Migrant Tales wrote in May about the high cost, hassle and red tape some Somalis face to bring their relatives to Finland. Since it appears that the aim of the immigration authorities and politicians is to make family reunification as expensive and difficult as possible, some immigrants are being fed to the loan sharks as a result.
Migrant Tales wrote that a two-and-half year wait in the Ethiopian capital to bring your family to Finland can cost between $9,000 and $12,000. That’s a lot of money taking into account that annual income in Somalia is about $600, according to the CIA Factbook.
“I don’t have any work so I was forced to turn to these loan [shark] companies,” said a Somali, whose wife and brother are applying to come to Finland from the Finnish Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. “I went to my bank but they wouldn’t give me a loan because I don’t have a job.”
The young man hasn’t seen his wife for three years. Many immigrants in Finland have lived separated from their children for years.
In order to bring his wife and brother to Finland, the Somali was forced to take three costly loans that amounted to 1,000 euros. As a result, the man will end up paying 294.63 euros on the loans as interest and expenses! Payback time is two months for a total of 1,294.63 euros.
One of the bills of the three loans. Expenses amount to a hefty 75.47 euros!
Taking into account Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen makes over 12,000 euros a month, it’s clear that a well-paid minister or politicians would care little about the plight of Somalis and other poor immigrants in Finland struggling to bring their loved ones to the country.
If there is a tragedy to be told in Finland about immigrants, family reunification is certainly one of them!
But this is a perfect motivator to integrate isnt it! If you so badly want to have your poor loved ones here, wont you put some serious effort to your language studies and find a job. Works much better than having finns pay their expense and see how they end up spending their day drinking coffee with their countrymen.
Yossie
Not really. Living alone separated from your immediate family who may or may not be in danger themselves doesn’t sound particularly good for one’s mental health.
There are very few possibilities to properly develop adequate Finnish language skills to get a job in Finland. Free courses typically take a student to intermediate level, which is inadequate for most work purposes. It’s something of a catch 22: immigrants need work as a point of contact with Finns to improve their Finnish skills, while immigrants will find it hard to find work without those skills.
Even if an immigrant manages to find work, that does not guarantee the necessary disposable income to sustain a family in the Ethiopian capital for two years while the application is processed. As Ethiopia is itself a foreign country, settling in the capital may not be practical or possible without outside support.
I take this to be an ethnic slur. So, you are against Somalis being social? Likewise, it is quite plausible to say that an immigrant that has the support of his immediate family in Finland is likely to integrate better than someone who is alone and marginalised. Nevertheless, the right of family reunification is offered as a humanitarian right; seeing as you have failed entirely to acknowledge this principle, regardless of the practical or financial implications, I can assume that human rights, and especially those of ‘foreigners’ do not rate very highly in your priorities?
Ehem. If the poor immigrant so much misses his family, who is stoppig him to go to his family instead of crying for others to pay for his family to come to him?
tp1
That’s one way to look at it. The other is to recognise the importance of the family unit and to enable all EU residents to have the right to maintain that family unit. Another is to consider the rights of the child, whether that child has preceded her parents or remains in another country awaiting reunification with their parents.
Perhaps you do not think that families are important. Or is it that you think families are important only for Finns, but not for immigrants, who are treated, rather, like cattle or any other economic commodity?
Justifications given throughout EU member states are that family reunification helps to create socio-cultural stability, facilitate integration of non-EU nationals within EU States, and thus promoting economic and social cohesion – which is a fundamental EU and often national objective.
And that kind of attitude pisses me off. If immigrant is living off on Finns expenses (doesn’t have a job), he still have the nerves to expect his whole family to come live on Finns expense.
God forbid that one day you will not have to live seperated from your family. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I know, I have lived in a foreign country with no family members. It’s no fun.
Mark, why did you dodged my comment about immigrant moving to his family instead of his family moving to him?
I did answer. EU countries have all recognised the importance of the family unit. A person resident in the EU is entitled to be reunited with his immediate family in the country in which he now resides. This is quite normal. If moved to another EU country, you would expect to be able to take your family with you.
Your suggestion is a bit like saying, you have rights, but you have to move abroad to realise them. The right applies in the EU country in which that person has been granted residency.
Ofcourse, but I would take care of the expenses, and I would never expect that other country to pay for it.
