Inspired by another post on the topic that was deleted by OP.
If you are a foreigner, either on a B or C permit, how do you feel about the upcoming referendum on immigration? Does it make you uncomfortable? Do you think you might be impacted? Is anyone thinking they might leave as a result of the potential law coming into effect?
As a C permit holder who has been here for almost 8 years, I am not too stressed for now. Of course I don’t love the anti immigration sentiment in the country, but I kind of understand where it comes from. If the law passed, I assume they would stop issuing new B and L permits to newcomers as opposed to taking away existing permits from people who are settled here already.
If you are a foreigner, how do you feel about the upcoming referendum on immigration (keine 10 Millionen Schweiz)?
byu/LallieDoo inSwitzerland
Posted by LallieDoo
35 Comments
Its all smoke and mirrors. Big Swiss companies have been sold to foreigners long time ago yet there is no vote on it. No one asked us if we wanted Swissair to be gone and Swiss to be pumped with billions only to be sold for peanuts to Lufthansa. No one asked us if we wanted to bail out UBS…
Everyone honest with a good soul is welcome to CH in my opinion.
Even if it passed, it would violate the Freizügigkeitsrecht with the EU. Unless the SVP wants to renegotiate the EU treaty, this is a nonstarter and just for publicity.
I’ve been here for 6 years and I’m not worried. Anti immigration sentiment is part of every country’s discourse now. I highly doubt Switzerland will turn into the US with their version of ICE grabbing immigrants from the streets.
I immigrated here nearly 20 years ago and I am also not overly concerned about the outcome.
I do somewhat share the concern about another 2 million, but I do think we’re on the right path regardless. The stopping of sprawl and densification is a good thing, as is a general trend away from cars as the second priority vehicle for commuting. But it is still hard to imagine 25% or more commuters during rush hour…
For me a more fruitful approach would be to increase housing supply by reducing the objections locals can make for housing at the least, hopefully reducing the multiyear delays. Second I would think that for jobs where there is no physical need to be in the office, you should be able to do home office. There’s no need to commute to the office every day, if you want to then by all means but it shouldn’t be the norm.
nah you cant feel safe unless youre married to a swiss (fam rights) or dont compete for jobs (eg you own your job) or independent wealth. Id see all other permits being revokable easily.
but nothing will happen like in 2014 😉
I have come here 20 years ago because a Swiss company asked me to. They had an open position for almost a year and couldn’t find anyone here who could do the job. That’s how many foreigners came here. Switzerland depends on us, like it or not.
Meanwhile I have the citizenship and I can vote and I will make sure others can come here and contribute.
SVP just uses their old fear mongering and scare tactics to stir up emotions, it’s disgusting as always.
Haven’t read too much into it, but I expect it to be another populist play.
Fact is it’s impossible to pass, legally. As a signatory to the Human Rights Convention our constitution comes after the universal human rights, including asylum and protection from persecution.
If they loose they play the sore loser, they’ll ask for a recounting or launch a second initiative with similar language.
If they win, they’ll be outraged when parliament drags their feet over an implementation, claim some sort of left-center conspiracy.
None of which is in an effort to actually address a socio-economic problem. It’s a ploy for attention, air-time, news-paper columns. It’s rage-bating through missuse of our democratic process and I find it absolutely disgusting.
However I do believe we are facing a challenge. Switzerland has one of the largest foreign resident percentages, between 1/4 and 1/3 of residents do not hold swiss citizenship. It’s naive to believe thats not a challenge we need to address. I believe we need to work harder on helping people integrate and assimilate. We also need to be deliberate with our generosity, there are those undeserving of it, and we should deny them entry and support without putting an undue burden of proof on the deserving.
It’s an incredibly complex issue that will not be solved by blanket laws or policies. It requires a lot of work, trial and error, time and money.
>I don’t love the anti immigration sentiment in the country
We have the second most immigrants in the world. Cant be that bad.
It feels like a silly solution to a real problem people are having.
If people get too many silly solutions or parties telling then their problem aren’t real, they might end up looking to really extreme parties. Like it’s happening with afd, le pen, whatever farage’s party is called and trump.
