2021's Most Powerful Passports

[PeterRS]

34 minutes ago, reader said:

Hard to believe, but you are making it abundantly clear that your prime objective is to show that the dead are guilty. Prepare yourself for a shock: as much as you wish to, you cannot prosecute the deceased.

And I thought you might actually know that.

That, sir, is a silly and childish post. Of course, anyone who is deceased cannot be guilty of committing a crime after death. But to suggest or imply that they were not guilty prior to their death is patently wrong. I would have thought that abundantly clear. Had they lived and had they been caught by the authorities, they would have been sent back to Vietnam, with their families still owing vast amounts in Vietnamese terms to the snakeheads who had started the whole process.

[10tazione]

7 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Whyever not? At the Vietnamese end, everyone knew what they were doing was illegal. When a return air ticket to the UK would have cost not more than around $800, you believe those poor victims and their families did not know they were being smuggled illegally? Of course they knew. That is why they were prepared to pay the Vietnamese snakeheads huge sums "between $10,000 and $40,000".  Who pays that kind of money to travel legally? As the judge said in his summing up -

Probably you meant it differently, but I read "knew precisely what they were doing" as "they knew it was illegal" (and I agree with this) plus "they knew how much risk was involved, including their possible death" (and that's the part I wouldn't agree, I rather think they thought that the maximum risk would be being caught and sent back and having a big pile of debt).

[10tazione]

(removed duplicate)

Edited July 11, 2021 by 10tazione
duplicate

[reader]

4 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Had they lived and had they been caught by the authorities, they would have been sent back to Vietnam, with their families still owing vast amounts in Vietnamese terms to the snakeheads who had started the whole process.

Oh, I get it. Your new plan is to prove them guilty my pretending that they never died. That gives you carte blanche to rewrite history and show just what true criminals the 39 actually are.

I have to admit it's a compelling argument. Use alternative facts and presto: 39 felons instead of 39 bodies.

It's a very Trumpian view (Biden wasn't elected, I was!).

Very clever indeed, Peter.

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, 10tazione said:

Probably you meant it differently, but I read "knew precisely what they were doing" as "they knew it was illegal" (and I agree with this) plus "they knew how much risk was involved, including their possible death" (and that's the part I wouldn't agree, I rather think they thought that the maximum risk would be being caught and sent back and having a big pile of debt).

Think for a moment of the thousands of Vietnamese who leave Vietnam illegally for a better life elsewhere. Roughly 18,000 try to enter the UK Then realise that many are in fact captured in the UK and elsewhere and returned to Vietnam. Once back home, do you really expect them to remain silent? Inevitably they tell some of their dreadful experiences. I imagine others would be too terrible to reveal to close family. As i quoted in my earlier post from The Guardian -

"Mimi Vu, an independent anti-trafficking and slavery expert based in Vietnam, said the smuggling of people from Vietnam to the UK continued in the months after the tragedy. 'The prices just went up,' she said, basing her observations on interviews conducted with Vietnamese migrants in northern France earlier this year. 'It didn’t dampen people’s enthusiasm for leaving. People tended to view this as an anomaly. They saw the people who died as just very unlucky. Smugglers’ marketing tactics changed and they told people they needed to pay more to guarantee the safest passage.'”

Like others before them, even after the 39 deaths, more Vietnamese were still desperate to make the trip knowing there had to ba a possibility they might also end up dead in a container wagon. They were prepared to pay the even higher price assuming it would be safer. Other Vietnamese have died when leaving Vietnam for the UK. All manner of trafficking horrors can await those who pay huge amounts to the snakeheads, including death.

[reader]

Regardless of how you've tried to present it, you're still intent on making the 39 deceased complicit in their own deaths.

You want people to believe that they all had a death wish.

Apparently you'll rest better if everyone shares your viewpoint.

[PeterRS]

8 minutes ago, reader said:

Oh, I get it. Your intent is to prove them guilty my pretending that they never died. That gives you carte blanche to rewrite history and show just what true criminals the 39 actually are.

I have to admit it's a compelling argument. Use alternative facts and presto: 39 felons instead of 39 bodies.

It's a very Trumpian view (Biden wasn't elected, I was!).

Very clever indeed, Peter.

