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> There is no queue. Any country that has a number of people who would like to immigrate of whom it will not accept all and will chose who to reject has a queu

by harry8 5y ago

> There is no queue. Any country that has a number of people who would like to immigrate of whom it will not accept all and will chose who to reject has a queue. How that queue is implemented, orderly, disorderly, corruptly, unjustly, ridiculously, incompetently or at various times all of the above. Some get in, some don't, it's a queue. It may not be a fantasy of an orderly queue where everyone is served in order in good time and without knowing about it, it does not surprise me to hear you say it is emphatically not that. Think of a priority queue if you must with priority being given by a random number generator tempered with both nonsense and corruption. You jump places in the queue by being designated higher priority. Have you jumped forward enough to be accepted and if not what can you do about it - this is the only question for those trying to get in. Who are you taking vs who are you rejecting? That's if you're already in. You can't take everyone. The world is a nasty place and this is one of the emotional sharp edge of it. You will reject people whose stories break your heart. You don't get a choice about that.

pjc50 5y ago
> priority queue if you must with priority being given by a random number generator tempered with both nonsense You cannot sensibly call this a "queue". No programmer would accept "random order" when they expected "in order". Moreover, decisions are independent. The number of people already accepted is not a factor in individual immigration decisions! Someone else getting accepted cannot affect the outcome of your own decision. > You will reject people whose stories break your heart. You don't get a choice about that. Why? Who is "you" here? Who's holding a gun to "your" head? You absolutely do get a choice, and moreover if you reject someone who is subsequently killed in the way they warned you about then you, personally - the immigration agent responsible for the decision - are an accomplice in their death. It's just that this is more apparent when it's the people clearing the runway for the last C130 out of Kabul at gunpoint than when someone's doing it with a pen.
- harry8 5y ago
  Obviously the priority is /meant/ to be sensibly arrived at. The rest was commentary on how sensible it is likely to actually be in practice, with a nod to your assertions about it which seem at least plausible. I simply don't believe decisions are entirely independent. I strongly doubt the public servants making those decisions have it in the power to increase the rate of immigration tenfold based on individuals meeting criteria without political support. The process is inherently a rate limiting thing. >Why? Who is "you" here? "You" is anyone putting themselves in the shoes of coming up with an immigration policy. Spare a thought for any decent human being who actually has to get their hands properly dirty and do it. I may not be a decent human because I think I would run from that opportunity without hesitation. I doubt I have the psychological strength to try for a least worse policy that will bring about misery. There is no stroke of my pen where I wouldn't be seeing millions of people dying any one of whom I could have saved with a different stroke. I'm not sure I can live with that. But I can't really absolve myself of the responsibility for what happens as a voting eligible person in a democracy. On that basis I have to at least consider what current policies are and competing ones that might be somehow a little less horrific. They will all be horrific on a personal level in people's lives. A large number of people. There are 700 million people on this planet who do not have access to safe drinking water. One would think all of them would happily relocate to any wealthy country where their children have a better chance of a reasonable future. The number who would want to relocate to the UK is probably considerably north of that number as you don't have to be on the lowest rung on the ladder of this planet to see the wealth of the UK and think that's worth moving to. There are people with clean drinking water who are utterly desperate. Have any immigration policy at all - imagine your decree is law and implemented with resources and vigor. If the one decided on involves a scale of migration measured in hundreds of millions in a year societal collapse seems very likely. If one accepts that then one embraces the necessity of rejecting worthy people with heartbreaking stories. By the million. Who to reject? How many to reject? There is no good answer in my opinion. What is your estimate of the number of people on the planet who will die if you reject them? Know they are being rejected. A tiny fraction of utterly desperate people on this planet will be accepted as immigrants in all the rich countries combined. I say /nothing/ about Afghanistan and refugees. I say literally nothing because I don't know about it. I point out if the immigration policy arrived at is to take everyone from Afghanistan who wants to move and that policy works (hurrah!) and has manageable costs (again hurrah! and again I have no clue), it's not the end of it. There are literally hundreds of millions more people in dire straits for whom moving their family to any rich country would save them. It's f&^king horrible. Every bit as horrible as scenes being televised. This is not an argument I'm making for rejecting any refugees from any country including Afghanistan. As soon as anyone with any kind of heart starts looking at a rich countries immigration policy and its results it is heartbreaking and horrible with no good answers, only ones you hate and loathe slightly less than others. Again this is not an excuse for being as evil as possible or eschewing all compassion or anything of the sort. "No more horrific than necessary" is a reasonable goal because immigration policy, any policy, whatever it is, will be horrific. It sucks.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    > I strongly doubt the public servants making those decisions have it in the power to increase the rate of immigration tenfold based on individuals meeting criteria without political support. It is clear that there is high political prioritization of rejecting as many applications as possible, despite what the criteria actually say and whether the criteria are met. Once people manage to appeal to the real courts, rather than the politically controlled asylum process, most of the decisions are overturned. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/03/inhumane-three-quarters-of-home-office-asylum-appeals-fail https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/03/inhumane-thr... The number could be significantly increased by simply taking their own stated rules at face value rather than rejecting valid applications.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > You cannot sensibly call this a "queue". No programmer would accept "random order" when they expected "in order". I see somebody never used the first iteration of AWS SQS.

