[smutticus]

As an American who immigrated to The Netherlands I would like to know of this mythical country in the world with a working immigration system. AFAICT they're all rather broken.

US immigration might be broken in different ways than some other countries, but from the many stories I've heard of friends moving all over the world, they all pretty much suck.

[adenot]

Australia. I got my PR (green card equivalent) after working 3 years and applying for citizenship now (5 years since I arrived here). Spent less than AUD 10k total for immigration, including my partner visas. Processing times are reasonable and very transparent.

It's not a perfect system but way better than most countries.

[jpatokal]

I'll admit it's less broken than most places, but it's still pretty nuts at times: http://gyrovague.com/2012/08/10/notarizing-your-fingerprints...

Singapore used to be ridiculously awesome (work visa approvals usually processed in under 24 hours), but they've really tightened the screws in the last few years, particularly on granting permanent residence, due to political reasons.

[sp4ke]

As an immigrant to both France and Germany I agree with you. Every immigration system seems completely broken and disconnected from reality.

[querulous]

Canada is pretty good. The points system sets a reasonably high bar but at least it's fairly objective. Once you're in the path from temporary foreign worker to permanent resident to citizen is well defined and works fairly well despite the slow processing times.

[sumedh]

Australian immigration is fairly simple if you have tech background and all your papers are in order.

I moved from India to Aus on PR visa.