I’m just hoping to get my citizenship before that happens
I grew up in the region of Basel — Lörrach — Mulhouse and I found it always to be a strength to have impact from three different regions.
So, I am against limiting one’s strength/potential. Just look at the doctors and nurses in the hospitals. Switzerland does need immigration. It makes Switzerland rich.
Just look at the United Kingdom and their troubles after closing their borders: Less EU migrants, but more (!) migration in total. So, a loss-loss situation for them.
If the law passed, and was applied, permits would still be issued as the population balance is negative without immigration (birth – death – people who emigrate)
But if the law passes, realistically, nothing would be done unless the EU agrees with it
It is never a good sign when right wing propaganda decision goes through that does not make any economic sense.
I feel like most of the recent stupid referendums were started by people who are enjoying their pension and want to squeeze the most for themselves (Eigenmietwert, 13th AHV, etc.)
Switzerland needs to move with the times, or time moves on without it. Switzerland’s history is based on migration. Capping it is fatal.
Couldn’t care less. If a country stops wanting us at one point we just move onto a new one that welcomes us, nothing you can do about it anyways
I’m planing to immigrate to Switzerland in the next few years, so that would be a bummer, but I get it. Switzerland is really attractive for EU immigrants and fast population increase in several cities can’t be a nice experience for locals.
>If the law passed, I assume they would stop issuing new B and L permits to newcomers as opposed to taking away existing permits from people who are settled here already.
This is not possible under the current bilateral treaties with the EU, those would have to be renegotiated first. That’s absolutely possible, and would likely end up with Switzerland losing some of its access to the EU market (similar to Brexit), so some of our industry (+jobs) that now export to the EU will gradually relocate back to within the EU again. Which helps lowering the amount of jobs in Switzerland, and hence, population.
They can stop issuing B and L permits for non-EU citizens fairly quickly though.
But Switzerland can have this 10 million target in its own hands through its housing policy – if we simply do not build a lot and keep our housing supply below that limit, any more workers we need, we will have to house those in the border regions of our neighbours and have them commute in. This is already happening (400k people are commuting into Switzerland now), and the 10 million initiative will likely only solidify this.
Or in other words: without the border workers, we’d already be close to 10 million: we’d have those 400k border workers and their families inside Switzerland instead of pushing them outside like now. So we could work with Germany, France and Italy to expand this further – if the transport links get expanded enough, we may be able to move another 2 million people abroad, then we could even get the Swiss population down to 7 million again, like 25 years ago. Outsourcing more jobs will do the same though, not just moving the people out but also the jobs.
We can also try to encourage more Swiss pensioners to emigrate and retire abroad, this does not need any new negotiations. This would also vastly improve our health insurance costs, although the countries where these pensioners go may want to claw back some of these costs.
All of this is a choice for the voters – there are many possibilities, we may vote for any of them. They all come with tradeoffs, but that’s the case with everything.
As a B permit foreigner I feel like it’s a weird question. I’m not a voter so I don’t have a say in this, and rightfully so.
I have so far observed Swiss democracy to be thoughtful and in line with my personal values.
I don’t expect American style ICE to show up at my door, so not stressed about it either.
Foreigner here, i rhink its a good thing ✌️
Swiss here so hope I’m not too out of topic. But I think this idea 10M is too much is pretty stupid. The problems we have are due to a high concentration of people in some specific parts of the country (Zurich, Geneva-Lausanne, etc). The rest of the country is just fine, and maybe instead of all the fear mongering, we should find ways to encourage companies going to more remote spots instead of always the same two hubs.
Anyway nothing to be scared about imho.
Honestly, I would just move on. As an expat/migrants, im not married to any country.
Plenty of other countries who are less racist. Im not a foreigner here though, I’m in Vienna. Argueably, Austria is the poor version of Switzerland.
Neutral, as a B permit resident I don’t have a saying.
I’ll probably come in the Alps for mountaineering some time again.
I hate that they’re allowed to word these referendums the way they do.
It won’t pass, but it’ll serve its purpose.
If the Swiss want us out, then I’ll gladly walk.
