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Bill: Immigrant Citizenship Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Royal Conservative Party
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: February 2095
Description[?]:
| (1) In order to claim nationality, all immigrants to Lodamun must pass a national test. (2) Applicants shall be prepared for this examination through a year long teaching course. (3) The examination shall be granted free of charge to all applicants. (4) However the cost of teaching must be covered by the applicant unless: (a) The applicant is a refugee fleeing from a battle zone (b) The applicant is a necessary professional such as a doctor or a nurse. (c) The applicant has children or ill persons to support (5) The course itself will be divided into three main modules: (a) Language: covering the basics of the Lodamun national tongue (b) History: covering the monumental areas of Lodamun history (c) Government: covering the system of government in Lodamun (6) The examination will test on all three of these areas (7) In order to claim nationality, the applicant must pass the examination. If the applicant fails, then he may not claim the nationality. (8) If the applicant has any children during the process of the course, those children are automatically granted Lodamun nationality. (9) Should the applicant fail the examination, they make retake the exam a year later. However retakes must be paid for by the applicant. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Government policy concerning granting nationality (national of this state without implication of having citizenship rights).
Old value:: Anyone is able to claim nationality.
Current: Anyone receives nationality but immigrants must pass a test to gain nationality.
Proposed: Anyone receives nationality but immigrants must pass a test to gain nationality.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 00:35:55, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Royal Conservative Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | I think this will enable us to intergrate immigrants more fully with their new found nation. This way, immigrants to the country are furnished with a basic cultural background of their new home and as such will be able to understand more about it. These courses will also equip them with a basic command of the language which will allow them to communicate with their new neighbours and intergrate more fully into society. |
| Date | 00:59:43, August 12, 2005 CET | From |  National People's Gang | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | What happens in the event of failure to acquire nationality? |
| Date | 01:11:51, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Royal Conservative Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | They may retake the test free of charge at any point. |
| Date | 01:12:41, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Royal Conservative Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | Well, the examination a year after |
| Date | 01:21:33, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Royal Conservative Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | Well, the examination a year after |
| Date | 01:27:55, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Adam Smith Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | ((Being a first generation immigrant in RL, I disapprove of this completely.)) If a person wishes to come to our country, to settle here, to contribute to our society and to the success of our nation, to pay our taxes, to suffer our illnesses to deal with all of the idiosyncracies that exist in our nation, then to require that they take a formal examination to be able to claim Lodamun nationality is demanding too much. There should be a minimum residency requirement, but nothing more than that. We ask you if all of our native born nationals would be able to pass the proposed test? If not, then are we to strip them of their nationality? If not then the proposal is one more form of prejudice. Being born here is accidental, it is not something that anyone plans for themself, differentiating between individuals, in legal terms, on this basis is not acceptable. The residency restriction would also apply to those born here. If you were born in our territiory, but did not reside here for at least two years, then you would have no claim on lodamun nationality. |
| Date | 01:55:15, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Royal Conservative Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | Ah yes but people who are born in the country will be raised through the Lodamun education system and will have been exposed to the Lodamun culture constantly. Therefore a nationality is unnecessary to intergrate them into society as they are already part of society. However immigrants have not been exposed to this culture or to the language. Therefore it is necessary to give them an introductory course into the society they will be part of. I feel two years is simply not long enough - during those two years, the immigrants will be isolated from most of society due to linguistic differences. This course would amend this by preparing them to be thrust right into our society. Discrimination about the state you were born in happens all the time. Borders discriminate against the fact that we can't help what country we were born in. So do a great many things. |
| Date | 02:32:07, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Adam Smith Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | Just because there is descrimination now is no reason to reinforce it. You are making some huge assumptions about the integration of those born in Lodamun into a Lodamun wide culture. We, as a nation are ethnically varied to a degree that it is difficult to specify a particular culture that is representative of the nation. There is no evidence whatsoever that a typical Rapulian knows anything about the language customs, traditions and culture of Norstavan, or vice versa. There is no evidence even that every Rapulian knows the history of Rapula. Why should this be demanded of immigrants when it is not demanded of the native borm? If any charity organisation wishes to set up foundation courses for newly arrived immigrants, then this would be welcome. If not, then why should the government pay for or provide these? We are firmly opposed to discriminatory laws of all kinds. That discrimination exists, is not in doubt. That our laws should encourage it by treating people differently depending on where they were born, who their parents were, the ethnic group they belong to, is something we as a party will strongly oppose. |