I find it strange that you don’t understand this.
tp1
If you are on holiday abroad, and you lose your passport and bank cards, the Finnish consolate will loan you money to get you and your family home. I don’t see how this should be any different.
The key thing here is that the family unit is recognised as having a value, clear social value. That value translates ultimately into better social cohesion, better integration and better economic outcomes in the longer run. Still, the economic argument really is secondary, but you want to make it primary. The primary argument as far as Finland and the rest of the EU is concerned is that a family unit has value, in the same way a human life is considered to have value. If you start to try to dismantle that system of values just for immigrants, then you create a two-tier system where the core human values and rights associated with it are not recognised for some citizens, who in effect become second class citizens and basically economic entities.
tp1. You are an extremist. Your views are extreme and fly in the face of 40 years of Europe social development.
One observatios here worth mentioning. You tend to write very long responses and it seems the only reason for this is that you try to hide the fact that you just can’t answer to my points. So let me try again:
1: The value of the family unit is for the member of that family, there is no value for anyone else.
2: You expect that someone else should be paying the expenses for that immigrant to gain the value.
3: Your example of a tourist losing his passport is totally irrelevant. In that example we talk about only temporary expense/loan. Comparing that to getting a whole family to be brought here and live on our expense is just absurd.
4: You still didn’t answer to this question: Why don’t you consider it an option that this immigrant (1 person) moves to where rest of his family (many persons) is living? It’s much more cheaper to relocate 1 person than many persons.
tp1
I answered your point, with detail.
Members, plural. But your claimly is absurdly false. The value of the family is clearly something valued by all of society, which extends into the very heart of society, from the hospitals where our kids are born, to the schools where they are educated, to the universities and colleges where they are trained. These institutions and many others serve families, children, and likewise older people. But the family value goes well beyond just the financial benefits that we all enjoy. It is a fundamental part of being human, to share in family.
This is not just my opinion. This is the opinion of the majority of the EU governments. Clearly, if your first statement is false, then your second statement, which relies on it, must clearly be false too. If you bothered to read my detailed response to you, I already outlined the value to the wider society of family reunification.
LOL. That means of course that it is totally relevant. If it is accepted that the family unit is respected as of fundamental value and from that, that residents within the EU have the right to be reunited in that person’s country of residence with his close family members, then the issue remains of who pays for that. Are there other instances where a person for one reason or another cannot at that moment in time pay for travel but where the ‘right of travel’ is established? The passport example is extremely close, though not an exact parallel. The point is that the government is prepared to loan funds to facilitate the residents rights of travel. If an EU resident’s family have the right to be reunited, then the only issue then is one of travel expenses. Special loans at very low interest rates should be made available to immigrants for this purpose.
It’s not absurd at all. What would be absurd is accepting the family unit as a core value and then doing absolutely nothing to back that principle up with any kind of action. We are talking spouses, children and siblings here, for the most part.
I did answer the question. The right of the EU resident is that they are reunited with their family members in the country where that person is resident. I even pointed out to you the absurdity of saying that this person has this right but can only realise it by travelling abroad. The right if it is a right, must exist and relate to the country where that right is recognised. In other words, she has the right to be reunited in the country where she lives. Pay attention, tp1, I’m not much amused by having to repeat things for you because you are too slow or too lazy to read what I wrote.
I quoted your answer. You are only talking about that immigrant should have right to be united in the country where he is resident. But you don’t even with one word consider the other option: uniting the family where the rest of the family is resident.
And you are also misunderstood the “right” for uniting. No immigrant has the right to be united on someone elses expeses just like that. Now it’s you who should pay attention.
tp1
?? Feck me, you are thick sometimes!
How can you continually choose to ignore the key principle that informs the vast majority of EU policy? Suggesting that uniting the family where the ‘rest of the family resides’ is effectively saying, you have the right to reunification, but not in this country. That is no right at all. You might as well tell a Chinaman, you have the right to free speech…if you move to America. What right is that?
Straw man. I have not claimed this. I have said that supporting the right but not backing it up with any action is pretty lame. I have said that low interest loans should be made available, with repayments based on future employment. I think that is reasonable, from everyone’s perspective.
You are an extremist tp1. You do not even understand or appreciate the basic EU wide value of ‘the family unit’.
