It’s a good matter that government plans to tighten family reunification guidelines have met a stormy reception. We all know that the Perussuomalasiet (PS)*, who base their popularity on anti-immigration rhetoric, are spearheading new tighter guidelines based on the Danish model that aims to make family reunification much harder.
Denmark is the most hostile country towards migrants in the Nordic region and where the PS is a close ideological ally of the Islamophobic Danish People’s Party.
New family reunification guidelines will end up hurting Finland more than benefiting it because it will be another sign that we are an unfriendly country for immigrants. Not only will asylum seekers stay clear of Finland but skilled labor and foreign investors.
When speaking of family reunification why hasn’t the media used the Finns, who emigrated to North America before World War II, as a positive example of the latter? When a Finn moved to the New World he not only brought his wife and kids but his relatives, neighbors and friends as well.
Why did they do this?
Because it was important for them to shed roots in their new homeland. It was easier with the help of the family and friends.
It’s clear that parties like the PS, Center Party and NCP don’t want immigrants to shed too strong roots in Finland. The tightening of family reunification guidelines is clear proof of the latter.
Read full story (in Finnish) here.
If the new family reunification guidelines are passed by parliament, it requires a Finnish or foreign citizen to net 1,700 euros a month to bring his wife. The first and second child will cost him 500 and 400 euros extra, respectively. That adds up to a total of 2,600 euros.
How many people in Finland net 2,600 euros? It means that you have to make at least 3,300 euros monthly before taxes.
Considering the political storm that this draft law has whipped up, NCP MP Arto Satonen said he was against applying salary limits on Finnish citizens. They would, however, apply to foreign nationals living in Finland.
I wonder how many of these MPs have read Finnish immigration history and our Constitution, especially Section 6, which states that everyone is equal before the law.
The tightening of family reunification laws is not only an example of the Denmarkization of Finland spearheaded by the PS but a systematic plan to ensure that non-white and Other Finns are treated like second- and third-class citizens.
* The Finnish name of the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English-language names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We, therefore, prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.
At that time when some Finns moved to North America there wasn’t the kind of social security as there is nowadays in Finland and they weren’t heavy burden to the receiving societies which willingly let them in. The same cannot be said about the current situation. We simply cannot afford to be the social security office for the rest of the world.
And in case you haven’t noticed, there has already been that kind of required minimum wage limits for spouses of both Finnish citizens and normal immigrants in Finland and in quite large number of other countries as well (perhaps most western and non-western countries) for long time. Now the idea is just to make the similar kind of rules to apply also for persons who are granted subsidiary protection. And this kind of rules don’t have anything to do with skilled labor and investors as they have the required income and if they don’t have the required income and would just come here to live on our social security, we don’t want that kind of persons to move here as we cannot afford it.
BTW, according to a study done in Sweden, family reunification decreases the results of integration to the host country. Many people seem to think otherwise, but in reality, in is counterproductive to allow it for persons who haven’t shown interest to integrate to the country.
BTW, among serious immigration critics there seems to be more support for the idea that Finland should not remove the minimum wage limits for bringing foreign spouse to Finland even for Finnish citizens. Keeping this limit will help prevent the humanitarian immigrants of bringing a spouse from a developing country to live on welfare, as soon as that immigrant gets Finnish citizenship. It would also motivate that kind of persons to integrate better and get a job, instead of living with social security money as it is in most cases nowadays.
So you can be glad that we support being equal before law in this issue.