I have previously written about the distinctions between migration and immigration.
Migration involves movement about a region or the world without a change of national domicile. Migration may be legal or illegal and may or may not include the crossing of international borders.
Immigration—legal or illegal—is distinct from migration based on only one characteristic: It does include a change of national domicile.
Yesterday (January 24, 2024), I read a comment to an article asserting that the illegal aliens coming across our borders could not be immigrants because only real immigrants come into the USA legally. Five others upvoted this comment with no down-votes.
This exemplifies the ignorance of many people; however, I often hear and read ostensibly literate authors use migrant and immigrant in the same sentence or discussion when referring to the same alien. I have also heard Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (both attorneys), conflate the terms. Fortunately, Abbott properly and exclusively used immigrants in his letter posted yesterday wherein he explained the constitutional right of Texas to defend itself from invasion.
Of course, the conflation of these terms is common among all the news media.
I suppose that some aliens might qualify as both migrant and immigrant, but immigration is the matter at hand. And this matter at hand is extremely important.
[The Okies of the 1930s (a la The Grapes of Wrath—Steinbeck) were one-way migrants who did not cross an international border. Migrants often relocate back and forth in pursuit of seasonal work, but there are many reasons people migrate.]
Another linguistic lineage often overlooked is by those who might speak for organizations with Immigration in their name. For example, if I represent The Immigration Research Council (a fictitious organization), note the word, Immigration, in its name.
Immigration is the act of immigrating. And immigrating is performed by immigrants, NOT by migrants in this case. Therefore, why would a spokesperson for this organization consistently use migrants in their writings, videos, and interviews? Might we blame laziness?
The Special Case of Human Uniqueness
I have alluded to the fact that other animals do not and cannot immigrate, but I have not explained this fact as far as it should be. I did mention it somewhat in my book (fiction), Sheh’s Agony, and therein—I’m ashamed to admit—I blurred the meaning somewhat.
Sheh’s Agony is about a technically gifted woman who lived 50,000 years ago. Sheh was a member of a small band of early Homo sapiens who moved (migrated rotationally) about a rather permanent Asiatic region in pursuit of game as that game migrated seasonally. When ecological pressures demanded, the band fled their traditional circuit of migration and relocated from Asia to a new continent. Although I referred to their relocation to Australia as immigration, immigration is technically inaccurate in their case as immigration is predicated on the existence of the legally defined borders of a nation state… and the setting for Sheh’s story predated the invention of the nation state. At least this is what I now believe to be correct.
Early man made many migrations out of Africa, to and from Europe, to and from Asia, etc., over the millennia. Before the advent of nation states, it was impossible to immigrate.
Likewise, other animals—since they have no legally defined nation states—are incapable of immigration. Immigration is a legal principle predicated on the human construct of the nation state and its borders. Other animals are oblivious to this construct. Therefore, only modern humans can immigrate; however, other animals—including human—can migrate.
[Other animals sometimes have well-defined territories. And they obey these territorial boundaries, although humans are often oblivious to these boundaries. Perhaps we can make allowances for an immigration of sorts for animals that permanently transgress their territorial boundaries. I am not seriously promoting this idea.]
Human Osmosis
Michael Yon (I believe) talks about human osmosis. I found this to be an interesting slant on both migration and immigration. It is a concept that acknowledges the positive and negative pressures on a people to relocate.
In biology, we study pressure gradients across a permeable or semi-permeable membrane and the osmosis of substances that might ensue from these factors.
In several ways, the borders of the United States are highly permeable amidst a strong osmotic pressure (pressure gradient) inwardly. The powers that be are locked in a struggle to adjust the permeability.
Note that hyper-permeability of a cell membrane is often characteristic of cancer.
Love the last line! ;-)
Cheers friend 👌👍