But they don't get offended by political campaigns, racist posters and discriminative laws everywhere.

IIRC, there are already measures in place to deport non resident criminals.

That doesn't mean the sentiment doesn't exist. And according to you any law that treats foreigners and nationals different is discriminatory thus all countries discriminate.

Surely by choosing to move here (or anywhere for that matter), you would be fully aware that you wouldn't have the same rights and priviliges as citizens of that country. Is that discrimination, or just part and parcel of being a foreign worker? Is it discrimination that foreigners are not allowed to vote on a national level? If so, then all countries I'm aware of discriminate, as miniMia pointed out.

Again What if? Consequences of expulsion initiative being accepted?

TBH, I personally didn't find the posters offensive. Misleading, crass and not exactly PC most certainly, but I certainly wasn't offended by them.

Difference from other countries is that about 75% of the "foreigners" living here were born here!

What are you upset about: The posters or the law?

I don't love the posters/campaign. I haven't seen the Ivan posters. But I found the grabbing hands one more offensive than the black sheep one.

I still don't have a problem with the concept of deporting criminals. I also hope it may act as a deterrent.

If you keep hitting me over the head I might change my mind. Then again, if you keep hitting me over the head you might get deported! (that was joke).

Are there any statistics that show the actual percentage? I have always wondered about this but have never been able to find anything to shed any light on it

I don't know of an official source for the % of the "foreigners" living here that were born here! The figure of 70% to 75% is often quoted but how solid that is I do not know.
The figures must exist somewhere in some form but maybe only individually in each Gemeinde & not consolidated. Certainly in my Gemeinde they know who is Swiss, who is not Swiss & which country they were born in.

So what?

Lots of people are racist too. It doesn't mean we should be happy to look at racist posters.

I've recently read the figure is 20% of foreigners are born here.

...37% are living here for more than 15 years
...17% for more than 30 years

According to the Bundesamt für Statistik, of 1.68 million foreigners in Switzerland, 354 000 were born in Switzerland.
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/e...key/01/03.html

Edit: so roughly 21%
Edit II: based on those with residents permits with duration of at least 12 months

It would be interesting to find out how many arrived as young childen as well. I suspect that's more tricky to find out though.

As the other posters have mentionned, the percentage is quite a lot lower. But, methinks, the figure you have heared was refering to children and young adults, where roughly 65-70% of the "foreigners" were born in Switzerland.

Actually it's not. Here you find all sorts of data: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/d...k/data/01.html
including a very interesting comparison with other European countries

So nothing. I said foreigner by definition are discriminated again, Berlin said but they (other countries) don't have racist campaigns & I said that doesn't mean people aren't racist other places. That's it. Nothing else.

I've already said I don't like the campaign. That doesn't mean that I can't understand the law. And I don't find the law racist. Criminal is not a race.

Disagree. Actually the Geramn Neo-nazis are in many cases more socialist than the original Nazis were. Whereas the original Nazis were often happy to work with large corporations, Neo-Nazis would like to see them all placed under state control, the euphemism being "owned by the workforce". The SVP doesn't want the state to own anything and is all in favour of big corporations being allowed to do their thing. Also, the SVP would like to see the state and its power reduced to a minimum with free market forces running the rest. They are thus economically speaking much more liberal. Also, Nazis cut back democracy and built a dictatorship. If the SVP wants directly elected Bundesräte, that sounds like more democracy to me, not less. The Nazis believed the party knew what was good for the people better than the people themselves thought they did. Today the opponents of the SVP are saying that courts (whose judges of course are appointed by the ruling parties) and international agreements such as Human Rights (which are not anchored in proper democratic processes) should be able to overrule democratic decisons and that the people cannot be trusted to elect their own government. So being cynical, I'm not so sure who is following in the footsteps of the Nazis here.

@amogles: Good points, but maybe we can all stop comparing anyone to the Nazis now?

No. The point you were making was that xenophobic sentiment might exist in other countries even if there were no posters or political campaigns against them. I'm saying that doesn't really matter.

I'm not saying the law is racist. I'm trying to draw a comparison between racial discrimination and the discrimination present in this proposal, to tease out the differences and see whether what kind of discrimination (if any) can be justified. I'm not saying they are the same.

BTW - I do think that matters of voting, residence rights etc are naturally different for natives and foreigners. It's still wrong that the criminal law should be applied differently though.