Immigration Policy - An International Affair

I came across some very interesting articles about U.S. immigration law recently and I thought I'd share them with you.  It seems that the U.S. Congress is not necessarily the highest authority in this matter and some very creative people have had the intelligence to take this out of the national realm and make it an international fight.

Civil Rights Groups Take Alabama Immigration Law to the UN:  Union and civil rights leaders have filed a complaint against Alabama and the U.S. government with the United Nation International Labor Organization.  They allege that Alabama's immigration laws are a "flagrant violation of international norms" and that the United States' inability to come up with coherent immigration policy hurts domestic and migrant workers alike.  The Service Employees International Union filed the complaint with the UN earlier this week:

The complaint, submitted to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association alleges the U.S. government’s “inability to act promptly and decisively to put in place a national policy related to immigration - attentive to international guarantees related to individual workers’ rights as well as to the rights of trade unions with immigrant members - has given the space to individual states to enact laws that are in flagrant violation of international norms.”

They are holding the US government responsible for the recently enacted Alabama immigration laws and they are not only willing to take it to the UN, they are bringing the fight directly to the foreign companies that have invested in that state.

In a statement to Daimler AG, which produces Mercedes-Benz vehicles in Alabama, the SEIU and its affiliate, the Southern Regional Joint Board of Workers United wrote, “Until now, Daimler and Mercedes-Benz have been silent on this law which violates human rights, even though one of its German executives was arrested under the Alabama law.”

Labor Leaders Take Alabama Immigration Law Repeal Bid to Berlin:  Labor leaders are backing up their words with action by going directly to the source in Berlin, Seoul and Tokyo and calling these companies on their tacit collaboration with what they feel is legislation that violates human rights:

At the Daimler AG annual shareholders meeting in Berlin April 4, U.S. labor and civil rights leaders said that unless the German company takes a stand on Alabama’s infamous anti-immigrant law, it is tacitly supporting a racist and unjust regime in a state where its Mercedes Benz factory is considered responsible for 10,000 jobs and $1.5 billion in economic impact.
In March, civil rights activists and labor leaders attended Hyundai’s annual shareholder meeting in Seoul to make a similar point, as Colorlines reported, since Hyundai’s Alabama operations account for 2 percent of the state’s GDP. Depending whether the state legislature acts to repeal before then, they may also visit Honda’s shareholder meeting in Tokyo in June.

That is not only very gutsy, it's a very smart strategy.  This is not exactly the kind of publicity these companies need.  As for the U.S. government, if the ILO rules against them, it makes their criticism of other governments' policies (like China) look terribly hypocritical.  Alabama certainly doesn't come off well either.  If the unions and civil rights leaders can successfully equate investment in that state with support for violating international standards for human rights, companies might be less willing to do business there and that ought to make local lawmakers sit up and take notice.  This is one to watch closely.  If anyone in Germany, Korea or Japan finds links to this story in the local media, I'd really appreciate your adding them in the comments section.  It would be interesting to see how this story is presented in these companies' home country media.

India challenges U.S. immigration rules at WTO:  India has filed a complaint against the U.S. government with the World Trade Organization (WTO).  In 2010 the U.S. raised visa fees for skilled workers to a whopping 4,500 USD per visa.  Indian IT firms say that this discriminatory (and it does seem to have been directed against them) and a barrier to free trade.  This may be a bit of a "tit for tat" situation since the complaint was filed after India put a ban on poultry imports from abroad - something that hurts the U.S. poultry industry.  Nonetheless, the high fees and the high rejection rates of Indian applicants for U.S. work visas (H1B and L-1) really hurts the Indian IT industry.

The law under which those business visa fees were raised is known as the James Zadroga Act. Under the law, fees are substantially increased for H1B and L1 immigrant business visas. The rule also makes it harder for Indian multinationals in the U.S. like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro to bring in top executives or senior computer engineers from abroad.
“It is the sovereign right of any country to hike visa fee, but the U.S. move is mainly against Indian IT companies. The law discriminates between an American and Indian companies. This is a breach of national treatment and most favored nation status,” an unnamed Commerce Ministry official told the ET.

