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Comment by emilecantin | Hacker News Reader

> Depending on our country of origin, a passport may grant us extreme privilege or extreme distress.

For a vivid example of this, see "Sailing Uma" on Youtube. It's a couple traveling by sailboat around the world. He has a Canadian passport, she has a Haitian passport. They don't talk about this much, but she frequently has much more onerous paperwork requirements in order to travel, even right up to being denied entry in some countries.

Earlier this year, they arrived in Europe and she got granted a ridiculous Schengen visa (see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgLBJXbkkQk). It has since been resolved, but it took the intervention of a high-powered lawyer who was either very expensive, or free only because they're "famous".

Honestly a pretty ridiculous system in my opinion.

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Why is that a ridiculous system?

The risk of someone illegally residing in a country is different by nationality.

The chance of a Canadian illegally staying in the US is super low. The chance of someone from Haiti is high.

Why wouldn’t there be different requirements?

It might seem ridiculous to section off the entire world with armed guards and determine who can go where based on the lottery of birth.

Most countries are not asking about nationality at their borders because they care about nationality, but because they care about other factors which correlate with nationality and are much harder to measure.

Sure, if you have a completely myopic understanding of the practical realities of immigration.

It's impossible for a country to be sovereign and at the same time not have control over who enters or leaves a country.

So yeah, if you want to get rid of the very idea of countries, it could work...maybe.

That is asserted often but I doubt the truth. Argentinia constitutionally considers migration a human right. They are a minority and not the most prosperous example of a country but they certainly aren't exceptionally worse off even if they wound up with the awkward combination of an overrepresentation of both infamously Nazi refugees and lesser known refugees fleeing from the Nazis historically.

If I was from India, I'd need a visa to travel to Argentina. Not a great example.

So most of Europe isn’t sovereign then?

Can anyone in the world just walk into the EU? No.

Entry regulations are fine, every nation has the right to decide who they want to see on their land. However, being treated differently based not on your personality or track record, but on where you hail from is... I don't know, but seems to be somewhat similar to what the current protests are about.

I guess there is no solution to that. You are right that a member of a nation (or a community) where people often cause trouble mathematically more likely to break laws. I guess it would be unwise to use this to minimize the risk to your citizens.

I guess there is no solution to that.

That's kind of what Global Entry is. If you're willing to give up your privacy and have the gov't examine your profile as an individual, you can avoid be screened based on nationality alone.

It’s a solution for a person who really wants in.

I’m just saying that when you think about it, it feels weird — privileges literally depend on the “color” of one’s passport. Must be inherent to our civilization.

Because it's super-racist. Yes, what you say might be statistically true. However, in this specific case we're talking about 2 people that live and travel together, and have done so for years. They met while studying in the US.

Just because one of them is from Haiti doesn't fundamentally change the situation, they're each as likely to try and stay illegally as the other (which is not much).

The system is based on where you're from, but it really should be based on where you're going (in life in general, I mean).

Yes discrimination by nationality is statistically true but immoral but discrimination by economic circumstance is statistically true but moral. Self interest seep into your moral compass all the time or just when convenient?

I have a UK passport, one of the best in the world until recently. If I want to work in say the US as they are doing in Schengen it’s a massive pain.

Sure I can go for business meetings with an esta, but producing a TV program requires (from memory) a P visa

I remember some colleagues going to Nigeria to build a new office. They needed a work visa, which aside from the really high cost, required sending a TELEX!

I only went to interview some new hires, so that was allowed with a much easier business visa. Still a massive pain.

Another visa for a business trip (Pakistan) involved a 2 hour queue at a tent in Kensington and handing over private bank records.

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