The western visa policy is at its core: racist. A person from a developing country, no matter how well-educated, wealthy, or upstanding, receives less travel rights than a person that is uneducated, unemployed, or committed major crime in a western country. In America, we would a allow drug dealer with UK passport visa free entry, whereas, a doctor from a developing country would be deterred from entry with the administrative burden of long waits, proofs, forms, background checks, and non-refundable fees.
I agree that the visa application (as an indian student who's had to go through it multiple times for internships/education) is time consuming, expensive, and harrowing.<p>I was stunned to find out that visa applications to the EU occur through a private entity, VFS global (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFS_Global" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFS_Global</a>).<p>> The outsourcing company has been accused of "extorting" and "mistreating" vulnerable visa applicants... Additionally, the company was also reported to be under investigation for "allegations of abusive market dominance and unlawful tender procedures, resulting in excessive visa application prices and hidden fees.<p>Fun problems included getting bank account information, a whole host of personal information, and 'strong ties' to my home country. I'm a student, /of course/ I'm poor! I'm a student, /of course/ I'm unmarried! /of course/ I can't visit the application center thrice, I have classes and exams! I had to pay extra to get my visa application "fast-tracked" so it would arrive on time! To date, I can't shake the belief that I've experienced "kafkaesque" in flesh and blood.<p>The silver lining was, as always, people. I had super super supportive advisors/HR folks at companies and universities I went to work at who helped me every step of the way. It was insane how much paperwork there was, and how they dealt with all of the paperwork deftly.
Here's a website that graphically shows:<p>1. how many countries each passport can easily grant access to [1]<p>2. how many passports each country will easily grant access to [2]<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.passportindex.org/byIndividualRank.php" rel="nofollow">https://www.passportindex.org/byIndividualRank.php</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php" rel="nofollow">https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php</a>
I work for a company with an office in Manila. Talking with colleagues we compared what a different experience is to fly to Japan for them and me.<p>I just show up in Japan, show them my passport and job is done. For the Philippines, they have to apply for a visa, and if it is a group of people risk that arbitrarily one or several of them would not be allowed. And they are good paid software engineers with stable jobs, I cannot imagine how it is for the rest of the population. The ones that can afford to pay for the trip and hotels.<p>My only experience with a Visa is with China, and I do not need to provide any economic information but itinerary and flights of arrival and departure. USA, or India just require on-line notices of arrival previous to the flight. (Are they really Visas?)<p>> Citizens of African countries have nearly 50 percent of all applications denied just in the UK, compared to just eight percent in the Middle East and 13 percent in South Asia.<p>I understand the economic reasons for such high percentage of rejection. But, such a high number does not help to improve the business situation in the African continent.<p>I grew up in a poor European country, 40 years later I feel privileged for that. And yet, I cannot know how one feels being born in Africa as I cannot know how one feels being born in a rich country. I hope that at least I can offer understanding, and vote for governments that want to reduce the breach between rich and poor continents, countries, and citizens.
It goes beyond immigration too. I have an Indian passport and am in an EU country on a work visa for < 6 months and thus don't get a residence permit card. Getting a phone number and a bank account were insanely difficult, as no one wants to accept an Indian passport/visa as proof of identity. I ended up getting a (probably illegal?) sim card from a corner store, which required no identification. That makes me wonder how effective these regulations are.<p>As for immigration, applying for visas for every single thing is not fun at all. Canada gave me a 4 year visa even though my degree is supposed to take 4.5 years, meaning I had to collect all documents again, pay the high fee, and risk getting rejected and not be able to finish my degree for just one semester. The application did not get processed for months after that because the government wanted me to provide biometrics at a government run facility, which was obviously closed because of the pandemic(they closed 1 day before I had an appointment booked). It ended up being processed after my original visa expired, which was not a very enjoyable time.<p>US internship visas have restrictions involved saying that I can not go back to the US for full time work without going back to my home country for 2 years. The problem here is I have nowhere to go in my home country anymore.<p>In the past I've had to withdraw applications for internships in the UK/EU as they required travel for onsite interviews and my visa didn't come through on time. (Bigger companies so they only had a couple of options for onsite days). At least the companies were nice enough to reimburse the visa fees as they are hundreds of dollars for every single visa.<p>Making plans to go travelling with friends(before the pandemic) was always difficult as I was the only one would have to obtain a visa and so needed atleast a month of lead up time. Even then it's not guaranteed to come on time so the entire trip would have to be cancelled.<p>Even at the airport, I have been almost refused boarding multiple times despite having all the right documents, because systems don't work perfectly. Usually this is fixed by talking to a supervisor or someone else with more authority, in a couple of cases they called the country's border police to see if I should be let in.