No country in the world takes immigrants anymore, unless you can find someone who wants to swap with you and live in your old country. If we did take immigrants, then we couldn't have as many children. This is a sad situation, if a necessary one, because immigration used to be the greatest check on abuses by governments. If they treated their people badly, their people would leave for somewhere better! If their city was destroyed in a war, they could flee somewhere that was at peace. 

Even though immigration is not allowed anymore, some people do come to Anitam without permission. Sometimes they cross as a tourist and then never leave, living with friends or under a fake name; sometimes they hike in across the mountains; sometimes they buy false papers. When we find these people, we send them home. (If we did not do that, what would happen?)

Children born to people who came here illegally are in a hard position. Under the law until recently, they were not Anitami, but they can't return to their parents' country either. This happened rarely, but in a country as big as ours, even rare things can be a problem; if one person in every ten thousand is here illegally and has children, then there are sixty thousand non-citizen children born every year. (Usually their parents purchase a credit. If they do not purchase a credit, the children are adopted out and are Anitami citizens like their adoptive parents.)

People became worried that these children would form a permanent class of shadow people, not allowed to take most jobs or have children, poor because the rules on foreign workers are not designed for people in this situation or illegal because they are ignoring the rules on foreign workers. They proposed a rule: everyone born in Anitam is Anitami, regardless of whether their parents were here legally.  

This was controversial. People worried that immigrants might illegally cross in order to have Anitami babies. But eventually, a form of the rule was agreed on that resolved everyone's worries. There are no shadow people in Anitam today. 

"...what is the form of the rule that resolved everyone's worries?"

He reads over shoulder to figure out what she means. Then he looks it up. "If children born here are eligible for citizenship elsewhere then they're citizens there - since the idea was helping people who've nowhere to go. And you can only buy a credit if you've been living here for a year unless you get a waiver, so the kids the rules apply to are all children of parents who have been living here for a year."

"How do you get waivers?"

"Apply to the relevant agency. There's a web form."

"Huh, okay."

The hem of her shirt (she accepted local clothes after learning it was customary here to change one's outfit on a routine basis) is disturbed like Penumbra's tugging on it. "I think I'm done for the day," Maurabel says.

"Okay. Should someone bring dinner?"

"Uh, yes please."

"Have a good evening." And he leaves.

"Their hair comes in red," says Penumbra.

"- they never mentioned -"

"The people with the red hair all live together and they - if we'd gone there first they would still look rich, they have electricity and things, but they aren't, not for here -"

"What exactly happened?"

"I was just flying around and I found a place with much shorter buildings, and then I saw they had red hair, I landed - I couldn't understand much of what they were saying, I haven't learned much Anitami. They looked really - busy and tired - I don't think more busy and tired than human farmers or something but for here -"

"Uh-huh."

"I didn't go visible. I might go again tomorrow."

"We'll have to replace the carpet," someone murmurs. "You should've explained it to them."

     "She seemed to take the bit about pollution okay..."

"Maybe, yeah," says Maurabel, "see what there is to see -"

"What?"

"I have a guess, that's all, I'm going to check." She has learned the basics of the internet and she knows her color words.

There's a red caste. Reds are unclean. They do unclean work. They live in the red districts. Anitam is in compliance with trade agreements which include terms about being very sure your reds haven't touched anything anyone else might touch.

"Well?" asks Penumbra.

"I was right. They sort of - implied it, but..."

"...yeah."

"Do you want to leave -"

Penumbra hesitates.

"Dinner!" someone says at the door.

Maurabel answers the door.

"Hi! Eight different countries wanted their cuisine served, I hope it's not too much for the two of you.  - should we talk."

"We can probably do eight countries of food between the two of us."

"Then here you go. Is everything okay?"

"Got a lot to think about."

"Oh?"

"We don't have the pollution thing, probably shouldn't bring any Amentans back to my world."

"Some people cope with it okay. It's definitely something we would have to warn them about, given that you don't have running water. Shame to send a infrastructure and medical team who is debilitated by it."