I was wondering if they ever address the issue of immigration within the federation, or from outside the federation.
Can residents of member worlds move freely within the federation? So say a Vulcan randomly decides to move to earth, can they? What about a resident of a non federation planet, can they just decide to move to earth?
In some episodes to do mention a duty to federation citizens, and even that federation citizens should they decide to stay on colonies handed over to the Cardassians will lose citizenship and then be citizens of the Cardassian empire. So they do seem to have the concept of citizenship in the Trek verse.
There are at least a few episodes, Theres one on Deep space nine where these people with molting skin called something like the “Skree” come through the wormhole thinking it’s their chosen land. No one really likes them and they are poor, religiously zealous and there are butt-loads of them. They end up finding a suitable home for them that they are pissed about because they wanted to settle in their holy land of Bejour, but that’s already populated by another group of poor zealots that don’t want them.
only if you immigrate to a place without warp technology, IE a less developed civilization. Immigration issues on the old stinkhole here don’t follow those dynamics so it’s a poor parallel.
On the other hand, I doubt that immigration per se is an issue in a Federation which encompasses millions of systems and thousands of habitable planets. Might be one for individual worlds but not generally for the Feds, unless say its a case of the Cardassians suddenly settling a large amount of immigrants near the border with the Federation, that is something they might check.
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Isn’t immigration a violation of the Prime Directive?
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Common sense certainly is, so I would not be surprised if immigration is as well.
Maybe, but in general terms, the whole idea of the Prime Directive is that cultures must “develop on their own” without outside influences. How is that compatible with immigration?
well this is usually with cultures not aware of the federation and other advanced aliens, when individuals wanted to leave their races the federation usually let them, (can’t let Riker’s lovers ruin sex for the rest of the species by telling the other women how bad their men are by comparison =P) but there is something to your point there.
I think the general theory is once they start advanced space travel (i.e., warp) then they are going to meet other aliens on their own anyway. So no matter what, alien culture us going to get into theirs.
And what about Worf? Seems like a clear case of dual-citizenship if I ever saw one! He even expatriated from The Federation to go home for a while, then repatriated, and then I think expatriated from the other!
In the episode “By Any Other Name” in TOS Kirk tells the leader of the scouting party from a system in the Andromeda Galaxy that while the Federation doesn’t welcome invaders, they would welcome them as friends and find a planet for them to settle on. Nothing about moving to Earth.By Any Other Name (episode) | Memory Alpha | Fandom
In the Star Trek episode “By Any Other Name”, the resolution is that the Kelvans are invited to immigrate from the Andromeda galaxy to planets in our galaxy, even though their real forms are scary 50 tentacled monsters. So yeah, I’d say the Federation is pretty tolerant of immigration.
“You will be assimilated! Resistance is futile!” just has a more menacing ring than “Welcome to Borg! Please have your passports ready!”
Technically it IS a DMZ / no-fly zone.
Deep Space 9 seems like some sort of cross between Ellis Island, Casablanca and circa Cold War Berlin in Space.
I have to assume that citizens of the Federation are free to live on whatever Federation planet they want, just as Americans can live whereever they want within the 50 states.
I remember that there was one TNG episode with the Borg drone that had broken free of the Collective. IIRC, Picard mentioned that the drone could be granted “asylum” in the Federation, but he requested to be returned to the collective, which was done.
There was an episode of DS9 where an abandoned baby of uncertain origin is found in the wreckage of a ship, and there are talks about sending it to an orphanage on Bajor, but there was no talk of filling out Bajoran immigration papers or anything.
When Nog (of DS9) applied to attend Starfleet Academy, he needed some sort of waiver because he was not a Federation Citizen, iirc.
In “Journey to Babel” (IIRC), the plot revolves around the Enterprise transporting ambassadors from the Federation member worlds to a conference. With ambassadors, that suggests some level of autonomy and population immigration controls. On the other hand, “ambassador” may be a heritage title/position more equivalent to some sort of trade delegate. I can’t think of an equivalent between US states. There’s nothing constant enough housed within individual states that I’m aware of.
I imagine it’s somewhere more intertwined that the UN but with more autonomy and separation than the US states. Maybe something like the European Union?
He even expatriated from The Federation to go home for a while, then repatriated, and then I think expatriated from the other!