| Date | 03:42:04, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Royal Conservative Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | The fact is that people are different. Therefore treating everyone in a uniform way is not going to work. Immigrants are going to be different from people born here, be they second generation immigrants or 8th generation pure Lodamunites. Some of these differences (the language gap for example) will have crucial implications for the immigrant and for society. How can immigrants be expected to get a job if they do not understand the rudiments of the language? How can the economy benefit from immigration if the immigrants can't get jobs because of the language difference? Quite simply, some sort of introductory test is necessary, not only for the well being of the immigrant but for the well being of the nation as a whole. To simply have a 'one size fits all' policy will only produce divisions within communities and fail to produce a co-operative mulit-cultural society. I am not against equality but, in certain areas, equality is not always practical. One example might be wheel-chair bound men being allowed to join the infantry as foot soldiers - although equal, it simply would not be practical. The situation to which this Bill alludes is similar. Immigrants (when they first arrive) are not going to be on an equal footing with those who were born here as they will have the disadvantages of language difference and being alien to the Lodanum culture. Here this Bill assists equality as it gives immigrants the skills and the knowledge to be on an equal footing with the other citizens. To leave this issue to charities is simply not practicable. Immigration is an impoitant national issue and one which deeply effects our economic and cultural growth. Therefore central government must be entrusted with the task of overseeing and regulating these examinations. |
| Date | 04:31:57, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Adam Smith Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | I was not aware that viticulture demanded a great deal of languge skills. ((In RL we have Japanese communities here producing wine, without them speaking a word of Portuguese. )) The are obvious cases where there are exceptions to be made (disabilities) but where the person is healthy no discrimination should be encouraged. The only way immigrants learn the language and the culture is if they are included in the community, by working, by needing to know. If you exclude them for at least one year, and fence them off as separate, different and incompatible, then you are creating the conditions for racial or ethnic prejudice to grow and fester. Yes immigrants are different to 8th generation Lodamunites, but that is no reason to treat them differently under the law. They are still human beings, with human desires and needs, strengths and weaknesses. They can offer much to our society if our society is willing to accept this. We do not have a homogoneous, one size fits all society to purloin your phrase. We have a varied and culturally vibrant society. Non disabled Immigrants, when they arrive here are on the same footing as any non disabled native in terms of what they can do. They can walk, talk, breathe, think, plan, dream, despair, love, hate, befreind, and detest as well as any native. That the language they speak is different is no bar to their succeeding given that we do not have one universal language in our nation anyway. The bill does not assist immigrants, it places demands upon them that the native population do not have to meet. It discriminates on the basis of an accident of birth. We oppose this as being misguided. |
| Date | 16:13:59, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Adam Smith Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | We have to vote against as we find it to be discriminatory. |
| Date | 17:07:17, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Cooperative Commonwealth Federation | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | The current law provides for "aid in integrating" refugees into the country. We take this to mean such things as basic language training are provided at government expense. We also hope that there are charities doing additional settlement work on a purely voluntary basis. Lodamun's doors are wide open to the world, to those fleeing persecution and war, to those seekign a better life in our rich multicultural society. We see no reason to change this law, and certainly no reason to impose tests on immigrants when there are no tests on people who were born in Lodamun by an accident of birth. Therefore, while the proposed test seems well thought out, the Greens must cast our votes in opposition. |
| Date | 17:36:08, August 12, 2005 CET | From | Tuesday Is Coming | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | Better luck next time CUP... |
| Date | 03:06:11, August 13, 2005 CET | From | Royal Conservative Party | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | Wow my first attempt united all the parties and my second united all the parties against me.... |
| Date | 04:52:45, August 13, 2005 CET | From | Cooperative Commonwealth Federation | To | Debating the Immigrant Citizenship Act |
| Message | You clearly have a gift! |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||||||
| yes | Total Seats: 0 | |||||||
| no |
Total Seats: 450 | |||||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 0 |
| Random fact: http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com and http://www.behindthename.com/random are great resources for coming up with character names from unfamiliar cultures. |
| Random quote: "Any system that takes responsibility away from people, dehumanises them." - Author Unknown |