S:reu:

I want to be accommodating, so I'll make it easier for the minister.  Rather than anyone's narrative, including mine, let's really just look at the numbers visualized.

Can the minister officially confirm that this chart is accurate?

Unfortunately, while I've read the book, I'm not sure I'll be able to participate in the discussion. I'm hesitant to commit to it just because the start of the year is a busy time for a history teacher, and I wouldn't want to miss something I committed to.

That said, I also would love to chime in if I can. Is it okay if I audit, so to speak?

S:reu:

I do not consider this to be responsive to my question, but rather a refusal to answer it and redirection.

I believe my question is fair, phrased in a way that is clear, and directed under the authority of a legally binding terpelaziun. It might be uncomfortable, but that is not a legal excuse for ignoring it.

So, as a supplementary question, would the minister tell us if he agrees that this is a fair way to describe the trendline:

The immigration rate badly slumped during the 53rd Cosa.  This slump continued for several terms, reaching a nadir during the 56th Cosa.  After that, the immigration rate improved over the succeeding three Cosas.  It peaked again during the 59th Cosa, but it has since badly slumped again.

Is that accurate?  I know it doesn't capture all of the subtleties, and that we can tell all kinds of stories to explain it, but I want to be sure that we agree on just the actual trend in this data.

Quote from: King Txec on September 10, 2025, 10:45:32 AMSo after a period of review, I believe that some of the initiatives proposed by the Commission are being implemented, however, the one that I believe will lead to a better outcome with immigration is that of the Talossa Assistant. We have a good influx of applicants, but not that many stick around during the entire immigration process. How can we "encourage" this initiative? Perhaps we can require new-ish citizens to join the program as part of their introduction into Talossan society and, as recent immigrants themselves, they will be in a good position to assist? Ideas?

What other proposals should we consider putting before the Ziu or the people?

-Txec R

I am very wary of initiatives that just assign work onto other people. I would suggest that a group of people we should expect to be committed to civic life would be our legislators. Maybe that could be a requirement to hold a seat in the Ziu?

While we haven't done any formal discussion of this, I hope I can speak for the rest of the Progressive Alliance when I say that we hope he does reconsider.  As I said to him in private, we asked MC Lenxheir to join the party and represent our voters because he is a valuable citizen and important voice.  He has a very different background than most other legislators, and he's one of the only people who can speak up for the perspective of a significant number of Talossans.  We don't agree on everything, but no one should feel like they need to ditch because they said one ill-considered thing!

S:reu:

I thank the minister for his response.  I am also grateful for the detailed analysis, even though I disagree with some of the conclusions.  Here are your numbers:

61st Cosă: 1
60th Cosă: 6
59th Cosă: 11
58th Cosă: 8
57th Cosă: 8
56th Cosă: 2
55th Cosă: 4
54th Cosă: 4
53rd Cosă: 3
52nd Cosă: 9
51st Cosă: 6
50th Cosă: 18

Looking at the numbers, I think it might be a good idea to set aside an attempt at a just-so story to explain everything.  This is a complicated question, capturing a lot about the state of our country and its governance.  Let's at least start out by focusing on the bottom line.

So, as a supplementary question, would you tell me if you agree that this is a fair way to describe the trendline:

The immigration rate badly slumped during the 53rd Cosa.  This slump continued for several terms, reaching a nadir during the 56th Cosa.  After that, the immigration rate improved over the succeeding three Cosas.  It peaked again during the 59th Cosa, but it has since badly slumped again.

