Could you show me the line on which I wrote it’s OK?

You did not elaborate on your statement of the UVI breaking the law systematically. Could you give us some pointers to some documents about the wrongdoings of the UVI? You know, books, newspaper articles, web pages…

On the case of deportation to another EU country, the only thing sillier I could think would be deportation to the same country in which you are applying for an asylum. Hmmm… maybe I as a Finnish citizen should make an application to the UVI and find out how insane they really are.

The reason for this is simple: Finland’s idea of citizenship is not based on birthplace, it is based on ethnic identity. Anyone who ever had Finnish ancestors can literally get off a plane and claim citizenship, regardless of whether they even speak Finnish or intend on living here at all.

Meanwhile, people who were born here but whose parents hold some foreign citizenship are considered foreigners at birth, even if they never knew any other country. I know several people in that case; they were born in Finland, they don’t even speak the language of whichever country their parents came from, spent their whole childhood here and graduated from Lukio and University here, but had to wait until they reached majority to apply for citizenship on the basis of long residence time.

There’s been other examples, reported via this FFT blog, even, that clearly show how the Law doesn’t matter one bit and that it’s only when the Ombudsman makes a very polite request to never do it again (and only in the rare cases when the Ombudsman dares) that UVI retracts.

UVI damn well deserves to feel ashamed for their criminal actions!

If you attended any of the recent events on Migration Policy that have been organized by different political parties at the New Parliament building (Greens and Kokoomus, for instance), you’d feel shame too. The sheer absurdity of UVI’s decisions and the total disrespect for the Law that UVI regularly shows has been abundantly documented. As one lawyer that was present at these events commented, at this point, it’s only a question of months before UVI makes one MAJOR mistake that will bring enough shame to this country to make everyone embarrassed of being a Finn and make every Finn wish the country would just disappear off the map for a bit so that people eventually forget. That’s a VERY strong statement coming from a lawyer, don’t you think?

Thank’s for the note. I guess that you are refering to this case, decision of the Ombudsman of Parliament on 23.1.2006

http://www.oikeusasiamies.fi/Resource.phx/pubman/templates/2.htx?id=195

http://www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/thw/trip/?{base}=ereoapaa&${html}=eoap5000&${ccl}=define+reverse&${freetext}=tunniste=1977/2004&${snhtml}=nosyn

#14 “Besides, even in the case when a kid cannot claim any other citizenship, UVI shamelessly breaks that article you quote:”

“Ulkomaalaisosasto toteaa, että A:n hakemuksen käsittelyn yhteydessä on tapahtunut valitettava virhe. Ulkomaalaisviraston huomiota tullaan
kiinnittämään siihen, että vastaavanlaiset tilanteet vältetään jatkossa.”

The department of foreign affairs (of UVI) states that there has been a regrettable mistake in the handling of the application (for asylym). The UVI will try to avoid these mistakes in the future.

I would be very much ashamed if I would have to give such a statement as a public official.

#14 “There was a recent case at the Ombudsman of Parliament, where UVI not only denied Finnish citizenship to a kid that could not claim any other citizenship, they in fact deported the toddler and his parents.”

“Lopulta pientä lasta ja hänen äitiään ei käännytetty maasta, mutta hänen isänsä ja sisarensa käännytyspäätös pantiin täytäntöön.”

The child and her mother were not deported, the father and the sister of the child were deported to Latvia on July 17. 2004.Latvia has been a member state of the European Union since May 1. 2004.

#14 “systematically ignored by the Ulkomaalaisvirsto.”

Could you elaborate that “systematically” part of your statement, please.

I don’t think I have to change my position in the previous post on this subject. This is law, not mathematics.

One instance does not support your case in any meaningful way. Even if we are to believe what you say, which seems highly doubtful, you cannot generalise from one instance. I happen to know one Iraqi who now has Finnish citizenship. Does that prove anything? No. By and large Finnish laws are upheld and if they aren’t they are overturned on appeal.

“Only 3% of students at top colleges [in the US] come from the poorest 25% of the population. Poor children are trapped in dismal schools, while richer parents spend ever more cash on tutoring their offspring.”

Johann Norberg take note. This probably has more to do with why the Nordics have so much better social mobility than the US.

Besides, even in the case when a kid cannot claim any other citizenship, UVI shamelessly breaks that article you quote:

There was a recent case at the Ombudsman of Parliament, where UVI not only denied Finnish citizenship to a kid that could not claim any other citizenship, they in fact deported the toddler and his parents. Yet… the Ombudsman saw no reason to press charges against UVI for blatantly breaking the Law.

So, yes, the statement that foreign kids will not be granted citizenship stands, while yours doesn’t, because it’s already an exception case and one that is systematically ignored by the Ulkomaalaisvirsto.

This is probably true both in the richest and poorest of the neighborhoods. One solution would be a higher property tax eg. in Westend and no property tax eg. in Suvela. I wonder how the good people of Espoo would take this proposition?

“And finally children of immigrants don’t get citizenship upon their birth. This makes immigrants to feel unwelcomed and limited in their rights.”