by harry8 5y ago

pjc50 5y ago

> priority queue if you must with priority being given by a random number generator tempered with both nonsense You cannot sensibly call this a "queue". No programmer would accept "random order" when they expected "in order". Moreover, decisions are independent. The number of people already accepted is not a factor in individual immigration decisions! Someone else getting accepted cannot affect the outcome of your own decision. > You will reject people whose stories break your heart. You don't get a choice about that. Why? Who is "you" here? Who's holding a gun to "your" head? You absolutely do get a choice, and moreover if you reject someone who is subsequently killed in the way they warned you about then you, personally - the immigration agent responsible for the decision - are an accomplice in their death. It's just that this is more apparent when it's the people clearing the runway for the last C130 out of Kabul at gunpoint than when someone's doing it with a pen.

harry8 5y ago
Obviously the priority is /meant/ to be sensibly arrived at. The rest was commentary on how sensible it is likely to actually be in practice, with a nod to your assertions about it which seem at least plausible. I simply don't believe decisions are entirely independent. I strongly doubt the public servants making those decisions have it in the power to increase the rate of immigration tenfold based on individuals meeting criteria without political support. The process is inherently a rate limiting thing. >Why? Who is "you" here? "You" is anyone putting themselves in the shoes of coming up with an immigration policy. Spare a thought for any decent human being who actually has to get their hands properly dirty and do it. I may not be a decent human because I think I would run from that opportunity without hesitation. I doubt I have the psychological strength to try for a least worse policy that will bring about misery. There is no stroke of my pen where I wouldn't be seeing millions of people dying any one of whom I could have saved with a different stroke. I'm not sure I can live with that. But I can't really absolve myself of the responsibility for what happens as a voting eligible person in a democracy. On that basis I have to at least consider what current policies are and competing ones that might be somehow a little less horrific. They will all be horrific on a personal level in people's lives. A large number of people. There are 700 million people on this planet who do not have access to safe drinking water. One would think all of them would happily relocate to any wealthy country where their children have a better chance of a reasonable future. The number who would want to relocate to the UK is probably considerably north of that number as you don't have to be on the lowest rung on the ladder of this planet to see the wealth of the UK and think that's worth moving to. There are people with clean drinking water who are utterly desperate. Have any immigration policy at all - imagine your decree is law and implemented with resources and vigor. If the one decided on involves a scale of migration measured in hundreds of millions in a year societal collapse seems very likely. If one accepts that then one embraces the necessity of rejecting worthy people with heartbreaking stories. By the million. Who to reject? How many to reject? There is no good answer in my opinion. What is your estimate of the number of people on the planet who will die if you reject them? Know they are being rejected. A tiny fraction of utterly desperate people on this planet will be accepted as immigrants in all the rich countries combined. I say /nothing/ about Afghanistan and refugees. I say literally nothing because I don't know about it. I point out if the immigration policy arrived at is to take everyone from Afghanistan who wants to move and that policy works (hurrah!) and has manageable costs (again hurrah! and again I have no clue), it's not the end of it. There are literally hundreds of millions more people in dire straits for whom moving their family to any rich country would save them. It's f&^king horrible. Every bit as horrible as scenes being televised. This is not an argument I'm making for rejecting any refugees from any country including Afghanistan. As soon as anyone with any kind of heart starts looking at a rich countries immigration policy and its results it is heartbreaking and horrible with no good answers, only ones you hate and loathe slightly less than others. Again this is not an excuse for being as evil as possible or eschewing all compassion or anything of the sort. "No more horrific than necessary" is a reasonable goal because immigration policy, any policy, whatever it is, will be horrific. It sucks.
- pjc50 5y ago
  > I strongly doubt the public servants making those decisions have it in the power to increase the rate of immigration tenfold based on individuals meeting criteria without political support. It is clear that there is high political prioritization of rejecting as many applications as possible, despite what the criteria actually say and whether the criteria are met. Once people manage to appeal to the real courts, rather than the politically controlled asylum process, most of the decisions are overturned. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/03/inhumane-three-quarters-of-home-office-asylum-appeals-fail https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/03/inhumane-thr... The number could be significantly increased by simply taking their own stated rules at face value rather than rejecting valid applications.
ceejayoz 5y ago
> You cannot sensibly call this a "queue". No programmer would accept "random order" when they expected "in order". I see somebody never used the first iteration of AWS SQS.