It is becoming hard for many people to use some words correctly due to the misleading information in the news and other places. Immigrants and migrants are the two words that you will hear using them interchangeably when describing people or actions. What you need to know is that although these words are available in the same context their meaning is different.
Understanding where and when to use these words is important when you are a professional writer of papers or news articles. If you want to know how to use these words correctly read this article to the end.
To start with it’s good to know the history of human migration.
Since history people have been moving from one place to the other to discover new places and new things. The first people to relocate moved from Africa to different parts of the world. Relocation of people has been continuing since then. The results of this relocation are that there was an increase in population and also the transfer of culture to another group. Asia, Africa, and Europe are some of the places where different people settled. The Great Atlantic migration that happened between 1920 ns 1980 where 37 million people relocated from Europe to North America was the largest and known in the whole world. It’s now very simple to move from one place to the other because of the technology.
Let’s look at different types of migration.
At some point in life, you are likely to have relocated with the same city, town or state or from coast to coast which is referred to as internal migration. Internal migration can be summarised as a movement within the same country.
Then if you move from one country to another whether for work, adventure or to escape some challenges this is called international or external migration. In 2017 there were 258 million international immigrants who have moved worldwide.
The other way of grouping migration is voluntary and forced. A voluntary migration is experienced when people relocate because they need to find better economy, education and others. On the other hand forced migration is when people move to another place because of the hard situation they are facing such as famine, life threats, brutal government or natural disasters.
The nature of the migration and how it’s done is what brings in the difference between immigrants and migrants. A migrant is someone who lives in a country where he/she wasn’t born for permanent reasons or temporary reason. When it comes to immigrants it’s when families or groups of people move from their country to another and they don’t expect to resume their country. If you want to read more about immigrants and migrants click here.