

              • @Viri4thus@feddit.org
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                15 months ago

                The part of brexit is manifestly not true. Brexit is a US invention, the far right from the US banked the whole thing. Case in point, Steve Banon and Cambridge analytica. Allowing US companies to run our digital life is the biggest mistake of the european civilization, and now that civilization is at risk, threatened by a raging jingoistic maniac.

  • @Kissaki@feddit.org
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    05 months ago

    A big problem with many people moving out is that they will be missing as opposition and reason. To a degree, it reduces the chances of the US to reform itself.

    • @ThisIsNotHim@sopuli.xyz
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      05 months ago

      You don’t give up your right to vote by moving abroad. Your vote in state and local politics is lost. How much of a real impact that has depends on where you live.

      This assumes voting continues to function more or less as it has in the past.