Yet another senseless post. Of course they died! And i do not rewrite history. But you are doing your best to do so by simply not facing facts. Where are the alternative facts? Yet again, you are determined to use the Trumpian tactics of putting words into my mouth that I have never uttered. I never said "39 felons instead of 39 bodies". NEVER! NEVER! Of course there were 39 bodies - very sadly. Equally these poor souls were attempting to get into a foreign country by illegal means and then to work there illegally. Now you can call that perfectly acceptable. Let me tell you something: it is not. It is illegal. 

I do not know what country you are from. What you are saying is that it would be perfectly acceptable for you to be smuggled into, let's say Thailand, and to work illegally here. Does Thailand permit you to do that without a valid passport and without any legal work papers? Of course not. Once discovered you would be probably fined, possibly jailed, certainly deported. But if the truck carrying you through Thailand to Bangkok from a neighbouring country had an accident and you were killed, you would have been killed whilst in the act of committing a crime. 

Your argument carries absolutely zero weight.

[reader]

2 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

Equally these poor souls were attempting to get into a foreign country by illegal means and then to work there illegally.

Again, the emphasis on illegal actions by the dead.

4 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

Let me tell you something: it is not. It is illegal.

You do indeed have much respect for what's illegal in your native land and I find that admirable. I'm sure you have equal respect for what's considered illegal in the LOS and never violate it.

[Guest]

maybe I’ve missed something here - but in all the options worldwide for illegal immigrants, why the UK ?

[vinapu]

4 hours ago, Slvkguy said:

maybe I’ve missed something here - but in all the options worldwide for illegal immigrants, why the UK ?

sunny skies year round perhaps?

[PeterRS]

5 hours ago, Slvkguy said:

maybe I’ve missed something here - but in all the options worldwide for illegal immigrants, why the UK ?

I really have no idea why the UK is in demand because the legal Vietnamese population is estimated at only 55,000. They help newcomers with employment and accommodation. France, on the other hand, which was the colonial power in Indo-China has about 350,000, Germany 137,000 and there are about 80,000 in the Czech Repulic. But it seems the UK has a considerably larger illegal population living in the shadows. That is probably because there is a better chance of illegal work in the UK than most other European nations.

Many became legal immigrants after the French defeat in 1954 and the end of the Vietnam war and settled. The UK agreed to take 12,000 when the USA pulled out of Vietnam. Sadly, some saw ways of making fortunes from the illegal people trafficking business. The part of Vietnam they have been focussing on for some years is a very poor area in the north. Two years ago the Bangkok Post reported that average annual wages in this part of Vietnam are around US$1,200. Those who manage to get into the UK find employment with very poor conditions, long hours and meagre wages in Vietnamese restaurants, canabis farming, in nail salons or sometimes as sex slaves. By sending some of their meagre wages home, they provide for a better living for their families - and the family units are strong. Although how families can pay off the $40,000 for those who take what is called the "VIP route" (largely by air into Europe and then by containers) paid to to the snakeheads who organise the trips at the Vietnam and also benefit with better lives from what is sent back, I fail to understand. Many families have borrowed huge sums from money lenders, sold off their land and rent it back and goodness knowns what else to pay for the trips.

I reckon the obvious country to try to get into would be Australia which has almost 300,000 legal Vietnamese. But Australia's immigration policy is notoriously strict whereas the Vietnamese network of smuggling gangs throughout China, Russia and Europe offer what is an easier option.

[Guest]

interesting - thank you for the information.  
 

I am a US citizen actively exploring options to obtain a permanent residence visa in  an EU country.  Of course, I’m going the legal route ….Spain & Portugal seem to be best options and relatively easy to get.  In Spain, a “non-lucrative” visa can be obtained by application with proving about $30,000 a year in income/resources, clean criminal record and buying private medical insurance which is relatively inexpensive compared to US. The only restriction on non-lucrative visa is you cannot work in Spain.  But, you can freely travel and live anywhere in EU with minimum days required in Spain. And then there are Golden Visas in several EU countries w minimum investments which are typically in real estate. The Golden Visas have fast-track to citizenship and passports.

Covid taught me a big lesson -  I only hold an American passport at the moment and don’t want to be trapped here if one day the borders close w an authoritarian regime installed in 2024.  Looks to be heading that way.  My friends w multiple passports or EU residence visas were free to come & go all through Covid w no problem.