You just keep on going, don’t you? Nobody is forbidding anyone to reunite his family in this country. Anyone can if he can support the family. But it can be nobody’s right to reunite his family with SOMEONE ELSE’s expense. This is just something that you refuse to understand.
tp1
And you just keep on missing the fundamental principle that informs EU and Finnish legislation on this matter.
Laws are not simply a description of prohibitions. In this case, the law supports a right to family reunification, thus recognisign the crucial importance of family to the individual and society. How you can try to squirm your way around this, I really don’t know. Have you no conscience whatsoever?
And you keep repeating the same straw man. This is wrong for so many reasons. The fundamental point is that it is a persons right to be reunited with his family, as a Finnish resident. That IS his right. Now if the Finnish administration, for sake of argument, put a €1000 price tag on that reunification, and this is a family that is effectively living at a subsistence level, then there is a responsibility, in my view, on the state to provide aid in order to reunite that family. This is not a right as such, but it extends from a right. It’s pointless for example saying that you have the right to life if the Finnish government doesn’t invest in a police force in order to realise that right. Rights must be followed by actions that support those rights. Indeed, there are several pieces of legislation that require government to actively support an immigrant in realising their basic rights.
And for the record, your utter stupidity in stating that because something is ‘at someone else’s expense’, it must be wrong, completely invalidates the entire purpose of government, which is to take tax and other revenues and spend them. In other words, to provide thousands upon thousands of public services at ‘someone else’s expense’. You are inept beyond discription, tp1. I really doubt the moderators will tolerate anymore obvious trolling on this topic.
You can’t treat people inequally. You can’t give immigrants low interest loans with special conditions if you don’t give same to everyone else. Otherwise it would be discrimination.
–You can’t treat people inequally. You can’t give immigrants low interest loans with special conditions if you don’t give same to everyone else. Otherwise it would be discrimination.
If you look at the loan shark story, we could claim that immigration policy drives people into debt. Even for a person that makes four times more than an immigrant living off welfare, paying 30% interest and expense rates is outrageous.
tp1
Absolute rubbish. How can you come on here and spout about immigration when you don’t even have a clue what discrimination is? You are insane if you honestly think that this is what discrimination is.
For a start, if you are a welfare dependent in Finland, and for some reason, you have no washing machine, the Kela will help you get one. Makes sense, as it’s a fairly basic appliance for keeping clean and healthy. But under your ridiculous and stupid idea, this would be discimination, because we all don’t get one!!!!!
Seriously, you are reverting to troll arguments simply because you’ve run out of any reasonable argument.
I have a question for you, tp1. A very important question.
Does every child resident in Finland have an equal right to live with her or his parents, providing the parents are competent to the task? If this is so, why would you deny that right to immigrant children? And denial of that right can just as effectively arise if you place undue barriers to the child being reunited with their parents as it would if you simply refused to accept that right. And poverty is a barrier. A child has no income or immediate possibility of income, so how is the child expected to raise capital to bring their parents to Finland?
Even adults seeking to be reunited with their children have different levels of income, and so provide equality in this very basic of rights to family, then income must not be the deciding factor in whether the right is realised. And yet this very basic principle of equality is being eroded in this debate, via Denmark and other places that seek to undermine the notion of equality of rights, rights of children, and rights of family.
It really is shocking, because of all people, the most innocent in this situation are children, who have no responsibility for the circumstances they find themselves in. It begins with protecting children and their rights. If their parent has escaped persecution and obtained residency in Finland, then it is and should be the responsibility of Finnish authorities to do everything the reasonably can to reunite the child or children of that person with their parent. Otherwise, all those commitments in Finnish Foreign Office documents to advancing the rights of the child at home and abroad really amount to a lot of hot air. If Finland were not even committed to the rights of children resident in Finland, what hopes to advance this same agenda worldwide?
My guess is that you don’t give a toss. Fair enough, it’s not your responsibility and never will be. But for some reason you choose to pontificate about it as if it should be. And then you reveal yourself to be an enemy to children’s wellbeing. Not only do you refuse to acknowledge basic rights of the child or family, but you actively seek to put barriers in the way of their wellbeing. And why? Because you don’t like foreigners. No other reason. You petty little man.
