Cyprus-Forum.com

[Natty]

I was just wandering about how, in general immigrants are treated in Cyprus, especially those from poorer countries....I read that (Although I could be wrong...) they are only allowed certain jobs...surely that's not fair? I'm really clueless about the immigrant situation in Cyprus, so it would be great if someone could give me some information...

Thanks!

[am.i.will]

I read that (Although I could be wrong...) they are only allowed certain jobs...surely that's not fair?

Not fair?

They are allowed the jobs that the country needs. The problem with that is?

[Sotos]

I think that immigrants should have better working conditions but also that their number should be limited. A lot of immigrants working for lower salaries would mean unemployment for Cypriots.

[Svetlana]

Only EU Nationals have the right to work in Cyprus; all other Nationalities are restricted by the issue of Residency Visas and Work Permits, which are very hard to get/renew for non-Eu Nationals - unless you are a 'Cabarat dancer' it seems.

Lana

[andri_cy]

Too bad I don't have the body for the whole dancing thing...
My husband and I have been considering moving over for a while, but the whole salary discussions on here have scared me. So now we are planning a Cyprus retirement

[cypezokyli]

immigrants are treated bad everywhere, and cyprus is no exception

[andri_cy]

Yes they are...

[miltiades]

immigrants that make a real effort to blend in and adapt to the environment of the guest nation are generally less likely to encounter hostile treatment from the natives. Those immigrants who arrived in the UK and still do looking like beings from another planet must appreciate that their appearance and dress code is more likely to attract unwelcome attention. There are smart immigrants and not so smart , they make the choice and they must face the music.

[Natty]

Thanks for the replies!

[cypezokyli]

There are smart immigrants and not so smart , they make the choice and they must face the music.

yes immigrants have always such a wide range of choises...

Jose Antonio Gutierrez, the second US marine to die in Iraq, grew up on the streets of Guatemala City. He achieved his dream of receiving American citizenship but only in death.
The boy was eight years old when he and his sister were orphaned. It happened during the civil war.

The parents were poor people who lived in the vast slums around Guatemala City. I haven't been able to find out how they died.

But their children, Jose Antonio Gutierrez and his sister Engracia were left to look after themselves. The children drifted onto the streets.

In the world of the slums, a world with no safety nets, no social security, where the extended families of the countryside have been broken down and dispersed, there is often no alternative but the begging, stealing, prostitution, the desperation of the streets.

Jose Antonio might have become one of the vanished thousands had it not been for the intervention of one of the world's more remarkable charities.

Hunger to health

Casa Allianza runs homes and schools for street children in Honduras and Guatemala.

Jose Antonio's sister Engracia had been taken in by another family. But someone told the boy about Casa Allianza.

When he found his way there, he was hungry and exhausted and dirty. But I have seen a photograph of him taken after he had been there over a year.

In this, he is a smiling healthy and robust child. By now, he had become a good soccer player. He was learning English.

Gutierrez always wanted Engracia to join him in the US
Later, Casa Allianza would help him to learn the basics of technical drawing, preparation for his dream of becoming an architect.

There was a dark period when, after an argument with a teacher, Jose Antonio left Casa Allianza.

He ended up on the streets once more, sniffing glue, surviving. But he did come back.

Those who knew him say there was something powerful driving him, something inside that would not allow him to self-destruct as had happened to so many of his friends.

There was too, they say, a sadness in Jose Antonio.

Bruce Harris, the English man who runs the Casa Allianza programme, remembered the quietness that would overtake the boisterous young footballer.

Long journey

At the age of 22, Jose Antonio decided to make the journey of his life.

He knew that in Guatemala, he could never afford the university education needed to become an architect.

So he said goodbye to his sister Engracia and to his friends at Casa Allianza and he took the roads and the rails north to the United States, 4,000 kilometres away.


Across the steaming valleys and the mountains and the dry deserts he went, hitching lifts and jumping freight trains until he became one of the "wetbacks" and crossed the Rio Grande into the US.

Some 50,000 street children and teenagers make this journey every year.

In the US border lands, the ranchers hunt down the illegals and turn them over to the immigration service. The "wetbacks" are not wanted.

Jose Antonio was picked up and detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the fabled and much-feared INS.

But he was a persuasive boy and he looked much younger than his years.

He told them he was only 17. They believed him. As a minor he was entitled to asylum, so he got to stay and he was fostered with a Latino family in Lomita, California.

So began the story of his American life. He went to high school and he studied hard. What he wanted most of all was American citizenship.

This, in order to be able to bring his beloved sister Engracia to join him in America.

Take good care of yourself. I'm going to war. Pray to God a lot for me. God willing, I'll return alive

He decided eventually to sign up with the US Marine Corps, knowing that military service would help his citizenship application.

Then, on New Year's Eve last, he called his sister in Guatemala City.

He told her he was going to war. As Engracia remembers it, this is what he said: "Take good care of yourself. I'm going to war. Pray to God a lot for me. God willing, I'll return alive."

Last week, with the grand attack on Iraq in its opening hours, Jose Antonio was with his unit in the port of Umm Qasr when he was struck in the chest by a high velocity bullet.

He died instantly.

Memorial service

This week, the street children of Casa Allianza gathered with old friends of Jose Antonio and his sister Engracia at a quiet plot close to the coffee plantation of Antigua, Guatemala.

An official signs Gutierrez's citizenship papers
The marine finally became an American, posthumously
Here are buried scores of murdered street children. They said prayers for Jose Antonio and they remembered his life among them.

Engracia says she is proud of her brother, but she is heartbroken.

You could if you wanted to jump to all kinds of conclusions about this story and what it tells you about the world and how it works.

But that is the stuff for philosophers and social historians.

On the shaded slopes of Antigua, Guatemala, it was the loss of a beloved brother and friend that was at the heart of things.

There is a brief postscript: a few days ago, the US government announced that it was granting posthumous American citizenship to Jose Antonio Gutierrez.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/f ... 923209.stm

just like Jose , or eastern european girls working in cypriot brothels, all those immigrants indeed have a wide range of choises. it suits all to believe that doesnt it ?