Tech CEOs visit Washington to lobby for H1B visa, tax reforms:  Last month 60 CEOs of high-tech companies in the U.S. descended on Washington to fight for immigration reform.  What do they want?  More H1-B visas, faster processing of visa applications and a better retention policy for foreign graduates from U.S. universities with high-tech degrees.  Technet is a lobbying organization that represents high-tech industries in the U.S.  However, if you take a look at the executives they sent to Washington, you'll see that its members are not really U.S. companies, they are international companies like Cisco, HP,  Intel, Google, Microsoft and EMC.

These articles really highlight the complex nature of immigration policy and how it can't ever be made in a vacuum that takes into account only local concerns.  Look at the stakeholders above:  United Nations, WTO, trade unions, civil rights leaders, workers, lobbyists, local and international industry, local and national governments.  And then take a look at the people who are responsible for sorting through all this and actually passing laws that make sense in this complex environment.  How many U.S. congressman, for example, have ever lived or worked overseas as a civilian?  How many of them have been immigrants?  How many of them speak a foreign language or have extensive experience with another culture?  I couldn't find any statistics on the Web but just looking at my Congresswomen, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, the answer is they have zero international experience. That's a bit worrisome when you consider that they represent a state that hosts the offices of international companies like Boeing and Microsoft.  And lest you think that I am picking on the U.S. check out the biography of Claude Guéant, the French Minister of the Interior.  His world is the Hexagone and reading his profile you start to understand why he was so surprised when his infamous circulaire received international attention.  

I am not saying that these people are not intelligent - on the contrary they are smart, dedicated public servants who I am sure are doing the very best they can for their constituents.  What I am saying is that when it comes to immigration policy they may be at the lowest level of ignorance which is "not even knowing what you don't know." They just don't have sufficient international experience that would give them the context they need for the decisions that they are responsible for making.

I think this is something to take into account in this election year even at the local level. Globalization is a fact of life and your local representative might just find him or herself thrust into an international spotlight thanks to some local policy or law that has international stakeholders.  The question to ask is:  can this person play at that level?   Is he/she experienced and knowledgeable enough to understand the international implications of the votes he casts or the policies he has a hand in making?  If the answer is "no" or "I'm not sure," you might want to think again.  For your own protection and so that globalization may be rightly guided to the benefit of us all.

The End of Plural Nationality?

After I wrote yesterday's post about taxes, I revisited the the issue of modern citizenship, plural nationality and globalization.  Here are a few of my thoughts:

Citizenship is an odd beast because it is an individual status that represents a kind of contract between a person and a state.  It can be conferred without the consent of the individual either by jus sanguinis (blood) or by jus soli (place of birth).  Think about that:  a child is never asked if he want to be French or Egyptian or American just because his parents were or he was born in a particular place. True, once he becomes an adult he can renounce his citizenship but that is contingent in most places on having acquired another one.  So renouncing is not something that a person can simply decide on his or her own - you cannot wake up one morning and simply say, "I'm not German. "  You must petition the German state and formally sever your ties after having formally created another tie to another country.   Most countries (not all) recognize that their citizens have the right to do this but they also retain the right to put conditions on this renunciation.  Americans, for example, might be very surprised to learn that they are not allowed to renounce their citizenship within the borders of the U.S.  They must physically leave the country and apply at a consulate on foreign soil.

Most people never bother to learn these things because they either never leave their home countries or because, in a world where plural citizenship is becoming very common, it can be a real advantage to have several passports even if one is not actually residing on one of the passport countries.  It appears to be all gain and no pain so why bother renouncing?  A citizen retains the right of return at any time, the right to vote in many cases from abroad and even, in some countries, actual representation in the national parliaments.  On the other, he or she feels free to travel about, build a life abroad, pass citizenship on to his or her children and ask for assistance (limited in reality) at the home country consulate.  That is the perspective of many of us who have chosen to live outside our original countries of citizenship.  We rarely consider how our home countries and its citizens feel about this.  The world is flat and it is our playground.