Is that accurate?  I know it doesn't capture all of the subtleties, and that we can tell all kinds of stories to explain it, but I want to be sure that we agree on just the actual trend in this data.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on September 03, 2025, 12:20:18 AM

• 57th Cosă: 8/66 = 12%
• 58th Cosă: 8/86 = 9%
• 59th Cosă: 11/62 = 18%
• 60th Cosă: 6/69 = 9% (While the application numbers from the 60th Cosă as recorded in Infotecă appear to be accurate, the naturalization numbers appear to have a clerical error or two, so I arrived at a count of six simply by counting on the Database. I do intend to review the Infotecă numbers more thoroughly in the near future.)
• 61st Cosă through August: 1/43 = 2.3%

There are a few things to note:

• There are two citizenship petitions (Julian Da Silva and Nicolás Masquiarán-Díaz) currently pending response from the prospectives in question to the Chancery. If both of those successfully naturalize, the 61st Cosă rate will rise to 3/43 = 7%, significantly more in line with previous terms.
• The 59th Cosă's outlier percentage rate is partially driven by the lower number of applications.
• The 60th Cosă, which of course saw a Government largely identical to the current one, saw a similar percentage of applicants naturalize as both the 57th and 58th Cosas.
• A corollary to the previous point is that the largely static immigration policy between the 60th and 61st Governments is not the source of the reduced naturalization rate.
• In other words, as most of the country has been able to figure out so far, something else must be at play here.

One likely cause that has been cited by people across the political spectrum is the particularly divisive atmosphere in Talossan politics at the moment, to the point that even MC's from the Member opposite's party have expressed concern at the vitriol that he is intent on maintaining.

S:reu:

I thank the minister for his forbearance and his research.  I disagree with his conclusion, since it seems  to me that the immigration rate would be a lagging indicator in some respects.  A lot is going to depend on current events, but any aspect that relies on a change in governance is not going to be reflected in the numbers in the same month.  This isn't always true, but probably it's largely so.

I have been very happy to see some movement on addressing this issue with the urgency it requires, including implementing one of the changes that the Progressive Party has called for.  We hope to continue to push for even more change.

I do not agree that criticism of my elected Government is "vitriol," although I do recognize that it might feel that way if you're being criticized.  It's important to have an Opposition that advocates for change and holds the people in power accountable.

S:reu:

In the other thread, I asked for context for immigration application numbers by considering the total successful immigrations as a percentage of the whole.  Here, I was requesting those naturalization numbers only, with the intent of following up with further questions.  So, begging the minister's patience, I'd repeat my request: how do current immigration levels compare with previous terms?

I also have a supplementary question.  I am surprised those are even allowed, since I was under the impression that we weren't allowed to jump onto an active terpelaziun thread until the original questioner was able to ask their own follow-up.  But since it's allowed, I'm game.

It seems to me that applications might speak to our general popularity and fame, but that actual immigration speaks to what people see when they take a look at Talossa -- how it is to be here and how it's being run.  So to add on: what percentage of these applications in each term yielded actual immigrants?

My question is for the Minister of Public Records. Opposition politicians have been saying that this Government's performance on immigration has been notoriously bad, issuing calls for urgent action with a clear list of specifics.   Can the Minister provide any public records to compare immigration levels in this Cosa with previous terms?

I voted on the database.  I abstained from the only bill under consideration, since on the one hand I think BHAID is generally unobjectionable, but on the other hand I an loathe to vote in favor of a bill that essentially just exists to congratulate an MC (especially this one).

Restricting legislators from topical discussion is a fairly extreme thing to do.  You have not provided any examples to justify this restriction.  Accordingly, I will be voting against your proposal.

On the other matter, we did just write a bill to criminalize disruption, so maybe let's just see how that goes. I'm not sure you'll ever be able to eliminate general rudeness.

Quote from: Sir Lüc on August 31, 2025, 03:58:58 PMMoved, and sorry about the quoting change, it was unintended and I reverted it.

Thank you for changing it back so quickly, wow!

I think you must have linked to the wrong thread. This bill would change terpelaziuns. Your example is a Hopper thread, which would be unaffected.

I'm not actually sure it's a problem that politicians are doing politics? Or that legislators might have something to say about a conversation happening in the legislature?

And of course, it is unbelievably shabby to try to compare sexual harassment with the just criticism of a government presiding over a historic slump in immigration.