As a b permit holder I’ll be fine with either decision. It’s up to swiss people to decide what they want. Voting yes would probably seriously hurt relationship with EU and could create challenges for some sectors like medical one. Voting no will mean keeping the status quo without major changes in internal policy about infrastructure which can be insufficient for current growth.
I’m here because I like the nature, public transport and the job, but if I’m not wanted – fair enough, I’ll need to adapt… After all this decade should probably need to be named a decade of adaptation looking at the news and events around…
Foreigner of 14 years here. I’m not too concerned by this.
I’ve been here for 12 years. Always have worked, never had debts, never had problems with the police, nothing. I’m not afraid of anything. And I actually get why it will pass. I understand it, and if I could vote, I would probably vote for it too. This is a problem not only Switzerland is facing, it’s the whole of Europe.
C holder, I was already here when they had the “black sheep being kicked out” referendum (at the time with B).
I’m not worried. If I don’t get my permit renewed, I’ll rent my apartment here and go back to Italy, where just the rent collected in Zürich would be enough to live with dignity. I’ll have to do a big sale of my stocks, to avoid paying millions in taxes due to capital gains, maybe I can use part of it to buy a seaside villa.
I’m Swiss myself, but my dad’s an immigrant with a C permit.
The thing most people here don’t seem to realize is, that the SVP isn’t against immigration, it’s against having foreigners here on equal footing. I remember at least one case of an SVP politician who stoked the flames against immigrants, but had someone clean their home undeclared and underpaid.
Apart from run of the mill racism, their motivation is to get rid of regulations that protect non-swiss people. Or even Swiss people, when it comes to business practices like customer protection laws, and protections against monopolies and cartels. That’s probably one reason the FDP adopted most views of the FDP lately. The only immigrants they’ll welcome as almost equal, will be those with a ton of money. Swiss tourism alread declared this year, that they are gearing towards luxury tourism. It’s one reason I’m starting to hate my hometown, Zurich. There were always boutiques for the rich in the city center. But nowadays you find less and less shopping opportunities for regular people. H&M, Migros, and Coop. Maybe Zara.
I also love people who aren’t worried, thinking things like ICE in the US couldn’t happen here. None of my US American friends thought something like that could happen. Our police forces literally take courses adopting tactics and views from the US police. I remember a little excerpt on SRF of a police officer teaching new police men and women using wolf and sheep terminology.
“Aus diesen Jungen Menschen, will man Wölfe machen.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m5B4CpSKqLs&pp=0gcJCR4Bo7VqN5tD
Damn, I’ve only had the B permit for one day…
This is bullshit, as long as you contribute to society and somewhat integrate youre welcome imo. However, criminals who are also immigrants should be deported
I’m a C owner (born here). If I understand this thing properly, I don’t see how it could impact any of us that already holds a permit. Maybe they could fuck up B permits owner, but I doubt they would go that far.
However, I find the idea kind of stupid. I may not understand this properly because of the translation, but if they want to limit immigration because they’re afraid of having too much foreigners compared to Swiss people, why not tackle the “problem” elsewhere?
If there are less Swiss people, what is the reason? I can see 3 possible reasons:
1. Swiss people leaving the country
2. Swiss people not making kids
3. Swiss people taking double or changing completely their nationality
Are we foreigners, the cause of these? Why not find a solution to these points?
1. Why are they leaving the country? And how can we make so they don’t?
2. Why are they not making kids? And what can we do to change that?
3. Why are other nationalities being chosen over the Swiss one? What advantages do they have that we don’t?
—
I’m not into politics, but I’m sure they could work on these points first, before talking about keeping us out.
To some extent I am looking forward for this to pass and see who the SVP will blame for all the problems we have in here.
Also, looking forward to see how they would implement that. When the 10 Millionth person arrives, what are they gonna do
I do like the fact the position is no more foreigners in Switzerland but no issue with outsourcing work to be done outside Switzerland. If the requirement was no more than 10m people in Switzerland and no more offshoring of jobs so that people in Switzerland do all the work would be interesting.
I agree with it. Switzerland have a right to decide about immigration. Shame is, that the EU not following the Swiss Logic.