I think we ignore their opinions at our peril.  All states have the right to determine who is and who is not a citizen and what obligations citizens have toward the country of nationality.  Some of these obligations are legal and some, I contend, are moral.  The legal ones are explicit and yet not well known by most people who move abroad.  In the moral realm they are implicit and are about how homelanders feel their citizens abroad should behave and what their proper relationship to the home country ought to be in an ideal world.   People who live outside their home countries also have legal and moral obligations to the host country and this intersection of duties and responsibilities can be quite complex and, in some cases, contradictory.  Americans who live abroad, for example, are required to obey U.S. law even outside of U.S. territory.  No consideration is given to the unpleasant reality that national laws can and do conflict.  Hard to enforce and yet, as the world gets ever flatter, what you do in Vegas (or Thailand) could conceivably come back to haunt you in Berlin.

It is worth taking a few moments to consider the situation from the perspective of the states and the homeland citizens.  Citizens represent an investment by the nation, states expect some return on that investment and consider their claim on their productive power and the right to control their behavior to be just and right wherever those citizens happen to live. The frontier days of globalization are slipping away.  It will be harder and harder to "escape" as states make agreements between themselves to regulate the flow of capital and people.  National parliaments can and will make laws to police the activities of their citizens abroad and will back them up either through enforcement agreements with other states, by controlling the issuance of necessary documents (passports, birth certificates and the like) and by catching people at the border when they come "home."

How those laws will be made and applied will depend greatly, I think, on the opinions and feelings of people in the homeland.  As a practical matter their numbers are greater and their feelings carry much more weight then those of expatriates.  They can more easily make phone calls, send letters and organize demonstrations or visit lawmakers in their offices.  Diasporas can organize and make their side of the story known but that implies a great deal of organization and fertile ground for those opinions to have any legitimacy and stick.  Where expatriates are perceived as rich, tax-dodging quasi-traitors to the nation it is so much easier for politicians to pass laws to their detriment with nary a word from the homelander population.  Sarkozy, for example, is proposing a tax on French expatriates that would oblige them to pay the difference between the taxes they pay in their host countries and what they would pay in France.  I have spoken to people here in France about this and the consensus seem to be that this is a fine idea.  I have not found one person who thinks it is a bad idea and would raise a finger on behalf of French citizens abroad.

When we move outside of our home countries we tend to fall off the radar of people in the homeland.  Because they do not know who are or what we are doing, the information void can be filled with anything:  pictures of rich expatriates sipping wine on the Riviera or rich retirees sunning themselves on the beaches of a South American country or living a hedonistic life in Amsterdam or just having landed a decent job in a modern country. That the reality is so much more mundane (and much harder then one might think) is not a message homelanders want to hear because alongside their envy of those who have "escaped" to live fabulous lives in exotic locales are their own fantasies of one day doing exactly the same thing.

There is no easy solution to this.  The key, I suspect, is finding a way to demonstrate that the diaspora is, in fact, an important resource for the nation and merits support and not condemnation.  This is easiest when there is something concrete to show like remittances that add to the wealth of the home country.  It is much harder when the benefits are not quantifiable:  goodwill, connections between nations, small businesses and skills like language ability and cross-cultural competence.   From there we have a basis for negotiation and I think it is becoming urgent that all diasporans do this (some already have).  We need to make the implicit explicit.  On what terms is the "domestic abroad" part of the nation?  What are the legal rights and moral responsibilities of those who leave?  To what extent does one country of citizenship retain control over the productive power and behaviour of its citizens on foreign soil?  How is this reconciled with the needs and requirements of the host nations or the other countries of citizenship?  These are terribly complex issues and international law does not, as far as I can determine, give sufficient guidance.  States can and do make their own rules but as plural nationality becomes more and more common this is becoming an incoherent intersection of competing laws and the power to enforce them across borders, with a growing population of diasporans caught in the crossfire.

Those of us who live outside our host countries have, I think, three options:  we can wait until states settle things amongst themselves (as they seem to be doing with FATCA which is rapidly becoming a global template for the control of the productive power of all diasporans), we can shed our second or third passports and citizenships or we can make some effort to organize across nations and host countries and try to influence how this all shakes out.  I am hoping that the third will become a reality one day but I very much fear that option one and two are the most likely scenarios.  This would mean that states, long hostile to the very concept of dual nationality and emigration, will finally get what they have always wanted:  captive citizens.

