can we talk about how deliberately, purposefully cruel the UK settlement (permanent residency) process is

[arch@floofy.tech]

@whitequark I've heard that the Home Office operates at an insane profit because of these fees.

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@hyc @Tengu there is also that requirement in the UK (the exact calculation is a pain in the ass but there are rules like "no more than 180 day absence" and "must have resided in the UK exactly five years before citizenship application". Who the fuck tracks this shit)

[hypostase@bsd.network]

@whitequark ouch. I felt that one. Not even a little bit wrong.

[hyc@mastodon.social]

@whitequark @Tengu yeah.... who tracks it - they required a complete list of dates of entry/exit along with photocopies of all relevant passport pages with entry/exit stamps. Great fun.

And then after you've gathered all required paperwork, they're bound to say you got something wrong. I hired an immigration lawyer (solicitor) to help - they reviewed my stuff and submitted the paperwork on my behalf, so they dealt with any pushback first.

[gsuberland@chaos.social]

@whitequark yeah when Theresa May said "hostile environment" she really fucking meant it. it's grim.

[dysfun@social.treehouse.systems]

@gsuberland putting the grim in government.

[mini_ninja_64@chaos.social]

@whitequark its disgusting , every year they make it hharder and pricier, so many of my colleagues have had trouble with thr process and excess scrutiny applied for no reason other than where they were born

[ilmari@social.treehouse.systems]

@whitequark @hyc @Tengu I've lived in the UK for nearly 20 years and have EU/EEA Settled Status (can I have a "FUCK BREXIT!"?), but I still haven't got around to doing the citizenship dance because of the ludicrous paperwork requirements (need to list every time I've been outside the UK in the last 5 years) and fees (citizenship application "only" costs £1839, plus the language test).

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@ilmari @hyc @Tengu you know what's funny, Brexit has been a windfall for me. all the tech workers leaving the UK for EU have paved the way for GLT, which is probably the best European immigrant visa for people without a degree. 5-year citizenship route is incredible!

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@gsuberland it's convenient that my life has prepared me for literally everything around being adversarial

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

i'm well-off enough that this stuff only feels like an existential threat to my life instead of being an existential threat to my life, and i can afford to pay all the stacked fees (even if it seriously eats into my finances). i don't expect most people to be so lucky

[chuckmcmanis@chaos.social]

@whitequark

Harrison wrote some stories based on that premise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathworld

@gsuberland

[artemist@social.mildlyfunctional.gay]

@coral @whitequark police registration is weirdly common, e.g. in the us non-citizens have to report their address to uscis after moving. in italy non-citizens entering from other schengen countries are required to register within 8 days, or stay in a hotel that performs the registration. china has a similar registration requirement, but hotels that accept foreigners will handle it.

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@artemist @coral i knew about china and russia but i had no idea schengen states do this

[1@mastodon.vierkantor.com]

mx [@whitequark, @artemist, @coral], the Netherlands, Poland and Spain have similar requirements too, and those are just the countries it (various levels of officially) lived in recently.

[artemist@social.mildlyfunctional.gay]

@1 the difference with the US, CN, and IT requirements is that they only apply to foreign citizens. I'm not sure if NL, PL, or ES have similar requirements for their own citizens

[1@mastodon.vierkantor.com]

mx @artemist, if this one recalls correctly: in [Poland, Spain], non-citizens (even if they are from the EU) need to register their address with the police and update it when they move (in Spain even when they change their occupation!). in the Netherlands they need to do so with the immigration and naturalization service.

in addition, all people (including citizens) are required to register their address with the municipality in [the Netherlands, Spain]. for Poland this one is not completely sure how the process works.

[atatra@computerfairi.es]

@whitequark I'm already anxious about this for my wife when she reaches 5 years on her visa, as well as the 4k+ GBP we need to renew her visa in less than two years, god this entire thing is plainly racist and discriminatory

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@Atatra that's why i thought it extremely important to get a 5 year GLT visa even though they charged like a metric fuckton for it as the "NHS surcharge" (doesn't go to the NHS)

[samantazfox@infosec.exchange]

@whitequark That's crazy O.o

For anyone on the continent, across the channel, this is 3707 €, or about that much minimum wage:
* 2.57 months [in France](https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F2300)
* 3 months [in Spain](https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/lang/en/gobierno/news/paginas/2024/minimum-wage-spain-smi.aspx)
* 4.21 months [in Greece](https://www.gov.gr/en/sdg/work-and-retirement/terms-and-conditions-of-employment/general/minimum-wage-and-minimum-daily-wage)