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MIGRATION
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Comment Migration is the action of going from one place to settle in another, usually a foreign country. It is caused by war, political unrest, natural disasters or poverty ('push factors') and by aspirations and hopes for a better job or lifestyle ('pull factors'), and often by combinations of a number of these factors. Legal migration is the movement of people according to the laws of the land which they enter – perhaps because they have skills desired by the host country or can provide labour not otherwise available, because they are already a citizen of that country though born elsewhere or because the country is happy for them to do so as they bring revenue. Examples include the 15,000 nurses from overseas who entered the UK register in 2001/2 (almost half the total of all new nurses entering the register that year) or the one million British people claiming their pension overseas having retired to live somewhere other than the United Kingdom. Illegal immigration works outside the law and involves people entering countries without the relevant permits or visas. Desperate people resort to desperate measures such as heading across oceans in small unsuitable boats, holding onto the underside of railway carriages or being smuggled in container vehicles. Often people, or their families, may have paid substantial sums to a 'carrier'. However the transaction is usually limited to the journey, with the migrants being responsible for themselves (joining relatives or entering the black economy) in the destination country. Trafficking involves the forced or coerced movement of people for exploitation – but they may enter a country either legally or illegally. In fact many will enter via legal channels (especially between countries where travel is easily permitted such as Eastern Europeans entering other European countries) with passports and travel documents, either accompanied or alone to be collected at the port of entry. Their documents are then likely to be removed by their traffickers and they may ‘disappear’ from official records and will almost certainly be forced into illegal work activity. It is, however, important to be clear in the use of language as people who have been trafficked are not always illegal immigrants.
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