Tax Time for U.S. Persons

It was fun while it lasted but now it's time to put away the chocolate bunnies and start tackling the taxes.

We "U.S. Persons" (U.S. citizens, Green Card Holders) have not just one but two tax declarations to make:  one in our country of residence and the other to the U.S. government. We are required to declare everything we own (bank accounts, property investments) and everything we made even if we didn't make one dime of that money or have any assets in the U.S.  That is my situation - not one penny (or centime if you prefer) that I have in my host country (France) came from a U.S. source.  Doesn't matter, as a U.S. Person, I still have to file in the U.S. and pay taxes there even though my money did not come from the U.S., I have not lived or worked in the U.S. for many years and I do not benefit from any services provided by the U.S. government.  But these are the rules, folks, and I comply.

I will admit, however,  that I'm not happy about it.  Why?  Well, first of all it seems to defy basic fairness. I pay a lot of taxes already in my host country and that pays for the services I use:  healthcare, roads, public education, the army that defends me and my family here.  Given that I think the French government does a splendid job of delivering these services I have no complaints about the taxes I pay here, though they are probably higher then what I would pay in the U.S.  You get what you pay for.  Any money I send to the U.S. in taxes, however, is pure profit for the American government and represents a wealth transfer from France to the U.S.  Frankly I would feel a lot better about paying my U.S. taxes on top of the French ones if I had some concrete services here from the U.S. government.  Services tailored to the American Diaspora that, if nothing else, would soothe me psychologically.  See, my country still cares about me as a citizen and won't throw me to the wolves just because I live abroad.  Alas, there is nothing and I'm still trying to make my peace with that.

Another issue related to fairness is reports I'm getting from family and friends in the U.S. about their U.S. taxes.  I received a mail recently from a family member in the U.S. who was astonished because, after doing his U.S. taxes, he discovered that not only is he not paying any Federal taxes he is getting a 4000 USD bonus.    Now I do not begrudge this person his windfall but it did make me think.  Let's see, I'll be paying around 2000 USD this year.  Between the taxes I pay and the subsidy he's receiving, the U.S. government will be 2000 USD in the hole.  How in the heck are they planning to balance the Federal budget with a system like that?  I'm sure the situation is much more complicated than I'm making it out to be but, from my perspective, a tax system that allows nearly 50% of the people to avoid paying any taxes at all (or even get a subsidy) while struggling to manage a whopping budget deficit, isn't sustainable.  And somehow I just don't think chasing all those English teachers, translators, computer programmers and middle managers working abroad is going to make much difference in the end.

Nevertheless, this seems to be the plan these days so those of us who live abroad and have a U.S. connection must either comply or renounce.  A lot of people are renouncing and I have enormous sympathy for them and I am not about to second guess or judge their decision because I do understand where they are coming from.  For those who are trying desperately to comply with the U.S. tax and reporting requirements I'd like to offer a few suggestions for those still trying to figure out how.

Believe me, it's not easy.  I've already encountered my first barrier to compliance.  Since all my money and assets are here in France and the tax due dates are different here, I still haven't received all the information from my banks in order to start filling out tax forms.  There is no way I can meet the U.S. deadline of April 17 so I've had to file for an extension.  I will still have to pay an estimated tax on that date to avoid penalties but now I have until October 15 to actually file.

So my first suggestion for those of you who have just woken up to the U.S. tax and reporting requirements is:   do not panic and simply file for an extension.  Taxes for U.S. persons can be very complex and you don't want to be hasty and file "n'importe quoi."

My second suggestion is to get this book, Your U.S. Expat Taxes Simplified by David McKeegan.  It's a very good overview of how the U.S. tax system works for U.S. persons abroad.  If you are someone with a very simple situation (American au pair working in France with no other assets or income) this might be sufficient for you to be able to do your taxes yourself.  For everyone else, this will give you enough basic information to go out and start looking for a professional.

My third suggestion is to speak at least once with a professional U.S. tax preparer.  The U.S. tax code is a mighty beast and it is applied in strange and mysterious ways to people living outside the U.S. If you live in a city abroad with an IRS office (Paris, London, Frankfurt or Beijing) they can be very helpful in a limited way and sometimes they organize tax seminars with organizations like the AARO.  However, it's not enough because your situation is particular to you and only a competent professional can give you advice that is pertinent to you. These people are not cheap but, if you want to comply,  this is the only way I know of to do it.