You seriously try to justify your opinions by asking a question that is totally uncomparable? 😀
If you really want to do the comparison, the question you need to as is: Does every children has a right to move to another country and then that other country would pay all the expenses to get the family there aswell. That would be the correct comparison. And by the way, my answer: NO
tp1
Who is avoiding the question? Clearly we are not talking about the rights of free movement of children. We are talking about the rights of children granted residency in Finland, and then the question is very much whether they have the right to be reunited with their parents? The point is very specific – do you consider the rights or wellbeing of children? Clearly the answer is NO. You are a callous extremist who should have nothing to do with politics.
Listen to yourself. If everything in Finland would be done the way YOU want to be done (based on the opinions you give here in Migrant Tales) Finland would be open for ANYONE in the world to just come here and live off on our expense. This country just couldn’t handle it. Would you really expect that we could have 20 million people here to live off welfare? That’s why we need to have control.
And don’t start to claim that 20 millions is absurd figure, because it would not be absurd if everything would be done according to your conscience 😀 We saw that already years ago, when control was not so strict; We had masses of underage immigrants coming here and then their families were brought here aswell on our expenses.
If the system can be abused, it will be abused. That’s why it is essential that people like you won’t get to do the decisions.
tp1
Now you are lying through your teeth. Show me anywhere on this blog where I have advocated an ‘OPEN’ door policy to immigration? In fact, I have specifically said that immigration levels should at the very least match the resources made available for proper integration. That is a decision ultimately for the Finnish public to make.
That is yet another gross slur on immigrants. I am an immigrant and I have never lived off welfare in Finland. Nevertheless, many Finns have and do, and welfare support is part of a system that works to provide opportunity, training and jobs to all of Finland’s residents, including immigrants.
Show me a time in Finland’s past when it was subject to ‘mass immigration’ of minors? Sources, please!
So what, you close the system down? Don’t be ridiculous. The priority has to be preserving the rights of children.
My opinions reflect the decisions ALREADY made by Finns. I am defending the system that is ALREADY in place, and providing you with an explanation of the principles upon which it is founded. But rather than be open to another opinion on the matter, you troll instead.
This is also one form of one admitting that he has lost the debate. You have said that same comment to my messages almost 10 times totally here in Migrant Tales 🙂 Have you noticed?
tp1
Have I noticed? Idiot!
If you completely fail to acknowledge or respond adequately to what is being said to you and continue to use the comment system to push an agenda of hatred for foreigners and total political incompetence, then I think the moderators are well within their rights to shut you down. This site is for the purpose of advancing the voice of immigrants, not the voice of immigrant haters. You are tolerated, but there are limits to that tolerance, as you already know.
If the primary reason for that immigrant child to move to Finland has been to get his family here, then that is abusing the system.
Think about this: Why has the child been given asylum here? It would mean that there is some danger in his own home country. In that case, wouldn’t his parents also be eligible to asylum? If yes, then I would gladly welcome them here and give them asylum.
tp1
I would be rather more concerned that it was an abuse of the child.
A child will be returned to the country of origin if they can be properly taken care of in that country by the authorities. But for many of the thousands of minors travelling through Europe today, their parents cannot be found or contacted and no such services exist in their country of origin. Whichever country they end up is responsible for the wellbeing of that child and shirking that responsibility in the way that you seem to do would only make child abusers of all of us.
The response to ‘an abuse of the system’ is not to abuse the child, who often has already been abused in various ways during their journey, by police authorities, by traffickers, and by the general public.
There are other grounds for giving asylum to a child, but that does not necessarily mean that the parents will then follow them. Many parents pay for their children to travel to Europe not with the aim of moving there themselves, but to give them a better life. For the many Afghan children coming to Europe, this is usually the case.
Why do you use that kind of tone? You mock me as being immigrant hater, that is a complete lie. Why do you think that if person wants a strict system that can’t be abused, is automatically an immigrant hater? You just label everyone who doesn’t agreee you as either racists or haters. You do exactly the same as what the real racists are doing to immigrants and people with different ethnic backgrounds.
In this thread alone you have refered continually to immigrants living off welfare. That is your sole conception of immigrants. Never once have I actually seen you relate specifically the story of an individual immigrant. Not once. They are just an idea to you. You have little concept of immigrants as people and all your language and arguments reflect that.