This is not exactly true. A child born in Finland can get Finnish citizenship even if her parents are immigrants. This is possible if the child can not get a citizenship of another country.

“Syntymäpaikan perusteella lapsi saa Suomen kansalaisuuden silloin, kun lapsi syntyy Suomessa eikä voi saada minkään vieraan valtion kansalaisuutta.”

http://www.uvi.fi/netcomm/content.asp?path=8,2477,2549

The Iranian refugees of 1979 Islamic revolution are a totally another matter, however. I got to know many of these so I want to share some of my observations.

For many of these Iranians Sweden was indeed their dream country, the best they could think of. Swedes tend to brag about their country being better than all others but sometimes I feel that’s just talk. The Iranians (I didn’t know every one of them while living there, just the ones I knew) seemed to be genuinely happy about being in Sweden. They were both proud of their Iranian heritage and proud of becoming Swedes and spoke good Swedish. I came there in the 90s, so many of them had been there for more than a decade and had settled down.

Many people have no idea just how Westernized the upper and middle classes of Iran were during the Shah régime. I’m certainly no admirer of that régime (the Shah was, after all, a dictator) and the Iranians didn’t think it had been perfect there before the Revolution. But many of these people had been Westernized before they came to Sweden, they were well-educated and linguistically competent (of course not in Swedish to begin with but in other languages). So they had been top dogs in Iran and many of them felt optimistic about making it in Sweden.

I don’t think it was the welfare state that made them so attracted to Sweden. No, it was the liberal mindset of Swedes. Sweden is truly famous for being one of the most socially liberal countries in the world. Some of the Iranians in Sweden (and especially those who were refugees of the revolution) are probably way more liberal than any other Iranians anywhere else but the point remains that they liked it in Sweden because it was their kind of country.

I had certainly not expected any Iranian I’d meet to have socially liberal attitudes like myself. So I was totally surprised when I learned that others had made similar observations as myself about Iranian immigrants.

Iranians in Sweden seemed to be a little bit like Cubans in America in the sense that if you want to meet anti-Castro people, there they are among the refugees of the Cuban revolution just like you’d meet anti-Khomeini, anti-islamic revolution attitudes among those Iranian immigrants who had fled the revolution.

Since atheists were the first to flee Iran, there would be plenty of Iranian atheists in Sweden. In that country people of such convictions feel at home like nowhere else in the world.

An Iranian in Sweden could be atheist, gay, Christian, whatever. Since there are so many groups that are persecuted in Iran because of who they are, in Sweden they could be themselves and enjoy every fresh breath of freedom in a way that most other refugee groups didn’t seem to be able to. I felt many Iranians were better Swedes than many native-born ones, since many of them were optimistic and appreciated the freedoms that many Westerners take for granted.

Sure, many Iranians refugees of the revolution in Sweden had been Westernized top dogs in a stratified society and in some senses their new country was more like them than their old country (taken in general) had ever been. Since hey had settled down in Sweden they had had no plans whatsoever to return to Iran (unlike many other refugees who were living in this constant should I stay or should I go). They knew that the likelihood was that they had lost their old country for a very long time to people who were committed to destroying every trace of the kind of society these immigrants had stood for while they had lived in the old country. They were pessimistic about Iran but optimistic about Sweden.

To sum up, I felt that many Iranians in Sweden certain things in common with the refugees of the Russian Revolution of 1917. They had pretty much lost their old country forever and knew they’d have to get completely rooted in the new country. Whereas there is this stereotype of many Russian refugees of 1917 of having been so privileged in Russia that they lived in the past and idealized their old way of life (I don’t know since I didn’t live at that time and meet those people then) these Iranians seemed to have a remarkable quality of living in the present. Especially Iranian women seemed to appreciate the opportunities that the new country brought them. Since they had enjoyed some freedoms already in the pre-revolution Iran, the culture shock would’ve been much, much worse if they had stayed in Iran rather than emigrated to Sweden. What I would’ve expected was a strong nostalgia for the pre-1979 Iran (a bit like the one for pre-1917 Russia). Yes, Iranian immigrants would miss no opportunity to tell how much better and freer Iran was before 1979 than after it but they seemed to be aware that it was not perfect. They had come to a totally free country that was more tolerant than the one they had left. Yet they wouldn’t totally demonize the new Iran, many had contacts to Iran, but they were absolutely against the Islamic régime.

It doesn’t matter whether you are professional or not, if you are hardworking person and want to work then US is your country.

Immigration policy is also very important. Children of immigrants obtain US citizenship upon their birth and in my opinion this is very important thing for any immigrant.

But things are different in welfare countries. They specially welcome and accept uneducated immigrants because they need someone to work in cleaning sector, public transport and service area. And finally children of immigrants don’t get citizenship upon their birth. This makes immigrants to feel unwelcomed and limited in their rights.

I’d think that Mexicans move to the US for almost identical reasons (okay, maybe not civil war) as Sweden’s immigrants.