BritInParis

Five years maybe, not ten or twenty.

Bingbing25

I see, thanks for the information.

michali

Bingbing25

I agree that £400 per year for full healthcare is indeed a bargain. When I was a student in Canada, I paid 650CAD per year, so about the same, and it was considered generally a very good deal. However, those who hold work visas or work on family visas are effectively paying much more than that.

Pollyana

Not really. Its no different in any other western nation.
Its a common theme in Australian immigration forums, for example, where many people arrive on temporary visas and manage to convince themselves that they will be able to stay for life. They fail to acknowledge that a temporary visa is just that, temporary, and the chances of gaining permanent residency are not always that good. People can find out after 5, 10, 15 years in Aus that they cannot extend their temporary status any longer and they need to leave. Harsh, but fair. The same applies to the next step, gaining citizenship. It is not a right, its a privilege, and if one fails to meet the requirements, financial or otherwise, after weeks, months or years, then one has to leave. Simple as that.

Bingbing25

I think one must consider the difference between temporary visas and settlement visas. The latter is given on the assumption that the applicant is entering the country in view of settling and establishing life there. And their 'rights' to do so, as long as they are not burdens to taxpayers (and sometimes even when they are), are recognised under article 8 of ECHR on family life. So it's more correct to view the 5-year period as a provisional period rather than a temporary stay.

I would be more inclined to agree with you if we're only looking at work or study visas, where the idea is that the immigrant's stay in the country is tied to his or her employment or studies there. In this case, it is indeed expected of them to return home when the employment or studies ceases. Receiving indefinite stay after 10 years would be closer to a privilege in this case. But even then, there is some recognition of their rights to private life. If there was no recognition of such rights, settlement would be permissible only when their continuing stay in the country was deemed extremely beneficial to it.

I disagree with your statement that Western nations consider it entirely a privilege to be able to stay in a country indefinitely. The EU states unequivocally that you as well as your family members acquire the right of permanent residence in an EU nation after 5 years of lawful residence. Also a number of Western countries (Canada, the US, Ireland, etc.) have a shorter or no provisional period before one becomes a permanent resident of the country as a family member of a citizen. It is possible that such measures are in place, not because these countries respect the rights to family life, but because doing so is beneficial to them. But I don't believe any of them claim this. So I am inclined to believe that there is minimal recognition of such rights.

All in all, immigration is neither fully a privilege nor a right. It is of course a privilege to be eligible for residence in a foreign country. You then have access to more economic, cultural, and social resources than were you only allowed to stay in your home country. However, various official legal sources show that there is also recognition of rights to family life and private life by Western nations. Therefore it's more correct to view the restrictions on who may become permanent residents/citizens after a certain period as justified not because this is entirely a privilege, but because the rights of to-be citizens may conflict with the rights of those who are already citizens.