Bonne chance!

Joyeuses Pâques

A cold and cloudy Easter Sunday here in Versailles.  Last night my spouse and the younger Frenchling made chocolates (bonbons au chocolat noir filled with white chocolate ganache and mashed strawberries).  This morning I sauntered out of bed and went up to the St. Louis Cathedral for the 11:00 Easter Mass led by our Bishop, Monseigneur Eric Aumonier.  It was a splendid event with incense, candles, the Bishop in full regalia (miter and crosier), and children in white (baptisms).  The mass itself was partly sung, partly spoken in a mixture of French and Latin.  I retained two things from the Bishop's sermon:  he reminded us of the sanctity of life and the importance of human dignity and he noted that we all too often forget that immigrants, like everyone else, merit both (I believe he added something about "walking in their shoes.) And then he briefly mentioned that this is a election year and noted that Christ did not say, "Privatisez votre foi." ("Privatize your faith.")  What he said was, "Soyez mon temoin."  ("Be my witness.")

Tonight we will break with family tradition and skip the gigot (lamb roast).  Salmon, mashed potatoes and  strawberry tarts are on the menu.  It's cold enough to make a fire and I plan to spend the rest of my day toasting my toes and catching up on my reading.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Chemin de Croix sur le Champs de Mars

We are nearing the end of Lent (Carême) and this week is Holy Week (Semaine Sainte) which starts with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter Sunday (Pâques). Between the palms and the eggs and chocolate, Holy Week has a number of events in the Church calendar leading up to that most important day when we celebrate the Resurrection.  Yesterday, I followed the counsel of a friend here and went to a Good Friday event organized by several local parishes at the Champs de Mars, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

Good Friday (Vendredi Saint) commemorates the Passion of Christ and His death on the cross.  The way we remember is by following the Stations of the Cross (Chemin de Croix).

The Chemin de Croix sur le Champs de Mars was first organized 8 years ago by local parishes and has become an annual event.  This year it was sponsored by three churches:  St. Pierre du Gros Caillou and St. Leon (Roman Catholic) and St. Paul (Lutheran).  Fourteen small crosses were set up around the square representing each station.  A  large cross, carried by parishioners and students, led the fidèles to each station where we stopped, listened to a reading and prayed.   As we walked, we sang and I learned a few hymns in French that I had not heard before.  It was very beautiful and moving and I was very glad that I went.


It was also very public.  I could not imagine a more public place since the Champs de Mars is a large open area right behind the Eiffel Tower and is filled with tourists and Parisians alike walking about.  Between the crosses and the crowd singing, we were impossible to miss.

I mention this because it appears that the French Minister of the Interior, Claude Guéant has a problem with this sort of thing.  As a friend of mine pointed out on Facebook (France Soir article here) Guéant said, "La prière dans la rue devait cesser car elle heurte la sensibilité de nombre de nos compatriotes, choqués par l'occupation de l'espace public par une pratique religieuse." ("Prayer in the street must cease because it strikes at the feelings of our fellow countrymen who are shocked by a religious practice in a public space.")  And Guéant clearly said that he is prepared to use force against those who violate this.  These are very strong statements.  Now if I were a very cynical woman I might interpret them as being against a particular type of religious practice performed by a religious minority here in France and not directed at the Catholic majority.  If I lose the cynicism and take the statement entirely at face value, then it would seem to mean that Guéant has a problem with all religious practices in a public space.  In either case I find his words to be troubling.

In all fairness someone did point out to me that the public commemorations of Good Friday here were not spontaneous - the churches got the necessary permits in advance.  I also recognize that Republican principles (secularism in the public realm versus religious liberty) must be balanced carefully.  Still, of all the things that people do in public spaces, prayer does not seem to me to be the most distressing or disturbing to modern secular sensibilities (unless, of course, it is an incitement to hatred and violence).

