IMMIGRANTS

IMMIGRANTS

There's been a lot of talk about immigrants lately. Here's a little sentence to remember. Immigrants immigrate.

Don't get this confused with migrants? Migrants migrate.

An immigrant changes its location permanently. A migrant changes its location temporarily. An immigrant, for instance, is someone who comes to a new country to take up permanent residence there. A migrant, for instance, moves from place to place to find or follow available work.

This is a distinction I haven't heard much of in the present national discussions. Many people seem to want to give citizenship to people coming here to do work that Americans will not do. Yes, we need these people but unless they want to be permanent citizens, they are not immigrants. They are migrant workers. I think they need to be treated differently than illegal immigrants.