There is only one way to summarise that opposition to immigrants and that is IMMIGRANT HATER. Now if you want to prove me wrong, relate to me a personal story of an immigrant that you know personally that has arrived in Finland after escaping hardship and has successfully claimed asylum. I’d be more than happy to change my view of you if you demonstrate any real evidence that it’s not true.
Rubbish. But this site certainly attracts a few individuals that clearly are racists and are immigrant haters, with you top of the list, matey! My definition of a racist is not ‘anyone who disagrees with me’. It is someone that clearly discriminates againt someone else on the basis of race or ethnicity. Haters are just those that absolutey refuse to see the humanity of immigrants or the similarity of immigrants to themselves or other citizens of Finland. So, that has you guilty on both counts.
…which just goes to show that you do not understand the meaning of the word racist. If I call someone a bad name because they disagree with me, then this has nothing to do with their race or ethnicity, does it? So even if your jibe were true, which it isn’t, then it would still not make me a racist.
There are immigrants. Part of those immigrants are living off welfare. This means that there are also immigrants who don’t live off welfare.
Now, if I am discussing about those immigrants who live off welfare, it doesn’t mean that the other kind of immigrants don’t exist. Similar way as if I am talking about women, it doesn’t mean the men don’t exists, even if I don’t bring men in to that certain discussion.
Why is it that if someone mentions for example a criminal immigrant, you immediately take defensive position and claim that this someone thinks that ALL immigrants are criminals?
tp1
You are NOT discussing those immigrants who live off welfare. You haven’t referred to the issue of welfare dependency in any way. You simply linked it in a very generalised way to the issue of family reunification. And it is totally irrelevant to the issue of family reunification. You bring it up only to slur immigrants.
And I’m quite sure our readers see straight through your bullshit justification for this.
My position is not ‘defensive’, its a critical position. I question it because invariably it is offering a generalisation of immigrants or of the problems of immigration. It is invariably based on false data or false reading of the data. And generally speaking, it’s not done by people who are one bit interested in crime or the causes of crime, but only interested in keeping immigrants out.
So, you cannot offer a single story told to you personally about someone who has claimed asylum in Finland. You cannot demonstrate in any way that you relate to these types of immigrant as people.
If person needs someone else’s money to pay for his family to move here, then they are living off welfare. If they wouldn’t then there would be no problem and they could pay the costs by themselves.
tp1
Or going through training, education or looking for work. So many other ways to put it, tp1, but you just happen to choose the one that is the biggest slur on immigrants. Like I said, I doubt people will buy your bullshit, and you’ve had plenty of previous on this site in your crusade against immigrants.
Look, the key issue here is that you are NOT discussing welfare dependency, or welfare receipt as a topic in itself, either its existence as a safety net or trampoline towards future opportunities, or its problems of dependency, which frankly, affect a great many Finns. You only mention this ‘living off welfare’ in passing, with no detail and no context, simply as a means to link immigrants, family reunification etc., with the idea of immigrants sucking on the teat of the Finnish state like leeches. That’s it.
Now I know you didn’t mention the word leech, (I bet your fingers were already typing) but let’s be frank here, this is clearly how you view them. Otherwise, why mention it? You don’t seem particularly interested in the topic.
You are a fraud, tp1, who backtracks on his own positions and arguments the minute your discrimination and dirty tricks tactics are called out for what they are.
Yes I can. I personally know several persons from Iran and Iraq, who have got an asylum here in Finland. None of them are living off welfare, most of them have completed university level studies here in Finland and are now working in well paid jobs.
tp1
Did they face any difficulties? Did they come here as part of their studies and then claimed asylum, or have they gone through the educational system? I want to know if you know people that have struggled, not people who have swapped one middle-class position for another.
Good to hear you quote a story of people who do not rely on welfare. It is by no means the norm. However, for some groups, there is clearly a greater danger of being trapped in poverty, or as you put it ‘living off welfare’.
They came here as children. And atleast I’m not aware of any difficulties they would have had.
tp1
It might be a good idea to talk to them about it. It might also be a good idea for you to open your mind a bit to the challenges facing immigrants. This is not to say that challenges should somehow bar immigrants. Many of them are aware of the challenges, but feel it really is the only way forward or that the sacrifices they make will benefit their children.
While government policy should not be built on sentiment, it should be built on a balance of principle and a recognition of the reality faced by human beings affected by that policy.