I am not very fond of the word, "tolerance."  Perhaps it has a different connotation in French but in English it implies, "putting up with something you don't really care for."  Fair enough but I honestly don't think it is enough.   A world in which we merely "tolerate" each other would be a very dark place indeed.  I think "respect" would be a step up and "loving kindness" would be the very best, not only between believers (of any faith) but among all people everywhere.   Threatening aggression for practicing peaceful prayer and meditation in any space (public or private) is, in my view, a very big step away from that better world - one that takes us even farther away from the imperfection of basic tolerance and takes us a continent away from love for each other.

As-Salāmu `Alaykum (السلام عليكم)
Pax vobiscum
Que la paix soit avec vous
Peace be with you

Les Octrois de Versailles

When folks want directions to the Flophouse I just tell them to come to Versailles, get on the Avenue de Paris and find (roughly) the mid-point between the Chateau de Versailles (castle) and the Octrois de Versailles.  I'm sure you've heard of the former but not necessarily the latter.

Think of them as a formal entryway into the city.  They are located at the outer limits of Versailles and represent the boundary between that city and Viroflay.  Two very modest buildings that were built in 1824 by the Marquis de la Londe.  Their purpose was to regulate and tax the goods and persons who came into the city.  "Octroi" comes from the Old French "octroyer" which means to grant or authorize and this type of tax has existed since Roman times.  In Versailles, however, it lasted until the 20th century when it was finally abolished because:

Freinant le développement d'une économie moderne et mal accepté par la population, l'octroi sera finalement supprimé par arrêté municipal en février 1943 et remplacé par le relèvement des taxes locales sur les ventes au détail et les prestations de services.
Slowing development  of a modern economy and poorly accepted by the people, the octroi tax was finally  eliminated by a municipal act in February of 1943 and was replaced by sales tax on goods and services.

At that point the buildings were abandoned and it was even proposed that they be torn down since they served no purpose and because that intersection is a real accident magnet even today.  But in 1958 they were put on the list of Monuments Historiques and preserved.  Today they host offices for non-profit organizations and a library.

They are also the favorite place for the local cops to catch people speeding.  The Avenue de Paris is a wide, long, straight stretch of road and people have a tendency to put the "pedal to the metal" as they drive away from the castle back to Paris.  Every weekend the cops set up a radar right next to the octrois and rake in revenue for the city.

So, if you are planning a day trip to see the Hall of Mirrors and the Versailles gardens, do yourself a favor, leave the car at home or at the hotel and take the train.  Otherwise you might end up closer to the octrois then you would like, explaining yourself to the local cops and paying a very modern tax (an expensive speeding ticket) in order to leave the city in peace.

Ted Talk: Connected, but Alone?

A very good Ted Talk by Sherry Turkle.  I strongly identified with her opening statement.  I first went on-line when I was the young mother of two children under the age of two.  I joined a "Stay at Home Mother" mailing list and I was hooked immediately.  I learned to type one-handed as I breastfed my daughter.  It kept me sane.  As the children grew I moved into other types of virtual communities.  I was a big fan of Howard Rheingold, author of Virtual Communities, and I joined an on-line community that he founded called Electric Minds and I ended up moderating one of the forums.  That venture eventually crashed and the community moved to another site called Brainstorms.  Those were heady days.  We felt like pioneers and I had the pleasure of meeting some very interesting people and even participated in research for a dissertation on on-line communities by a Dutch researcher.  It was a good experience but I found that it had its limits.  As my friend, the late John Ross of Seattle, put it, "Virtual communities are a real time sink." He himself spent an enormous amount of time on the Well and he warned me about the all-consuming nature of these kinds of communities.  John was something of a curmudgeon but he was absolutely right.  So I cut much of my on-line activities out of my life for a few years and only came back a couple of years ago to do this blog.  I also made a number of rules for myself that I try very hard to follow consistently:  turn off the phone at certain times of the day,  keep the ratio of books to internet articles high, get out of the house and talk to people at least once a day "face to face," write letters from time to time (you know, the snail mail kind) and pick up the phone instead of sending an email.  Turkle is right and all too often we use our computers and other devices to avoid being present.  Connectivity is one of the miracles of our time but there are other miracles that you will never find in what we rather quaintly referred to as "cyberspace" (does anyone still use that term?):  blue skies, fast trains and having coffee with a good friend in the sun on a busy Parisian boulevard.