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Ethnics and Immigration
People immigrate to a foreign country for various reasons, and consequently immigrants can be broadly classified into two types - refugee migrants and labor/economic migrants. Refugee migrants are people leaving their homes because of political oppression, and economic migrants are people who come to a foreign country seeking job opportunities and economic security.
However, this definition cannot be considered to be fully accurate as political and economical factors often go hand in hand. Whether a person migrating is a refugee or economic migrant depends as much on his country’s legal system and political climate, as to his individual circumstance. For example, a person immigrating to the US from an African country might have experienced both economic pressure as well as political repression. Whether this person presents himself as a refugee or economic migrant will depend on the policies of the host country.
Many of the western governments are today are having policies that tighten the restrictions on migration. This is because they see the migrants as a threat to the citizens of the host country as they pose severe competition in the labor market. Thus, the restrictive migration policies of the western countries are grounded more on economic reasons. However, governments can’t deny asylum to refugees as they are bound under the Geneva Convention and due to humanitarian concerns. So, a clear definition to distinguish both the categories of migrants is required.
Some of the differences between these two categories include their ability to return to their home country. While economic migrants can choose to return to their native country if they so desire, refugees have no way to return home until a major political change takes place. They might be prosecuted or fall prey to the conditions that made them leave the country, in the first place. In fact, many economic migrants plan to return to their homeland once they earn enough money.
Other major difference is the social contacts the migrants have in their home country. Refugees are likely to have lesser social contacts than the economic migrants in their homeland. Given these differences, a natural question arises as to whether this differentiation has any economical or social consequence in the host country for the migrants.
Generally refugees enjoy more sympathy in the host nations than the economic migrants, because the latter is deemed to have left his country ‘voluntarily’, and therein lies the difference. While a refugee fleeing persecution is seen as a person with no choice but to leave his country, an economic migrant is seen as a person merely in search of a ‘better life.’
Irrespective of the category they fall into, migrants face the same issues with respect to transnationalism and citizenship rights. Since most countries allow the immigrants to bring along family members, transnationalism is a common phenomenon as most ethnic groups form a close community in the host countries. In this way, they maintain close cultural ties with their homeland.
National citizenship is given importance by both these categories because it gives them access to welfare schemes and offers equal protection under law. However, the problem of discrimination and identity crisis are a reality, both refugees and economic migrants have to face. Individual differences notwithstanding, most migrants want to identify themselves with multiple communities and negotiate the resultant multiple allegiances.
Works Cited
Great Britain. House of Commons. International Development Committee. Migration and Development: How to Make Migration Work for Poverty Reduction: Sixth Report of Session 2003-04. London: The Stationery Office, 2008. Print.
Leitner, Helga and Patricia Ehrkamp. "Transnationalism and migrants' imaginings of citizenship." Environment and Planning A volume 38 (2006): 1615 - 1632. Print.
McKay, Sonia. Refugees, Recent Migrants and Employment: Challenging Barriers and Exploring Pathways. Abington: Routledge, 2008. Print.
